Warning Against a Return to Antichrist
Must antichrist be destroyed? Then what mean they who were to appearance once come out, but now are going thither again.
If it cost Lot’s wife dear for but looking hack, shall it not cost them much dearer that are going back, that are gone back again; and that after the angel had flown through the midst of heaven, preaching the gospel to those that dwell on the earth?
They that received the mark of the beast at first, before this angel came forth, are, when compared with these, excusable. Wherefore they are not threatened with the smoking wrath that these are.
You dread that which is like to become of them that will be so mad as to run into a house when fire is put to the gunpowder barrel in order to its blowing up. Why, thus do they, let their pretended cause he what it will, that are returning again to Babylon. Are her plagues pleasant or easy to be borne? Or dost thou think that God is at play with thee, and that he threateneth but in jest? Her plagues are death and mourning and famine and fire; are these things to be overlooked? And they that, as before hinted, shall receive the mark of the beast in their forehead or in their hand, and shall worship him, they shall drink the wine of the wrath of God. And will this be a delightsome draught?