diversification that they are spoke touching distinct nay opposite parties the one his Church the other their adversaries whence he says he will fight against them To all which you may add That this is the Political Prediction preceding the Epiphenema Vers. 18. Thyatira does as in all other Epistles signifie the state of the true Church that 's written to and not of the Antichristian Church at that time and therefore it cannot refer to the making the Virgin Mary the daughter of God but alluding to that signification of the word may signifie that state of the Church wherein the autority of Christ began to gain the ascendent of worldly powers and which therefore may be reckoned the infancy of his Kingdom and in that respect the Church as to that time may be called a daughter though otherwise styled a woman Which time we suppose to commence from the expulsion of the Goths out of Italy whose Reign there was the seventh Head that was to continue but a little time immediately after which the Popes grew so great as to cause the Exarches first to remove to Ravenna and after to be expell'd Italy and so prospered with their usurped autority as by degrees to make all the foreign Nations that had overrun the Empire and setled in it to be subject to them He therefore gaining such rule by his false pretensions to be Christ's Vicar does evidence the reality of that autority by usurpation whereof he grew so potent as also did the Roman Hierarchy who oft proved able to sway the States of Kingdoms to depose their Kings c. Since therefore the usurpers of Christ's autority grew so potent and prevalent thereby such as were redeemed from the world to become members of his Kingdom and so were really accompanied with the power of his spirit proportionably to the state they had attained to must surely be likewise of great prevalency in their several stations though but of private condition Hence so great power is ascribed to the two Witnesses ch 11. And hence the great persecution and war at length was raised against the Saints by the Antichristian powers to suppress the emerging power of Christ's Kingdom in them which fulfilled the other sense of Thyatira by the multitude of Martyrs sacrificed c. Ans. In the Epistle to the Church in Pergamus Christ says I know thy works and where thou dwellest even where Satan's seat is Which undoubtedly is the See of Rome and therefore the Church in Pergamus is the Apostolick Church within the jurisdiction of the Roman there termed in the Prophetick style Pergamenian and so undoubtedly Thyatirian in this Interval And therefore barely to contradict this without any reason added is mere wantonness and humour But now the Pergamenian Interval ending in the year 1242 when the Pope's Legate Amelin made an end of the Albigensian war with Trancavel Bastard-son of the Earl of Beziers what an extravagance is it to say that the Thyatirian Interval began near seven hundred years before the Pergamenian ended The faithfull Martyr Antipas by his account should be slain in the Thyatirian Interval whenas the Prophecy places him in the Pergamenian And that the slaying of Antipas respects and typifies those vast slaughters of the Waldenses and Albigenses with me there is not nor can there be with any one else that well considers it the least doubt imaginable and therefore I make no question but the Pergamenian Interval reaches so far as to include them whence the Thyatirian denomination must of necessity begin after their time nor can the distinct denominations which constitute the Intervals interfere one with another Again a Daughter in the Prophetick style is a delicate Damosel in her flourishing age not an Infant and Christ's true Church upon the expulsion of the Goths was so far from getting the ascendent over the worldly powers that she grew more and more enslaved under the power of Antichrist under the bondage of that Roman Pharaoh than which there is not a more worldly power under the Sun and was held under this power till the Sardian Interval viz. till the rising of the Witnesses that is to say till the late happy reformation begun by Luther c. This therefore is a very rude rush against manifest truth as if the Remarker did not mark what he did or said Else he would not say that the Popes caused the Exarches to remove their seat to Ravenna whenas no History that I meet with makes any mention of any other seat of them but that But such slips as these I could willingly wink at if the main of the remark had any solidity in it But how lax and lank it all is the intelligent will easily discern by these few hints I have given Vers. 23. I will kill her children with death seems here to signifie a spiritual death and curse ensuing the same and so will better cohere with the following words All the Churches shall know that I am he that searcheth the reins and heart c. and is of the like signification with what is threatned Zach. 14. against such as fought against Ierusalem and would not keep the feast of Tabernacles Ans. Those two Expositions given by the Expositor are plain and events answerable But no events have answered or are likely to answer to the other as to the strange miraculous diseases And for her children to be killed by a spiritual death it would be no loss to her they would be the more alive to her and snug in her bosome and be the closer Thyatirians And for the coherence of what follows it is sufficiently perspicuous in the other plain and unstrained way Vers. 26. Giving power over the Nations respects not the Governours and people that were reformed For they gained no power thereby but freedom onely from the thraldom they were formerly under But if this respects any thing of the Reformation which I conceive it does not and that the Thyatirian Interval reaches not so far it must signifie the chief leaders in the Reformation who through the cause of God they were engaged in attained to bear so great sway and make so great changes c. Ans. Those that were under the rule and power of the Nations even whole Provinces and Kingdoms of them that is to say under the power of the Paganochristians shall vanquish and overcome the Paganochristians so as to turn them to their own Religion or those that remain of them unconverted to have them under their girdle c. This therefore is a mere cavil The easie sense is whereas suppose the Antichristian powers bore sway over the Kingdoms or Nations of England Scotland Ireland Denmark Swedeland c. under the Thyatirian Interval in the Sardian Interval the Apostolick Christians such as Christ speaks to in the Church of Thyatira shall bear the rule over these Nations And the ruling them with a rod of iron and breaking them a-pieces like a Potter's Vessel is shattering a-pieces the Antichristian Compages they
so the prophetick sense of the Epistles reacheth but to the commencement of the Millennium Ans. It is sufficient that others would call those Churches that did not keep to the foundation but added doctrines and practices contrary thereto And therefore Asia's signifying Fundamentum is not needlesly superadded to design the truly Catholick Church That Asia signifies Action is granted on both sides but it is Illogical to deduce Conflict from Action and the Arguing à genere ad speciem as if one should say It is a living Creature Therefore it is a Man Though all Conflict is Action yet all Action is not Conflict This is foisted in to serve a false Hypothesis and to exclude the Millennium out of the Intervals and to make them reach but to the beginning thereof Rem 2. There 's no need of the Ephesine State of the Church its ending at the beginning of the Persecution in Nero's time but it may continue after as the Pergamenian State does continue through the succeeding Epistles For as the advancement of the Church to that State was from Christianity's being received by Autority so the continuing of Autority to profess that Religion is a continuing that State though from a new emerging condition the Church may receive a new denomination And so the Ephesine State being agreeable to the whole Primitive time though the emerging Persecution does give the denomination of a new State to the Church yet it destroys not the former that is consistent therewith That the Ephesine Church was not tainted with Nicolaitism is no Argument that it expired before the beginning of that Sect but rather of the contrary For if that Sect was not then in being it was no commendation of the Church not to be tainted therewith nor could it be said to have it Ans. It is sufficient that from a new emerging condition the Church may receive a new denomination and so begin a distinct Interval and thus will the whole Succession of time from the beginning of the Church to the end of the World be distinguished into so many Intervals So limited as History complying with the characters of the Prophecy will ratifie which is all that is intended And thus the Ephesine State or Interval will be naturally terminated upon the commencement of Persecution in Nero's time the Smyrnean then beginning And the Smyrnean end upon the emerging of the Church out of persecution by the Emperours turning Christian and the Pergamenian then begin But the Church quickly degenerating into Idolatry and persecuting the Apostolick Christians and so long a time continuing so from some remarkable change of the Modes of their Idolatry and Persecution and other degeneracies of the Church this Pergamenian denomination may cease and the degenerate Church be called Thyatirian and the true Church be said to be the Church in Pergamus and the Church in Thyatira because it was within the Jurisdiction of the degenerate Church so denominated c. As for that touching Nicolaitism it is a mere cavil or quibble For it plainly was a commendation of the Ephesine Interval that there was not yet that uncleanness found in it that was after set on foot by the Nicolaitans And the Nicolaitans being Christians they could no sooner appear but the Church ipso facto would be defiled by them Wherefore the Ephesine Interval of the Church being now defiled by them it 's a sign that Interval comes short of the times of the Nicolaitans Chap. 2. Vers. 11. THE promise here to the overcomer being onely that he shall not be hurt of the second Death gives no assurance thereby of being partaker of the first Resurrection The crown of life which is promised to them that are faithfull to death must certainly be meant of the reward in the other life And what reward would it be to the sufferers unto death to have their successours obtain the imperial Crown Besides take it to signifie the reward in the other life and it will so agree with what follows the Epiphonema the one promise explaining the other whereas the senses here given of both are so different as to make them badly sute for promises of the same Epistle Ans. The promise here to the overcomer according to the Elliptical intimations in the Apocalypse is the promise of partaking of the first Resurrection and so has the ancient Church expounded it And to ask what reward it would be to the sufferers unto death to have their successours to obtain the imperial Crown is to tell us without asking that selfishness or want of that unselfinteressed love which makes us prefer the publick good of the Kingdom of Christ before our own causes the Remarker to make such a weak objection as this And if the Crown of Life and not being hurt by the second Death explained each other and were but the same thing it would be a needless tautology whenas taken in these different senses it is a double promise to encourage the Smyrnean Church to suffer Martyrdom the one that their sufferings shall turn the Roman Empire Christian the other that they for their Martyrdom shall partake of the first Resurrection a privilege peculiar to Martyrs c. To which may be added that it is observable where there is any promise or threatning before the Epiphonema it indicates things Political touching this state on Earth but if placed after the Epiphonema the invisible state and concerns of the other world And why may not one Epistle use both these arguments they having both force to persuade to the same thing Vers. 13. The Pergamenian state commencing at the Emperours professing Christianity the testimony and suffering of Antipas is not to be applied to the Pope onely but does primarily respect that haughty imperious spirit which was generally observed in Patriarchs and Bishops after they grew so great through the protection and favour and bounty of Princes which begat such fierce contentions amongst themselves and furious ragings against their adversaries or opposers Ans. The sufferings and testimony of Antipas does chiefly respect those that were martyred by the Church of Rome under the Pope in this Interval which is bounded by the ending of the War against the Waldenses and Albigenses which were slain with the sword These things are certain and conspicuous as is made out in the Exposition of the seven Churches As for smaller matters if any have the like evidence let them add them that will Vers. 16. I will come unto thee quickly is taken in a distinct sense from the following words And I will fight against them c. Whenas plainly the coming quickly is to fight c. And this threatning to fight with the sword of his mouth is against the true Church which by transgression had deserved such sharp rebuke and therefore cannot be intended against the enemies of it Ans. What strange confidence is this upon no ground at all I will come unto thee I will fight against them Is not thee and them sufficient notes of
also evidence the Church to be then as we have said in a Militant State The first of those promises viz. to make the overcomer a Pillar in the Temple of God seems to signifie that he shall be of great Rule and Autority For the Worshippers in the Temple do chiefly respect the Mosaical or ruling judicial office as we shew ch 11.1 The next promise viz. He shall go no more out c. does plainly signifie a Militant State which he that overcometh is promised a cessation and rest from The three following promises are all much to the same purpose signifying the great manifestation of the glory of God in such as overcome whereby it shall be visible to all to whom they belong c. Ans. Here again the Remarker forgetting that we are upon the Prophetical sense of these Epistles writhes his fancy into a Moral or Spiritual interpretation though I will not take notice from what kind of spirit this may be Most undoubtedly the prophetical sense of this eighth verse is Political and denotes the uncontrollable success of the Church of Philadelphia But to wrest it to a Moral or Spiritual sense as it is a Prophecy is to doe violence to the scope of the Holy Ghost therein This little force or army as it is indeed little compared with the other great appearance at the battel of the great Day of God Almighty are no other than those that follow the noble Heros on the white Horse Apoc. ch 19. and the Boanerges's thundring over the great City divided into three parts So that the commencement of this Philadelphian Interval is in the seventh Vial but reaches to the fourth Thunder Which consideration silences all the pretended Reasonings of the Remarker against the Philadelphian Intervals comprehending the Millennial Reign of Christ. For the entire State of the Philadelphian Church is comprised in that Interval according to our Hypothesis and according to Truth as shall appear I say therefore briefly that I acknowledge the Philadelphian Church in part of her Interval to be Militant that is to the expiration of the seventh Vial or first Thunder But under the second Thunder according to promise she obtains the Title of the City of God which is the new Ierusalem which cometh down out of Heaven from God just as it is described Apoc. 21.11 What can be more plain and express Philadelphia therefore must be this new Ierusalem as sure as Christ will keep faith in his promises So that the Philadelphian Interval reaches so far as the second Thunder inclusively But that it reacheth through the Millennium also may appear to the unprejudiced from what follows And I will write upon him my new Name where Grotius expresly upon this very passage says Hoc novum nomen Christi est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This new name of Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords Which therefore must undoubtedly respect his Millennial Empire which yet is given to this Philadelphian Church in whom he shall thus reign And Grotius again Apoc. 19.16 Hoc est nomen illud novum says he quod innui cap. 3.12 Verè novum si non jus spectes sed juris eventum For though he had always a right yet then at last he was in full possession when his Millennial Empire was erected which was a new thing and not before and he but newly actual King of Kings and Lord of Lords But besides this keeping still to the prophetical sense which is undoubtedly Political That first promise Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the Temple of my God and he shall go no more out implies plainly the perpetuity of the Philadelphian Church to the Worlds end though otherwise modify'd and differently denominated in the Laodicean Interval Here Him that overcomes respects the whole body of the Philadelphian Church and therefore the Philadelphian Church shall reach to the Worlds end though it afterward vary in modification and denomination namely after the expiration of the Millennium He must wilfully wink and perversely shut his eyes that sees not this truth clearly already And the Remarker seems to doe so in so violently wresting the signification of a Pillar in the Temple of God which so naturally signifies stability and permanency to the signifying great Rule and Autority upon a dark private notion of his own ch 11.1 which we will examine when we come to it as if he were wiser than Christ and knew his meaning better than himself For he plainly expounds this Pillar of stability and permanency in saying And he shall go no more out So stable and permanent shall this Philadelphian State be as a Pillar in a Temple whose removal would hazard the whole Edifice And this terrestrial Scene shall fail so soon as this Philadelphian Church shall cease to be This passage he thus mis-interprets and those other that are so close and home to the business he shuffles off with this general account That they manifest the glory of God in them that overcome But they manifest such a glory as belongs to the new Ierusalem and the Millennial Empire of Christ if we can assure our selves of the sense of any passage from the easie plain and natural signification of words and expressions And now as I was going to say let us add to all this That as the Ephesine Interval represents the truly Catholick and Apostolick Church as something declining in her zeal and fervour and threatned therefore with Persecution And as the Smyrnean Interval represents her in her Persecution under the Pagan Jurisdiction but quitting her self couragiously and victoriously upon promised success that their sufferings would win the Imperial Crown at last and the Roman Empire turn Christian As the Pergamenian Interval represents the same Church exalted out of her Pagan Persecutions but upon the degeneracy of the Church into Superstition Idolatry and Cruelty suffering again under a Paganochristian Jurisdiction And as the next Interval viz. Thyatirian represents the said Catholick and Apostolick Church suffering under the same Paganochristian Jurisdiction but quitting themselves nobly supported by the promise that these sufferers under Pergamus and Thyatira shall have the rule and possession of whole Nations at the next turn of things and Respit from their Persecutions and Martyrdoms viz. in the Sardian Interval In which there is no complaint of eating things sacrificed unto Idols as in the Pergamenian and Thyatirian Intervals nor any Intimations of Martyrdom for not complying therewith but onely a complaint of that Imperfection of state and signal remisness from what they were at first when newly come out of their sufferings Which Sardian Interval therefore does plainly represent the state of the Catholick Church emerged out of the gross corruptions and barbarous persecutions of the Roman Church though themselves yet are not so good as they should be although there be in it some few Names some few excellent Persons that are as it were the seed of a better state of the true Church to
and indeed the onely sense consistent with the truth of the Prophecy as I have clearly proved in the second part of my threefold Appendage And for the silencing the Witnesses after they had prophesied 1260 days that this must be their three days and an half lying dead is a marvellous mistake For how can they be silenced but upon the penalty of their prophesying or witnessing There is no other way of silencing them imaginable And for God knows how many hundred years they were so severely silenced before that banishment imprisonment all manner of torturous Deaths were their penalty for offering to speak against the corruptions of the Apostatized Church And lastly they may prophesie as well when they are said to lye dead as when politically slain For to be Politically slain is either at least to have no power or influence on affairs for the right guiding of them or actually to be outed from any office in Church or State which is to lye dead as to those points but yet they may prophesie at their own peril Political Death is opposed here onely to natural Death And when they are silenced i. e. put out of Autority or licence to preach or prophesie that is one kind of that Political Death that is opposed to Natural but they thus lying not naturally dead they may preach or prophesie as I said at their own peril This therefore is a gross errour Vers. 12. This Call from Heaven is not any Political call by Princes but the Exaltation by the spirit of life that entred into them and set them on their feet whereon judgment began to be given unto them to take away the Dominion of the Beast but their rising hereby in power and interest in the world was by such secret operations of God as is undiscernible to the world and so they ascend as in a cloud This Spiritual Exaltation of them may occasion their worldly Exaltation also by Princes to such employments as they are free to accept of Ans. Heaven in the prophetick style is the Region of Political Powers and to interpret a Prophecy out of the road of the Prophetick style is merely to trifle with a man 's own private fancy And the Spirit of life entering into them signifies Politically as in that Vision of Ezekiel ch 37.9 And to interpret the cloud they ascend up to Heaven in of secret operations of God and undiscernible to the world being again quite out of the road of the Prophetick style is a mere private imagination Achmetes interprets ascending in a cloud of glory and power and the Scripture frequently describes that state so And Interpreters ordinarily intimate that this ascending of the Witnesses in a cloud after their three days lying dead is an allusion to Christ's Ascension after he had lain three days in the Grave who ascended in a cloud conspicuously and gloriously to take possession of that Throne and Dominion his Father had promised him Vers. 13. The tenth part of the City fell cannot signifie the taking away the Tithes of it For the words denote a ruine to the body of the City and not a loss of some appurtenances as revenues c. Which is plainly confirmed by the following words viz. the great Earthquake and the seven thousand slain and the affrightment of the rest Which seems to aim at some great Revolution to the subverting of the Antichristian State of affairs in one of the ten Kingdoms the Empire was divided into and so introducing such a settlement as to be a prelude and pattern to what is to succeed in other Dominions Ans. The meaning is not that the Tithes i. e. the holy Revenue of the City were taken away without the fall of any part of the City But being the Tithes did fall but whether a just tenth part of the City or no was uncertain the Expositor contented himself with what was certain But that there was a partial fall of the Polity or City he does not question Brightman and Pareus understanding by the City the Polity of Antichrist or his Kingdom for to understand it of a City of Wood and Stone is a little too gross I think adventure to pronounce that at least a tenth part of the Papal City fell in the late Reformation Which if true I willingly admit to be understood by the fall of the Tenth part of the City as well as the Tithes if not rather But that this Earthquake should be meant of one of the ten Kingdoms is a dwindling business the prophecy is fulfilled in a more illustrious way already Vers. 14. The third Wo-Trumpet cannot be the pouring forth of the Vials because the Trumpets belong to the Visions of the sealed Book and the Vials to the opened Book and also because the state of affairs before the Vials are far from agreeing with what is described at the seventh Trumpet Ans. The Description indeed of the Visions of the Vials and other Visions that fill up the Interval of the seventh Trumpet which is the third Wo-Trumpet belong to the Prophecy of the opened Book as being set down there But this hinders not but that they may be referred for order sake unto the third Wo-Trumpet Is it not expresly said here in the Text that the seventh Angel sounded though it be in the Prophecy of the opened Book What therefore is this for but to give us notice of the due order and Intervals of things in this Opened-book-prophecy from what we may observe in the Sealed-book-prophecy where there was mention of the seven Thunders And this also may give great countenance to that Reading 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For this sounding of the seventh Angel mentioned here implies that what was suppressed and not written concerning the affairs of the sounding of the seventh Angel in the Sealed-book-prophecy shall be declared in that Interval of the Visions of the Opened-book-prophecy that synchronizes with the seventh Trumpet of the sealed Book This is an Observation very remarkable And as for the state of affairs before the Vials how well or ill they agree with what is described at the seventh Trumpet I can say nothing unless the Remarker had particularized But I presume the imagined disagreement is from his own misplacing them before the Rising of the Witnesses But place them after and the Agreement is good and according to that auspicious Acclamation v. 15. Vers. 15. No Kingdoms of the World became the Kingdoms of the Lord by the Reformation For though they rejected the Pope's Supremacy and reformed some gross Corruptions yet they continued so many as made them not cease to belong to the Ten-horned Beast And indeed Christ's Kingdom being to be governed wholly according to the Laws of Truth by the guidance of the Spirit of God all Government so far as it falls short thereof and is Politically managed according to the course of the worldly Powers and upheld to the obstructing the advancement of Christ's Kingdom upon Earth it 's so far Antichristian Ans.
There is a very gross and false Principle laid down in this Remark if I mistake not the Remarker's meaning Which is this That Christ's Kingdom cannot be there where things are ordered by any external or Political Rules or Laws in either Church or State but merely by the immediate guidance and motion of God's Spirit That the Spirit of God will assist in making these Laws and will actuate and invigorate both Rulers and People with a sensible and living relish of them to observe them and see them observed in those excellent times that are to come I willingly grant But that other Principle I look upon as proceeding either from a deep or high melancholly I know not which to call it or if the Remarker can bear it a Religious delirancy And it is a most enormous piece of Ingratitude against the Holy and Benign Providence of God to speak so vilifying of the Reformation as he does If the Reformed people as they are called had taken half the pains to spy out every one his own faults and sincerely with imploring the Divine assistence had endeavoured to mend them that they have taken to spy faults in Governours and Governments we should have had a glorious Church of it by this time But spiritual Pride has laid waste their Understandings The Kingdom of Christ can very well subsist without such Enthusiastick whimsies Consider Apoc. 12. v. 10. Now is come salvation and strength and the Kingdom of our God and the Power of his Christ. Which is the Triumph of Christianity over Paganism And yet the Primitive Christians lived under external Laws and Rules both Spiritual and Civil Vers. 19. This Verse ought to begin the next Chapter it being the beginning of the Prophecy of the opened Book The Temple of God was opened in Heaven when Christian Worship was received and autorized by the Emperours and the Ark of the Testament was seen in the Temple when Christian Laws became received by autority to become the Laws of the Empire and the lightnings and thunderings and voices signifie the great changes in the world by shaking the powers thereof that should be made thereby Ans. What a marvellous Remark is this that this verse is the beginning of the Prophecy of the opened Book Whenas it is said ch 10 11. upon Iohn's eating the opened Book Thou must prophesie again before many Peoples and Nations and Tongues and Kings The Vision of the Inner and the Outer Court the two Witnesses their slaughter and resurrection is it no Prophecy What an affected blindness is this not to see so plain a Truth Wherefore that Vision most certainly begins the Prophecy of the opened Book which Iohn is said to swallow and thereupon that he was to prophesie before many peoples c. Which words this Vision immediately follows And again what a violence is this to make the opening of the Temple of God in Heaven no part of this first Vision but to tear it off from the rest of the Vision and make it part of the following contrary to the autority of the best Copies and most approved Expositors of the Apocalypse There must be a strange prejudice that should hurry any one upon such an outrage it being also repugnant to what is said in the same verse which he thus unnaturally breaks off And there were lightnings and voices and thunderings and an Earthquake and great Hail which is plainly a description of matters concerning the seventh Vial where ch 16. it is said upon the seventh Vial being poured out into the Air That there were voices and thunders and lightnings and an Earth-quake and a great Hail indeed the Hailstones being of a talent weight The concurrence of these five Phenomena voices thunderings lightnings Earthquake and a great Hail being found here and no where else in all the Apocalypse saving under the seventh Vial what can it be but an Indication of their synchronizing or signifying the same things So that this cannot be the beginning of the ensuing Vision or Prophecy but the conclusion of this comprized in this eleventh Chapter And still it is more impossible for as much as it is certain that the Vision beginning in the next Chapter containeth the Persecutions of the Primitive Church as we shall see anon whence all in the foregoing Chapter must necessarily belong to that first Vision And therefore this Interpretation of the Temple of God being opened in Heaven is exceeding extravagant For this comes to pass after the seventh Angel begins to sound which is a thousand and odd hundred years after the Christian Worship was received by the Emperours We may note also that the pretty Interpretation he makes of this passage depends upon a Political sense of Heaven which he rejected before and may better doe it now it being not likely to signifie any thing more than merely the place where the Temple was seen as Heaven is taken in the following Vision Where certainly it signifies not Symbolically but Topically or Locally viz. the Air from which Region the Thunders and Lightenings were seen as well as the Temple of God appeared there As it is also said chap. 16. that upon the Angels pouring his Vial into the Air there were thunderings and lightenings which confirms to us that Heaven here which the Remarker would interpret Symbolically signifies onely Topically and denotes the Air. Chap. 12. Vers. 1. THe Woman cloathed with the Sun signifies the Church her being established in a Heavenly station by the Emperours receiving the Faith the supreme power being signified by the Sun and so autorizing and defending the same by their autority and is not applicable to the Sun of Righteousness farther than he is owned by the Emperours or worldly Powers to be Prince of the World for she is beautified with this cloathing by her being in Heaven But she was before her exaltation to that station as much cloathed with the light of the Gospel or the Sun of righteousness and her Crown of twelve Stars does signifie as much as her being cloathed with the Sun in that sense Ans. That the Expositor's interpretation of the Woman travailing in Birth and pained to be delivered is true this alone may assure us viz. because it is very natural and such as is hit upon by all Interpreters in a manner I may add also necessary it being incredible that the Opened-book-prophecy prefiguring the fate of the Church should omit the state of Persecution the Primitive Christians were under Which if not here is no where figured out in the Opened-book-prophecy Whence it is plain that as the Vision of the measured Inner Court prefigures the purity and unapostatized state of the primitive Church so this of the Woman in the throes of Childbirth her sharp persecutions under the Pagan Emperours But now for the Remarker's exposition besides that it is tautological it presently repeating what was understood according to him by the Temple opened in Heaven that it is false appears 1. Because it deprives
of a Divine or Angelical Wit and Artifice that is extant in the World as to spend several years in the study of that Book In which study he seems to excell that his excellent Assistent as he calls him Dr. Seaman Whom I meeting with by chance in a Book-sellers shop in London a little after Dr. More 's Exposition of the Apocalypse was published he occasionally told me of at least half a dozen Authours for he was a noted Pryer into Interpreters of Prophecies that held the Epistles to the seven Churches to be a Prophecy as well as the Doctour But when I asked him if he had met with any that had undertook to make it out in particulars he confessed he had met with none But the Annotatour better versed in this study than his excellent Assistent produces one Mr. Bernard of Batcomb whose Works he says praise him in the Gates alluding I suppose to a key in the door he having entitled his Exposition of the Apocalypse A Key for the opening St. John 's Mystical Revelation by whom he says after he was possessed of the opinion of the Epistles to the seven Churches being Prophetical by no less than twenty good arguments and an Exposition from top to toe unexceptionably coherent and accurately fitted to History by Dr. More he was much confirmed therein by his finding him the abovesaid Mr. Bernard of Batcomb of the same opinion long before who he says takes much the same way that Dr. More has since insisted on But when so accurate a Prophetical Exposition and twenty firm arguments for so expounding those Epistles wanted farther confirmation from Mr. Bernard of Batcomb's suffrage I hope it will farther gratifie the Annotatour to hear that Ludovicus Crocius and Balthasar Willius two famous Divines do more accurately than Mr. Bernard agree with the Doctour's Exposition who both writ long before the Doctour and with whose Writings nor with Mr. Bernard's the Doctour was ever acquainted before the publishing of his own Exposition in which he had no pattern to imitate nor any help but the Scripture it self and the knowledge of the Prophetick style and History Which is no contemptible argument for the assuredness of the Prophetical sense of those Epistles See the Doctour's Preface to his Exposition of the Visions of Daniel Sect. 39. Wherefore I commend the Annotatour's caution that he thinks he cannot be too sure of the truth of an Exposition of so sacred a Writing and of so high and vast a concern And do farthermore well approve of his judicious Method of gathering together all the dispersed Notions of such as he conceived had most seriously and carefully and with most skill bestow'd their pains on any part of this Divine Volume amongst which he was pleased to reckon Mr. Mede Dr. More and Mr. Durham For it is a very rash business and the fruit of a strange overweening confidence and self-conceitedness to think that by the bare strength of ones own solitary Wit Parts Learning and an overdaring fancy to master so mystical a piece as the holy Apocalypse But now having freely commended what is commendable in the ingenious and industrious Annotatour I hope he will the more easily bear with it if I also tell him wherein he fails and it is chiesly in these two points First in that he does not keep himself strictly enough to the proper meaning of the Prophetick style such as may be justified either by examples of Scripture or by the ancient Indian Persian and Aegyptian Onirocriticks such as Achmetes has gathered together and assuredly not without a special Providence and such as to which all sorts of Commentatours do appeal Grotius himself not excepted and many of which are collected into Dr. More 's Alphabet of Iconisms in his Synopsis Prophetica Secondly he does not bring a mind freed from prejudice or a purpose of serving a Party or is at least abused into Errour by following such as have warpt the genuine meaning of some parts of the Revelation to a compliance with that Faction of which the Writer was or intended to serve as Grotius did the Roman Faction and so has perverted the true meaning of the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse so wretchedly as no example can parallell And it is the misfortune of some otherwise pious and learned persons to have been trepan'd into his errours by over-much estimation of his parts and learning But these things which I have thus hinted will be the best discerned in answering those passages of the Annotatour's Preface which concern the Doctour which I will take in order as they lye First then Sect. 6. In the Exposition says he of the Seals and Trumpets I have followed Mr. Durham wherein he differs from Mr. Mede and Dr. More I know indeed saith he what Dr. More saith That Mr. Mede 's Interpretation of the first six Seals is so solid that it 's impossible I think for any unprejudiced Reader not to be assured of the truth of them Myst. of Iniq. p. 224. Here I am concerned for Mr. Mede and the Doctour at once who I can assure you does stedfastly persist in the same judgment still both touching the truth of Mr. Mede's Exposition of the first six Seals and that it is in all likelihood prejudice in all those that are not satisfied therewith Let us now hear what the Annotatour alledgeth against this judgment of the Doctour But notwithstanding this confident Elogy both the Dutch Annotatours saith he who published their Annotations five years after Mr. Mede 's Comment came forth viz. 1637 and who take notice of his Interpretation in their Notes and also judicious Mr. Durham whose solid Exposition of the Revelation was composed near twenty years after that yet both these together with others formerly make 'em relate chiefly to Church affairs The Annotatour here would justifie his deserting Mr. Mede by the Example and Autority of the Dutch Annotatours and judicious Mr. Durham and others before Mr. Mede But for those before him if they all went the other way which cannot be proved yet their autority is not of much value Interpreters before him roving so very much and writing their sudden fancies rather they having no Cynosura to guide themselves by than what they had concluded upon more sure grounds and due and deliberate Reasons though by a good Providence rather than any great care or skill they have sometimes stumbled upon what is usefull and true And now for the time since Mr. Mede for my own part I have been much amazed to observe how so truly judicious a Writer came to be so little taken notice of especially for his Apocalyptick Lucubrations and the best Solution I could find of this strange Phaenomenon was That solid things soonest sink out of sight when chaff and straws float above on the water Those things which are writ with close strick't attention of mind and accuracy of judgment require such a close strick't attention and accuracy of judgment in the