Now, therefore, we have light against light among the godly, as afore there was antichristian against the Christian light. Not that light against light is now godly in the all of it. It is antichristian that opposes the Christian light still. But, as before, the darkness that opposed the light was in the antichristians, now that darkness is got into the Christians, and has set them against one another. Light therefore against light now is in the Christians, truly prefigured by that which was in the house of the forest of Lebanon. Witness the jars, the oppositions, the contentions, emulations, strifes, debates, whisperings, tumults, and condemnations that, like cannon-shot, have so frequently on all sides been let fly against one another.
Shall I need to mention particularly contests many years past, and presented to us in print? Words and papers now in print, as also the many petty divisions and names amongst us, sufficiently make this manifest. Wherefore light against light in this last place, or where it is thus repeated, cannot, I think, be more fitly applied than to that now under our consideration; that is to say, than to the opposite persuasions, different apprehensions, and thwart conclusions, that are constantly drawn from the same texts to maintain a diverse practice. Though we are to acknowledge with thankfulness that this opposition lies not so much in fundamentals as in things of a lesser import.
The godly all hold the head, for there Antichrist could never divide them; their divisions therefore are, as I said, only about smaller things. I do not say that the antichristian darkness has done nothing in the church as to the hurting it in the great things of God. But, I say, it has not been able to do that which could sever their Head from them, otherwise there appears even too much of the effect of his doings there. For even, as to the offices of our Lord, some will have his authority more large, some more strait. Some confine his rules to themselves and to their more outward qualification, and some believe they are extended further. Some will have his power in his church purely spiritual, others again would have it mixed. Some count his Word perfect and sufficient to guide in all religious matters, others again hold that an addition of something human is necessary. Some are for confining of his benefits, in the saving effects of them, only to the elect, others are for a stretching of them further. I might here multiply things, but that light against light is now among the godly as light against light was in the house of the forest of Lebanon, is not at all to be questioned.
This therefore may stand for another argument to prove that the house of the forest of Lebanon was a type of the church in the wilderness. As to the number here, that is to say, in three ranks, it is also, as I think, to show that, though, as was said afore, this darkness could not sever the true church from her Head, yet it has eclipsed the glory of things. By two lights a man cannot see this or that thing so exactly as by one single light; no, they both make all confused though they make not all invisible (Matt 6:22,23).
As, for instance, sun-light and moon-light together, fire-light and sun-light together, candle-light and moon-light together, make things more obscure than to look on them by a single light. The Word reflecting upon the understanding, without the interposing of man's traditions, makes the mind of God to a man more clear than when attended with the other. How much more then when light shall be against light in three ranks? Christ in his offices, blessed be God, is to this day known in his church, notwithstanding there is yet with us light against light in three ranks. But in these things he is not so distinctly, fully, and completely known, as he was before the church went into the wilderness. No, that knowledge is lost to a 'third part' of it, as was also showed before (Rev 8:12).
Things therefore will never be well in the church of God so long as there is thus light against light therein. When there is but one Lord among us and his name One, and when divisions, by the consent of the whole, are banished, I mean, not persecuted, but abandoned in all by a joint consent, and when every man shall submit his own single opinion to those truths, that by their being retained are for the health of all, then look for good days, and not until then. For this house of the forest of Lebanon, in which, as you see, there is 'light against light in three ranks,' was not built to prefigure the church in her primitive state, but to show us how we should be while standing before the face of the dragon, and while shifting for ourselves in the wilderness.
And although by her pillars, and beauty, and tower, aye, and by her facing the very metropolitan of her enemies, she showeth that the true grace of God is in her, and a strength and courage that is invincible, yet for that she has also affixed to her station 'Light against light in three ranks.' It is evident her eye is not so single, and consequently that her body is not so full of light, as she will be when her sackcloth is put off, and as when she has put on her beautiful garments. For then it is that her moon is to shine as the sun, and that the light of her sun is to be sevenfold, even as the light of seven days, then, I say, 'When the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound' (Isa 30:26).
You know that a kingdom flourishes not so long as it is the seat of war, but when that is over peace and prosperity flourishes. This house, as has been hinted, was a type of the church in a wood, a forest, a wilderness.