Generation-work, or, A brief and seasonable word offered to the view and consideration of the saints and people of God in this generation, relating to the work of the present age, or generation we live in wherein is shewed, I. What generation-work is, and how it differs from other works, II. That saints in the several generations they have lived in, have had the proper and peculiar works of their generations, III. That it is a thing of very great concernment for a saint to attend to and be industrious in, the work of his generation, IV. Wherein doth the work of the present generation lye, V. How each one in particular may find out that part or parcel of it, that is properly his work in his generation, VI. How generation-work may be so carried on, as that God may be served in the generation / by John Tillinghast ...

VIAL I.

1. The SUBJECT of it,

The EARTH.

Vers. 2. AND the first went and poured out his Vi∣al upon the Earth.

Of the whole Universe, Earth is the most gross part; Air is of a subtle nature; Water of a more gross; Earth the grossest of all, as being the dregs and settlements of the whole. By Earth then, we are not here to understand, Earth as opposed to Heaven, i.e. the true Church, as vers. 1. but the Popish Earth, viz. the grosser part of Popery, or the Lees and Dregs of that Religion, opposed to the finer parts of it. Now these Lees and Dregs are no other but that damnable Doctrine of the Papists (by which Christs Medi∣ation and Priestly Office, and so consequently the very foun∣dation of Faith and Salvation is destroyed) which main∣tains Justification by works, upon which poysonous deadly root do grow the filthy abominations of their Mass, their Crosses, Indulgences, Invocation of Saints, Purgatory, Pen∣ance, Pilgrimages, Monkish-life, &c. which in respect of their Discipline, though that be impure, may yet well be called the Dregs, as being far more impure.

Upon these filthy Dregs of Romish Doctrine, began the first Vial to be poured forth by Luther, and other Wor∣thies of those times, who by the light of truth made such a discovery of the unsoundness, yea, perniciousness thereof, as that now the same began to be odious in the eies of all. And that here (and no where else, either

sooner or later) we are to begin the Vials, is clear, be∣cause no time doth so exactly agree to what wee have said concerning the time in our first Proposition, as this doth.

That discovery of the filthiness of these things, which was more ancient, in the times of Wickliff, Hus, the Waldeneses, and Albigenses, could not be any part of this Vial, for the grounds of our first Proposition; and also because that discovery served onely to deliver the faithful ones of those times, from the poyson of these abominable Errors, not having any such effect as to destroy them in others, for they remained still in credit with the genera∣lity.

2. The EFFECT.

A noysom and grievous Sore. And there fell a noysom and greievous Sore upon the men which had the Mark of the Beast, and upon them which worshipped his Image.

Our Expositors do generally understand this Sore to be that inward vexation, envy, wrath, fury, madness (which as an inward Sore torments those in whom it is) that befell the Priests, Monks, Canonists, with all that Rabble, who had the Mark of the Beast, and worshipped his Image, upon the pouring out of this first Vial. But according to this Interpretation, the Effect of the Vial should be no o∣ther, but a tormenting of the men who were the upholders of the evil, and not a destruction of the evill it self; whereas indeed the proper and natural Effect of every Vial, is a destruction of the thing it falls upon. It is not amiss therefore to seek yet some other interpretation of these words. And what if we say thus? That look as it is with a man, or men, that have noysom grievous Sores upon them, others loath them, withdraw from them, cannot bear their pre∣sence or company; So did it now befall the men who

were the Authors and Assertors of these abominable Ido∣latries.

The generality of the people who before adored them as Gods, not once calling their principles or practices into question, did now by the pouring forth of this Vial, come so palpably to discern the gross and horrible Idolatry of these their Forgeries, as that they began to loath and ab∣hor, not only the things themselves, but the very Assertors of them, and to withdraw from them as infectious per∣sons, full of grievous and noysome Sores; so that now they can no longer delude the people, and draw them to a loving and liking of these things, as formerly they had done; no, but themselves with their principles and in∣vention are become odious, and a filthy stinking Sore in the eyes and nostrils of the Commonalty. Which Effect, how evidently it did shew it self in Germany, and here with us in England, and also in other Nations, about this time, upon the preaching and writing of the forenamed Worthies, with others their fellow-helpers, is by many sufficiently recorded.

Thus much as touching the first VIAL.