the thousand years were finished may be understood of the wicked's reviving Politically after the expiration of the Millennium and the rather because the sense of the place carries it for those that at the Millennium were heretofore dead either naturally or Politically and so Judgment proceeds upon them Apoc. 20.4 which the wicked were not in a Political sense and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they lived not again must refer to that Physical Resurrection we contend for Add to all this that if the first Resurrection were understood in a Political sense and meant in general as well of them that were beheaded as those that worshipped not the Beast and in no other sense than so there is no reason why S. John should use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at first and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And we might demand if that be the first Political Resurrection which is the second unless we will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And how it can be appropriated to this first Resurrection as a special Priviledge of the partakers thereof that the second Death shall have no power over them this by promise belonging to all true Believers though not Martyrs from the beginning of the Church to the end of the World But to obtain a glorified body before the second Death or the Lake of Fire be in being which by its own Nature exempts from the harm thereof or of any thing like it in being this is a peculiar Priviledge indeed And blessed and holy and peculiarly happy is he that has his share in such a first Resurrection as this for he is actually out of the reach of all harm that may come from the Lake of Fire the being within the reach of whose power is to be obnoxious to the second Death and according to the Apocalyptick Antithetical implications or intimations he is possessed already of everlasting life in a glorified body whenas others are but Candidates for the same I hope by this time you perceive how easie smooth and natural my Exposition of the first Resurrection in a Physical sense is and how intricate harsh and perplex the contrary way would be c. CHAP. XX. That the Description of the New Jerusalem is a Description of a state of the Church on Earth The high expressions therein but such as are used in the Prophets touching the people of the Jews The Plea of those that will have it merely a Description of the Church Triumphant in Heaven consisting of seven Arguments out of Alcazar An Answer to those seven Arguments A more moderate way betwixt them that hold the Description of the New Jerusalem the one to signifie merely such a state of the Church on Earth the other the state of the Church in Heaven viz. That though it be a Prophecy of an excellent state of the Church on Earth yet the Description of that state is an intended Type also of the state of the Church Triumphant in Heaven THERE is a wide difference betwixt some Interpreters touching the Description of the New Jerusalem Apoc. 21. some understanding it to be a Description of the State of the Church here on Earth others of the State in Heaven Amongst these latter is S. Augustine especially and after him Ribera Alcazar Pareus and others Amongst the former Justin Martyr Grotius Dr. Hammond Brightman with others And I must confess I am altogether of that Opinion that it is the Description of the State of the Church on Earth after the ruine of Antichrist and so have expounded it continuedly throughout in my Exposition of the Apocalypse and have carefully suggested Arguments all along from the Text it self that it is so to be expounded So that there wants nothing for any further confirmation thereof unless I should take notice how there are no expressions so high in this Description but what are in other places of the Prophets and generally understood by Interpreters of the State of the Church on Earth namely such expressions as these In that Prophetical Thanksgiving of Tobit Chap. 13. Jerusalem shall be built up with Sapphirs and Emeralds and precious Stones thy Walls and Towers with pure Gold And the streets of Jerusalem shall be paved with Beryl and Carbuncle and Stones of Ophir In the Prophecy of Isaiah Chap. 65. v. 17. Behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth and the former shall not be remembred nor come into mind But be you glad and rejoice for ever in what I create for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy See also Chap. 66.22 In the Prophecy of Ezekiel My Tabernacle also shall be with them yea I will be their God and they shall be my people Again Isa 25.8 The Lord will wipe away tears from all faces And 54.11 Oh thou afflicted tossed with Tempests and not comforted behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours and thy foundations with Sapphirs I will make thy windows of Agates and thy gates of Carbuncles and all thy borders of pleasant stones And Chap. 60.19 The Sun shall be no more thy light by day neither for brightness shall the Moon give light unto thee but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light and thy God thy glory Thy Sun shall no more go down neither shall thy Moon withdraw it self for the Lord shall be thine everlasting-light and the days of thy mourning shall be ended What more exalted expressions than these are there in the Apocalypse in the description of the New Jerusalem All which places notwithstanding are understood of a state of the Church on Earth And so the City which Ezekiel describes by which is understood the Church on Earth the twelve Gates the River Trees and Fruit they are all transcribed into the Description of this New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse So assured a thing is it that the Apocalyptick Description of the New Jerusalem does denote a state of the Church here on Earth Wherefore it were a more fit thing to bring into view the Plea of the other Party who are so confident that it is a description of the state of Heaven than to concern our selves in any further proofs that it is a state of the Church on Earth that we may give a right judgment of the matter Alcazar who is very stiff for this Opinion produces no fewer than seven Arguments for the same The first is the Authority of S. Augustine who bluntly says in his De Civitate Dei lib. 20. cap. 17. That it is mere impudence to assert otherwise because it is said Absterget Deus omnem lacrymam ab oculis eorum mors jam non erit neque luctus neque clamor sed nec ullus erit dolor And at the end of that Chapter he says That these things are so clearly spoken of the World to come and the Immortality and Eternity of the Saints that we must not pretend that any thing is manifest in Scripture if this place be obscure The second is taken
from the Order of the Apocalypse which having set down at the end of the preceding Chapter a description of the Day of Judgment and punishment of the Wicked it necessarily follows that in the next place should be set down a description of the everlasting glory and happiness of the Elect in Heaven The third is from that it is said Chap. 20. v. 11. That the Heaven and the Earth fled away from the face of him that sat upon the white Throne and there was found no place for them and this to have been in the last day of Judgment Wherefore the New Heaven and the New Earth mentioned in the beginning of the next Chapter forasmuch as the Universe cannot be without an Heaven and Earth must be the renewed Heaven and Earth after the Day of Judgment in which the glorified Saints enjoy themselves in their Heavenly state which is called the New Jerusalem The fourth is taken from Chap. 21.7 8. He that overcometh shall inherit all things but the fearful and unbelieving c. shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death Whence says he it is manifest that it is the Heavenly Bliss that is here promised to the Victor and that this Jerusalem therefore is a state in Heaven not on Earth Fifthly The side of the Square Area of Ezekiel's City by which the Church Militant is prefigured is but four thousand five hundred reeds or forty five furlongs but the side of the Square of the Area of the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse is extended unto twelve thousand furlongs which makes the Area of the New Jerusalem seventy one thousand and an hundred and eleven times bigger than the Area of Ezekiel's City and therefore Ezekiel's City being the Church Militant this New Jerusalem by reason of the vast difference in their capaciousnesses and S. John's City containing not the Elect of some one time but of all Ages must needs be the Church Triumphant Sixthly Those words I saw no Temple there imply That this description of the New Jerusalem is not of the Church Militant but Triumphant For the Church Militant is not without Temples Seventhly and lastly In that it is said There is no Night no Death no Pain no Curse That without are Dogs c. And that the Inhabitants of this City shall always enjoy the sight of the Face of God and the Lamb these are manifest indications that the state described is not of the Church Militant but Triumphant These are the notable Arguments of Alcazar which Pareus also applauds or approves as stiff in Alcazar's Opinion as himself But I shall answer them in order To the first therefore I say That the true understanding of the Apocalypse being by Divine Providence reserved for these latter times as it is manifestly intimated in Daniel Chap. 12.9 As it is no disparagement for the ancient Fathers not to be knowing in matters which the Wisdom of God thought fit to conceal from them so it is no rudeness or injury to their Authority that it is not admitted in cases wherein they are no competent Judges They had not the advantage we have who have so much of the Prophecies of the Apocalypse so clearly fulfilled before our eyes the fulfilling of Prophecies being the most certain Key for the opening of them It is not likely that S. Austin understood that the Whore of Babylon is the Apostatized Church that great City or Polity Antichristian and Idolatrous that was to be destroy'd by the pouring out of the Vials upon the destruction whereof one of the Vial-Angels showed this City or Polity the New Jerusalem to John as that Power or Polity that was to succeed in the others room in which the Servants of God that adhered to the pure Gospel nor would submit to the Roman Superstitions and Idolatries were cruelly persecuted tortured and murdered many hundred thousands of them which could not be without the tears of them that were concerned These things I say S. Austin being ignorant of we may well excuse him for his confident mistake who if he had known them would have easily discerned the Speech to have been figurative when it is said there shall be no more death nor crying nor sorrow nor pain and that God will wipe all tears from their eyes viz. that by a Synecdoche generis those kinds of death sorrow pain crying and tears are pointed at that were caused by that Antichristian Polity that so barbarously persecuted the Saints of God that in this New Jerusalem state they should be free from these Which is an easie and obvious sense thus understood And indeed the observing that the description of the New Jerusalem is in opposition to the Polity of Babylon which it succeeds is a special Key for the rightly opening the meaning of the Description all along as may be observed in my Exposition thereof To the second I answer 1. That the Object of the opened Book-Prophecy of which the Description of the New Jerusalem is part is not the state of the Church in Heaven but the state thereof on Earth And therefore though a description of the state of the Church in Heaven would follow here handsomly yet it being quite Heterogeneous to the nature of this Prophecy we may be sure it is not here described but a state on Earth in the Millennium and that therefore there is a going back into those times in this Description the placing of the Visions being no certain Argument of the order of time they belong to as all know that know any thing in the Apocalypse Again That there is an holy and happy state of the Church of Christ in his Millennial Reign on Earth is plain and that that State or Polity opposite to the Polity or City of Babylon is no where so fully described as the Whore of Babylon is Chap. 17. is as plain Wherefore what can be more likely than that this City the New Jerusalem is described as a Polity opposite to the City of Babylon which was drunk with the blood of the Saints and the blood of the Martyrs of Jesus from which barbarous Persecutions the Saints are secured in this New Jerusalem state Whence it is said There shall be no more death nor sorrow nor crying but that God will wipe all tears from their eyes c. Chap. 21.4 Thirdly Those many passages noted in my Exposition of this Description of the New Jerusalem which is needless here to repeat plainly demonstrate it to be a description of the state of the Church on Earth And lastly The Vial-Angel the last doubtless as being nearest to this time that shews John the Bride the Lamb's Wife in opposition to the bloody Whore of Babylon destroy'd by him under the seventh Vial how naturally does his showing John the City New Jerusalem upon his having destroy'd the City of Babylon imply that he shows him that Polity that is to succeed that of Babylon and that therefore this New Jerusalem is here upon Earth To the third I say That that high expression of the Heaven and Earth flying
of which the Truth is to be followed and the shadow to fly away And lastly For what is alledged in the seventh Argument they are but such things as are already answered by my answering the first where I have explained in what sense there is said to be no death nor sorrow nor pain And it being said there is no curse that is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that respects the Papal Curses as is noted in my Exposition And that there is no Night is no more than is said by Esay of the state of the Church on Earth Thy Sun shall no more go down c. Chap. 60. And this state of the Church being so holy on Earth it is no wonder that such ill people as are called Dogs Sorcerers Whoremongers Idolaters c. are excluded from it and not admitted into their Communion And in that they are said to enjoy the sight of the face of God and of the Lamb what is this more than what S. Paul witnesses we are capable of in this life That God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness may shine in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ So that there being so many indications as I have observed in my Notes that the description of this New Jerusalem is a description of a state of the Church on Earth and the best Arguments alledged against it being really invalid it remains manifest that the state of the Church in the Millennial Reign of Christ on the Earth is predicted and described by this Description of the New Jerusalem But now after the pondering of the Plea of both Parties though I am very confident that the description of the New Jerusalem is a description of the Church on Earth in the Millennium yet I am on the other side as confident of what is not at all repugnant to this that this excellent Millennial state of the Church is a Type and so intended to be in its description of that more transcendently blessed and glorious state of the Church Triumphant in Heaven And the reasons that induce me to this belief in brief are these First It seems handsom and congruous that it being so universally acknowledged on all sides that the State and Oeconomy of the Jewish Church was a Type of the Christian Church which was to succeed it so the best state of the Christian Church Militant which is the Millennial state or rather the state of the New Jerusalem here described which the Heavenly state succeeds should be a Type of the succeeding Church Triumphant in Heaven Secondly There is a sufficient lively Description and sensible Representation of the state of the second Death which succeeds the general Judgment the Lake burning with brimstone and fire why therefore should there not be as lively or rather more lively description of the state of Eternal life to which the Godly are adjudged as well as the Wicked to the other state Thirdly therefore The Description of the New Jerusalem State or Polity for it is the Kingdom of Heaven immediately succeeding this Lake of fire in the very next Chapter under the very name of a new Heaven and a new Earth the same with the New Jerusalem and this after the Conflagration we are fairly invited thereby to conclude that the state of the New Jerusalem on Earth is so described that it is also a Type of the Triumphant Jerusalem in Heaven And thus far we will allow force in Alcazar's second and third Argument that they may fairly warrant in conjunction with other Considerations the description of the New Jerusalem on Earth to be a Type of the Church Triumphant in Heaven Fourthly This being a most Holy Book of Divine Visions and this of the New Jerusalem the last of the Visions what can be a more proper Vision than this that typifies also the glorious and blissful state of the Saints in Heaven to be the close of all and which not only this Book of the Apocalypse but the whole Bible aims at Fifthly and lastly It is observable and I have noted it in my Mystery of Godliness Book 7. Chap. 7. That in a Prophecy that may have a meaner fulfilling at the first and is really intended for that fulfilling yet by reason of the high actuation of the Spirit of the Prophet some expressions may come from him that much better fit the Antitype than the Type in which the Prophecy is first fulfilled This is so over and over again verified in the Prophecy Typical of our Saviour Christ that it is needless pains to name any And many such instances also are observable in the Typical Prophecies of Antichrist as that in the Prince of Type c. Now this being so observable in Predictions that are but Types of what there will be a fuller completion that there are strokes in them that properly belong not but only figuratively to the Type but to its Antitype there being this very case in the description of the New Jerusalem a Prophecy of the Millennial state of the Church on Earth that is to say there being such expressions therein that more naturally describe the state of Heaven as S. Augustine has well observed in the first Argument and Alcazar in the last the genuine Result of this Consideration is this That it is a Prophecy of such a State of the Church on Earth as is a lively Type withal of that transcendent Happiness the Saints will find in Heaven where there shall be not only no more death sorrow crying tears pain or torture from that bloody persecutive Polity of Babylon which are intimated by a Synecdoche Generis but absolutely and properly speaking without a Figure there shall be none of these things at all These are the Reasons that move me to think that though the description of the New Jerusalem be a Prophecy of the blessed Reign of Christ on Earth that yet it is withal a Type of the Joys and Glory of the Kingdom of Heaven wherewith the Saints are rewarded after the Conflagration CHAP. XXI The occasion of his more fully making out that grand Truth that the whole Apocalypse in a manner consists of three main Prophecies beginning with the Church and reaching to the end of the World viz. the Epistolar Prophecy Sealed Book Prophecy and Opened Book Prophecy with the three Introductory Visions prefixed thereto That the Epistolar Prophecy is such a Prophecy That the Sealed Book Prophecy is such And also the Opened Book Prophecy The Reference of the three Introductory Visions to the Title of the Book of the Apocalypse Introductory Visions to Prophecies in Isaiah Ezekiel and Daniel and that they are not properly Prophecies themselves The Meaning of the Introductory Vision of the Epistolar Prophecy The like Meaning of the Introductory Vision to the Prophecy of the Sealed Book The drift of the third Introductory Vision muchwhat the same with the two former and that the Angel there
like Introductory Vision and more ample of the glory of the God of Israel enthroned above the Cherubims is prefixed before Ezekiel's Book of Prophecies but is no Prophecy it self but a sign of Ezekiel his Call and Inspiration from God to prophesie He upon the Throne speaking to him Chap. 2.3 and saying Son of man I send thee to the Children of Israel c. there 's his Mission and then reaching him a roll of a Book to eat whereby as John Apoc. 10. doing the like he was inabled to prophesie I will add a third Example out of Daniel of that Vision of an Angel habited like Aaron the High-Priest Chap. 10.5 prefixed before the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth who communicated to Daniel the said Prophecy But now as no man is so sensless as to take those Introductory Visions in Isaiah Ezekiel and Daniel to be proper Prophecies but only or chiefly significations of the Divine Inspiration of those Prophets that they were inabled thus to prophesie by the Spirit of the Lord So it is a wonder to me that any one of wit and parts and learning should be so heedless and grosly mistaken as to make any of these Introductory Visions to the Epistolar Prophecy the Sealed Book-Prophecy and the Opened Book-Prophecy to be Prophecies properly so called and not Introductory Visions such as those in Daniel Ezekiel and Isaiah whose proper scope is to intimate the Divine Inspiration of John in writing those Prophecies which were communicated to him by Angelical Ministry upon the appointment of Christ whose Merit obtained this Revelation from the Eternal Godhead That this is the genuine meaning of those three Introductory Visions I shall now endeavour to make good in order as they lye And it is exceeding manifest in the first that the Appearance to John of one in the Pontifical Habit like that of Aaron is hugely like that Appearance to Daniel Chap. 10.5 Wherefore why should this be more a Prophecy than that But both these Appearances being in the High Priests Habit who was a Type of Christ it is a plain Argument that it is Christ himself that appeared or was represented in both places And this very Appearance dictating the Epistles sent to the seven Churches unto John as if he were his Amanuensis or Secretary and these Epistles being the Epistolar Prophecy it self it is plain that it is the first part of the Revelation of Jesus Christ signified to his Servant John And that God is here in Conjunction with Christ is manifest from his Pontifical Habit which is a Symbol of the visible World as Philo takes notice though he knew not the right System thereof But what an excellent Hieroglyphick those Aaronical Habiliments are of the true Pythagorick System thereof I have abundantly made out in the Appendix to the Defence of my Philosophick Cabbala Chap. 5. Sect. 3 4. See also the Latine Scholia thereon Wherefore the Assistance of the Eternal Divinity to the Soul of the Messias or Humanity of Christ is hence easily conceived And the like may be observed in that Vision prefixed before the Sealed Book-Prophecy contained in Chap. 4 and 5. It is no more a Prophecy than the Vision prefixed before Ezekiel's Book of Prophecies and the less likely it being in a manner the same Vision with it And therefore why should it be a Prophecy more here than there Nay if it be a Prophecy of any King or Queen sitting on their Throne in Christendom it is a very ancient Prophecy of them indeed For that Vision in Ezekiel is the very same which Moses and the Elders saw on Mount Sinai Some intimation thereof is from the mention of the Sapphir stone on which he is said to stand in the one and to sit in the other but there is that which is yet more pressing For as Ezekiel says of his Vision that it was the Appearance of the glory of the Lord Chap. 1.28 and the glory of the God of Israel Chap. 10.19 so it is said Exod. 24. that the glory of the Lord abode on Mount Sinai Which therefore what it was is amply indicated in the Vision of Ezekiel which I doubt not but is a Symbol of the spiritual and invisible Kingdom of the God of Israel where he sits enthroned amidst his bright Angelical Squadrons and the Psalmist briefly notes The Chariots of God are twenty thousands even many thousands of Angels the Lord is among them as in Sinai where there was the Representation of his Glory and Majesty in his Angelical Kingdom and 't is likely on a Sapphir Throne whose very Scabellum was also Sapphir and so his feet which is all from the Hip to the Toes rested on Sapphir For to phansie him standing does not so well agree with the Representation of Majesty But the strongest Argument is yet behind viz. That the Cherubims and the order of the Camp of Israel answer so exquisitely to this Vision of Ezekiel Whence it must be plain to him that will see Moses being to order all things according to the Pattern in the Mount that the order of the Camp of Israel and the Tabernacle c. was according to the Representation of the Glory of the God of Israel on the Mount in his Spiritual Kingdom To the perfection whereof it being not the Lot of the Church of the Jews to reach they bore notwithstanding the external and Ritual figure thereof in the order of their Camp Tabernacle c. Wherefore that Vision in the Mount again seen by Ezekiel and lastly here by S. John with some few alterations only and prefixed before his Prophecy of the Sealed Book as it is before Ezekiel's Book of Prophecies how awkward a thing is it to conceit this a proper and formal Prophecy it self of the same nature that the three main Apocalyptick Prophecies are whenas it is of no other nature than the Vision prefixt before the Epistolar Prophecy some parts of which Vision are made use of in the Epistolar Prophecy it self as there is of this in the Sealed Book-Prophecy And as that Vision being a Representation of Christ in Conjunction with his Church may have some general and less distinct significancies of her condition so this Vision prefixt before the Sealed Book-Prophecy it being really a Symbol of the Spiritual Kingdom of the God of Israel may be so framed as to have some glances on those times when this Spiritual Kingdom of the God of Israel in Heaven which is the chief aim of all shall descend thence from God and be found on Earth in the New Jerusalem state of his Church This being the great scope of all contained in both the Sealed and Opened Book-Prophecies it is not irrational to conceive this ancient Vision seen by Moses and Ezekiel to be so attempered in this seen by S. John as to have some glances at those most excellent times of which the Spiritual Kingdom of the God of Israel is the Archetypon and it being so it is prefigurative of
would have it by this very Vision But the mistake of this Opinion I shall manifestly discover in the following Chapter The next thing I will consider here is this Whether the Vial-Angels received their Vials before or after the Song of Moses and the Lamb Chap. 15. That they received them after any one may be well assured that observes First That one continued Vision is divided sometimes into several Chapters As the Introductory Vision to the Sealed Book-Prophecy Chap. 4 and 5. as also that one Vision comprized in the 12.13 and 14. Chapters Which answers to that contained in the eleventh Secondly That in like manner the Vision of the Vial-Angels is contained in the 15. and 16. Chapters Thirdly That to so large a Vision the first verse of Chap. 15. And I saw another sign in Heaven great and wonderful seven Angels having the seven last Plagues c. is but the general Title thereof and the Vials are not so much as mentioned in this Title Fourthly That before he falls upon the Vision it self there is an Introduction thereto a kind of Dramatical Interlude which is not as in ordinary Plays merely for delight but for some weighty instruction else there can be no sense of clapping it immediately after the summary Title of this Vision What then can it be but to intimate that the Order of the Vials is to be after this Song of Moses and the Lamb. Wherefore it being said v. 5. After that that is after the singing of this Song I looked and behold c. viz. After this the seven Vial-Angels came out of the Temple having the seven Plagues but not yet said to have the Vials but immediately to receive them of one of the four Beasts and in the beginning of the next Chapter bid to pour them on the Earth If the sense of this express order of things be not that the Angels received their Vials after the Song of Moses and the Lamb we cannot be assured of the certain sense of any passage of the Apocalypse nor of the whole Bible no nor of any Writing whatsoever Insomuch that I have been amazed that it ever came into any mans mind to think otherwise A third thing is What the adequate Visum is of the sixth Trumpet i. e. what affairs in the World or Church are noted to fall out during the sounding of that Trumpet To which I answer That it is that which is set down Chap. 9. from v. 13. to the end of the Chapter Whereby is signified the Over-running of the Eastern Empire and the Church by the Turks with the possessing themselves of Constantinople and the general Impenitency of the Western Church and Empire notwithstanding this notorious Judgment of God upon the Eastern Which latter part is fully exprest v. 20 21. And the rest of the men that were not killed with these Plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship Daemons and Idols of Gold and Silver and Brass and Stone c. Neither repented they of their Murders nor of their Sorceries nor of their Fornication nor of their Thefts That this is the adequate object of the Vision of the sixth Trumpet I conceive is plain from hence First That immediately after this instead of the Angel of the sixth Trumpet that sounded steps in a mighty Angel to roar out the next Interval the last of the seven divided also into seven Thunders as the seventh Seal into seven Trumpets Secondly Because if this be not the precise Visum or Object of the Vision of the sixth Trumpet there will be no stop till you come to the 14. verse of Chap. 11. The second we is past c. Which is the most outragious wild thing to be conceived as can be the Vision of the Witnesses in sackcloth running up as high as the first Trumpet to say nothing of the measuring the Court of the Temple and Altar And thirdly and lastly which nicks the business methinks marvellously well The Rising of the Witnesses and Fall of the City is a Prophecy of a considerable Reformation that is of the Repentance of a considerable part of the Western Church and Empire or of their ceasing to be impenitent which was the latter part of the Visum of the sixth Trumpet Wherefore immediately upon this Rising of the Witnesses and Fall of the City that is upon the ceasing of that general Impenitency it being said the second Wo is past it is manifest that the Turks over-running the Eastern Empire and the general Impenitency of the Western thereupon was the adequate Visum of the sixth Trumpet And these three Points respect the foregoing Chapter There are three Points behind that have no such reference The first is what may be the full meaning of the Lamb 's being found worthy to open the Seals of the Seven-sealed Book For the fulness of this meaning being rightly understood we shall therewithal better discern how well the Doxologies of the four Beasts and twenty four Elders and after of those numerous Quires of Angels and indeed of the whole Creation in this Dramatical Theatre in Heaven are made to prefigure the Joy and Rejoycing which will be in the blessed Millennium on Earth when the Power given to the Lamb of opening the Seals shall have that glorious effect in introducing those times of the New Jerusalem which these Angelical Actors on an Heavenly Stage are made to prefigure in the sight and hearing of S. John after his being caught up into Heaven in his Divine Rapture mentioned Chap. 4. v. 2. Wherefore in brief I conceive that the Lamb 's receiving the Book and therewith a power of opening the Seals implies these two things The first is the representing to John by way of Prophetical Vision the state of the Church and of the World so far forth as the Church is concerned in the affairs thereof through a long Series of time to the end of all even to the very Conflagration That this is one meaning of this power of opening the Seals is plain from Chap. 6. v. 1 3 5 7 9 12. and Chap. 8.1 in which seven places the Lamb is said orderly to open the Seals one after another and upon the opening each Seal a Prophetick Vision follows Whence it is manifest that his Power of opening the seven Seals is the Power of imparting this whole Book of Visions to his Servant John For at the Opening of the seventh Seal all the whole Book of the Prophetick Visions was opened as is to be understood from the frame of the Book above described But now forasmuch as the truly opening of the Seals would not be absolutely put into the hand of Christ unless he had also Power given from him that sits on the Throne to guide the affairs of this sublunary World so as that he might bring to pass by permission or impulsion and positive motion the things that are prefigured For the Effect brought to pass both argues the truth and
mentioned even in the fifth Vial. And when so horrible a War was raised against the Evangelical Party here in England in Eighty eight and that by the great Providence of God they were so defeated this is referrible to the third Vial. And if in the midst of the sedulous Attacks of the Antichristian Party some mighty Potentate in Christendom should by God's Providence be raised up in their behalf the hearts of Kings being in the hand of God this were referrible to the fourth Vial. But according to the Apocalyptick Stile this is to be accounted neither any part of the forty two months War nor of the Rising of the Witnesses It is something tedious to insist on things so plain 6. In your sixth Paragraph you lay great stress upon that Passage Apoc. 17.17 touching the ten Kings that God has put into their hearts to fulfil his Will and to agree and give their Kingdom to the Beast until the words of God shall be fulfilled which words of God you understand of Daniel's Prophecy of the little Horn having the Saints given into his hands until a Time and Times and dividing of a Time And of those other words of Daniel where he says I beheld and the same Horn made War with the Saints and prevailed against them until the Ancient of days came and Judgment was given to the Saints of the most High and the time came that the Saints possessed the Kingdom Dan. 7.21 22. and then you skip from v. 22. to v. 27. adding And what Kingdom that is he tells in the following words but they follow a great way off The Kingdom and Dominion and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole Heaven And you say you suppose I will not say this Kingdom is so given and possessed yet and if not how can you say the little Horns making War with the Saints and prevailing against them for a time and times and half a time is expired I pray you Sir think seriously on this Answ Well I have thought seriously on it and find what you lay such great stress on has no strength in it at all I easily admit those words of Apoc. 17.17 may allude to these passages of Daniel But there is nothing here that infers that the forty two months War of the Beast with the Saints extends any further than the partial Fall of the great City and the then commensurate Rising of the Witnesses Which Time I call the prosperous Reign and War of the Beast which are the Time and Times and half a Time here mentioned in Daniel and in which Fall the last Semi-time current he made War and prevailed against the Saints as Daniel also has foretold And this was till the Ancient of Days came and Judgment was given to the Saints of the most High v. 22. which is further explained v. 26. which you wisely skipped over But the Judgment shall sit and they shall take away his viz. the little Horn's Dominion not all of it at once as it was not at the Fall of the tenth part of the City and commensurate Rising of the Witnesses but leisurely by degrees Which Apocalyptick Vision therefore is an excellent Commentary on this Text of Daniel God has adjudged the Cause to the Evangelical Party by this partial Fall of Babylon and the then Rising of the Witnesses This taking away part of the little Horn's Dominion is a Pledge of the having it consumed and destroyed even to the end But this destruction and consumption is not the issue of the forty two months War wherein the Beast prevailed for such a time against the Saints but at last he was partially vanquished but it is the result of the Effusion of the Vials so that things that lay so close wrapt up in Daniel are thus distinctly and explicitely set out in the Apocalypse and the Explication found to be the easie and natural sense of Daniel Do not wink wilfully against Truth and you will easily discern it See my Exposition of Daniel's second Vision on this place v. 26. And though this is so easily answered yet you are earnest with me again at the close of your Letter to observe that the Time Times and half a Time reach as far as till the Ancient of Days shall come and till the Judgment shall be given to the Saints c. Which thing I grant you viz. That the Time and Times and half a Time of the Horns prevailing War against the Saints did reach so far till the Ancient of Days gave him so notorious a check and counterbuff in the partial Fall of the City and the then Rising of the Witnesses This was the final issue of the forty two months once prosperous War of the little Horn or Beast against the Saints Which Time and Times and half a Time is no where mentioned in the Vision of Daniel Chap. 7. but in v. 25. then comes that in the 26. verse which is evidently to be expounded as I have above expounded it That upon the Judgment being set his Dominion in part was taken away in the partial Fall of the great City to which the Time and Times and half a Time do reach and comprize in the last Semi-time This is the issue of the three days and an half 's War or seven Semi-times War of the little Horn or the Beast with the Saints But the consuming and destroying his Dominion to the end that is the work of the seven Vials which being done then it follows v. 27. And the Kingdom and Dominion and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole Heaven shall be given to the Saints of the most High For then is the descent of the New Jerusalem in opposition to the great City of Babylon now quite abolished and after comes in the blessed Millennial Reign of Christ upon Earth which is the greatness of his Kingdom under the whole Heaven All which glorious Providences you would crumple up within the three Times and an half whenas it is demonstrated in Mr. Mede that the three Times and an half reach but to the Exit of the sixth Trumpet which you acknowledge the seven Vials to follow Consider seriously these things But to proceed to the seventh Paragraph 7. Here I only briefly advertise you that the first appearance of the Rising of the Witnesses falling some eighteen years short of the last Semi-time according to your Epocha or not reaching it by eighteen years that this is a greater Argument against the truth of your Epocha than against my Hypothesis that a Semi-time is the only Authentick Vnite in the Eventual Computation of the Medial Visions For according to your Epocha the Rising of the Witnesses will not begin after the seventh Semi-time current but before it which is expresly against the Text After three days and an half which absurdity cannot be salved but by making the entire Resurrection of the Witnesses the adequate Object of the Prediction and so it will reach about seventy years at least
into the last Semi-time or Hexamenon that is into the third month thereof Though this is but a defectuous scambling thing in comparison of what falls out according to the true Epocha I have pitched upon But that your Epocha is false I have in my former demonstrated it being not pitched in the beginning of the Apostasie and of the War of the Beast with the Witnesses And in the mean time you see plainly even according to your own Epocha that the seventh Semi-time is not superfluous and that the reckoning not by Years but by Semi-times is necessary 8. And now eighthly Whereas you say you hope the more the time of the End of the Churches affliction from her Enemies draws near the more God will stir up here and there some to look more diligently into those Divine Prophecies which tell us how long and no longer it shall last and to enlighten his people that they better understand them for the encouragement and consolation of his Church I do not question but this may be a pleasing and pious hope in you But if this respect any of the Numbers of the Medial Visions and the true Epocha of the two thousand and three hundred Evening-Mornings in Daniel taken in a Typical sense defers the cleansing of the Sanctuary till about four hundred years hence I must ingenuously confess I think your hope is groundless for any one to tell to a year or thereabout from any of the Medial Numbers when the affliction of the Church shall cease And my Reasons are these First That computing from the true Epocha as I have proved it the Medial Numbers twelve hundred and sixty days or forty two months expired above thirty years ago Secondly The number of three days and an half or three times and an half Synchronal to the twelve hundred and sixty days or forty two months are assigned to indicate only the time of the ending of the prevailing War of the Beast or little Horn against the Witnesses by a partial Fall of Babylon and a commensurate Rising then of the Witnesses Which I have demonstrated as clearly as any thing is demonstrated in Euclide Wherefore the Medial Numbers cannot possibly tell us nor any one from them how long and no longer the Churches Afflictions shall last Thirdly It is better and more expedient for the Church not to know so precisely for a year or thereabout how long and no longer her afflictions shall last lest upon a lazy confidence that God will then be as good as his word and deliver them they neglect the fitting themselves for that deliverance and the prosperity thence ensuing Which fitting themselves consists in an hearty Holiness of life by virtue of real Regeneration in an inviolable Loyalty to their Prince in prudent Conversation and sincere Benignity to all men Fourthly This predicting how long and no longer to a year or thereabout the afflictions of the Church should last is a Priviledge that was not granted to the Primitive Christians themselves who yet lay under more grievous Persecutions than the Mercy of God is like to permit his Church to suffer during the space of the pouring out of the Vials that is yet to come And yet they had no more precise notice how long and no longer than the order of the six Visions under the first six Seals could indicate to them And such an indication have we and every whit as certain from the Order of the seven Vials And when the true Christianity shall more generally appear in the Reformed Churches accompanied with a most faithful and fast Loyalty to their Sovereigns and ready and chearful obedience to all lawful Commands for Peace Order and Safety in Church and State this will be an indication of the near approach of the pouring out of the fourth Vial on the Sun and of the greatest Potentates in Christendom their inclining to reform and to shake off the servile Yoke of Antichrist and all the Idolatrous Trumperies thereunto belonging and of ordering things so that a great deadness and darkness will seize upon the Seat of the Beast and prove the pouring forth of the fifth Vial. And the sixth is manifestly touching the Conversion of the Jewâ—â— And when the lovely Philadelphian Spirit shall more universally break forth and shine in all the Enjoyers of or Well-willers to the Reformation then let them look up and lift up their Heads for that more consummate Redemption and vast enlargement of the true Church draweth nigh and will be atchieved in the Battel of that great Day of God Almighty under the auspicuous Conduct of that mighty Heros on the white Horse out of whose mouth goeth a sharp Sword and whose Title is the Word of God which is sharper than any two-edged Sword and this is to fall out under the seventh Vial. And after this is the descent of the New Jerusalem or Creation of the New Heaven and New Earth wherein Righteousness shall dwell upon the dissolution of the former Constitution of Things whether Pagan Infidel or Antichristian Polities Wherefore then seeing as the Apostle speaks that all those things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness not only looking for but hasting on as the Original has it the coming of the day of God even of that great day of God Almighty in the Battel above-mentioned But if this Day was fixt to a certain year or thereabout how could we be said to either hasten it or slacken it But there is no such fixt time set that we be not tempted to wanton security and laziness but reminded of our duty may hasten as much as in us lies that great day we expect and desire by perfecting Holiness in the fear of God if we be sincere and not Hypocrites But this thing I have touched upon already In the mean time it appears we have at least as certain indications of the Time of the Churches deliverance as the Primitive Christians had before us in which we are to acquiesce with humility and thankfulness and improve them to our best advantage to confirm our Faith and support our Courage And therefore fifthly and lastly There being so visible and palpable an order of Revolutions of the Affairs of the World under the Series of the Vials whereby the nearer and nearer approach of the consummate deliverance of the Church of Christ and enlargements of his Kingdom may plainly be discerned it seems altogether needless that the Numbers of the Medial Visions should signifie any thing more than the terminating the forty two months prosperous War of the Beast in his unprosperous counterbuff by Divine Providence in the partial Fall of the great City and commensurate Rising of the Witnesses in the last Semi-time current according to what I contend for and have so manifestly demonstrated 9. And now in the last place to answer to what occurs in what I will call your ninth and last Paragraph where you say You cannot but
saying Blessing and Honour and Glory and Power be unto him that sitteth on the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever no Interpreter shews this to have been done after Christ's taking of the Book more than before From whence it is plain to me saith he that they go upon a wrong Hypothesis For if there had been any such things done on Earth no doubt some footsteps of it would have been found in History These few things as he calls them being thought by him pressing and weighty I am concerned to answer that the truth of my Exposition may not seem to be obscured thereby 1. To the first then I answer That this Proclamation was made only in this Dramatical Vision and is no more than a visionary Proclamation and brought in in this Dramatical manner to signifie the singular Prerogative of Christ given to him by his Father that he should have the ability of predicting and effecting such things as no Creature besides in the World had the like general Proclamation being made to find them out if there were any such And the Angel is said to be strong and his Voice loud that it might pierce as it were through the Universe to summon any one that would pretend to such a Prerogative as has been described 2. To the second I say There is neither any unlikeliness nor trifling in this Proclamation because it sets off the peculiarness of Christ's Prerogative in that it was given to him to open the sealed Book And it being not yet opened but being known in general to be a Book of Secrets as yet only in the Mind of God what unlikeliness or Indecorum is it that Proclamation be made who he is that shall be vouchsafed this power of opening the Book and distinctly knowing those Secrets which were only in the Mind of God before 3. To the third I answer as to the first That the Proclamation is only visionary and of what it is significative I have already said nor need again repeat 4. To the fourth I say it seems a kind of capricious Query as if it implied from that account of the Proclamation made that no man in Heaven on Earth or under the Earth was found able to open the Book that Christ was no where then else he would have been found able But as S. Paul says 1 Cor. 15.27 But when he saith all things are put under him it is manifest he is excepted which did put all things under him so say I whenas this Proclamation was made to remonstrate to the World that no man in Heaven nor Earth nor under the Earth was found able saving Christ himself to open the Book it is manifest he is to be excepted out of that Negative Catalogue as being the only Creature that was able 5. To the fifth Incogitancy I think suggested this Query to the Objector For it implies S. John wept after he understood that Christ had obtained the power of opening the sealed Book whenas his weeping was before He says so plainly himself v. 4. And I wept much because no man was found worthy to open and read the Book neither to look thereon Which is also a Dramatical passage on this Theatre intended to signifie nothing else but the great Needfulness and Desirableness of such a Book of Prophecies for the use of God's Church and their guidance in all the Tossings Changes and Revolutions in this transitory World Such a Book was so necessary and requisite that it would grieve any good Christian at the very heart who is solicitous for the Church to want such a Load-star or Cynosura 6. To the sixth I answer That these crowned Elders though they be prefigurative also of the Millennial Kings or Monarchs they are here some principal Angels of the spiritual Kingdom of the God of Israel in Heaven And why may not such an Angel be thought to be wiser than John and able to instruct him There is nothing incongruous or indecorous in this Dramatical passage and John was called up into Heaven to be instructed by his Betters This celestial Actor may well be conceived to know how the Scene would go though John in the mean time was as yet ignorant thereof 7. To the seventh Truly this is a very curious Question if it imply that one should declare who this crowned Elder was by Name It is sufficient to say it was one of the Elders that was next him and so most conveniently placed to instruct John and comfort him upon his weeping and so take that kue to carry on this Divine Scene from v. 4. to v. 8. till the slain Lamb had taken the Book out of the hand of him that sate on the Throne and had obtained power to open it By which no Event is prefigured that was to come to pass some Ages after John's receiving the Apocalypse but it is only signified in this pompous Dramatical way That this Book-Prophecy is the Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him and which he imparted to his Servant John So that the curiosity of naming the Party whom this Elder may prefigure vanisheth 8. To the eighth I say Those that are set so near the Throne of God are Members of his spiritual or Angelical Kingdom in Heaven but prefigurative withal of his Millennial Kingdom on Earth which is the main scope of his Providence over his Church that it shall at last come to pass that the Heavenly Jerusalem in Image and Resemblance shall descend from God on this Earth and his Tabernacle be with men And therefore the glory of the God of Israel is here so represented that it may also prefigure the State of the Church under the New Jerusalem as the other Introductory Visions have some glances or more general strokes at Prophetick Events in some passages And now for the new Song sung by the four Beasts and twenty four Elders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dignus es qui acciperes Thou wert worthy to receive the Book for so the Original is interpretable and to open the Seals thereof for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God and made us Kings and Priests to reign upon Earth This new Song is prefigurative of the Joy and Happiness of that State of the Church of which it is said Apoc. 21.5 Behold I make all things new which is the New Jerusalem state In which there will be such triumphant Praises sung unto the Lamb when it will be so evident he has carried his Church safe for whom he gave his Life and Blood through all the predicted conditions thereof and at last has placed them in that happy and glorious Millennial State by his faithful Conduct Wisdom and Power Which are included in the Faculty granted him by his Father of opening the Seals of the Book as I have noted elsewhere And whenas presently afterwards the whole Universe is made to ring with a loud Doxology from numerous Quires of Angels and of all Creatures in Heaven and Earth and under
the Earth and such as are in the Sea and all that are in them to him that sits upon the Throne and unto the Lamb to what times possibly can this belong but to the holy happy and glorious Millennial Reign of Christ in his Saints upon Earth The Song of the twenty four Elders and four Beasts prefigure the Joy of the Millennial Monarchs and People that of the Angels the Joy of the Angels in Heaven at this flourishing State of the Church on Earth and that of the rest of the Creatures the Conviction of all the World that the Lord Jesus was no less than he declared himself to be the Son of God and Saviour of the World to whom the Father had given all Power in Heaven and Earth of which this Millennial State of the Church is a most illustrious and glorious Effect filling all the World with wonder and amazement And this I hope may satisfie the eighth Query 9. Ninthly To the ninth Allegation I answer That the Doxology of the Angelical Quires does prefigure the Joy of Angels in Heaven for that blessed condition of the Church in the New Jerusalem state on Earth So that though this Vision which is a Representation of the glory of the God of Israel in his Spiritual or Angelical Kingdom in the Dramatical frame of things is so contrived that the four and twenty crowned Elders and four Beasts prefigure also the Monarchs and People of the Millennium yet there are left numerous Quires of Angels in counterdistinction to these to signifie Angels literally so called and the Song is to signifie their Joy at this State of the Church on Earth Nor has that strong Angel that makes the Proclamation any other sense than so that he was one of the Angelical Retinue of the God of Israel in Heaven Nor is that Rule of interpreting Angels of men in the Apocalypse universally true I am sure not in the Introductory Visions The word Angel occurs in several places of the Introductory Visions where it stands for an Angel literally so called not for a man to say nothing of other places So little force has this ninth Allegation 10. And lastly for the tenth which urges That if there had been any such universal Doxology to Him that sits on the Throne and to the Lamb after he had taken the Book that there would have been some traces or footsteps of it in History To this I answer That it is a marvellous groundless conceit and expectation that what is here Parabolically and Dramatically set down only to express that Joy and Happiness which would redound to the whole Creation from Christ's being invested with this Power of opening the seven-sealed Book that is to be enabled both to foretel and guide the affairs of his Church so as that the state thereof will be so glorious and prosperous at last here upon Earth that all the World will be convinced of his stupendious Foresight Wisdom and Power that therefore there shall be such an universal Te Deum sung to him throughout the whole Universe at once so that the Solemnity might be recorded in History This is not the meaning of the Prophetick Stile And besides if it were the time is not yet come when this is to be For such expressions as these can suit with no meaner State of the Church on the Earth than that of the Millennial Reign when the four and twenty Millennial Monarchs including both the Jewish and Gentile Sovereigns or Princes may seasonably sing this Song Thou hast redeemed us with thy blood and made us Kings and Priests and we shall reign upon Earth viz. in Christ's Millennial Empire But to expect Records of such a Doxology in History before the Doxology has been is a great Incongruity Wherefore I hope any indifferent eye may easily discern that notwithstanding all these ten Allegations my Exposition of this Vision comprized in the fourth and fifth Chapters of the Apocalypse is unexceptionably true CHAP. XXXV Three Objections from a considerate hand The first against our making the three Times and an Half the forty two months and twelve hundred and sixty days to be the same time The second against oun affirming the Euphratean Horsemen to have subdued the Eastern Roman Empire with Fire-Guns The last against our making the Aegyptian year to consist only of three hundred and sixty days in Arithmetica Apocalyptica but in Apocalypsis Apocalypseos of three hundred and sixty five with Answers to all three THE first Objection Every day in the forty two months signifying a year makes in the whole twelve hundred seventy seven years at least there being really in every year not three hundred and sixty but three hundred and sixty five days This seems to make the three Times and an Half or forty two months and twelve hundred and sixty days not to be the same Answ That the forty two months are Aegyptian Months and consist of just thirty days apiece is manifest in that thirty times forty two make just twelve hundred and sixty days And these days and those months are the time of the mourning of the Witnesses and of that which all along occasions their mourning viz. the outer Court being trodden down by the Gentiles which is a plain indication that the twelve hundred and sixty days are a note of no more nor less time than the forty two months and that therefore they must be Aegyptian Months And as it is plain that the months are Aegyptian so we must conceive that the years in the three Times and an Half are so many Aegyptian years and an half consisting of Aegyptian Months which therefore make each of them three hundred and sixty days See Rev. Chap. 12. v. 6 14. This is their solid Year consisting of so many months to which they add the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are called the Dies adjectitii which are five which here the Spirit of Prophecy takes no notice of but resolving the forty two Aegyptian months which is three solid Aegyptian Years and an half into just twelve hundred and sixty days shows that no more years than so are to be understood thereby And this not respecting at all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or five adjectitious days in this Compute of the Time of the Medial Visions all which synchronize one with another complies excellently well with that Truth which I have made out viz. That the eventual measure of the Medial Visions is not a Year which has been thought hitherto so to be but a Semi-time in respect of which seventeen years or more is not at all considerable So that there was no need of being so precise as to take the Dies adjectitii into the Reckoning and so to make the whole twelve hundred and seventy seven years at least as you would infer Wherefore though every day in the forty two months stands for a year yet these months being Aegyptian months and consisting of just thirty days apiece and there is the
New Jerusalem with Answers thereto THE first Objection upon Apocalypsis Apocalypseos pag. 4. To be Kings and Priests unto God signifies as much as a Sacerdotal Kingdom as Exod. 9.6 a Kingdom because of the reigning Estate Sacerdotal because of their Priestly Employ and in some places as Apoc. 20.6 because of the unstainedness of their condition as to Externals Now it is acknowledged that there is a Kingdom designed here on Earth for Christ and Christianity and there are a great many places that seem to promise all his faithful Adherents at least his faithful suffering Adherents of all times a share in the glory and felicity of that Kingdom-Estate as if the Martyrs of the Primitive Times and of all Times should have a Recompence for their Sufferings in the New Jerusalem-state of things as Apoc. Chap. 2. v. 26. where you acknowledge that the Ruling the Nations and the Morning-Star are matters Political If these be confined to the successive Intervals of the Church the Sardian and Philadelphian Times suppose what will they signifie in the literal Interpretation And pag. 23. of Apoc. Apocalypseos it is said the bright Morning-Star belongs to the Philadelphian Interval which is at a great distance from the Thyatirian how shall the Martyrs and Confessors in the Thyatirian Interval have any share in the happy Philadelphian state of things Or what will such a promised felicity signifie to their encouragement wherein not they but their Successors only of following times are to have an interest It is needless to mention many other places that appertain to this matter But I could never untye this knot of difficulties in the Apocalypse that is I could never conceive it possible that Christian Sufferers of all Times and Ages should partake of the Jerusalem-state of things nor how the Apocalypse can be interpreted so as not to assert it Which is the more probable because the Kingdom-state which is designed for Christ is a kind of Heavenly Kingdom-state upon Earth Answ The New Jerusalem-state is nothing else but the Triumph of the truly Apostolick Church emerging into Universal Power above their Enemies into undisturbed Peace and an Heavenly Holiness of Conversation here upon Earth Which at last she will obtain and it is an encouragement to the present suffering Martyrs that the cause they suffer for will at last appear so glorious and triumphant here on Earth while they in the mean time are better rewarded in Heaven and it were a bidding them to their loss to have them exchange their Heavenly felicity for this Earthly though gloriously flourishing condition And lastly look but on the Apostolick Church according as the Prophetick Stile represents it as one continued Body from the beginning to the end and all these promises to the Pergamenian and Thyatirian Sufferers are made good to them as being still the same Body of the Church in their Successors Nor is this Heaventy Kingdom of Christ upon Earth otherwise to be understood Heavenly than that the Spirit and Conversation of Christians in the New Jerusalem-state will be truly Holy and Heavenly So that I see no difficulty at all in this Point if we rightly conceive the matter And it will further ease the Reader 's mind if he consider what I have writ Chap. 20. That though the New Jerusalem be a Prophecy of an excellent State of the Church on Earth yet the description of that State is an intended Type also of the State of the Church Triumphant in Heaven Object 2. Upon pag. 22 23. To have power over the Nations seems to signifie That he shall be of Power over Nations or of Regal Dignity in that Kingdom-estate upon Earth which is designed for Christ by his Father Chap. 2.27 And the promise of the Morning-Star confirms such an Interpretation For it is the Star of Empire and the white Raiment promised Chap. 3.5 is an Ensign of Regal Dignity Answ The ingenious Objector seems to mistake in the propriety of the Prophetick Stile which as in the Symbol of a Woman a Man or Beast does not intimate one single Individual but a Body of men and their succession so by the single person He is not meant this or that single Man but the whole successive Body of men that are Overcomers which according to the Prophetick Stile are signified by this single person He Those that stand out through Faith and Patience to the last in those Countries where the Pagano-Christians domineered over them these with their Princes and Rulers will have the Dominion over the Pagano-Christians and will become the beginning or commencement of the great Empire of Christ So far as the Father of our Lord Christ has enlarged his Kingdom in the Sardian Succession so far these Overcomers partake thereof with him And this Sardian State of the Kingdom of Christ is the promised Morning-Star but the Jerusalem state the bright Morning-Star And lastly Though white Raiment may be a Regal Ensign yet it is most safely interpreted of prosperous Success and may answer to that in the next Epistle v. 8. Behold I have set before thee an opened door c. Object 3. Upon pag. 31 c. It is observable touching the Church of Philadelphia that there are many passages that represent her in a state of Tryal She is said to have a little strength and to have kept the word of Christ's Patience she is exhorted to hold fast that which she hath that she lose not the Crown for which she was conflicting she is exhorted to overcome and encouraged to behave her self heroically Now Sir how will this agree with the New Jerusalem-state of the Church Besides it is promised to the Philadelphians as a thing to come Chap. 3.12 But it is more observable that it is promised to the Philadelphians that their Christian Champions shall be Citizens of the New Jerusalem and that Christ will write upon them his new Name which I believe you rightly interpret King of Kings c. This therefore seems to countenance what I said before That all Christ's suffering Adherents shall have a share of the New Jerusalem-felicity here on Earth and have preferments in that Kingdom-Estate Which may seem to be further countenanced from the promise to Laodicea Chap. 3.21 That they shall sit with Christ on his Throne Answ This Objection is grounded on a mistake as if the Philadelphian Interval and New Jerusalem-state did synchronize Whenas the Philadelphian Interval begins sooner and ends sooner than the New Jerusalem-state Wherefore those Exhortations belong to that part of the Philadelphian Interval that goes before the Jerusalem-state Whence their emerging at last into that state is promised to them as a thing to come Now as for their Christian Champions c. as if it were understood of some select Persons this difficulty is grounded upon the old mistake viz. That He signifies a particular person whenas in the Prophetick sense and stile it here signifies the whole Body of the faithful Philadelphians predicting that that
sort of men by their Faith Patience and powerful preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom will at last have so glorious and victorious success that they with their Successours shall bring in the New Jerusalem-state or Millennial Empire of Christ so that all that is predicted of the New Jerusalem shall be fulfilled in them here on Earth while all Christ's suffering Adherents in the mean that are dead enjoy themselves in Heaven As for the Promise to the Laodicean Overcomers it is not the promise of an Earthly Throne but an Heavenly as to be Assistents of Christ coming to judge the People as the Word signifies in the Close of this Interval of the Laodicean Church which Interval may be so denominated as for other reasons so haply by way of Allusion to Ptolemy's Laodicea combusta as I have more than once noted the Conflagration closing this Interval Object 4. Notwithstanding the great Learning which you have employ'd Sir in the Exposition of the seven Churches it seems a somewhat lubricous business But the rest of your Exposition is matter of much greater Certainty But it is no disparagement for any man that is thus assured of the truth and meaning of the Apocalypse as to the main purport of it to acknowledge there is great difficulty in interpreting several particular passages Touching the New Jerusalem I cannot but observe that there are a great many passages in the Apocalypse which seem to argue the time will come when God and the Son of God will hold his Estate and Court here upon Earth Which how strange soever it may seem is not so strange as that the Son of God should be crucified here upon Earth And if this Hypothesis might be thought solid and well grounded all the passages of this Book aforementioned and many more would be sufficiently clear and the description of the New Jerusalem in the two last Chapters would be easily intelligible which I think cannot be well understood without it These places Rev. 21. v. 3 4 5 6 12 13 15. and Chap. 22. v. 3 4 5 6 14 15. sound this way at such a rate that they almost force me whether I will or no to believe some such thing But how far and in what manner these things may be true may be troublesom to conceive Answ This business would not seem so lubricous to the learned Objector if his Reason and Phancy was but once well inured to that Figure of the Prophetick Stile which we call Henopoeia which takes not place only in a Man Woman or Beast made the Symbols of some Society or Body Politick But the Pronoun He which so often occurs in these Epistles to the Churches has also in it this Figure and signifies not a single Person but such a Body or Society of men so or so behaving themselves together with their Successours This successive Body by a Prophetick Henopoeia is represented as one single Person by the Pronoun He He that overcometh This once admitted all difficulties vanish as to the seven Churches And if the Objector did but observe how full of Hylasmus's and Israelismus's the Apocalyptick Stile is he would easily be reconciled to such a sense of these places of the twenty first and twenty second of the Apocalypse as the Expositor has given of them though they bear so hard upon his Phancy for the present as to drive him to expect a personal Reign of Christ upon Earth Consider also here what we intimated above That the Description of the New Jerusalem is so drawn as to be a Type also of the Church Triumphant in Heaven But to proceed We averr moreover That Christ's Personal Reign here on Earth would be infinitely more strange than his Suffering here because the Reasons of this latter are so palpable But I see no reason at all for a Personal Reign of Christ upon Earth whenas the Spirit of Christ within us in that measure and efficacy it will be in those days will serve all intents and purposes that his Personal Reign can be supposed to serve to And this reigning by his Spirit is a greater perfection in his Church than if he should guide them by his personal Presence and Voice here on Earth Inward Regeneration by the operation of the Spirit into the living Image of Christ is a greater Priviledge I say than to be guided by the external Person and Voice of Christ amongst us sounding in our ears As if the thing could be it were better for an Horse to be turned into a perfect man than to be rid by the bravest Heros that is And lastly That Opinion touching all the suffering Adherents to Christ that they should become Citizens of this New Jerusalem on Earth which is conjoined with the Opinion of Christ's personal Reign is not agreeable to Reason in that it brings down the persecuted Saints great Reward in Heaven which Christ promiseth Matt. 5.12 to a lesser reward here on Earth CHAP. XXXIX Two Objections more out of the same Letter The first touching the Palm-bearing Company whether they synchronize with the New Jerusalem The other touching the Intricateness and Obscurity of the Vision of the two Witnesses With Answers to both Objections THE first Objection is upon pag. 67. Mr. Mede's Arguments saith he for the Synchronism of the Palm-bearing Company with the New Jerusalem seems not firm If they were and we could be assured that the Palm-bearing Company were personally Citizens of the New Jerusalem it would argue that the New Jerusalem-state is designed to be premiant to the suffering Christians And indeed it seems to be the main scope of the Apocalypse to predict that Divine state of things But however the Palm-bearing Company are plainly the Triumphant Army of Martyrs and are of great affinity with those Rev. 20.4 saving only that the latter are the Martyrs under Antichrist the former seem to be the Martyrs under Paganism And since these Martyrs are described as personally rewarded with their white Robes c. it would be strange for us to think they are rewarded by Proxy in the prosperity of others in the Jerusalem-state Besides that it is too early of the Apocalypse to have a formal Vision of the New Jerusalem state Answ That the Palm-bearing Company synchronizes in part with the New Jerusalem besides what Mr. Mede alledges the Methodicalness of the Apocalypse may assure us For the prefixing of the 144000 sealed ones with the Residue of that Vision in that Chapter before the seven Trumpets is according to exquisite Method the seven Trumpets being a more distinct and particular Representation of the affairs of the same Time Nor does it follow from the Palm-bearing Company 's being Citizens of the New Jerusalem that those individual Martyrs that suffered either under Paganism or Antichrist that they live in the New Jerusalem here on Earth but by a Prophetick Henopoeia the whole successive Body of the pure Apostolick suffering Church under the Persecution of Antichrist being understood when this one
Evening-Mornings So that this third Collateral Line as it is framed does but unjustly enjoy the fruit of the violence done to the seventieth week which is a sore blemish derived not only upon it but the residue of the Collateral Lines The weighing also of the purity of the Church two hundred and two years before it could be justly pronounced light upon the Balance and rejectaneous has something of harshness in it Wherefore we see there is no solid Reason to leave Mr. Mede's way of computing the space of the pure State of the Church from the proportion of the outer Court to the inner and betake our selves to this though otherwise witty yet lubricous and groundless device of the Balance Seventhly therefore I conceive That the Epocha of the Apostasie of the Church or Reign of the Beast which is the beginning of this fourth Collateral Line is not rightly fixed the grounds thereof thus failing There is some forty four years difference betwixt it and the true Epocha collected by the true Method of the proportion of the outer Court to the inner according to which this fourth Collateral Line or twelve hundred and sixty days expired above thirty years ago Eighthly This fifth Collateral Line thirty which added to the former twelve hundred and sixty days makes Daniel's twelve hundred and ninety days this also is already expired without any such seven Ministerial Voices of the seven unsealed Thunders that any one could discern Which seven Voices of the Thunders are connex with the Thunders themselves And that the Thunders occupy the space of the whole seventh Trumpet I have irrefutably demonstrated in more places than one See the Answer to S. E. the Remarker on Apoc. Chap. 10. Wherefore the Voices of the Thunders being stretched from the beginning to the end of the seventh Trumpet how can they be compressed into the space of 30 years Besides that Calend. pag. 68 69. the seven Ministerial Voices there pitched upon cannot belong to the Collateral Line of thirty after the twelve hundred and sixty For that Song of the 144000 is the description of the Evangelici all along the six Trumpets The Angel Preacher of the Everlasting Gospel respects the fifth and sixth Wo-Trumpets so that his Voice cannot be the second as being not come to the seventh Trumpet And the Voice that declares the Fall of Babylon that it is fallen is also before the seventh Trumpet as being coincident with the Rising of the Witnesses But the Author of the Calendar makes his Collateral Line of thirty years commence with the beginning of the seventh Trumpet and to end before the pouring out of the Vials But the four next Voices as he would have them do plainly fall into the time of the Vials as is sufficiently proved in the Answer to the Remarker on the Apology So that this Conceit of the seven Ministerial Voices antecedent to the seven Vials is as I conceive quite out of doors And now ninthly and lastly His sixth and last Collateral Line which added to Daniel's 1290 days makes his 1335 days which expire with the 2300 Evening-Mornings this last Collateral Line of forty five days especially if the Reign of the Beast were reckoned from the right Epocha seems too short a time for the seven Vials to discharge themselves in For then all those great things which the Vials portend would be accomplished within these forty years or thereabout which to cooler and calmer Spirits must seem a thing incredible His Interpretation of the four last Vials pag. 70 71. is correspondent enough to Mr. Mede and for ought I know credibly true But the three first Vials which he conceives yet to come their fulfilling has been manifestly already Nor is the first Vial a Representation of the loathsomness of the marked Slaves of the Beast but of their dementative Anger and Rage of this those angry Boils are a Symbol so obvious that scarce any Interpreters miss of it and it plainly answers to And the Nations were angry Chap. 11.18 Which passage as is demonstrated in the Answer to the Remarker on the Apology respects the times of the Vials And for the second Vial it is not the Innavigableness of the blood of a dead man for so much blood as to sail upon is a monstrous Phancy hugely out of the way but it is the dead fishes there that are intimated wherein the stress of the Symbol lies And Artemidorus tells us that dead fishes in the Sea signifie disappointment of hope which came to pass to the Pontifician Fishermen after the full settlement of the Reformation in the Kingdoms cut quite off from the Pope and grown as cold as the Cruor of a dead man to her Idolatries and Superstitions And lastly for the third Vial that he interprets Rivers of Aquaeducts of Doctrine rather than of Emissary Agents from the Roman See no man will see Reason who considers what I have wrote in my Alphabet of Iconisms in the Iconism River But however the fulfilling of these three first Vials has been already since the Rising of the Witnesses in the Reformation whenas the Author of the Calendar phansies them yet to come which is no slight evidence against his Hypothesis But now besides all these Allegations against his six Collateral Lines the sixing of the Epocha of his principal Line the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings in the year when Daniel received that Vision viz. in the third year of Belshazzar as if because no more than three years is mentioned of Belshazzar in Scripture he was slain in that very year and then Babylon taken that so the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings might commence from the taking Literal Babylon to the utter destruction of the Mystical Babylon and from Cyrus his Grant for the building the Temple of the Literal Jerusalem to the appearing of the Mystical or New Jerusalem or its descending from Heaven upon the Earth I say his fixing the Epocha thus has no ground from the Text of the Prophecy Dan. 8.13 14. How long shall be the Vision concerning the daily Sacrifice It is answered Vnto two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings then shall the Sanctuary be cleansed Here the Author of the Calendar glosses thus The Vision and not so much the things contained in it is dated hereby the Vision of the Sacrifice taken away shall be two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings not the taking away the Sacrifice c. but the Vision shall extend to two thousand three hundred Prophetick days pag. 12. And to the same sense again pag. 80. he saith It is not said How long shall be the time of the taking away the daily Sacrifice but how long the Vision This Gloss is the main ground of his Epocha of the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings which he fixes from hence in the third year of Belshazzar phansying that the year of the Fall of the Literal Babylon But by Vision most certainly is understood not the Prophetical Exhibition of the things
the Wolf and the Lamb shall feed together is to be understood literally with Answers thereto Six Particulars in order to or compliance with the making the War of the Heros on the white Horse Apoc. 19. Literal only or Carnal With an Answer to the said Particulars IN my Exposition of the Epistle to the Church in Pergamus I interpret the Nicolaitans to be a people that sat loose enough as to the Romish Church but were also unchast and loose of their bodies And that there were such within the Pergamenian Interval which reaches from An. Dom. 324. to An. Dom. 1242. is apparent from History This the Reverend and Learned Dean of Paul's Dr. Stillingfleet has made good to our hands in the Fanaticism of the Roman Church where he tells us that this Nicolaitan Doctrine which afterward proved the very Doctrine of Henry Nicolas the Father of the Family of Love did obtain amongst them at the beginning of the thirteenth Century viz. That every Person of the Holy Trinity had his successive Time of Ruling the World That the Law of the Father continued till Christ's Coming the Law of the Son till their Time and then the Time of the Holy Ghost was to begin In which the use of Sacraments was to cease and all external Administrations c. And they so highly extolled Love that what would have been a sin without it they thought to be none with it as Fornication Adultery c. This is the Primitive Nicolaitism which was again renew'd by H. N. aliàs Henry Nicolas from whence our modern Familists spring as also at first the Quakers who still cast away the Sacraments and make nothing of external Administrations This business is related in Nauclerus and that before An. Dom. 1190. so fully is it within the Pergamenian Interval It may not be amiss to set down his words concerning the latter part of their description Charitatis etiam virtutem sic ampliabant ut id quod aliàs peccatum esset si fieret in Charitate jam illud non esset peccatum unde stupra adulteria caeteras corporis voluptates nomine Charitatis perpetrabant mulieribusque cum quibus peccabant simplicibus quos decipiebant impunitatem promittebant Deum tantummodo bonum justum praedicantes This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Christ says he hates and abhors Apoc. 2.15 And it is a surprizing hit that Henry Nicolas should be so eminent a Reviver of this Nicolaitan Doctrine But I have said enough already to confirm our Exposition of that passage of the Apocalypse I will pass hence to Chap. 8. v. 7 8 c. where the third Part mentioned at least half a score times I interpret to be a Symbol of the Roman Empire and there is very good reason for it from what occurs Chap. 12.4 where the great red Dragon with seven Heads and ten Horns which most certainly denotes the Roman Empire according to all Interpreters is said to have drawn down with his Tail the third part of the Stars of Heaven and to have cast them to the Earth that is to have brought the third part of the Kingdoms of the World under his subjection Which passage is an intended Key to that in the eighth Chapter as the seventeenth Chapter is chiefly to the eleventh and thirteenth In the ninth Chapter v. 8. where the Locusts are said to have hair as the hair of Women I as Mr. Mede before me interpret of the Saracens which are Arabians of whom Pliny writes Nat. Hist lib. 6. cap. 28. N. 30. Arabes mitrati degunt aut intonso crine And the Vision describes the Locusts as having faces of humane shape but that they wear their hair as Women as do the Arabians as being Mitrati that is having Womens Head-tire on For so Mitra signifies Pilea virorum sunt Mitrae foeminarum It was the Head-cover also of the Lydians and Phrygians but accounted less manly Whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a reproachful Title given to the soft and effeminate though the Arabians were not reputed such See Martinius Mr. Mede cites rather the sense than the words of Pliny But whether we read or aut it is plain these Arabians ordered their hair as women which therefore is a fit Character of the Saracens in these Locusts In the eighteenth Chapter v. 23. I content my self in noting that the voice of Bridegroom and Bride being no more heard in Babylon signifies that there shall be no more propagating of their Pseudo-Catholick Religion the end of Marriage being Propagation And this is a true sense and unexceptionable But it might have been fuller if we had noted also that there may be an allusion to that usurped Title of the Pope who calls himself Sponsus Ecclesiae For then the proselyting of Nations and Countries to the Papal Religion and Jurisdiction would look ever like a new Marriage But the Joy of such Marriages will cease after the final Fall of Babylon which is described in this eighteenth Chapter of the Apocalypse See Gabriel Powel in his De Antichristo l. 1. c. 14. In Chapter 22. v. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And there shall be no more curse This I expound of the furious Papal Anathema's or Excommunications to depose Kings and Princes and to involve the Christian World in blood which I do not doubt but is the proper Prophetical meaning of the place and not the Curse of God for Sin which was Diseases Death Briars Thorns the labour and sweat of Tillage and the like That Curse we shall never be delivered from till we come to Heaven And those that phansie such things here on Earth in the New Jerusalem state as in this passage so in all other passages that sound so high they are to remember that the proper fulfilling of them is to be in Heaven though in a figurative sense they will be fulfilled here and that the description of the New Jerusalem on Earth is so framed as to be also Typical of the State of the Church in Heaven as I have more fully declared in Chapter 20. of these Paralipomena But forasmuch as besides this mistake in S. E. I find a sober and judicious Writer W. A. in his Treatise of the State of the Church in the latter Ages of the World to incline to the Opinion that there will be even a Change of Nature in the Time of the New Jerusalem-state of the Church I will a while here divert into what he says Chap. 10. and produce the most material Reasons he hath for the proving that in those days there will be a Change of the World Natural as well as the World Moral as he phraseth it Those places of Scripture that seem to promise plenty of things and increase of People I conceive imply no such Radical Change in the World Natural For merely from the Moral Temperance of men in those Times there will be length of Days and the Propagation of a
away or vanishing from the face of him that sate upon the Throne and that there was found no place for them is only to set out the exceeding great Glory of him that sate upon the Throne that they could neither see Earth nor the Azure Sky their eyes being so filled and taken up with the great resplendency and brightness of that light But the real stress of the Argument if there be any in it is That there is a new Heaven and a new Earth after the Conflagration which accompanies the last Judgment mentioned in the beginning of the ensuing Chapter But from what has been faid to the second Argument it is apparent that it is a mere Lemmatosynechia that is the continuing together of the Visions in the outward Cortex of the Apocalypse as if that were the very order of time in the things they prefigure when it is quite otherwise in the true sense of the Visions This is one part of the artifice of Concealment affected by the Apocalypse of which there are many instances As that Chap. 4.1 where after the Vision of the seven Churches John is bid to come up that he might be shown what things must come to pass 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after these things Which Lemmatosynechia has so imposed upon some otherwise learned and of notable parts that they have joined the beginning of the sealed Book-Prophecy with the ending of the affairs of Laodicea That also seems to be a Lemmatosynechia Chap. 13.14 where the two-horned Beast is said to make an Image to the Beast that had the wound by the Sword and did live as if the ten-horned Beast in the immediately foregoing Vision were meant which is a glib correspondency in the Cortex when the inward sense is otherwise But there is not a more elegant Lemmatosynechia than that Chap. 11.9 where the three days and an half of the Witnesses being dead are immediately placed after the twelve hundred and sixty days of their mournful prophesying when yet the three days and an half are the same time or Synchronal to the twelve hundred and sixty days as I have elsewhere proved by impregnable Arguments I will only add one instance more Chap. 16. v. 18 19. where the City is said to be divided into three parts upon the Earthquake there mentioned whenas that Tripartition of the City was before but it is a very smooth and trim Lemmatosynechia in the Cortex And such a Lemmatosynechia is this in naming a New Heaven and a New Earth immediately after the Conflagration which is a wonderful smooth connexion in the Cortex when yet in truth this New Heaven and New Earth is a Political Heaven and Earth answering to that of Isaiah Chap. 65.17 and created in the beginning of the Millennium This is the promised New Heaven and New Earth mentioned by S. Peter alluding to that of Isaiah wherein dwelleth righteousness whenas the Polity of Babylon was full of persecution injustice and blood Wherefore Alcazar being not aware of this usual Artifice of Concealment intended in the Apocalypse which I call Lemmatosynechia has produced that for a strong Argument which the matter rightly understood has no strength in it at all To his fourth I answer That we are both agreed in this that the 7. and 8. verses of Chap. 21. respect the state of men to come after the Day of Judgment the Lake of fire and the Inheritance of Heaven For I declare in my Exposition That from the second verse to the ninth is a brief description of the affairs of the Church from the second Thunder to the last or to the end of the World to the last Reward of the Godly and Punishment of the Wicked But as after a brief mention of the destruction of Babylon Chap. 16. v. 19. there is a large description of her and her destruction in the two following Chapters 17. and 18. so here after a brief intimation of the emersion of the New Jerusalem into being there is a full and glorious Description thereof from the ninth verse of this 21. Chapter to the sixth of the next And I may here further add that as in the foregoing Chapter v. 9 10. the Conflagration is glanced at in the destruction of Gog and Magog by fire who besieged the holy City but the Judgment of the wicked and fiery Lake or Conflagration more fully prosecuted from v. 11. to the end of the Chapter So here after the brief mentioning of the state of the New Jerusalem in the five first verses it is more fully described from the ninth verse to the end of this Chapter and some part of the next So small force has this fourth Argument to infer that these descriptions of the New Jerusalem belong to the state of the Church in Heaven The fifth Argument makes a pretty show but it is grounded upon a gross mistake as if the twelve thousand furlongs were the side of the Square Area of the New Jerusalem whenas it is a solid Number whose Cubick root multiplied by four gives the same Perimeter in a manner that Ezekiel's four thousand five hundred multiplied into four do give that is eighteen thousand not Reeds but Cubits as both Gaspar Sanctius and Villalpandus conceive them to be both of them learned and industrious Commentators upon Ezekiel By which solid account the seeming force of this fifth Argument quite vanisheth See Mr. Potter's Interpretation of the Number 666. Chap. 5. And the Equality of Perimeters of the Square Area of Ezekiel's and S. John's Cities supposing the solid measure of S. John's City to be twelve thousand furlongs as the Text it self seems to intimate and he measured the City with a Reed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all twelve thousand furlongs and he presently thereupon adding the length breadth and height of it are equal implies they are solid furlongs this Equality I say added to the twelve Gates in each City twelve Tribes the River and the Trees and Fruit is a plain Argument that S. John's City and Ezekiel's are Figures of the same thing and Ezekiel's being of the State of the Church on Earth S. John's must be so also And now for his sixth Argument from I saw no Temple there It consists very well with the state of the Church in those best and most glorious times thereof in the Millennial Reign of Christ which the Cabbalists also call the Reign of the Spirit when God will find in abundance such Worshippers as he seeks for viz. such as shall worship him in Spirit and in Truth And this passage seems inserted on purpose to be a Key to the Jews that will then be converted how to understand Ezekiel's Prophecy of the same state of the Church by the City he describes and makes so much to do with the Temple and Rituals thereof they will by this Note understand that it is an Hylastick Parable
expired So inauspicious an Epocha every way is the 326. year of our Lord for the time of the Witnesses till their Rising CHAP. XLIII Certain odd Glosses on v. 8 v. 10 and v. 11. of the seventeenth Chapter of the Apocalypse Vpon v. 8. That was is not and yet is with an Answer thereto How Dr. More according to his Sentiments disposes of the Arrian Emperours and of Julian the Apostate Vpon v. 10. And there are seven Kings An Answer to the Gloss Vpon v. 11. He is the eighth The Gloss and the Answer thereunto THE Text and Gloss on v. 8. That was is not and yet is The same Empire was before Augustulus was not under the Ostrogothian Kings and was recovered again by Justinian This Exposition does not exclude an Ecclesiastical sense of Rome as Pagan Christian and Re-paganized But it is not so proper to substitute a Body mystical or a Quality instead of a Body Politick as Rome was under the rest of the Heads And so for the Ecclesiastical sense or pure Caesar the time of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must be short indeed viz. confined to some part of Constantine's Reign Nor do I see how Dr. More according to his Sentiments can well dispose of the Arian Emperours and Julian the Apostate Answ I say 1 That the Beast that was is not and yet is is the same that ascends out of the bottomless Pit and whom the Inhabitants of the Earth shall wonder after whose names are not writ in the Book of life Which therefore plainly concerns Religion not the Civil State And besides it is the whole Roman Empire as appears by the Ten Horns of which the Ostrogothian Kings are one in a new disguise 2 We cannot say under the Ostrogothian Kings the Roman Ten-horned Empire was not for it was then as before Augustulus Nor after the Recovery by Justinian that the Empire is not as then and yet is viz. as to Civil Constitution which the Glosser aims at For the Roman Laws and Magistrates were supported by the Ostrogothian Kings as you may see in Carolus Sigonius De Imperio Occidentali lib. 15 16. 3 The true Exposition does not only not exclude the Ecclesiastical but shows that it alone is the right meaning this other being so exceeding weak and vain For can it be said of that Civil Recovery by Justinian that all the Inhabitants of the Earth whose Names were not writ in the Book of life would wonder after it or after that Civil Beast of Justinian's Recovery 4 The Ecclesiastick sense does not put a Quality instead of a Body Politick but shows the Qualifications of the Body Politick and the Head And it is further observable That the Red Dragon quatenus wounded in the Head by the Conversion of Constantine was in the Glosser's sense a Mystical Body that is a Religious Body Paganly Religious and in that sense wounded in his Fight with Michael and in his Head mystically also Constantine turning Christian Who therefore is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a quite different King from the seven Kings that answer to the seven Heads of the Beast 5 And this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his time indeed is short according to the Text. But I deny that it is confined to some time of Constantine's Reign but reaches to the succession of the Head of the Beast that was is not and yet is Which is the Time of the Empire 's Division into ten Kingdoms For they receive their Kingdoms at the same hour with this Beast This is inevitably plain from which there is no subterfuge and is an undeniable Testimony for the Symmetricalness of the Church for about four hundred years after Christ 6 Dr. More according to his Sentiments can dispose very dextrously both of the Arians and of Julian the Apostate For first for Julian the Apostate his time was exceeding short so that after the deadly wound of the Pagan Head by Constantine's Conversion this little short Reign of Julian a Pagan Emperour was but as it were a short Throb or gasp of the mortally wounded Head after which it quite dyed till it was healed by the Apostasie into a kind of Pagano-Christianism 7 And lastly for the Arian Emperours they kept this Head in death sufficiently in that they were zealous Christians not Pagans nor Pagano Christians by worshipping Daemons and Images of those Daemons or Saints And as for that gross Arianism which when it was at grossest worshipped no Object but what they conceived the Maker of Heaven and of Earth it was hufft off the Stage betimes And none of these Arians denied the first Chapter of S. John's Gospel where the Deity of the Logos was expresly signified only their weakness could not reach the full sense of so deep a Mystery as it proved to them And those more refined Arians how near they were to the Truth or how near they might be understood to have come to the Truth and that it might be proved to be rather a frabble of words than a distinct disagreement of senses it were too operose a matter to declare here How much some Fathers have cryed out against the over-much curiosity of Definitions by Councils History will teach us See what is attempted Chap. 40. The Text and Gloss on v. 10. And there are seven Kings This is in effect to say The seven Heads are seven Kings and but seven Kings That as the first Head is the first King so is the seventh Head the seventh King Answ The seven Heads indeed are seven Kings that is the seven Heads of the Beast are so and also but seven Kings And as the first Head is the first King that answers to that first Head of the Beast so is the seventh Head of the Beast the seventh King that answers to the seventh Head of the Beast But there being a time when the Empire was not Idolatrous and consequently not a Beast but having then also a King or Head but not of the Beast the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being a King the seventh King of the Roman Empire though no King or Head of the Beast and numbred expresly in the Text in the seventh place and the succeeding King called the eighth it is manifest there are eight Kings though but seven Heads of the Beast What can be more plain The Text and Gloss upon v. 11. He is the eighth He does not say the eighth King or Sovereign but by reason of the sixth Head reviving he is as it were an eighth King or an eighth Head but not otherwise For there were but seven Heads and seven Kings and that this Beast redivive was not the eighth King and seventh Head as Dr. More saith I have proved before And it is further proved by the following words viz. And is of the seven which was not proper if he was not the seventh Answ You say he does not say the eighth King 1 What does he say then He says five Kings are fallen one King is and another
Sardis and Philadelphia on this side and that side of Synchronous Thyatira But if the New Jerusalem Church should be thrust in here to stop that great gap betwixt Thyatira and Laodicea there would yet be but six Successions and instead of seven there would be eight Churches as I noted above So hugely incongruous is this present Position And though he has show'd a pretty inventive Wit in his managing his Interpretation of the Intervals of the Churches yet he seems to sit somewhat uneasily in the matter raising such scruples and objections as none but my Hypothesis viz. That it is the Apostolick Church that Christ directs his Epistles to can free us from Which Apostolick Churches are Ephesus Smyrna Sardis Philadelphia Laodicea all five sui juris having no Apostatized Church over them But Pergamus and Thyatira is the Apostolick Church the former in the greatest part of its Succession having the Apostatized Church over them the latter in its whole Succession But I cannot insist on these things I will only lightly touch upon them pag. 59. I say then that Sardis is more severely reprehended than Pergamus and Thyatira because they were the better sort of people who could notwithstanding their being under the Jurisdiction of the Apostatized Church keep themselves unpolluted therefrom and remain Apostolick whenas in Sardis though they be all in the external Apostolick or free from the Apostasie yet the World being got into the Church it is no wonder they are so faulty and so sharply rebuked And for that other difficulty that Philadelphia a much inferiour Church in appearance should be so far honoured above Sardis I say that Philadelphia is not inferiour no not so much as in appearance when it does appear at all which is not till the seventh Vial under the Conduct of that illustrious Heros on the white Horse who has a Sword coming out of his mouth This is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apoc. 3.8 rendred in our English a little strength but signifies a little Army but of great strength through the Conduct of that Divine Heros Apoc. 19.14 whom these Troops follow on white Horses cloathed in fine Linen white and clean true Israelites in whom there is no guile and five of whom shall chase an hundred and an hundred shall put ten thousand to flight Levit. 26.8 But this Church of Philadelphia is so far from being inferiour to Sardis that it is absolutely the best and most glorious Church that ever will be on Earth the only unspotted and also unpersecuted Church according to the description thereof of all the seven And there being no more than seven Successions and the Church under the New Jerusalem-state being still the Church it is demonstratively evident that that New Jerusalem Church is part and the better part by far of the Succession of Philadelphia This is thus plain in reason but it being said also to Philadelphia Chap. 3. to this victorious Army of that Divine Heros On him that overcometh I will write the Name of the City of my God New Jerusalem which cometh down out of Heaven from my God it cannot be blindness so much as wilfulness if any when he has considered it can still deny that the Time of the New Jerusalem is comprized in or at least incident into the Philadelphian Succession And pag. 60. That Smyrna should be commended above Sardis there is the like reason as in the first Case and besides their sore sufferings deserved Christ's Encomiums as well as the Crown of life And pag. 61. That scruple why Thyatira should be charged with the fault of suffering the false Prophetess Jezebel when she knew not how to help it is easily taken away according to my Interpretation who make it a Prediction that this is the Interval wherein the Apostolical Church would have the opportunity to cast out Jezebel and therefore they are blamed that it is not yet done But this Charge is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 small businesses it being no great fault that they knew not that the opportunity was so near and a great virtue in them in that in the mean time they would rather suffer than defile themselves with Papal Pollutions And as for Christ's Title in his Epistle to the Church of Sardis pag. 63. He that has the seven Spirits of God and the seven Stars Here in his right hand is omitted by a mere Apocalyptical Ellipsis and for no diminution to this newly begun Succession of his restored Church But the seven Spirits and seven Stars do fully imply as serious a purpose of the Restauration of his Church as he had in the first propagation thereof This Sardis therefore being as it were the Ephesus of the Restauration it is no wonder that Christ resumes his Title which he uses in his Epistle to Ephesus and that to the full if not more in the seven Spirits his designs of Providence being more great and glorious in his Restauration of his Church than they proved after about three hundred and sixty years since the first propagation the Church degenerating apace into the Kingdom of Antichrist till this Sardian Epocha of the Restauration which State though less perfect than it should be yet it is to pass into the Philadelphian state and to rise into a blessed Millennial Empire of Christ as the other degenerated into the Kingdom of Antichrist So little of diminution is there in the matter And being this Sardian Epocha is the solemn beginning of the Restauration of the Church why should Thyatira a Succession antecedent thereto be made to run parallel to that of Sardis Or Philadelphia which in the Prophecy plainly succeeds Sardis be drawn back to run parallel also thereto But I have out-run my design already and have touched upon more things than I intended I will now pass to what I am most of all concerned in the ingenious Author's Postscript or Additional View CHAP. XLVII Strictures on the Calendarist 's Postscript which consists of Objections against his Calendar with his Answers thereto The Reply to his Answer to the fourth Objection His Answer to the fifth Objection and to the first Argument from Villalpandus his Measures of the Inner and Outer Court of the Temple with the Reply thereto His Answer to the second Argument with the Reply His Answer to the seventh and main Objection with the Reply thereto Three Objections raised against his own Answer to the main Objection with his Answers which are replied unto The scope of the Author's diligence in exhibiting a true and faithful Interpretation of the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses and his Confidence that the ingenious Calendarist will easily be convinced by what has been writ that his Calendar stands but upon infirm grounds THough I be more concerned to consider what is in the Postscript of the Calendar than the Calendar it self that Postscript containing Objections which the witty Inventor of the Calendar has raised against it out of my Writings and framed Answers thereto
sound Off-spring this with Peacefulness will cause Populousness And for Plenty which depends upon the Clouds and timely and seasonable Showres they have ever been and will be at the Command of the invisible Powers in the Air. So that that will be no insititious Change in the Natural World but the effects of free Actions in those invisible Agents But that indeed of Isaiah Chap. 65.20 if not fitly interpreted may seem to argue a Change of things more than what depends upon what is Free and Moral For after God had promised he would create a new Heaven and a new Earth v. 17. he adds a little afterwards That there shall be no more thence an Infant of days nor an Old man that has not filled his days For the Child shall dye an hundred years old but the Sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed Here the Child dying an hundred years old to the heedless may import that they shall be more longaevous then than the Patriarchs before the Floud an Hundred being to a Thousand as Seven the Age of a Child to Seventy which would imply a strange Change in the Natural World indeed But to give W. A. his due he has pitched upon the most likely sense of this Verse viz. That there shall no Child ordinarily dye by any untimely death nor an Old man that has not lived so long as in the course of Nature he might well reach That the space from Childhood to old Age shall ordinarily be an hundred years c. But I deny that this argues any more than what depends upon a Divine Morality or real Regeneration in their Parents who will transmit a sound and wholesom constitution to their Posterity Which if any one of them do not improve to the like Vertue and Piety and yet by the Benefit of their Constitution live an hundred years content mainly with the things of the Animal life such a Sinner as this notwithstanding his Longaevity is accursed both because he for the present deprives himself of the enjoyments of the Divine life and must expect also but a bad Reception when he dyes into the other State The next Text of moment which he urges is Rom. 8.21 The Creature it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God Which he would have to argue that there will be a Change of the World Natural in the blessed Millennium as well as in the World Moral he supposing that Creature there signifies the whole sublunary Creation at least And the Apostle v. 22. says For we know that the whole Creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now Where the whole Creation is the same with the Creature it self not Christians quatenus Christians but the very Creature or Creature it self groaneth and is in pain But then it is to be understood as Dr. Hammond also will have it of the whole Humane Creature which he makes out rationally and judiciously And what Creatures but humane or Men can expect to be delivered into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God This therefore does not respect the Jerusalem-state of the Church here on Earth but the State of the Resurrection For then only will this deliverance from the bondage of Corruption be and the attainment of the freedom of the Sons of God which is the Title of the Angels For then in our incorruptible glorified bodies we shall become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal to the Angels And this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is mentioned v. 23. which we groan after and wait for viz. the redemption of our bodies that they may be glorified and made Angelical such as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have the Angels or Sons of God as is declared in the Answer to S. E. Something like this Text is that alledged out of the Acts Chap. 3.21 where S. Peter speaking of our blessed Saviour saith Whom the Heaven must receive until the Times of Restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy Prophets since the world began W. A. to give him his due manages this Text ingeniously enough to his present purpose upon supposition that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were to be rendred as our English Translation renders it Restitution implying thereby Restauration or Renovation But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a completed Circuit or Period properly relating to Astronomical Revolutions It signifies also the effecting of a thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore signifies either the Periodical Times that is to say the Times brought to a Period or the Times of effecting of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of his holy Prophets Which easie sense implies no such Change in the World Natural in the Millennium as our Author would deduce therefrom And this is not my sense only on the Text but Grotius his also or something in him near akin to it As for that Isai 66.22 For as the Heavens and Earth which I will make shall remain before me saith the Lord so shall your seed and your name remain This Heaven and Earth as that Chap. 65.17 is a Political Heaven and Earth that Divine Polity which will constitute the New Jerusalem-state of the Church in which the Jews or Israelites will have a portion as long as that Polity stands which is to the end of all But I have made so much haste that I have omitted a prime Text alledged by this ingenious Author Isai Chap. 65. The Wolf and the Lamb shall feed together and the Lion shall eat straw like the Bullock and dust shall be the Serpents meat they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain saith the Lord. And a fuller description to the same purpose there is Chap. 11. which he produces to prove that there will be a Change in the World Natural in the Millennium as well as in the Moral World he urging the literal sense of these places for these three Reasons following First Because the Wolf and Lamb the Lion and Bullock are supposed to retain their Original proper Natures still For if not then the Wolf would become a Lamb and the Lion a Bullock and then in the mystical sense which he opposes it would only be that the Lamb and the Lamb would feed together and the Bullock eat straw like other Bullocks The second Reason is That we cannot well imagine for what other purpose that saying The Lion shall eat straw like an Ox should be added but only to give some account how those Creatures shall live and how they shall be fed when they shall cease to prey upon other living Creatures Which implies that the sense is literal The third is Because it is further added That dust shall be the Serpent's meat which further confirms the foregoing Reason as if the Prophet did persist in instructing us how these Creatures when their noxious properties are taken away shall feed and sustain themselves Nor
the just and honourable Revenues of it to shrink into the poor arbitrarious Pittances of either the appointment of the State or uncertain benevolence of the fickle People That Scene of things I say cannot but harden their hearts against listening to never so just a Reformation for the further enlargement of Christ's Kingdom and hazard the very Being of the Reformed Churches Whenas this way I wish may obtain would silence Atheism and Fanaticism at once and be the readiest means of bringing on those happy Times of the Church which God has promised and predicted by the mouth of his holy Prophets But this is the gross iniquity and madness of the Sectaries that they think so goodly and choicely every one of their own Party that they think it worth the while to hazard the safety of Reformed Christendom to support any how and keep up for the present the small freaks and conceits of their own self-chosen Way and Sect. Than which nothing can be conceived more enormous and outragious amongst the dealings of the Sons of men to bring into imminent danger so solemn and sacrosanct a Constitution as the Reformation for the Dreams and Opinions of private Spirits which no sober Christian would hazard for small indifferent dispensable things though they had the stamp of publick allowance upon them which it is and ought to be in the hand of the Sovereign Power to alter for the common good And verily this Fanatical distemper is so heinous and abominable that they that are on the right side ought to take heed how in the least shew they imitate it For a man may be factiously affected in a right Cause and bear an over-proportionated zeal for things of smaller concern out of an over-heightned Animosity against the present Sects to the hazarding the quiet settlement of the whole And if any one be so affected I appeal to the sober if he may not justly be reputed to play the Sectarian himself though it be against the Sectaries No such Cure for our Breaches and Wounds as the most profound Humility in all Parties and unfeigned mutual Love and Charity Of which Vertues or Graces whosoever is found destitute let him call himself of whatever denomination Christian as loud as he please be has really in him not one spark of saving Christianity This or to this sense at least and most what in the very same words I wrote and published about two or three years ago to fence Peoples minds from Popery and reclaim them from Schism and perswade them to adhere to the ancient Primitive Church according to which our English Church is reformed and whose Principles she professes and hath ever practised as to the point of the Primitive Christians their not resisting the Sovereign Power though with undaunted Courage they professed the Truth of Christianity against the Vanities and Idolatries of Paganism and now for its present seasonableness and usefulness I have here transcribed it if the sincere vehemence wherewith I writ it may but have a suitable effect for the perswading the Sectaries to leave off their Schism and reconcile themselves to the Church of England Whereby besides the Purity and Decency of Divine Worship and soundness in the Faith Loyalty and Monarchy may be secured and they become good Christians and good Subjects at once Thus much I thought fit to write by way of Preface to intimate the more particular Usefulness of this present Treatise Other things are taken notice of in the Introduction in which then I was not aware that I should have so much to do with those affected Rationalists who pretend that Prophecies especially those of Daniel and the Apocalypse are utterly unintelligible In which conceit though they may applaud themselves as more special Admirers of dry Reason yet I cannot see how their Opinion can well comport with serious Piety and a sound Mind For in their thus oddly adhering to their imagined Reason in this thing they point-blank contradict the Scripture which declares Dan. 12. That the wicked indeed shall not understand but the wise shall understand And that is but a sorry Triumph of Reason that is pretended to be over true Wisdom And then for the Apocalypse let us but consider what Pomp and Applause the Communication of the Visions of the Book-Prophecy to our Saviour from his Father is set out by Apoc. Chap. V. and then judge of the unreasonableness of this Imputation of Unintelligibleness And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the Throne a Book written within and on the back-side sealed with seven Seals And I saw a strong Angel proclaiming with a loud voice Who is worthy to open the Book and to loose the Seals thereof And no man in Heaven nor in Earth nor under the Earth was able to open the Book neither to look thereon And I wept much because no man was found worthy to open and to read the Book neither to look thereon But at last the slain Lamb v. 7. came and took the Book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the Throne and thereupon the four Beasts and four and twenty Elders fall down before the Lamb and to their Harps chant out this new Song v. 9. Thou art worthy to take the Book and open the Seals thereof for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God c. And immediately upon this v. 11. there is heard the voice of many Angels about the Throne even of ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice Worthy is the Lamb that was slain c. Let us therefore in the fear of God consider not only how ridiculous but how blasphemous a thing it is to think that this pompous Introduction than which nothing can be contrived more highly solemn and pompous should be to a Book of Prophecies that are utterly unintelligible As if the incarnate Wisdom did not only sport with the Children of men but delude and mock them What can be conceived more horrid and impious Wherefore without doubt the Visions of the Book-Prophecy are clearly intelligible And for the Epistolar Prophecy the Epistles to the seven Churches that they are also clearly intelligible may appear from the Introductory Vision there also For Christ in his Pontifical Habit there dictates them And therefore they are as so many Oracles given out from the Urim and Thummim of our High-Priest Christ Jesus which the Seventy interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is clear declaration and certain Truth in counterdistinction to the obscure and ambiguous Answers of the Heathen Oracles and the Uncertainty of their Event And this is an Argument for the Intelligibleness and Truth of the whole Book of the Apocalypse it being all the Revelation of Jesus Christ the true High-Priest with his Urim and Thummim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 clear Declaration to them that understand the Prophetick Stile Synchronism and History and such as will be accompanied with Truth and certainty of Event
them naturally of it self But the special intention of prefixing it here is to signifie in this magnificent manner that the Sealed Book-Prophecy is the second part of the Revelation of the Man Jesus Christ which God gave him For it is plain that the Man Christ Jesus signified by the Lamb that was slain took the Book out of the right hand of him that sate upon the Throne Chap. 5.7 which is the Eternal Godhead and opened the Seals in order Chap. 6. and so communicated the Visions of each Seal to John a thing which no Creature in Heaven nor Earth nor under the Earth was found worthy or able to do besides him This therefore is the special and particular defign of prefixing this Vision of the Spiritual Kingdom of the God of Israel before the Sealed Book Prophecy which yet is so attempered as I said before that the parties represented in it seem to exhibit a Dramatical show that hath a prefigurative signification of the Happiness of the Millennial state of the Church For it is the priviledge of the Angelical Kingdom that they can exhibit Prophetical Shows or Plays when we Mortals can only exhibit Historical ones Wherefore though the more special end of this Vision is that which has been already declared and such in a manner as of that in Isaiah and Ezekiel yet the thing so naturally bearing it nothing hinders but that it may have a kind of general Prefigurativeness of the Joy and Glory of Christ's Kingdom in the Millennium And now for the third Introductory Vision prefixt before the Opened Book-Prophecy That the special intent thereof is the same with the two former Introductory Visions viz. to intimate that this third Prophecy is the Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him may appear from hence In that Christ is understood by this Angel Which Title or Representation cannot be thought too mean for him when he is represented and called a Lamb before Besides in Isaiah Chap. 9. he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in Malachy Chap. 3. Angelus Foederis And Christ that led the Children of Israel out of Aegypt bears the Title of an Angel sometimes and under this Title and Garb he has appeared unto some of the Patriarchs Wherefore there can be no scruple but for all that he is called an Angel he may be Christ And that he is really Christ may appear from comparing Dan. 12.7 with Apoc. 10 5 6. where both these Angels do the same thing But he in Daniel is Christ as has been proved from his Aaronical Habit which no Angel can appear in not sustaining the person of Christ Besides it is said that his Face was as the Sun which is like that Chap. 1.16 And his countenance was as the Sun shining in its strength which is said there of Christ And his feet like Pillars of fire answer to his feet like fine Brass burning in a Furnace and Pillars will answer to the strength of Brass And lastly the Rainbow over his head is an infallible token taken out of Ezekiel's Vision and that of S. John here again of the glory of the God of Israel viz. Christ according as S. John says He came to his own and his own received him not Furthermore there being the unsealed or opened Book in his Hand which the Lamb received and opened it is the most easie and natural to conceive that the Book remained with the same party now transformed into another shape Add also that his speech doth bewray him that is his roaring like a Lion that he is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah as he is called Chap. 5.5 These congruities must needs perswade any one that is not over-tough or stiff that this Angel is really Christ And then it naturally follows that John receiving this opened Book of this Angel and by eating thereof being enabled to prophesie before many Peoples Nations Tongues and Kings that this Opened Book-Prophecy is also the Revelation of Jesus Christ which he received of God for he took the Book from him Chap. 5. and here signifies the things therein contained to his Servant John in the Visions following Thus we see that this Introductory Vision to the Opened Book-Prophecy serves the same end that the other two Introductory Visions do and is therefore of the same nature with them not a Vision that sets out any particular affairs though it may have some more general Presignificances of the state of things in the times it may thus presignifie as the Introductory Vision to the Sealed Book-Prophecy has touching the Millennium And that roaring of the Angel like a Lion to supply the place of the seventh Trumpet and the seven Thunders uttering their voices the mean time whereby they naturally divide the seventh Trumpet into seven Intervals as the seven Trumpets do the seventh Seal this Roaring and Thundering has a presignificancy in general of the Calamities and Miseries that will befal that Party that this roaring and thundering is against during the space of the seventh Trumpet So that this Introductory Vision is a kind of Transitionary Introduction to the Opened Book-Prophecy and dispatches the Sealed Book-Prophecy with that general Account of the Roaring of that Lion-like Angel and of the seven Thunders during that Roaring which fill up the space of the seventh Trumpet and consequently of the Sealed Book-Prophecy that so there might be an orderly proceeding to the Opened Book-Prophecy the Sealed Book-Prophecy reaching to the end of the World as is confirmed by the Oath of the Angel as I promised to make out which I do thus This roaring of the mighty Angel is put in the place of the sounding of the seventh Trumpet and therefore must occupy the same space of time with it or be Synchronal thereto And that it supplies the place of the sounding of the seventh Trumpet is manifest from that it immediately follows the sixth and also is distinguished into seven Thunders as the seventh Seal is into seven Trumpets This may assure any one that is not blinded with prejudice that the roaring of this mighty Angel supplies the place of the sounding of the seventh Trumpet and consequently that it is Synchronal thereto But now forasmuch as Chap. 10.6 7. that Oath of the Angel in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is maimed sense or non-sense if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there does not signifie as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the true translation of this Oath is this That there shall be no more time saving in the days of the Voice of the seventh Angel when he shall sound and the Mystery of God be finished This is certainly the true and genuine sense of the Oath of the Angel according to the Original Text as is more fully proved in the Answer to the Remarks But it is plain from this Oath of the Angel that the sounding of the seventh Trumpet reaches to the end of the World Therefore the roaring of the Angel
Rising of the Witnesses For all the Vials are after their Rising And if any one will be so freakish as notwithstanding to pitch upon some one of the Vials to be a Prediction of the late Reformation I demand what Event before the Reformation is the fulfilling of that illustrious Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses for the Event that answers to it must be so notorious that it cannot be passed by in History It necessarily therefore follows that the aforesaid Reformation only can be the Event that answers to the Vision of the partial Fall of Babylon and Rising of the Witnesses and consequently be that which the Song of Moses and the Lamb gives thanks for Which was the thing to be demonstrated CHAP. XXIV Whether the Witnesses wear sackcloth for any time after their being risen Whether the Vial-Angels received their Vials before or after the Song of Moses and the Lamb sung by the Victors over the Beast What is the adequate Visum of the sixth Trumpet What the full meaning of the Lamb 's being found worthy to open the Seals of the Seven-sealed Book Whether a year in the Apocalypse any where signifies a Year of years Whether there be any mystical meaning in noting Prophetick Time sometimes by Days sometimes by Months IT is demonstrated in the foregoing Chapter with Evidence plainly Mathematical that the Reformation begun by Luther is the Rising of the Witnesses but there being some ingenious and diligent Studiers of the Apocalypse who though they are convinced that the abovesaid Reformation is the fulfilling of the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses yet think their wearing of sackcloth may be extended to a longer time I shall endeavour here to clear that Point And in order thereto we are first to consider that the wearing of sackcloth is not literally to be expounded but is only a Symbol of a mean and squalid condition and of a grieved and pensive heart which are things inconsistent with the Witnesses being risen from the death they were in viz. a Political Death whose Resurrection implies the contrary prosperity and respect according to their different degrees of Quality Wherefore the nature of the thing it self may teach us that the risen Witnesses in their being risen did ipso facto put off their sackcloth and were clad with garments of Joy Besides the Text does assure us thereof Chap. 11. v. 15 16 17. For what were those Acclamations in Heaven there and the four and twenty Elders Doxology but an intimation what a time of Joy and Triumph it would be on Earth upon the Rising of the Witnesses and could they themselves then be in such a squalid and forlorn condition as to wear sackcloth Again Chap. 15. the Song of Moses and the Lamb is said to be sung by them that had got the Victory over the Beast and over his Image and over his Mark and over the Number of his Name Which Victors over the Beast most assuredly are the very Witnesses against whom he warred this Song being Synchronal to the Acclamations in Heaven and Doxology of the Elders What then shall we think that these Triumphant Witnesses while they had the Harps of God in their hands and sung this joyful Epinikion to them wore sackcloth on their backs what can be more incongruous But I will yet add a third place Chap. 7. there is mention of the 144000 sealed ones which synchronize and indeed are the same with the 144000 Chap. 14. which are the Souldiers of the Lamb the Saints or Witnesses and who are warred against by the Beast during the time of the first six Trumpets For though in the Cortex of the Prophecy this Sealing seems to be done at once immediately before the first Trumpet sounds yet undoubtedly it is a continued thing all along the time of the first six Trumpets which is for about twelve hundred years for such a space the sealed Souldiers of the Lamb as conflicting with the Beast are conceived to continue but at the end of the sixth Trumpet the Victory is obtained Babylon falls viz. the tenth part thereof and the Witnesses rise and as I noted before sing the Song of Moses and the Lamb and as that is the sign of their Victory there so their being cloathed in white Robes and having Palms in their hands Chap. 7.9 denotes the same here And v. 14. in that they are said to be those that came out of great Tribulation it implies their fresh emergency out of the calamities they suffered under the entire Reign and Tyranny of the Beast After which Victory of the Saints or Witnesses you see they forthwith appear cloathed in white Robes which is a plain Argument they had put off their sackcloth which is the thing I aimed at Nor can the Argument be eluded by pretending that these here cloathed in white Robes with Palms in their hands are those mentioned Chap. 6. to whom white Robes are given viz. the Primitive Martyrs who obtain a blessed Resurrection at this time for suffering under the Dragon as those do at the beginning of the Millennium for suffering under the Beast the description also of their condition implying it to be their assumption into Heaven not a state on Earth For to this I answer besides the absurdity of making more Resurrections than two the correspondency of the 144000 sealed ones to the 144000 with the Lamb on Mount Sion shows plainly that instating of these Palm-bearing Victors in their white Robes into that State here described is not till after the sixth Trumpet at the Rising of the Witnesses There begins the joyful condition of the Palm-bearers and reaches to the end of all including the New Jerusalem-state and blessed Millennium Which New Jerusalem-state being so described as to be also a fit Type of the Church Triumphant in Heaven it is very congruous that this Vision also may be so framed as to be Typical of that state likewise though in the mean time it is a Prophecy of the state of the Church on Earth But that those in white Robes Chap. 6. v. 11. answers so handsomly to the Palm-bearing Victors in white Robes Chap. 7.9 this is but a pleasant Lemmatosynechia in the Cortex which occurs oft and which entraps many heedless Readers of the Apocalypse before they be aware Wherefore I think it is a plain case that these Palm-bearing Victors in white Robes are the same with the Victors over the Beast Chap. 15. and they with the Risen Witnesses Chap. 11. who being upon their Victory and fresh emergency out of great tribulation cloathed in white Robes did not continue any time after their Conquest cloathed in Sackcloth Something akin to this protracting the time of the Witnesses wearing sackcloth beyond their Rising is that opinion of some who although they acknowledge the Reformation to be the Rising of the Witnesses yet will not have the fulfilling of the Vision of their Rising completed therein but expect a further Rising of them signified as they
I shall first set down the Opinion of those Papers orderly one after another and then give my own Judgment 1. I affirm says the Author of those Papers that by opening this Book of Prophecies is meant explaining it and making it intelligible to those that read it For the truth of this Proposition I appeal to the constant and unquestionable use of that Phrase of opening a sealed Prophecy where-ever it is used throughout the Scripture there being no one instance that I know of to the contrary But where sealing signifies concealing the sense of a Mystery and opening signifies explaining it there are many As Dan. 9.24 Seal up the Vision and 12.4 Seal the Book even to the time of the end Where also the Phrase is made parallel to shutting up the words of it viz. that they might not be understood till the time of the end Also Isai 29.11 mention is made of a sealed Book viz. a Book which no man could understand Also that Opening signifies Explaining is manifest from Luke 24 32. where Christ is said to have opened the Scriptures And Acts 17.3 S. Paul is said to have opened and alledged viz. out of the Prophecies of the Scripture that Christ must needs have suffered Whence it cannot be doubted as to me it seems but that by opening the sealed Book or Mystery is meant explaining it Answ This makes a pretty confident show and may impose upon the heedless But the wary will easily perceive that unless he could prove that the word Opening simply in it self signified Explaining and sealing hiding the sense of a Writing by mystical Aenigms the Argument proves nothing That obvious Phrase of opening a Bible and opening a Text shows plainly the word Opening has its determinate sense from the thing it is spoken of To open the Bible is to unclaspe it and so open the Book that we may come at the Text. To open the Text is to explain the sense of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to explain Mysteries or to open Mysteries sometimes but Luke 4.17 it signifies only to open the Book where the Mysteries lye viz. the Book of Esay the Prophet which past into the hand of Christ he is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to open the Book and to find the place c. It is one thing therefore to open a sealed Book where the Prophecy is and another to open a sealed Prophecy The Book may be first opened to come at the Prophecy Which is plainly the case here of the seven-sealed Book But to make the opening the Book and loosing the Seals to be the explaining the Prophecies of this Book Chap. 5.2 is a plain contradiction to the very Text Chap. 6. where the opening the first six Seals is the exhibiting to John so many particular Prophetical Visions of things to come not the explaining those Visions And so the opening the seventh Seal is the exhibiting the Visions of the seven Trumpets c. Chap. 8. and not the explaining of them So that I wonder it should ever against so palpable an intimation to the contrary enter into any mans mind that the opening the Book and loosing the Seals should be understood of explaining the Prophecies and not of a power of coming at the Prophecies themselves set out in Aenigmatical Visions and to be afterwards explained by the Servants of Christ and the meaning of the Aenigmata discovered But to make this latter to be understood as a Completion of this Vision of the opening of the Seals is a plain repugnancy to the Visions Interpretation of it self The Completion of this part of the Vision of opening the Seals is our having these Apocalyptick Visions in our hands and under our eyes no other Completion is to be dreamt of 2. Touching the second Question the abovesaid Papers declare thus That by him that sitteth on the Throne with the Book in his right hand is not meant God himself but rather some Man of highest Authority sitting in the Throne of God and representing him there A reverend and learned Doctor phansies him to be the Bishop of Jerusalem the Author of the Papers to be some earthly King Answ But this to me seems point-blank against the Text nor has Grotius himself the confidence to interpret it of any other than of God Almighty by reason of that Hymn I suppose or Doxology v. 8. Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come This Hymn is sung to him that sits on the Throne the Eternal who is said to live for ever and ever v. 9. Now as this is but one single visionary Hymn so no man can have any just ground to imagine any more than one visionary Person on the Throne there is not the least show or shadow in the Vision of any more Whence comparing this Hymn with that single Person it must of necessity be God Almighty himself no earthly Potentate Representative of Him Nor is the Hymn fit to be sung to a Representative though of God sitting on the Throne For if to Him he is the Object of this Doxology and the Text says expresly it is to him that sits on the Throne And therefore it must be to God himself that sits on the Throne unless we will make this a visionary Scene of palpable Idolatry which I take to be a gross absurdity Besides that as for earthly Potentates Kings or Monarchs they are most lively described in the twenty four crowned Elders like so many Millennial Davids playing on their Harps before God The Rain-bow also plainly intimates it as in Ezekiel to be the Representation of the glory of the God of Israel So that I find no congruity or probability in this Opinion 3. Now for the third Question the words of the Paper are these I affirm saith he that the fourth and fifth Chapters of the Revelation are a description of a Church or a Company of faithful people on Earth adding This is so evident that I know of no man that denies it This therefore he takes for granted without any further proof Answ Here I refer the Reader to what I have wrote in the twenty first Chapter of this Book touching this Introductory Vision to the sealed Book-Prophecy Where though it be an Introductory Vision and a Symbol of the spiritual Kingdom of God in Heaven yet I acknowledge that it is in some things so attemperated that it is significative also of the State of the Church on Earth as that suppose of the Millennium And that the Church on Earth is some way and in some things concerned in this Vision is plainly intimated Chap. 5. v. 10. And hast made us Kings and Priests and we shall reign on the Earth But this will not serve the end of these Papers 4. And lastly for the fourth Question By the Lamb slain according to those Papers some good King or other some mystical Christ as Mr. Mede calls Constantine upon Rev. 12.5 is to be understood who after his
having suffered like a Lamb was to be again advanced to the Throne of God Some such sense quoth he as this we shall be obliged to put upon it forasmuch as it exceeds all belief to think that when the Book aforesaid shall be to be opened God himself in Person shall appear amongst us sitting on a Throne with a Book in his right hand and that after Proclamation made for one to open it in the Ears of all the World his Son Jesus shall appear coming to his Father and take it out of his hand c. Or which is equally absurd the four Beasts and twenty four Elders shall be taken up into Heaven to see the same things acted there Whence it is concluded That the sealed Book is not to be opened by the Lamb himself in person but by some mortal man or other whom he shall imploy in this service Answ This is argued handsomly enough were it not upon a double false Foundation The first is That opening the Seals is explaining the Prophecies which I have already shown to be a mistake The other is That this Vision is an absolute Vision not an Introductory Vision to the Book-Prophecy which point I have cleared Chap. 21. nor need I here repeat things And in the third and last place The individual Person of Christ is so exquisitely described that no other but himself can be meant For besides that he is said to be slain and to have redeemed us with his Blood and to have made us Kings and Priests he is stiled the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and the Root of David How is it possible that any one but Christ himself can be meant by this description This is no description of a mystical Christ but of the very Person of Christ himself I am thus brief in answering this last Question because there will be an abundant supplement made in the answering the Confutatory part of his Papers where he endeavours to entangle my Hypothesis with as many difficulties as he can Wherefore I will in the next Chapter give a summary Account of my sense of this Vision and then answer to his Allegations against it CHAP. XXXIV A summary Account of the fore-mentioned Vision and the sense of several Particulars acknowledged by the Expositor Ten Objections to entangle the abovesaid Account and the sense of the Particulars Distinct Answers to the said ten Objections COncerning this Introductory Vision comprized in the fourth and fifth Chapter of the Apocalypse I have spoke so fully in the twenty first Chapter of this Treatise that I may well be allowed to content my self only with a summary Account of that Vision here which is this This Vision impressed on the raptured Imagination of S. John is a Theatrick Representation of the Glory of the God of Israel in his Angelical or spiritual Kingdom in Heaven which besides that common use of all the Introductory Visions which is to signifie that the succeeding Prophecy as this Book-Prophecy in counterdistinction to the Epistolar Prophecy is the Revelation of Jesus Christ obtained of God and communicated to his Servant John it is framed in such a Dramatical way as both to be prefigurative of several things appertaining to the glorious and joyful state of the blessed Millennium and also significative what a dear regard God has to his Son Christ even according to his humane Nature and what an inestimable value is to be put upon this Book-Prophecy in which is comprehended both the sealed Book-Prophecy and the opened Book-Prophecy This is a brief summary Account of this Vision In which we admit that the four Beasts and twenty four-Elders though they represent the spiritual or Angelical Kingdom in Heaven are also prefigurative of Believers some time to be on Earth We likewise further assert That he that sits on the Throne is God Almighty himself and no other That the slain Lamb is no other than Christ in his own Person That the seven-sealed Book is a Symbol of the secret Counsel and Foreknowledge of God touching the affairs or state of his Church and of the World as much as concerns his Church from the beginning thereof to the last Judgment And God his giving this Book to Christ signifies his communicating these his Secrets to him And the Lamb or Christ his opening the Seals in the sight of John denotes his imparting this Scene of future things to his Servant John though no man yet understood the meaning of those Typical Prefigurations All this for my part I owne whatever other Interpreters do And now let us see what the ingenious Objector can say to entangle so solid an Hypothesis 1. I demand only says he these few things First Where was ever any such loud Proclamation made at God's delivering this Book to his Son as is spoken of Rev. 5.2 2. Secondly How unlikely a thing is it that the things therein contained being only in the Mind of God as is supposed there should be any such Proclamation made at all to find out one that was worthy to know them For it may seem to be too much trifling in a weighty matter 3. Thirdly But if any such Proclamation were ever made who-ever heard it For it must needs be supposed that the Proclamation was made in the ears of a great many 4. Fourthly And where was Christ when this Proclamation was made that it is said No man in Heaven in Earth or under the Earth was found able to open the Book or look on it 5. Fifthly But if the meaning be that none but Christ was found able how comes S. John to weep for that Who could he expect or desire should do it besides 6. Sixthly How comes an Elder to know of Christ's taking the Book out of his Father's hand sooner than S. John himself 7. Seventhly What Elder was that that gave the first notice to S. John that Christ had prevailed to do it 8. Eighthly Who are they all that are set so near the Throne of God and of Christ as these Beasts and Elders are said to have been when God communicated the knowledge of these things to his Son and who are said upon that occasion to have sung a new Song with Harps c. to this effect Thou art worthy to take the Book and to open the seven Seals thereof for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God c. and hast made us Kings and Priests unto God and we shall reign upon the Earth And there is the like reason of the Angelical Address that follows c. 9. Ninthly Interpreters interpreting this Angelical Address of Angels literally so called as they also interpret the strong Angel v. 2. contradict themselves and all Interpreters in other places who expound Angels to be meant of men 10. Tenthly and lastly But the greatest and most manifest Omission of all saith he is that whereas in the next place it is said That every Creature in Heaven in Earth and under the Earth c. I John heard
yet it abated it so far as that the Woman was safe from being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thereby Nay it was in a manner all drunk up by the Earth the Clayish Earth or Ecclesiastick Councils by that time Theodosius came to be Emperour which was a little before the Woman entred into the Wilderness And the Church had such Anchorage in this first Council of Nice that such Arianism Erat quando non erat as was properly condemned by that Council could never hold up its head again But the eternal Generation of the Son was acknowledged begotten of the Father before all Worlds as the Nicene Creed has it and Arius expressing himself more compliantly with this Creed was re-admitted into the Church by the favour of Constantine who you may be sure would never have re-admitted him unless he had come to some such tolerable compliance And the whole Controversie after that seems only to have been Whether the Son should be deemed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to his Father which being difficult to decide there were those that would have the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being too hard for the people nor mentioned in Scripture to be left out of the Creed giving that deference to the Nicene decision as not to pronounce it false but over-curious So that there was no peril of the Churches drowning in this Floud when the Nicene Council was so nearly observed even by those that seemed to oppose it And for the Homoüsians and Homoeüsians there wanted nothing but a dextrous Critick to shew how both their terms are consistent one with another if you will but exclude Sabellianism out of the account For making the Father and the Son two real Hypostases though indiscerpible or indivisible one from another they are not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it may aim at a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one and the same Individuous Substance but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of like substance because according to Aristotle himself there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Similitude betwixt Substances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Identity of Quality whether Essential or Accidental is a sure ground of Similitude And the Son being the eternal Image of his Father how can they but be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless you run into Sabellianism and will have nothing to do with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Substance and acknowledge a Trinity only of words qualifications or second Notions So that we see what a manifest Influence the Council of Nice had to keep the Woman from being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perishing in the Draconick floud And that not only from the benefit of this one Council which was purely Orthodox but even from those Councils which were with a general and promiscuous appellation called Arian though not such Arians as were first condemned by the Nicene Council So that though these Arian Councils were less Orthodox than they should be yet one part of the Christian Populacy adhering to them and the other part to the Orthodox Councils the Woman was so well buoyed up by the help of these Councils as young Swimmers are with Bladdders or Bulrushes that she was safe from sinking again into Paganism or giving religious Worship to any but who was really Creator of the Heavens and of the Earth Jer. 10.11 though that was the malicious project of the Dragon in spuing out that floud of Heterodoxy and Contention viz to extinguish Christianity and make men turn Pagans Thus therefore was the Woman helped by that first Oecumenical and other Councils But how Julian's Death can be so properly said to be an help to her in this case I must confess I see not For most certainly the floud out of the Dragons mouth signifies Heresie or Heterodoxy and Contention The natural Remedy to which evil are well regulated Councils that the minds of the Vulgar who are neither studied Theologers nor Philosophers may be setled and quieted by the grave authoritative decision of their Superiours in things hugely expedient and necessary in Religion and Divine Worship and such was the knowledge of the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the Godhead Father Son and Holy Ghost Which Faith was assured to the Christian people by these Ecclesiastick Councils and Paganism kept out at arms length and the Christian Religion secured But as for the death of Julian in the Persian War how little service it did may appear in that within a year or two after Valens coming to the Imperial Crown proved an hot Persecutor of the Orthodox Object 3. Upon pag. 143. a The Text of the dead dying in the Lord seems to refer to such times when Martyrdom was most frequent b And p. 146. though Christ's Harvest may signifie the Conversion of Nations and People yet the Angels Vintage seems rather to signifie execution of Judgments because that is the usual Employ of Angels but those things I cannot so well judge of till I have better studied the whole Apocalypse One thing Sir I will a little discourse of which concerns the latter part thereof It is an Antichristian Polity that is to be destroy'd pretendedly or after a sort Religious Now it concerns us to consider after what manner such religious Polities are destroy'd according to the usual Method of Providence The Judaical Polity was very like the Roman c Now their religious Polity was destroy'd by the destruction of their Temple City Priesthood and the like Wherefore Interpreters have applied that Prophecy Gen. 49.10 of the Scepter 's departing from Judah to the destruction of the Jewish State by the destruction of their City and Temple d Cardinal Perron considers the City-Church of Rome as Central to the whole diffusive Church of Rome e It seems by the language of the Apocalypse that Providence designs the destruction of that Material City of Rome and its inhabiting Sacerdotal Polity both together and not one alone f Which if it were destroy'd there could be no such thing in rerum natura as a Church of Rome or Roman Communion no more than the Jewish Ecclesiastick State could exist when their City and Sacerdotal inhabiting Polity was destroy'd g In Rev. 17. v. ult it is the City of Rome that is spoken of for that City then reigned over the Kings of the Earth After the mention of this City immediately follows that Cry Rev. 18.2 Babylon the great is fallen and that other monitory Voice v. 4. Come out of her my people c. After which follows a large and pompous description of her destruction h These things bear hard Sir towards that sense of the Prophecy that the ruine of that Material City is intended as well as of the Sacerdotal Polity that inhabits it You see Sir I have done what I can to deserve the name of a Literalist but in a great Mundane Polity that is to be destroy'd and Cardinal Pallavicino pleads that such it ought to be Answ a The Text of the dead
Religion and make Laws and Orders concerning it so far as consists with the just Liberties of truly conscientious men nor are repugnant to the written Law of God whether in Scripture or in Humane Souls This is so consistent with Christianity that I do not doubt but the Holy City in the Millennium will be built by a Council truly Holy and truly Oecumenical Arg. 2. This Imperial Council confessedly added to the Creed Answ What the Council of Nice concluded concerning the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the Godhead was no addition to the Creed or Canonical Scripture but only an Explication made for the quieting of the Church and burying that Floud of Contention wherewith the Dragon would have overwhelmed the Church And therefore no Pride Fraud nor Covetousness being underneath but a sincere study of preserving the Church in Peace and of exhibiting such a Form of Faith as was least obnoxious to the Cavils of the Heathen as if the Christians worshipped more Gods than one or any thing that was not God we have no reason to question but Christ assisted and directed that Council in their determinations according to his promise Arg. 3. That this Council has been of greatest Authority and most dangerous to be opposed Answ I do not see how this derogates any thing from the worthiness of the Council so that it should be made the Epocha of the time of the mournful Witnesses till their Rising Certainly it is as dangerous to oppose the Apostles Creed and yet I think no man will deem it a fit Epocha for the time of the mournful Witnesses Arg. 4. The Council of Nice set the first Horn on the Ecclesiastick Beast the other not by full Authority till Anno 380. or rather 451. A Beast may be a Beast without one Horn or with none but he cannot have an Horn and be no Beast Answ The Patriarchate of Rome and that other of Constantinople that they be the two Horns of the two-horned Beast Apoc. 13. I easily admit But so soon as they were two Summities or Preeminences Ecclesiastical that they were necessarily ipso facto two Horns in that worse sense that I deny For neither embodying into a Polity or having Superiorities and Preeminences make Beasts and Horns but only Idolatry and Cruelty But the degeneracy of the Church into Idolatry was a pretty while after the Nicene Council It commenced with the Beast that was is not and yet is And he commenced with the breaking of the Empire into several Kingdoms which was after the Nicene Council and the first Constantinopolitan also Arg. 5. The Dragon stood before the Woman that was ready to be delivered to devour the Child as soon as it was born Chap. 12.4 The Child was born in the Conversion of Constantine Therefore the Re-paganizing of the Church must be presently after and so was the flight of the Woman into the Wilderness Answ The Dragon stood ready to devour the Child so soon as it was born but no Text says he did devour it so soon as it was born but quite contrary that it was caught up to the Throne of God and possessed the Imperial Crown and the Woman also escaped by her flight into the Wilderness An Attempt does not at all infer an effect I understand no force at all in this Argument Arg. 6. This gives a good account of the universal Woe Chap. 12.12 which seems to come in strangely after those words of Triumph preceding For the Devils Pagan Worship must quickly have come to an end by the Conversion of Constantine if he could not in that short time have turned off Constantine from the Faith or Re-paganized the Christians And the greatness of his wrath shows he was likely to make quick dispatch Answ I answer 1 That that Wo is not universal Earth and Sea not comprehending all the parts of a Political World There are Heavens besides that are bid to rejoice at this defeat by the Conversion of Constantine The vulgar people are Earth and Sea and amongst them the Devil was resolved to bestir himself 2 The short time he had to turn himself in is in reference to the keeping up his old Draconick Religion He must either do it before the Woman go into the Wilderness or else never And therefore that floud of Contention was to turn off the Populacy from Christianity and make them adhere to the old Pagan Religion But for Re-paganizing the Empire become Christian his time was not short for that he carrying on and perfecting that project for many hundred years 3 And lastly The greatness of his wrath only shows the greatness of his straits not the quickness of his success in those designs of either upholding the old Paganism or introducing a new one In the former whereof he is quite defeated and in perfecting the latter his progress was but slow when once begun nor begun till about four hundred years after Christ when the Empire begun to be broken into many Kingdoms Arg. 7. In this way we need not go to the uncertain Conjectures of proportion betwixt the inner and outer Court from Villalpandus or arbitrarily fix on such an Epocha as will best suit with our own Opinions For the state and times of the Church before and after Constantine are signally distinguished of themselves with reference to the Altar Chap. 11.1 as the Symbol of Martyrdom Answ I say 1 That the proportion of the inner and outer Court of the Temple namely the Area's of them in Villalpandus are not uncertain And it is the Area's of them by a Metonymia Adjuncti that are conceived to be measured The square Area of the whole Temple in the largest sense is conceived to be cast into nine square Areolae of equal bigness Two of which are the Area's of the inner Court the rest of the outer Whence the inner to the outer is as two to seven And it is Ezekiel's Temple questionless that the Apocalypse alludes to and none else As the description of the Trees and the River Apoc. 22. is from thence And the thing is so phrased according to the Artifice of the Apocalyptick Stile that both the proportion of the Time of the Non-Apostasie and Apostasie and also the Non-Apostate and Apostate Condition of the Church is insinuated For his being bid to measure the inner Court shows the Symmetricalness of that State of the Church but the rejecting the outer Court from being measured intimateth its Incommensurableness or Asymmetry to the Measure But the naming the forty two months it was to be trodden down gives a third Term whereby we may gather the time the Church was not yet trodden down by the Gentiles For as the outer Court is to the inner so is forty two months time to the Time sought for which is twelve months Thus As 7 to 2 so 42 to 12. The time therefore of the Non-Apostate Church is one entire Time or two Semi-times 2 And this plainly hinders us from seeking such an
And so respects the state of the other life And lastly the promise to the Church in Pergamus after the Epiphonema it is plain it is not of a visible and Political nature but of things invisible viz. to eat of the hidden Manna and to receive a white Stone and a new Name therein written which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it This is no Political or visible State but spiritual and invisible So that the Induction is full and firm touching the Promises after the Epiphonema so far as they go And these immediately following the Epiphonema being of an invisible and spiritual nature it is a fair hint that those that immediately precede should be of a visible nature and Political and that as well in the rest of the Epistles as the three first But we shall make it good in every one of them Now therefore for that Threatning to the Church in Ephesus I will remove thy Candlestick out of its place All Interpreters agree that it concerns the visible State of the Church as it is manifest that Candlestick signifies the Church And it is as easie and natural an Interpretation of to be removed out of its place to be moved from the state and condition it was in namely of peace and rest to that of trouble and persecution Which Commination was made good in the very next Interval The Church in Smyrna being exercised with no less than ten Persecutions And so that promise to the Church in Smyrna that precedes the Epiphonema I will give thee the Crown of life Forasmuch as it corresponds so well with the Crown that is given to the Rider of the white Horse under the first Seal which is the Imperial Crown and this promise was made good in the very next Interval the Pergamenian when Constantine turned Christian and seeing it would imply a needless Tautology if it were understood of an Heavenly Crown that being promised after the Epiphonema in the promise of partaking of the first Resurrection or not being hurt by the second Death which intimates the same this may assure any unprejudiced Reader that the promise of the Crown of Life here placed before the Epiphonema signifies Politically As in the Epistle to the Church in Thyatira the promise before the Epiphonema is most evidently Political viz. Power over the Nations to rule them with a rod of iron And the Morning-star in the Prophetick Stile signifies also Political Sovereignty And in the promises to the Church in Philadelphia before the Epiphonema they are all along Political and visible As that of the Synagogue of Satan worshipping before her feet The Caution also that no man take her Crown that Political Sovereignty intended for her And her being a Pillar in the Temple of God c. intimates a permanent visible State of that Church and the Name of the City of my God the New Jerusalem is a most manifest indication of a Political sense indeed Wherefore it being so evident in these four Ephesus Smyrna Thyatira and Philadelphia that the Threatning and Promises are of a nature Political and visible that precede the Epiphonema if the Threatning or Promises in the other three will bear this sense we are in all reason to conclude that such a sense belongs unto them Wherefore that Threatning to the Church in Pergamus I will come unto thee quickly according to that most constant tenour of the sense before the Epiphonema must fignifie some visible and external dealing with those in the Church of Pergamus here blamed and threatned severely but conjoined with a Commination also against the Enemies of the True Church or against the False one the Baalamites The fighting against whom with the Sword of his mouth which is the Word of God convincingly preached is the attacquing and fetching off whole Nations by the preaching of the Word which is that Sword of the Spirit from the Baalamitish Church to the pure Faith of Christ which accordingly came to pass in the next Interval In which this fighting with the Sword of his mouth continued so much in earnest that in the close it cut off whole Kingdoms from the Idolatrous Church of Rome So well is the Political sense of these Threatnings verified by the Event See my Exposition on Chap. 2. v. 16. And now for the Promises to those few Names in Sardis of being cloathed in white raiment That that Phrase signifies prosperous success in affairs in the Prophetick Stile is a thing undoubted and so he that overcometh the not blotting out his Name out of the Book of Life is the like indication of the continuance and increase of those few Names or pure and unspotted Christians till they emerge into the Name of the Philadelphian Church nay of the New Jerusalem it self not extinct though disguised at the last under the Name of Laodicea which lasteth even to the very Conflagration And this I think is a sufficient completion of this Promise of not being blotted out of the Book of Life in such a sense as the Imperial Crown promised to the Church in Smyrna is called the Crown of Life signifying their security from the Persecutions of the red Dragon and here the prosperity and security of the Church whose seed were those few Names in Sardis from all their Enemies even to the end of the World Gog and Magog being not able to take the holy City Such shall be the success of those few Names in Sardis for which they are also in a more special manner recommended to God by Christ and to the Ministry of his holy Angels And from whom but these can the Philadelphian Church and New Jerusalem spring So easie and natural is the application of those Promises made to these few Names in Sardis to an external and Political sense Whence we may be sure that that is the sense here as well as in other such like Promises in the other Epistles before the Epiphonema And now lastly For the Promise to him that overcomes in the Church of Laodicea viz. That he shall sit down with Christ in his Throne c. That this Promise is of a nature external and Political or hugely akin to it is plain from hence that the performance thereof will be at that general visible and indeed most illustrious Assizes when there will be the Appearance of all the dead before the Tribunal of Christ and the Saints as Co-assessours with Christ shall in their Thrones judge the lapsed Angels So that though I have argued from the above-mentioned Hypothesis as then seeming but an Hypothesis yet the obvious Applicability thereof to the explaining these Epistles and the now distinct proof that it is a true Hypothesis or a real Truth shows that it is a safe Topick to argue from Which was the thing aimed at CHAP. XXXVIII Four Objections taken out of a Letter of a learned and ingenious Friend touching the Kingdom of Christ on Earth as if all his suffering Adherents should be rewarded in that Kingdom in the