in Woods or in Holes of Rocks and were accused of committing there execrable Crimes and Murders and of being guilty of Conspiracies against the Government and of Uncleannesses and incestuous Converses as doth appear by the Apologies of Tertullian and other Writers of that time And whereas it is said that the Dragon was cast out of Heaven unto the Earth and that there was no place found any more for him in Heaven nor for his Angels this was verified by the conversion of Rome and her Emperors because Paganism being then destroyed both in Rome and through the whole Empire and the Devil being neither any more Worshipped under the name of Mars nor his Angels which are they that were his persecuting Emissaries respected and dreaded as they had been before there was no place found any more for him in heaven ` For in Rome he had no more a Temple where he was worshipped nor were there throughout the whole Roman Empire any more Pagans who did adore him so that he is thenceforth accounted of as fallen from Heaven to Earth according to the Prediction of the Son of God Luc. 10. 18. I beheld Satan as lightning fall from Heaven And forasmuch as St. John farther says I heard a loud voice saying in heaven now is come salvation and the Kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ for the Accuser of our Brethren is cast down This is a description of the joy that was among believers when they saw Iesus Christ victorious and triumphant over the Dragon the subversion of Idols the down fall of paganism and the Church come out of Caves Woods and the Holes of Rocks and to assemble openly in the very Temples where the Dragon had been worshipped and there to worship the true God Creator and Redeemer So that if it be asked who those Angels of the Dragon are that fought for him I answer that they are the Philosophers the Orators the Priests of the Idols Gods and Magistrates who made use of all sort of Tricks Frauds Outrages of blind Zeal Violence Fines Banishments Imprisonments and Executions As upon the other hand Michaels Angels are the Pastors and Teachers who made use of no other Weapons nor Defence but that of the Sword of the Word of God of Faith of a holy Life and of Patience As it is said v. 11. that they overcame the Dragon by the Blood of the Lamb and by the word of their Testimony and they loved not their lives unto the death XI ILLUSTRATION Of the Flight of the Woman REV. CHAP. 12. v. 14. THis Flight of the Woman had been mentioned v. 6. where it is said that after the Man child was caught up unto God and to his Throne the Woman fled into the Wilderness where she hath a place prepared of God that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore Days But it appeareth by the 14 verse that this was spoken there by way of Anticipation and that the Flight of the Woman fell out after the fall of the Dragon that is after the destruction of Heathenism and the conversion of the Emperors Which gives us to understand that the Birth of Atichristianism followed soon after the deliverance from the Persecutions of the Pagan Emperors For ever since the Church decayed in her Purity the prosperity which She enjoyed under the Christian Emperors having suddenly and insensibly corrupted her And Platina tells us that a voice was then heard Hodie venenum funditur in Ecclesiam i. e. Poison is now poured forth upon the Church Nevertheless this Flight of the Church did not lye in a change of Place but in a change of her external State. In a word it was an Eclipse rather than a proper Flight a Darkness rather than a Retreat and discovered it in the pride Covetousness Luxury and Dissoluteness of the Churches Guides and in the Doctrines Worship and Ceremonies which She borrowed from the Pagans The Place which God had prepared for her was a little Corner of that Temple which is spoken of Rev. 11. 1. when the outward Court was trodden under foot by the Gentiles that is by those who had adopted and brought in Human Traditions and Heathenish Rites and Ceremonies into the Christian Religion The Two Wings given unto the Woman to forward her Flight and to render it the more expeditious and safe do denote the same thing that the measuring of the Temple doth in the eleventh chap. For he speaketh here of the same persons to wit the Church and of the same Time namely that which succeeded soon after the End of the Churches Persecution by the Heathen Emperors and of the same Design which is the Preservation of Believers against the Calamities threatned by the Trumpets The Wilderness into which She fled Intimateth unto us the Churches Obscurity Poverty and Distress of which there were different degrees For at some seasons the Church was not so much as visible no more than the seven thousand of the ten Tribes were under Ahab and Iesabel that were unknown to the Prophet Elias She fled into the Wilderness with the Wings of an Eagle as the Church of Israel is said to have been carried upon Eagles Wings Exod. 19. 4 which both shews the speediness and the safety of her Flight and that She should remain and be entertained within the Bounds of the Roman Empire And as the Eagle's being the Arms of the Roman Empire putteth this out of all doubt so the Two Wings of the Eagle do denote the Empire of the East and that of the West where the Church of God hath been kept hidden and had been fed during the time of her Poverty and great Distress And She hath been Fed not with the unsavoury and poisonous Food of Human Traditions and Ceremonies or Doctrines drawn from the Pagan Religion but with the sound and wholsom Food of the Word of God. Nor can She be fed with any other Nourishment so that this is the same thing with that which is said in the 11. chap. v. 2 3. viz. that while the Holy City should be trodden under foot by the Gentiles the Lord should cause his two Witnesses to prophesie a thousand two hundred and threescore dayes cloathed in Sack-cloth For this Prophecy of the two Witnesses is nothing else save the Bread and Food of the Church which he speaketh of here From which it necessarily followeth that this Flight of the Woman into the Wilderness is of the same Date with the treading down of the City by the Gentiles which is mentioned chap. 11. v. 2. The Time that the Church was to be nourished in the Wilderness is expressed by Time Times and half a Time. Which amounts to the 1260. dayes of the sixth verse Nor can this be gainsaid in that no man can deny but that the Flight spoken of v. 6 is the same with the Flight that is discoursed of v. 14. Now we shall see elsewhere what is meant both by the 1260. Dayes and
Council the Colledg of Cardinals for her Castles Convents for her Armies Monks for her Governors of Provinces Bishops and Arch-Bishops for her Ambassadors Nuucio's and Legat's for her Merchants Priests for her Merchandises Dispensations and for her Revenues Annates and Benefices So that it was with good reason that Gregorius Leâ—i begun his pleasant History of Pope Sixtus the fifth after this manner That the Popedom is the most considerable Monarchy that hath been established from the Creation of the World to this day and that no Princes whether Idolatrous or Christians have reigned more absolutely than the Roman Bishops do at whose Feet the greatest Potentates have laid down their Scepters and Crowns So that it may be said this sodering together of Temporal and Spiritual power this mingling of things Secular and Religious this conjunction of the Cross with the Sword this Union of Body and Soul and in brief this Authority over Earth and Heaven which meet and center in the Popes have raised and established a Soveraignty which almost all the People and Princes of the World do reverence Withal the Church of Rome saith I am no Widow in that She boasts of having a visible Head and spouse which is the Pope And She say's I shall see no sorrow for pretending to be the only Spouse of the Son of God how can she miscarry Or how should She be so forsaken as to be able to fall seeing it is to her alone that Jesus Christ hath made that promise the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against my Church Matth. 16. 18. XV. ILLUSTRATION Of Babylon's making all Nations Drunk with the Wine of her Fornication and of her being Drunk with the Blood of Saints REV. CHAP. 14. v. 8. THese two Actions of Babylon charactarise and mark out the Roman Church Seeing it is Idolatry that is spoken of which is Spiritual Adultery and dissolveth Gods Covenant as Adultery doth the Covenant of Marriage Now the Roman Church is guilty of too gross Idolatry to be any ways able to justify her self She worshippeth not only the Holy Virgin in giving her the Titles of the Gate of Paradise the Queen of Heaven and the Fountain of Grace but in advancing her above Jesus Christ through begging of her in one of their prayers that she would jure matris imperare i. e. use the authority of a Mother in Commanding her Son. Nor doth she only Adore Images according to the Decree of the second Council of Nice which is confirmed by the Council of Trent but she also Adores the Sacrament which Jesus Christ instituted to be a memorial of his death and which therefore must be something else than Christ himself Nor can she according to her own Doctrine have any assurance either divine or human that the Bread is the Body of Christ forasmuch as she cannot be assured of the Intention of the Priest upon which the whole Consecration doth depend To which may be added her Worshipping the Cross and that with the highest kind of worship called Latria having to this purpose set apart and assigned Good Friday The Doctrine of the Roman Church that leads men to Idolatry may be justly compared to Wine and not to water and to Wine of Wrath i. e. furious Wine because they who drink it become intoxicated and deprived of their senses So that they not only furiously pursue the Objects of their Superstition as so many mad men whom none can hinder or withdraw from it but they are transported with hatred rage against all those who do not approve their false and abominable devotion And it is worth our observing what the difference is between true Doctrine and false Wholsome and true Doctrine is usually compared to Water because it rendreth such as embrace it meek gentle patient under injuries ready to teach those who are otherwise minded with mildness and filled rather with Pity and Compassion towards them than transported with hatred But in reference to the effects of false Doctrine all is otherwise For it maketh such as entertain it violent cruel quarrelsom outragious ready to assault and fall upon those that contradict them and who refuse to follow their example And therefore it is resembled to Wine and to Wine of wrath i. e. heady Wine that inflameth and distracteth men and in a word rendreth them that are possessed with it persecutors to the outmost Nor can the Church of Rome deny but that she doth after this manner persecute all those whom she calls Hereticks and for this only reason because they will not own her to be the Empress of the world and the Mother and Mistriss of Faith and acknowledg her Bishop to be the Vicar of Jesus Christ and the Center of Christian Unity The Croisado's against the Valdenses and Albigenses of whose success Bellarmin triumpheth to that degree as to say that in one only Croisado there were a hundred thousand killed the Massacres committed in England France and the Low Countries in the forego'ing Age those perpetrated in Poland the Valleys of Piedmont and in Ireland within these forty or fifty years I say all these do make it but too evidently appear that the Church of Rome is this Woman whom St. John saw drunk with the Blood of Saints Rev. 17. 6. The Holy Scripture putteth this honor upon all those that follow sound Doctrine and of whose Faith the Gospel is the only Rule as to give them the glorious Title of Saints Nor can it be gain-said but that Rome is drunk with the Blood of Saints forasmuch as all the barbarous Croisado's against the Albigenses and all the Butcheries perpetrated upon Protestants have been for no other reason but for their making the Gospel the alone Rule of their Faith. Neither were they persecuted and destroyed but because of their disclaiming Human Traditions which are the mischievous Fountain of all Errors XVI ILLUSTRATION Of the Lamb on Mount Sion and with him the 144000. having the Fathers Name written in their Foreheads REV. CHAP. XIV v. 1. HERE we have a Description of the State of the True Church and that during the time in which Babylon was drunk with the Blood of the Martyrs For whereas one might have questioned whether the Church was not wholly lost seeing all the world not only wondred after the Beast but that they who refused to receive his mark and to worship his Image were killed therefore the Holy Spirit represents a Vision to St. John in which he might clearly see that the Church did subsist in despight both of the Victories of the Beast of the extent of his Empire and of the Violence of his Persecutions I looked saith St. John and lo a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion and with him 144000. having his Fathers Name written in their Foreheads and I heard a voice from Heaven as the voice of many Waters and as the voice of a great Thunder And I heard the voice of Harpers harping with their Harps and they sung as it were
that is not the way by which the Reformed Religion planteth it self in the hearts of men That is a method only sutable to the Popish Religion and to the Mahometan But the meaning is that they shall no more dare to write or to speak in favour of Popery against the Reformation that their Societies shall be put down and that they shall banish themselves out of the Realm upon their not finding it to be their interest to continue all which will be a death unto them But we may take the words of the Text litterally and without a Figure Seeing there shall be killed seven thousand names of men that is there shall be no more of that kind of Doctors who are distinguished by their Societies and Fraternities no more Monks no more Jesuites and it may be no more Arch-Bishops no more Abbots and no more Cardinals in the Kingdom The 2 d Event marked in the Prophecy is that the remnant shall be affrighted by the resurrection and ascention of the Witnesses i. e. by seeing the reestablishment of the Reformed Churches and shall give glory to God. Which questionless denoteth unto us the conversion of all those people who belong to France For there is nothing by which God is more eminently glorified than by the conversion of men And that expression of their giving glory to the God of Heaven deserveth to be remarked Why is it not said they shall give Glory to God why to the God of Heaven This beyond all contradiction strikes at them who put themselues in the place of God. Every one knoweth the Station which the Pope and the Roman Church hold in all parts of the Papal Kingdom They make a God of the Pope and of the Church both in ascribing to them the glorious Attribute of being Infallible which appertaineth to none but to the Deity and in making the Authority of the Church the Foundation of the Faith of Christians But this is a perishable Divinity a God of the Earth a false God from which men shall turn to the God of Heaven the living and true God whose Word shall then be the alone Foundation of Faith. 'T is well known how they have made the great Louis a God through their compelling Protestants to change their Religion for this only reason because it was the Kings Will to have it so But affairs will alter and all France shall give Glory to the God of Heaven They shall give to Cesar the things that are Cesar's but not the things which belong to God. Yea Cesar himself shall give glory to the God of Heaven If what we have said in reference to the Resurrection of the two Witnesses and of that which is to ensue thereupon be no more than a Conjecture as we will give it no other Title yet it may be affirmed that it is a conjecture accompanied with great probability and that there is some Foundation for it For if we dare not say that St. John foretold the Event which is actually come to pass we may say that such a thing is fallen out which may be called both the death of the two Witnesses and their lying without being put into Graves Seeing what we have seen befall the Reformed in France does exactly answer to the Terms of the prediction And if the death of the Witnesses be what we have explained it then it cannot be denied but that all which we have said in reference to their Resurrection is a conjecture that hath a Foundation and a probability As to the Time when we are to see their Resurrection there is no doubt but that we are to reckon from the period at which their death fell out And it may be said with great appearance of truth that the Edict of Fontain bleau which repealed that of Nantes that was the Foundation of the Liberty of the Reformed was the fatal stroke which gave the Witnesses their death For the Edict of Fontain bleau declareth that of Nantes to be now useless seeing there remain but few Protestants to be converted to the Catholick Religion and they hope these will be soon reduced as others have been Forasmuch then as the Edict of Fontain bleau was registred towards the end of October 1685. and that it speaks of the extinction of the Reformed Religion and of the Protestants which was that foretold by St. John under the death of the two Witnesses as a thing done and that what remained of them were not to be reckoned upon we may then very probably say that upon counting the three years and a half from the forementioned October the Witnesses shall again rise and the Reformed shall be re-established XXV ILLUSTRATION Of the Seventh Trumpet The Arkopened in Heaven The Kingdoms of this world become the Lords REV. CHAP. 11. V. 14. The second Wo is past and behold the third Wo cometh quickly V. 15. And the seventh Angel sounded and there were great voices in Heaven saying the Kingdoms of this World are become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign for ever and ever V. 16. And the four and twenty Elders which sate before God on their Seats fell upon their faces and worshipped God saying V. 17. We give thee thanks O Lord God Almighty which art and wast and art to come because thou hast taken to thee thy great power and hast reigned V. 18. And the Nations were angry and thy wrath is come and the time of the dead that they should be judged and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy Servants the Prophets and to the Saints and them that fear thy Name small and great and shouldest destroy them which destroy the Earth V. 19. And the Temple of God was opened in Heaven and there was seen in his Temple the Ark of his Testament and there were lightnings and voices and thundring and an Earthquake and great hail ALtho this be the seventh Trumpet yet it can no way's be the last Judgment that is spoken of here as it might seem to be at the first view For the pouring out of the seven Vials is to be followed with the destruction of Babylon and that is to be followed with the conversion of all Nations and with the Reign of a 1000. years After which shall come the War of God and Magog And all these things being to go before the Judgment of the last day it is not possible that that should be the subject of this seventh Trumpet under which the seven Vials are to be poured out Nor do the 24. Elders say that the time of Judging the quick and the dead was come but they only speak of the Dead which sheweth that is not the Judgment of the last day that is spoken of where the Living shall be judged as well as the Dead And withall 't is here said that the Kingdoms of this world are to become the Kingdoms of Jesus Christ which admirably agrees to the Millennian Reign when all Nations shall be converted but no
can be no other save that of the Reign of the 1000 years Nor is there any doubt but that this Ierusalem which St. John describes is the very same with that whereof the Prophet Ezekiel hath given a description together with that of the Temple and that there are very many things in that description which cannot be perfectly understood till after the conversion of the Iews A NEW SYSTEME OF THE APOCALYPSE OR An Explanation of all the Visions Of the REVELATION of St. JOHN The SECOND Part. I. ILLUSTRATION Of the Throne the 24. Elders the Sea of Glass and the 4 living Creatures REV. CHAP. 4. THe most difficult part would be yet to do if the ten last Chapters of the Revelation were not as I have supposed an explanation of the Visions contained in the eleven first So that we must have recourse to the Explications given in the first part of this work if we would clearly see into the meaning of the Visions that remain to be explained in the second v. 2. Behold I saw a Throne set in heaven and one sate on the Throne v. 3. And he that sat was to look upon like a Iasper and a Sardine stone and there was a Rainbow about the throne This is a lofty description of the Majesty of God. And his not being named is an advancement of his Glory For God said to Manoah Iudg chap. 13. v. 18. why askest thou after my name seeing it is secret or wonderful The Iasper Stone represents the unchangeablness and eternity of his Essence The fiery Sardine represents his inaccessible Majesty And the Rainbow in heaven signifies the unalterableness of his Covenant v. 4. And round about the Throne were 24 Seats and upon the Seats I saw 24 Elders sitting cloathed in white rayment and they had on their heads Crowns of gold These are the Pastors and Guides of the Church militant under the name of the twelve Patriarchs of the Church of Israel and of the twelve Apostles of the Christian Church because it was in favour of the Church Militant that God revealed his Glory and Majesty to St. Iohn The Title of Elder is a Title of dignity whereof also the whiteness of their Garments and their Crowns of Gold are marks and indications And this gives us ground to hope that they who are Israelites after the Spirit and who through a true faith follow the doctrine of the Apostles shall one day come to be advanced to a glory like unto this v. 5. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thundrings and voices and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne which are the seven spirits of God. This is a terrible threatning against the Enemies of Gods Church The Seven Spirits are the Spirit himself expressed by the number seven which is a Mystical number and which represents the variety the unexpressible number and the perfection of his Graces v. 6. And before the throne there was a Sea of Glass like unto Chrystall In the Scripture Waters signify people And the Sea is a heap of waters So that this is the Church composed of multitudes of people But to distinguish her from other Societies of the world that are Muddy filthy she is compared to Crystal which is as well pure as it is Solid and transparent She is said to be before the throne because She is ever under the eye and care of her Creator who carries her as the Scripture elsewhere speaketh engraven upon the palms of his hands Isa 49. 16. And round about the throne were four living Creatures full of eyes before and behind v. 7. And the first living creature was like a Lion and the 2d like a Calf and the 3d had the face of a wan and the 4th was like a flying Eagle v. 8. And the four living Creatures had each of them six wings and they were full of eyes within and they rest not day nor night saying holy holy holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come These four living Creatures are beyond all exception the same with those in the Vision of the Prophet Ezekiel chap. 1. For that Prophet stiles them in his 10 chap. v. 5. Cherubims which signify Angels These are then four chief Angels as they are called in the 10 chap. of Daniel v. 13. and they are elsewhere called Archangels as having Angels under them And thence it is said Rev. 15. 7. that one of the four living Creatures gave unto the seven Angels seven Vials full of the wrath of God who liveth for ever ever Which cannot agree but to Archangels These Archangels are represented by the number four either with respect to the four parts of the world according to which the four gates of the new Ierusalem are disposed which was represented by the Mystical Temple of Ezekiel or else with respect to the four Empires under which the Church of God hath been in subjection and afflicted In Ezekiel these living Creatures are represented each of them having the four resemblances of a Lion of an Ox of a Man and of an Eagle but here each is represented as having but one because St. Iohn saw them in a posture of standing whereas Ezekiel saw them in a posture of motion together with their wheels The Lion is an Emblem of invincible courage The Ox is a Symbole of strenth and patience The Man of meekness And the Eagle of promptitude swiftness All which serve to declare the qualities of these Angels in their Execution of divine Orders As their being full of eyes expresseth the knowledg and wisdom wherewith they execute them V. 9. And when these four living Creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne who liveth for ever and ever V. 10. The four and twenty Elders fall down before him that sat on the throne and worship him that liveth for ever and ever and cast their Crowns before the Throne saying V. 11. Thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honor and power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created Here we have the exact form of true Religion and of lawful worship The Mystical living Creatures do adore none but God the 24 Elders do worship none besides the Lord it is before him that they do alone bow and it is only at his feet that they cast down their Crowns 'T is to him alone that they ascribe honor and glory and they themselves assign the reason of it For say they thou hast created all things Whence is it that the Holy Virgin is not here named if She be also the object of Religion and of worship And why ought we not to be content with that form of Adoration which the Angels of Heaven practice especially seeing we every day say thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven Moreover the Scope of this Vision is to assure Christians that God will be alway's in the midst of
his Church whatsoever Eclipse does befall her whether by Heresies or by persecutions And that there shall alway's be Belivers in the Earth who shall worship the one only true God in Spirit and truth even as the Angels and the blessed do adore him in Heaven II. ILLUSTRATION Of the Sealed Book which no Creature could open save the Lion of the Tribe of Judah REV. CHAP. 5. v. 1. And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a Book written within and without sealed with seven seals v. 2. And I saw a strong Angel proclaiming with a loud voice who is worthy to open the Book and to loose the Seals thereof v. 3. And no man in Heaven nor in Earth neither under the Earth was able to open the Book neither to look thereon THis Book can be nothing else but the Apocalypse which containeth every thing remarkable that was to befall either the Roman Empire or the Church of God. It is written within and without for the same reason because within it containeth the destiny of the Church and without the fate of the Roman Empire The form of this Book consisteth in seven leaves rolled after such a fashion that the second was shut up within the first and so of the rest The Seals denote the importance the Authority the stability and the obscurity of the Visions This darkness is such that no Creature how honorable soever could either open the Book or look into it That is to say who could so much as imagin the Events which it containeth v. 5. And one of the Elders saith unto me weep not behold the Lion of the Tribe of Judah the root of David hath prevailed to open the Book and to loose the Seals thereof But what no creature could do Jesus Christ hath done So St. John tells us at the very entrance in that he begun by these terms chap. 1. v. 1. The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass Jesus Christ is here called a Lion because of his Resurrection as he is a little afterward called a Lamb by reason of the sacrifice of his death And a Lion of the Tribe of Judah because he sprung from that Tribe according to the flesh The Root of David because tho he be tru'ly Davids son according to his humane Nature he is nevertheless Davids Father as well as his Lord according to his Divinity III. ILLUSTRATION Of the Lamb with seven Horns and Seven Eyes and of his being worshipped REV. CHAP. 5. v. 6 c. V. 6. And I beheld lo in the midst of the Throne and of the four living Creatures and in the midst of the Elders stood a Lamb as it had been slain having seven Horns seven Eyes which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth THis Lamb is Jesus Christ who tho risen is here represented as dead before the Throne to give us to understand that the merit of his death is alway's present before God and that his sacrifice is of an eternal vertu ' Horns according to the prophetick stile signify glory and power Psa 75. 10. The Lamb is represented having Seven which is a Mystick number to signify that nothing can be added to his glory and that his power hath no limits The seven Eyes and seven Spirits are of the same importance And do denote an omniscient knowledg and an immense wisdom by which he is every where present and conducteth all events as the soveraign Arbiter and Disposer V. 8. And when he had taken the Book the four living Creatures and four and twenty Elders fell down before the Lamb having every one of them Harps and golden Vials full of Odours which are the Prayers of Saints V. 9. And they sung a new Song saying Thou art worthy to take the Book and to open the Seals thereof for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy Blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and Nation V. 10. And hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests c. Here is the same worship given to Jesus Christ by the four living Creatures and by the four and twenty Elders that in the preceding Chapter had been rendred to Him who created all things for his pleasure which shews Christs being acknowledged for the true God by the four living Creatures and by the 24. Elders The Harps which they have in their hands are for the singing the praises of God and the Vials full of odours are for the invocating of him which are the two Acts of Adoration These Odours are called the prayers of the Saints because the Incense offered by the Priests of old were a Symbole of prayers as appeareth in the 141. Ps v. 2. Let my prayer be set forth before thee as Incense Some may possibly infer from hence that the Saints who are in Heaven do pray for those on Earth and that they do present unto God the prayers of such as are here in the world But this is to suppose that the four and twenty Elders are in Heaven and that the Saints spoken of in this passage are to be understood of Souls received into Paradise or as men are used to speak in the world of the Saints that are in Heaven which is a supposition without any ground or foundation For those believers that are in Heaven are not in any part of the Bible called Saints but only stiled Blessed Nor is it said here that these 24. Elders are Blessed The Vision is so far from saying this that it declareth the contrary because the very same persons having Vials full of Odours do say v. 10. Thou hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests and we shall reign on Earth Which sheweth that they who offer up the prayers of the Saints that are on the Earth are themselves likewise upon the Earth and where they hope to Reign So that the four and twenty Elders do represent the Pastors and Guides of the Militant Church who are said to offer up Odours by reason of their praying publickly for all the Congregations of Believers And these Pastors are represented under the number of 24. by an allusion to rhe twelve Patriarchs of the Old Testament and the twelve Apostles of the New as they were in the Vision of the foregoing Chap. These 24. Elders and the 4. living Creatures sing a new Song saying Thou art worthy to take the Book and to open the Seals thereof for thou hast redeemed us c. Which words seem to give light to that saying of Jesus Christ in the 13. Chap. of Mark v. 32. But of that day and hour of Judgment knoweth no man no not the Angels which are in Heaven neither the Son of man but the Father Then the Son as man knew it not because he had not offered the Sacrifice of his death for the satisfying Divine Justice but now he knoweth both the day
Church They are in their Hearts sealed of the Spirit but outwardly they have no other Mark save that of the profession of the pure Doctrine of the Apostles By the Mark that is in their Hearts they are known of God and by that in their Foreheads they are known of men VII ILLUSTRATION Of the Multitude which no man could number that Stood before the Lamb with Palms of their felicity and whence they came REV. CHAP. 7. V. 9. After this I beheld and lo a great multitude which no man could number of all Nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood before the throne and before the Lamb clothed with white Robes and Palms in their hands V. 10. And they cried with a loud voice saying Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb. V. 11. And all the Angels c. V. 12. Saying Amen Blessing and Glory and Wisdom and Thanksgiving Honor and Power Might be unto our God for Ever and Ever Amen V. 13. And one of the Elders answered saying unto me what are these which are arayed in white Robes and whence are they V. 14. And I said unto him Sir thou knowest And he said to me these are they which came out of great Tribulation and have washed their Robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. V. 15. Therefore are they before the Throne of God and serve him day and night in his Temple and he that sitteth on the Throne shall dwell among them V. 16. They shall hunger no more neither thirst any more neither shall the Sun light on them nor any heat V. 17. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters and God shall wipe away all tears from their Eyes THis multitude that could not be numbred are the companions of those Souls who cried under the fifth Seal How long O Lord before thou avenge our blood and white Robes were given unto them and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season untill their fellow servants also and their bretheren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled chap. 6. v. 10 11. These Martyrs are represented innumerable and there are two reasons intimated for it First because they were of all Nations kindreds people and Tongues 2ly because they were come out of great Tribulation And this great Tribulation is so called from the long duration of it Nor could it be otherway's for that it was to continue as long as the Papal Kingdom namely two and fourty months or a 1260 day 's which are 1260 years as we shall afterwards see They are represented clothed in white Robes as they under the fifth Seal were to intimate both their dignity and their Joy. But besides this they are represented standing before the Throne and before the Lamb with Palms in their hands whereas they under the fifth Seal were represented under the Altar and without Palms The reason of that difference is this because under the fifth Seal the Enemies of the Martyrs had the upper hand of them and persecuted their memories to that degree as to dig their bodies out of the ground and to throw their ashes into the wind as accounting them an abominable crew whereas in the place of that these here their great Tribulation's being finished and the 1260 years expired and the Beast and the false Prophet being cast into the bottomless pit are represented standing before the Throne of God and with Palms in their hands as conquerors over all their Enemies They shall be acknowledged blessed in Heaven and such who after the End of this Tribulation shall be found on the Earth walking in their faith shall Reign with Christ a thousand years So that the Holy Spirit doth by way of Anticipation describe here the felicity of the Church of God on the Earth whereof we have spoken upon the Subject of the first Resurrection that the terrible calamity which is to be represented under the Trumpets might not discourage believers being strengthened and fortified before hand by a promise of the victory which the Church shall at last obtain over her Enemies The Prophet Isaiah hath promised the same happiness to the Church of Israel For he hath said chap. 25. v. 8. that God will wipe away tears from off all faces And he hath said chap. 41. v. 10. that they shall not hunger not thirst neither shall the heat nor Sun smite them 'T is likewise to the Church made up of Iews and Gentiles that the Holy Spirit doth here promise the same felicity The Terms used by Isaiah do equally agree with the happiness in Heaven for the Souls of the Martyr's and with the happiness on Earth for those who shall have part in the first Resurrection and who shall Reign a thousand years VIII ILLUSTRATION Of the Silence in Heaven for half an hour REV. CHAP. 8. V. 1. And when he had opened the Seventh Seal there was silence in Heaven about the space of half an hour V. 2. And I saw the Seven Angels which stood before God and to them were given seven Trumpets AFter that the Idolatry of the Roman Empire was overthrown and after that the Christian Religion was established by publick Authority and that an end was put to persecution St. Iohn saw heresies and superstitions breaking in upon the Church But this did not come to pass immediately there was a space before that had the face of a peace or truce In a word there was a a short intervall That is it which had been already represented by the holding back of the four winds whereof we have spoken in the fifth Illustration And it is the same which is represented by the silence mentioned here at the opening of the 7 th Seal For when no wind blows there is a general calm And a great silence in the Air which is called Heaven in Scripture But in this place Heaven signifies the Church and Silence denoteth the peace that was established under the Reign of Constantin Called a Silence for half an hour because that peace continued only for a few years So that if the holding the winds from blowing signifies a general peace the Silence for half an hour marks the short while that it lasted IX ILLUSTRATION Of the seven Angels with the seven Trumpets and of the Angel who cast the Censer into the Earth REV. CHAP. 8. V. 2. And I saw the seven Angels which stood before God and to them were given seven Trumpets V. 3. And another Angel came and stood at the Altar having a golden Censer and there was given unto him much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all Saints upon the golden Altar which was before the Throne V. 4. And the Smoke of the Incense which came with the prayers of the Saints ascended up before God out of the Angels hand V. 5. And the Angel took the
Iohn expresseth these two effects when he saith that he found the Book sweet in his mouth as honey and that it made his belly bitter Therefore Luther and all those others who have travelled in the work of the Reformation have executed the order which the Angel gave here to St. Iohn Thou must Prophesie again before many peoples and Nations and Tongues and Kings The Term to prophesie signifies not only the foretelling things to come as if this order had respected only St. Iohn but it signifies likewise to Instruct to teach to preach the Gospel in which sense the word to prophesie is applied in the 1 Cor. chap. 14. v. 24. c. XXI ILLUSTRATION Of the Measuring of the Temple and of the Outward Court to be trodden under foot of the Gentiles REV. CHAP. II. V. 1. And there was given me a Reed like unto a Rod the Angel stood saying Rise measure the Tewple of God the Altar them that worship therein V. 2. But the Court which is without the Temple leave out and measure it not for it is given unto the Gentiles and the Holy City shall they tread under foot forty and two Months HEre we have represented unto us the Reformation of the Church For this is the execution of the Order which St. Iohn had received Thou must prophesie i. e. thou must preach the Gospel afresh to many peoples Nations Tongues and Kings And St. Iohn as hath been observed represents therein all those whom God was to imploy in that great work For the Execution of this commission there is given unto St. Iohn a Reed like unto a Rod and there is an Angel saying unto him Rise and measure the Temple of God and the Altar and them that worship therein This Reed is the Word of God called a Rod or a Scepter Ps 45. v. 6. and a Rule Gal. 6. 16. Because neither errors nor manners can be otherway's reformed than by the application of the word of God which condemneth both Errors and vices and lay's before us what we ought to believe and what we ought to practice As often as the Church of Israel was Reformed it was done by the application of no other Rule Iosiah and Hezekiah made use of no other no more did Ezra and Nehemiah There is here an Allusion to the 40. chap. of Ezekiel v. 5. c. where the prophet received Order to measure the Temple to assure him of the deliverance from the Babylonish Captivity And Iews as well as Christians are agreed that the Temple described by Ezekiel is not the Material Temple of Jerusalem but that of the Messiah which neither is nor can be any other than his Church which St. Paul calls the Temple of the Lord 2 Cor. 6. 16. And consequently this is the Temple which is to be re-established by the destruction of Antichristian Babylon that so there may be a correspondence between St. Iohn and Ezekiel He is commanded to measure both the Temple aud the Altar because there is nothing in the Church but what stands in need of being Reformed Since all Nations have been made drunk with the Wine of Babylon both Religion and manners Faith and Worship Head and Members in a word every thing ought to be measured every thing stands in need of Reformation The Court without the Temple trodden under foot by the Gentiles is the Christian Church but become Antichristian by its Idolatry The Gentiles that is to say the Pagans are represented treading that is frequenting the outward Court of the Temple because almost all the Ceremonies of the Roman Church are borrowed from the Heathen And for this cause also it is called the Court without which was no part of the Temple For the Roman Church is not properly the Temple and Church of our Lord it is but the outward Court where the Gentiles have liberty to come Whereas it is given in command to leave the outward Court out it is as much as the enjoyning all those who are measured and Ruled by the Word of God and who are elsewhere called the Sealed of God to withdraw and actually separate from the Church of Rome and to make a Society apart in order to their worshipping God according to his word So that is the very same command with that given Rev. 18. 4. Come out of Babylon my People Babylon ought to subsist 42. Months after that the outward Court of the Temple is given to the Gentiles that they may tread the holy City under foot so long but of that time we shall speak in another place XXII ILLUSTRATION Of the two Witnesses their Sackcloth State the Time of their Prophecying and their Dignity REV. CHAP. 11. V. 3. And I will give power unto my two Witnesses and they shall prophesie 1260 day 's cloathed in sackcloth V. 4. These are the two Olive Trees and the two Candlesticks standing before the God of all the Earth V. 5. And if any man will hurt them fire proceedeth out of their Mouth and devoureth their Enemies and if any man will hurt them he must in this manner be killed V. 6. These have power to shut Heaven that it rain not in the days of their Prophecy and have power over waters to turn them into blood and to smite the Earth with all plagues as often as they will. THEY who by the two Witnesses do understand the old Testament and the New have not hit the meaning of this place They have not come home to the sense but they have touched a little on the side of it The word of God is the Testimony for it is frequently so called Psa 119. So St. Paul stiles also the Gospel 1 Cor. chap. 2. v. 1. But they who profess the Truth and are the defenders of it are properly the Witnesses here spoken of They who since the birth of Antichristianism have cried against its Errors and Idolatry And we must observe that these Witnesses are stiled also Candlesticks which is the Title given by Jesus Christ to the seven Churches is the Epistle which he writ to them Rev. 1 20. Nor is it strange that he speaks only of two Witnesses altho he be speaking of a numerous Society seeing in all language both divine and humane great Bodies of men do make but one Mystical person Thus the Israelites are considered in Hosea as one Woman Thus likewise all sincere Christians are stiled in the Revelation the Lambs Wife and all false Christians are called the great Harlot And the Historian Florus represents the whole Roman people as a man that had past through the different Stages of human life These Witnesses are precisely two neither more nor less They are not fewer that their Testimony may be sufficient they are not more through an Allusion to the History of the ancient people of God whose conduct had been committed two to Moses Aaron to Iosuah and Caleb to Elijah and Elisha to Zerobabel and Jehashua to Ezra and Nehemiah to Haggai and
of time betwixt the sounding of the sixth Trumpet and the sounding of the seventh Seeing 't is said chap. 11. v. 14. The second Wo is past and behold the third Wo cometh quickly For we are to observe that this is not said in the prediction of the two first Wo's under the fifth and sixth Trumpets All that is there said is only that they shall come but this quickly is not added save in the prediction of the third Wo. Whence we may conclude that the seventh Trumpet shall immediately follow the Resurrection of the two Witnesses Whose Death as it fell out in 1685. so their Resurrection shall ensue within three years and a half from that time because the three days and a half wherein they are to lie dead being prophetick days are equivalent unto so many years And then in a short time after the Resurrection of the Witnesses whom the Beast hath killed we shall see the arrival of the third Wo that is to avenge the Lambs Wife for all the evils which the Mother of Harlots hath made her to suffer Nor ought we to forget that the Term in the Original which signifieth a Vial signifieth also a Cup in which sense the Term is undoubtedly here used For besides that it is the Judgments of God which are here treated of and which are expressed in the Scripture by the word Cup as appeareth both Ps 75. v. 8. and by the prayer of our Saviour in his Agony Let this Cup pass from me Matth. 26. v. 39. I say besides this it is evident that the vengeance wherewith Babylon is threatned is expressed by the same Term Rev. chap. 18. v. 6. Reward her even as she rewarded you and double unto her double according to her works in the CUP which she hath filled fill to her double So that the Cups of God's Wrath are set in opposition to the golden Cup with which Babylon made drunk the Nations of the Earth Babylon's Cup is full of the furious Wine of her fornications Rev 17. 2. These Cups which are to be poured out are full of the wrath of Almighty God by which he will make her desolate I will again repeat that seeing these Vials or Cups contain Judgments yet to come and which cannot be explained from the Events as hath been done in expounding of the Visions of the Trumpets that therefore I design not to speak otherway's than by way of Conjecture This is a deference which should be pay'd to the Author of Prophesies Howsoever we shall see what may be best alledged and what carrieth the greatest probability by having our eye upon remembring the Explanations that have been already given The first Vial. V. 2 And the first Angel went and poured out his Vial upon the Earth and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the Beast and upon them which worshipped his Image The Earth upon which the first Vial fell is the Antichristian Church the Christian Church become Earthly which is no longer constituted of those that are Citizens of Heaven as the true Church of Jesus Christ is but is made up of worldly persons who have nothing else in their aim but to satisfy their ambition avarice and carnal desires These will be fretted and grieved to see the loss of their Church Revenues and to be deprived of the means of gratifying their Iusts This vexation and sorrow which is the noisome and grievous sore upon them will increase their rage against the Church of God. They who have the mark of the Beast represent the Clergy the Prelates and the Priests who are not only distinguished by their Habits and shaving their Crowns but who likewise boast of an indelible Character that is to say of a mark which nothing can efface These who worship the Image of the Beast signifie the false zealots who are intoxicated with the belief of the Infallibility of the Romish Church as the ancient Romans were with the Eternity of Rome which they stiled the Eternal City These are the Bigots who are transported with a blind zeal the Ignorants who are swallowed up in Superstition and who yield a greater and a more submissive obedience to their Guides than that which God requireth of his People For God doth not require a blind Obedience which is that which they do render to their Clergy The second Vial. V. 3. And the second Angel poured out his Vial upon the Sea and it became as the Blood of a dead man and every living Soul died in the Sea. The Sea is the Papal Kingdom in its utmost extent not only the countrey whereof the Pope is Soveraign but likewise all those Princes who acknowledg him for their Spiritual Head and Father This Empire shall become as the Blood of a dead Man so that every Soul which liveth in it shall die That is the Government of Popish Princes shall grow so intolerable that their people shall not be able to endure their Yoke As the Fish cannot live in waters which are turned into Blood. The third Vial. V. 4. And the third Angel poured out his Vial upon the Rivers and Fountains of Waters and they became Blood. V. 5. And I heard the Angel of the Waters say thou art righteous O Lord which art and wast and shalt be because thou hast judged thus V. 6. For they have shed the blood of Saints and Prophets and thou hast given them blood to drink for they are worthy The Rivers and the Fountains are beyond all peradventure the Doctrines wherewith they nourish Souls The Doctrine of the Romish Church is a Doctrine of Blood against all those whom they account Hereticks And it is very probable that the same Doctrine shall prove bloody against themselves And that their Maxims such as that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks that men are to be compelled to go to Mass because it is written compel them to come in and that it is lawful to do evil that good may come of it together with others of that kind shall one day serve to make their members arm against and tear one another And by that means like shall be returned unto them for like The fourth Vial. V. 8. And the fourth Angel poured out his Vial upon the Sun and power was givrn unto him to shorch men with fire V. 9. And men were scorched with great heat and blasphemed the Name of God which hath power over these plagues and they repented not to give him glory This Sun is in all likelyhoood the Ottoman Emperor who is the Sun of the Eastern Empire For as the fourth Trumpet raised and established him so the fourth Vial shall shake him and pull him down The Subjects of that Empire shall be mortally afflicted but instead of being thereby converted they shall blaspheme the Name of God through not acknowledging his providence as the Supreme and righteous cause of their Judgments The fifth Vial. V. 10. And the fifth Angel poured out
their Felicity and whence they same 159 8 Of the Silence in Heaven for half an hour 162 9 Of the seven Angels with the seven Trumpets and of the Angel who cast the Censer into the Earth 163 10 Of the first Trumpet and of the Hail Fire and Blood. 165 11 Of the second Trumpet a Mountain burning cast in the Sea and a third part of it became Blood. 167 12 Of the third Trumpet A great Star fall from Heaven 169 13 Of the fourth Trumpet the third part of the Sun and of the Moon and of the Stars smitten 172 14 Of the fifth Trumpet the Key of the bottomless Pit given to the Star that fell from Heaven 174 15 Of the Locusts 179 16 Of the sixth Trumpet the loosing of the four Angels in the River Euphrates 194 17 Of the Angel with the Book open 201 18 Of the Voice of the Angel that had his right Foot upon the Sea and his left upon the Earth and of the seven Thunders 203 19 Of the Angels Oath and of the finishing the Mystery of God. 205 20 Of the Angels giving the Book to S. John to be eaten and of the effects which ensue thereupon Pag. 207 21 Of the measuring of the Temple and of the outward Court to be trodden under foot of the Gentiles 209 22 Of the two Witnesses their Sackcloth State the time of their Prophecying and their Dignity 212 23 Of the Witnesses being overcome and slain and left unburied 216 24 Of the rising of the Witnesses their Ascending into Heaven and of what follows upon their triumph 227 25 Of the seventh Trumpet The Ark opened in Heaven the Kingdoms of this world become the Lords 240 26 Of the pouring out of the Vials 245 27 Of the time that the Beasts Reign is to continue 265 28 Of the time when the Beasts Reign or the Papal Empire began 269 29 Of the Destruction of Gog and Magog 278 30 Of S. Johns Offence in falling at the Angels feet to worship him 280 31 Of Christs directing his Epistles and his Revelation to the seven Churches and why 284 ◠Defence of the Illustrations upon the Apocalypse concerning the Effusion of the Vials Page 1 Reasons for the Non-Effusion of the Vials 27 A NEW SYSTEME OF THE APOCALYPSE OR A Plain and Methodical Explanation of all the Visions of the REVELATION of St. JOHN The FIRST Part. I. ILLUSTRATION What we are to understand by the BEAST SAint John having in the 17. Chapter v. 1 2 3. told us how he was carried into the Wilderness by one of the Seven Angels that had the seven Viols and how he there saw a Woman sitting upon a Scarlet Beast full of Names of Blasphemy having seven Heads and ten Horns and having in the Vision related in the 13. Chapter described this Beast unto us we are therefore in the first place to inquire what is meant by this Beast with Seven Heads and Ten Horns that we may be able thereby to know with the more certainty and with the greater plainness who this Woman is that is called Babylon the Great whom the Beast carries Nor will it be difficult to understand the meaning and import of this Term Beast it having been explained in the Visions of Daniel For that Prophet having in the 7 th Chap. v. 3 4 5 6 7. declared how that he beheld Four Beasts rising out of the Sea the first whereof resembled a Lion the second a Bear the third a Leopard and the fourth different from the three former He adds that having asked one of the Angels that stood before the Ancient of Day 's what the meaning of that Vision might be it was answered him v. 17. that these four Beasts were four Kings which should arise upon the Earth So that this Explication vouchsav'd by the Angel unto Daniel concerning the Vision of the four Beasts do's fully inform us that this Term Beast in the Revelations of St. John signifies a Power à n Empire a Succession of Kings and Rulers as the four in Daniel's Visions represented the four Empires the Assyrian Persian Grecian and Roman with which the Church of God was concerned and which four Empires had been before represented by the Image that appeared to Nebuchadnezzar in his Dream Dan. 2. 31 c. The word Beast being then used in the Visions of Daniel to denote an Empire or a Succession of Soveraign Rulers it can have no other signification affixed unto it in the Visions of St. John forasmuch as one Spirit inspired both the Apostle and the Prophet And this is the more evident in that Daniel's fourth Beast is the same with that in St. Johns Visions as do's plainly appear by the universal and perfect Agreement that is between the one and the other 1. Whereas Daniel tells us c. 7. v. 7. that the Fourth Beast which is the Roman Empire and to which he gave no Name was different from the three former from the Lion the Bear and the Leopard so St. Iohn represents the Beast upon which the Woman sitteth not only as diverse from those three but as that which there is none that bears any resemblance unto and which as he says Rev. 13. 2. had the Body of a Leopard and whose Feet were as the Feet of a Bear and his Mouth as the Mouth of a Lion. 2. Whereas Daniel Chap. 7. 7. says of the fourth Beast that he had ten Horns St. Iohn says the same of the Beast that carried the Woman Rev. 17. 12. 3. And as Daniel informs us Chap. 7. 24. that the ten Horns of the fourth Beast were ten Kings that should arise out of that Kingdom St. Iohn likewise assures us Rev. 17. 12 that the ten Horns of the Beast upon which the Woman sitteth are ten Kings which had not then received any Kingdom 4. Whereas Daniel says Chap. 7. v. 8. 25. that the little Horn of the fourth Beast had a Mouth speaking great things and uttering words against the Most High. St. Iohn also say's of the Beast that carried the Woman Rev. 13. 5 6. that there was given unto him a Mouth speaking great things and that he opened his Mouth in Blasphemies against God. 5. Forasmuch as Daniel tells us Chap. 7. v. 21. concerning the little Horn of the fourth Beast that he made war with the Saints and prevailed against them St. John say's the same of the fourth Beast upon which the Woman sitteth Rev. 13. 7. namely that it was given unto him to make war with the Saints and to overcome them 6. And whereas Daniel declares Chap. 7. v. 25. that the Saints shall be given into the hands of the fourth Beast a time times and the dividing of time St. John declares also of the Beast upon which the Woman sitteth Rev. 13. 7. that Power was given unto him to continue forty and two moneths which make just three Prophetical years and a half 7. Lastly Forasmuch as Daniel says of the fourth Beast chap. 7. v. 11. that he was
the Adoration that all men should be laid under an obligation unto 3. The Body of Christ is according to the Papal Doctrine shut up in a Ciborium or Cupboard And this the Greek word here used doth signify 4. Nor is the Body of Christ according to the Doctrine of the Romish Church shut up meerly in one Cupboard which they call a Pix but in many which the Term here being in the plural number doth also denote 5. The Real Presence is built upon Miracles This every one knows by the many stories which we have of the Hosts having appeared in the Form of an Infant and that it hath been seen all Bloody Which our Saviour also foretold in saying that they who should teach this Real Presence should shew great Signs and Wonders insomuch that if it were possible they should deceive the very Elect. Moreover our Saviour forbids us to believe this invisible Presence of his Body Behold says he I have told you before believe it not And withal he declares that the Presence of the Son of man shall be like unto Lightning which shineth from one end of Heaven unto the other And forasmuch as he declareth that they shall be false Prophets who shall teach this Doctrine it does necessarily follow that tho the Pope through putting it into the Romish Creed and entorcing it by Anathema's is that very same False Prophet of whom St. John speaks in the Apocalypse Nor is the Real Presence of Christ's Body upon their Altars and that singular Adoration which they give unto the Sacrament the only false Doctrine in the Papacy whereby to prove the Pope to be this false Prophet But there are many more which serve to give evidence unto it And particularly that of the Worshipping of Images than which there cannot be a Doctrine more notoriously false 'T is most certain that God had forbid three things in his Law the making Images of things that are in Heaven or things that are in the Earth the bowing down before them and the serving them see Exod 20 4 5. Deut. 5. 8 9. All which the Church of Rome not only practiseth but persecutes all those as Hereticks and wicked persons who do in reference to this matter both obey the Injunctions of the Law and imitate the Example of the Jews since the time they returned from the Babylonish Captivity Is it not a false and an Heretical Doctrine to apply to the Virgin Mary in order to our being saved and to invocate her as the Gate of Paradise the Fountain of Grace and the Mother of Mercy If that Doctrine which overthroweth the Foundation be a Heresie Then it cannot be denied but that this is a gross one in that the Foundation of all Salvation is Iesus Christ alone Other Foundation saith St. Paul can no man lay than that that is laid which is Iesus Christ 1 Cor. 3. 11. And St. Peter saith that there is not Salvation in any other nor any other Name given among men save that of Iesus Christ whereby we may he saved Act. 4. 12. Beside can there be a Doctrine more evidently false than that of Popery which affirmeth the Mass to be a proper Sacrifice wherein our Redeemer is every day sacrificed Seeing the Apostle tells us expresly in the Epistle to the Hebrews chap. 10. v. 10. that we are sanctified through the offering of the Body of Iesus Christ once for all And he maketh this difference between the Sacrifices of the Law and that of our Saviour that they by reason of their imperfection were dayly offered whereas that of our Saviour because of its being infinitely perfect was offered but once And he addeth further in the same place v. 18. that there being under the Gospel Remission of Sins there is no more offering for Sin. So that here is enough to make it appear that the Pope who teacheth Doctrines so notoriously false and Heretical as these are can be no other than that False Prophet whom the Revelation of St. Iohn threatneth the World with VIII ILLUSTRATION Of the Dragon with Seven Heads and ten Horns REV. CHAP. 12. v. 3. IF we should take up with Appearances we should presently believe that this Dragon is the Devil and the rather seeing he is in the ninth verse called the Old Serpent the Devil and Satan who deceiveth the World. But yet the seven Heads and ten Horns which the Dragon is here said to have will not suffer us to doubt its being the same Roman Empire which is spoken of in the 13. Chap. because they are the same Heads and the same Horns of the Beast upon which the Woman sitteth in the 17. Chapter There is this only difference that the Horns of the Beast upon which the Woman sitteth are adorned with Crowns i. e. are Kings whereas the Horns of the Dragon have not these Marks of Soveraignty Which doth not prove them to be two different Beasts and two different Powers but only that the same Beast and the same Power is represented in relation to two different Times and two different Estates The ten Horns of the Beast upon which the Woman sitteth are according to the Explication given by the Angel ten Kings i. e. many Dominions formed out of the Ruins of the Roman Empire Which serveth to prove that Beast to be Rome and its Empire under the seventh Head and making profession of the Christian Religion Whereas the ten Horns of the Dragon are not adorned with Crowns because they were nothing save bare Provinces of Heathen Rome under the Emperors From whence it doth appear that the Dragon with his seven Heads and his ten Horns must necessarily represent the old Roman Empire and exactly denote Rome under the Emperors who are the sixth Head. 'T is called by the name of a Dragon which is a Beast because it is a Dominion and an Empire 'T is stiled Satan and the Devil by reason of the Devil 's being there worshipped under the name of Mars And from hence we see upon what ground Rome was called Martia and the City of Mars namely because the Devil was there as the Soul which acted that vast Body Even as he is called the Serpent in the seduction of the first Woman because he was as the Soul of the Serpent and that it was he that spake to Eva and who seduced her But the question is what is meant by the Tail of the Dragon drawing the third part of the stars of Heaven and casting them to the Earth They who understand the Scripture-stile of speaking cannot be detained a moment by this difficulty Seeing it appears in Isaiah chap. 9. v. 14 15. and chap. 19. v. 15. that whensoever the Scripture speaks of Head and Tail it does by Head intend a person of Rule and Authority and by Tail meaneth a False Prophet Therefore as the seven Heads signify the seven sorts of Rulers that have Governed Rome so the Tail signifieth the Lies False Doctrines Frauds and Impostures upon which the
imaginable But in truth after that I had throughly examined the vision of St. Iohn and the juncture of time where the Holy Spirit placeth the Reign of a thousand years to wit between the destruction of Babylon and all the Enemies of the Church upon the one side and the War of Gog and Magog as a fruit of the loosing of Satan after he had been imprisoned for a thousand years upon the other side I must declare that I find my self conquered and that I am forced to believe that the Church of God is to enjoy for some Ages an entire and uninterrupted peace here on the Earth I am confirmed in this opinion by a vast number of Prophesies both of the Old and New Testament which cannot be expounded without violence offered to them and are if I may so speak so many inexplicable riddles unless the Church of God be to enjoy that peace in this world of which those promises give us assurance And finding not the least danger in embracing that opinion I have closed with it without any further hesitation For what danger can it be to believe that the Church of God shall enjoy a thousand years Tranquillity here on the Earth I do see none unless it be that the believing so will give offence to the Orthodox who are of another mind and who affirm that the Cross is to be the Banner and Livery of the Church of God thro all Ages But these very Gentlemen do acknowledg that the Church had rest and peace during the Reign of Constantine And there are some who place the thousand years here spoken of under the Reign of that Emperor And do understand by them the Tranquillity that the Church enjoyed from the conversion of Constantine till the time that She became disturbed and persecuted by the Arrians So that the Orthodox Antimillenarians do confess that the Church had at least a twenty years calmness and serenity Why then should they be offended that others who are Orthodox make the peace which the Church is to enjoy to be of a greater length and duration And they cannot but own that the Cross is not essential to the Church of God. It is an accident without which the Church may very well subsist God can as well sanctify the Church in prosperity as in adversity in a calm as well as in a tempest Iob was righteous and rich in good works in the time of his affluence as well as in the time of his misery And why may it not be so in reference to the Church of God If the world be to last seven or it may be eight thousand years what danger will there be in allowing the Church of God one thousand years peace for the six or seven thousand that She is be in trouble and sufferings But let us without prejudice hearken unto what God saith to us upon this subject both by the Ministry of St. Iohn and that of the ancient Prophets Lo what St. Iohn tells us Rev 20. V. 1. I saw an Angel come down from Heaven having the Key of the bottomless Pit and a great Chain in his hand V. 2. And he laid hold on the Dragon that old Serpent which is the Devil and Satan and bound him a thousand years V. 3. And cast him into the bottomless Pit and shut him up and set a Seal upon him that he should deceive the Nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled and after that he must be loosed a little season V. 4. And I saw Thrones and they sat upon them and judgment was given unto them and I saw the Souls of them that were beheaded for the Testimony of Iesus and for the Word of God and which had not worshipped the Beast neither his Image neither had received his mark upon their Foreheads or in their right hands and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years V. 5. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished This is the first Resurrection V. 6. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection on such the second death hath no power but they shall be Priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years V. 7. And when the thousand years are expired Satan shall be loosed out of his prison V. 8. And shall go out to deceive the Nations which are in the four Quarters of the Earth Gog and Magog c. The Church of Jesus Christ hath a right to say as Iob did I know that my Redeemer Liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the Earth Chap. 19. v. 25. And that not only to raise and gather together my Bones which are scattered about the Graves mouth when he cometh from Heaven with his Glorious Angels to judg the quick and the Dead at the general Resurrection but also to deliver me from the misery wherein I have been in this world and to cause me to enjoy an entire peace after the destruction of all my Enemies For Iob was as well a Type of the Church of Christ as of Jesus Christ himself who is her adorable Head. This is that peace of the Church which St. Iohn doth here represent after that he had described her sufferings For he saw her Rising after the ruin of Babylon and injoying the gracious presence of her Redeemer after the imprisonment of Satan and the conversion of the unbelieving and Idolatrous Nations If we will give credit to some Divines this is the most obscure passage in the Revelation but this obscurity does arise from themselves and from three prejudices wherewith they are possessed 1. That the world is not to last any long time because St. Peter says that the end of all things is at hand 1 Epist chap. 4. v. 7. 2. Thar the opinion of the Millenarians who conceived that Jesus Christ should come from Heaven down here upon the Earth to converse visibly with his people and to cause them enjoy all sorts of pleasures for a thousand years hath been condemned as a carnal opinion tending to sensuality 3. That the Cross is to be the Livery of Christs Disciples through all Ages because Jesus Christ hath said if any man will come after me let him take up his Cross Matth. 16. 24. and because the Apostles have declared that through many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of God Acts 14. 22. But we deceive our selves if we do believe the World to be fo near its end seeing before that the Jews are to be converted the Kingdoms of the world are to be brought in to Jesus Christ Babylon is to be destroyed and who knoweth how long time there is to be between the destruction of Babylon and the ruine of her King and of her Religion without reckoning what time there may be to run out from the end of the thousand years Reign to the end of the War of Gog and Magog and from thence to the
Christ shall Reign after an eminent manner upon the Earth for a thousand years 'T is this second Marriage which is spoken of here in the 19. chap. Which Chapter may be called an Epithalamium or a Wedding Song because St. Iohn say's that he heard as it were the voice of a great multitude and as the voice of many waters and as the voice of mighty thunders saying Alleluja for the Lord God omnipotent Reigneth Let us be glad rejoice give honor to him for the Marriage of the Lamb is come his Wife hath made her self ready to her was granted that they should be arayed in fine linnen which is the Righteousness of the Saints The Spouse of this Marriage is the Christian Church being filled up with the fulness of Iews and Gentiles The Iews refused to come to the Marriage of the Son of God Matth. 22. 2. c. but they are here represented coming with joy And that is doubtless the reason why the Term Allelujah is four times used in this chapter as a Term familiar unto the Iews and ordinarily used by them in their Synagogues This Marriage is stiled a Supper blessed are they who are called unto the Marriage Supper of the Lamb v. 9. Because it is to be celebrated in the evening of the worlds duration The Marriage to which the Iews were first invited by their Lord is called a Dinner Matth. chap. 22. v. 4. but here at this second Marriage they are called to a Supper as being the last Invitation The Iews rejected the first Invitation because Christ left the Roman Empire in the state he found it whereas the Iews had strongly hop'd that the Messiah would have delivered them from its domination And now the same Roman Empire become Papal doth as much and more keep them off from Christianity because they cannot imagine that Idolaters can be the people of the Messiah and they have reason for it But when the Papal Empire shall come to be destroyed as it assuredly shall upon the Effusion of the Vials and when the Beast and the False Prophet shall be cast into the bottomless pit in a word when the Papacy shall be abolished with all its Idols then the Iews will be no longer deaf to Gods call but will come to the Supper of the Marriage of the Lamb shall unite with Christians to worship together the God of Abraham and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ The Church of Rome boasteth herself to be the Church of God but her vanity therein doth appear after such a manner that she might blush if she were capable being so vastly different from the Church which Jesus Christ acknowledgeth for his Spouse and which is called here the Spouse of the Lamb. There is as great a difference between the Church of Rome and the Church of Iesus Christ as there is between Babylon and Jerusalem between a Harlot and the Spouse of the Lamb. She discovereth herself by her gaud'ries and costly habit 's which serve for nothing but to gratify the sight and please the senses The Church of Christ manifesteth her self by another kind of Dress which is nothing but Righteousness and holiness For to her was granted that she should be arayed not in purpl ' and scarlet as Babylon but in fine linnen which is the Righteousness of the Saints XXIV ILLUSTRATION Of the holy Jerusalem REV. CHAP. 21. v. 10. ALL Interpreters do agree that this Ierusalem described Chap. 21 is the Church of God but they differ in this that some do believe it to be the Church of God glorified in Heaven whereas others do take it to be the Church Militant on Earth but victorious over all her Enemies and enjoying an universal peace during the 1000 years which have been spoken of This last opinion is the truest 1 Because the Angel entreth upon this description of the Church of God as he had entred upon the description of Babylon chap. 17. 'T is there said v. 1. One of the seven Angels which had the seven Vials talked with me saying I will shew thee the whore and her judgment The same is said here One of the seven Angels which had the seven Vials talked with me saying come hither and I will shew thee the Bride the Lambs Wife After the same manner that the glory of Babylon is represented there is the glory of the Church of God described here but such as she shall have afier the destruction of her Enemy 'T is in the prospect and hope of this that the Church do's rejoice Mica 7 8. c. Rejoice not against me O mine Enemy tho I be fallen I shall arise tho I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him until he plead my cause then she that is my Enemy shall be covered with shame and mine eyes shall behold her troden down as the mire of the streets 2 The Church of God is here called the great City a Title which had been given to Babylon in the 16 17 and 18 Chapters Because the whole Earth went after Babylon while the Church of God did hardly appear being brought into a narrow compass and to a small number but now Babylon hath abandon'd the field and appeareth no more and now the Jews are brought again in and the fulness of the Gentiles is entred into the Tents of Jerusalem which being forced to stretch out her curtains by reason of the conversion of all nations is therefore called that great City This is exactly the little Stone in the Prophesie of Daniel which was to become a great Mountain And this Prophecy is to be fulfilled on the Earth before the day of judgment 3 'T is said in the 24 th verse that the Nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it and the Kings of the Earth do bring their glory and their honor into it Which can no way's be applied to the Church triumphant in heaven but agrees unto her as she is victorious on the Earth over the fury of the Beast and as she is in the enjoyment of her Millennian tranquillity It will be then that the Prophecy of Isaiah will be fulfilled chap. 49. v. 22 23. Behold I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles and set up my standard to the people And they shall bring thy Sons in their arms and thy Daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders And Kings shall be thy nursing fathers and their Queens thy nursing Mothers they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the Earth and lick up the dust of thy feet Moreover the Church of God as she shall be glorified in heaven having been described in the beginning of the Chapter as well as the frightful state of the damned is in the 8th verse it is evident that in the 9. verse and forward the Angel describeth a glory of the Church different from that of heaven which
had expressed the sufferings that were past For the Martyrs having demanded how long Lord ere thou avenge our Blood It was answered unto them that they should yet rest for a little season until their fellow Servants also and their Bretheren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled So that as the complaint of the Martyrs expresseth the persecutions of the Church under the Pagan Emperors the answer is a prediction of the sufferings which the Church was to undergo under the Papal Antichristian Kingdom Moreover we may here observe who it is that is a true Martyr They are those who are slain for the Word of God. So that this Title cannot be denyed to Protestants because it is only out of hatred to their Religion that they are killed Nor are they put to death for any other cause but for the Word of God and for the holding that their Religion is certain supported by a Soveraign and Divine Authority full and sufficient for Salvation And is not the maintaining the rights and perfections of Gods Word a maintaining of Gods cause Is it not to die for Jesus Christ to suffer death because they will not consent to the injuries which the Papists do to his Gospel V. 12. And I beheld when he had opened the sixth Seal and lo there was a great Earth-quake and the Sun became black as sackcloth of Hair and the Moon became as Blood. V. 13. And the Stars of Heaven fell unto the Earth even as a Fig tree casteth her untimely Figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind V. 14. And the Heaven departed as a Scrowl when it is rolled together and every Mountain and Island were moved out of their places V. 15. And the Kings of the Earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief Captains and the mighty men and every Bondman and every Freeman hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the Mountains V. 16. And said to the Mountains and Rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the Throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. V. 17. For the great day of his wrath is come and who shall be able to stand There appeareth not here any Horseman nor any living Creature no more than there did at the opening of the fifth Seal and the reason is because what is concealed under this Seal extendeth not through the whole course of the History of the Roman Empire and of the Church of God. Seeing that which is comprehended under this Seal is only one of the Revolutions that was to befall the Roman Empire There were three changes to overtake it By the first it was to pass from Paganism to pure and uncorrupted Christianity By the second it was to pass from pure and simple Christianity to a Christianity mixed and corrupted which is no other thing but Antichristianism or Popery And by the third it is to pass and return from Christianity corrupted and from Popery to a Christianity that is pure and freed from all the Errors and Superstitions of Antichrist This last change will be under and upon the effusion of the Vials and the Reformation that was made the last Age is a sample and earnest of it The Second was to appear under the Trumpets And the first was that which came to pass under this sixth Seal In all the changes there is spoken of the Heaven of the Sun of the Moon of the Stars of the Sea of Earthquakes of the removing of Mountains because it is the stile of the Prophets to express Revolutions which fall out in the world with reference to Religion in terms that agree to a change in the whole Universe Thus the Apostle St. Peter Act. 2. 14. c. applyeth the Prophecy of Ioel to the establishment which God begun to give unto the Christian Religion by the pouring forth of the Holy Ghost In that day I will pour out of my Spirit upon all Flesh and on my Servants and on my Handmaidens and they shall prophesy and I will shew wonders in Heaven above and signs in the Earth beneath Blood and Fire and Vapours of Smoak the Sun shall be turned into darkness and the Moon into Blood. 'T is not probable that the Holy Spirit should omit that memorable change which befel the Empire when the Emperors were no more Heathen Persecutors but Christian Favourers of the Gospel which if it be not comprehended under this Seal there is not the Footstep or mention of it in the whole Revelation And withal that Event doth accord the best of the World with this Vision For if the Enemies of Christs name appear here astonished desperate hiding themselves in the Mountains and crying to the Rocks fall on us and hide us from the Wrath of the Lamb all this accordeth admirably with the Event For History recounts unto us how the Judgments of God fell after a terrible manner upon the five last Heathen Emperors who had persecuted the Christians with an unbridled rage Diocletian and Maximian voluntarily laid down the Imperial Dignity being pressed to it by the sole remorse of their Consciences which gave them no quiet Maxentius was thrown headlong from the Milvian Bridg into the Tyber and in that very place where he had laid an Ambush for Constantin Maximin who had pulled out the Eyes of Christians lost his own Eyes by a disease that was as loathsome as it was painful and Lieinius was murthered by the Garrison of Thessalonica After that Constantin was arrived at the Empire all the Edicts against the Christians were repealed the Christian Religion was established by publick Authority the Idolatrous Temples were either pulled down or consecrated to the service of the true God their Altars were overthrown and the Heathens being stript of all Honors were sent into the Villages from whence they came to be stiled Pagans that is Inhabitants of the Villages a Title by which the Christians had been denominated before V. ILLUSTRATION Of the four Angels that withheld the four Winds and of the Angel that had the Seal of the living God. REV. CHAP. 7. V. 1. After these things I saw four Angels standing on the four corners of the Earth holding the four Winds of the Earth that the Wind should not blow on the Earth nor on the Sea nor on any Tree V. 2. And I saw another Angel ascending from the East having the Seal of the living God and he cried with a loud voice to the four Angels to whom it was given to hurt the Earth and the Sea. V. 3. Hurt not the Earth neither the Sea nor the Trees till we have sealed the Servants of our God in their foreheads IF those four Angels be good Angels then the withholding the four Winds must be something likewise that is good And that they are good Angels appeareth from thence because the Angel that had the Seal of the living God spake unto them as Angels of God. Hurt not says
most eminent So that this Bishop is without doubt he of Rome who from the very beginning was lookt upon as above others by reason of the City which was the Seat of the Empire and consequently the Lady and Mistriss of all other Cities This was the ground of the precedency granted to that Bishop as appears both by the Council of Calcedon and by the second Council of Constantinople Among the Bishops of Rome Gregory the first is particularly here represented by this great Star. And that not only because he was stiled great but because he truly fell from Heaven through abandoning the care of heavenly things to pursue and cleave to those of the Earth This we may the rather believe because he gives this account of himself in the fifth Epistle of his first Book writing to Theotista the Emperors Sister Under the Colour says he of a Bishoprick I am sunk into the world and am become more enslaved to the cares of the Earth than ever I was when but a Laick person Since I was outwardly advanced I am inwardly fallen And I bewaile my own state as being thus driven from the presence of my Creator He writ the same to Anastasius Bishop of Antioch namely that he was so depressed by the load of multiplicity of affairs that he could not raise his mind to heavenly things The fall of this Gregory the Great does yet more appear in that it was he who changed the Service of the Church into that which from his name is called to this day the Gregorian 'T was he likewise who most blasphemously equalled the four first Councils to the four Gospels and who in his four Books of Dialogues brought the belief of Purgatory into the Church But we are to take care that we do not restrain our selves only to one Bishop This great Star is to be taken as representing collectively all the Bishops of Rome since they first begun to depart from the Truth and from Christian Humility And indeed before Gregory the Great Mark who was elected Pope anno 335. did so highly exalt the Rights of the Sea of Rome that he had the confidence to write to the Bishops of Egypt in these prophane words that follow The Roman Church hath forever been without a Spot and through the Grace of God and the protection of St. Peter forever shall be so For says he the Lord spake thus to the Prince of the Apostles Peter I have prayed for thee that thy Faith do not fail Julius I. took upon him by his own meer Authority to re-establish several Oriental Bishops that had been justly deposed Liberius by subscribing to the condemnation of St. Athanasius subscribed to Arianism which drew upon him the curses of St. Hilary After the death of Liberius Damasius and Ursicinus caused such an effusion of blood by their struglings for the Roman Chair that Ammianus Marcellinus a Heathen Author reports that in the Temple where the Election of Damasus was held there were 137. slain at one time The greatest persons among the Heathen coveted the grandure of the Popes so that the Pagan Pretextatus being designed Consul offered to Damasus to turn Christian upon condition that he might be made Pope Siricius who succeeded to Damasus forbid Ecclesiastical Persons to marry shamefully perverting to that purpose the words of St. Paul Rom. 8. 8. they who are in the flesh connot please God. After Gregory I. Boniface III. assumed the Title of Universal Bishop Boniface IV who succeeded to him consecrated the Pantheon to the blessed Virgin and to all the Saints having been before a Temple dedicated to Cybele and to all the Heathen Gods. And the Monastick life became so highly valued and advanced under all these Popes that they taught it to be the true Evangelick way of living and the most sure means of salvation These Doctrines together with others added by the Bishops of Rome and which they either themselves invented or else authorised and decreed made them to be this Wormwood that hath corrupted the saving Doctrine and which hath rendred all the Waters of Grace and the Fountains of Salvation bitter XIII ILLUSTRATION Of the fourth Trumpet The third part of the Sun and of the Moon and of the Stars smitten REV. CHAP. VIII V. 12. And the fourth Angel sounded and the third part of the Sun was smitten and the third part of the Moon and the third part of the Stars so as the third part of them was darkned and the day shone not for a third part of it and the night likewise THE wo denounced by this fourth Trumpet hath two Characters The one is Error and Superstition in that the Fountains of light are so strangely changed The other is Violence and Force because these Sources of light are smitten For the Term of Smiting is often used in the Scripture to signify killing and destroying As in Deut. chap. 4. v. 46. Ios chap. 8. v. 22. 1 Kings chap. 15. v. 29. and elsewhere These two characters do perfectly agree to the Religion of the Mahometans The Error in it is most palpable in that it denieth both Christs Divinity and the merit of his death and in that it promiseth such a felicity in the life to come as can be pleasing to none save unto Souls sunk into sensuality And its Violence is so well known that all who have heard of Mahomet do know that that Impostor boasted the being sent by God with a Sword to force the belief of his Religion And the event was according for within the space of 40. years after Mahomets death his four Successors Ebubeker Oâ—hmar Osman and Haly whom they stile Gods four sharp Swords planted that abominable Religion by force of Arms in Syria Palestine Egypt Mesopotamia Persia Africk Barbary and Numidia It was in the year 622. that Mahomet published his damnable Errors which is another character whereby to adjust it with the Wo or this fourth Trumpet For the Bishop of Rome was already fallen under the third These are the two Enemies of the Christian Religion the one a hidden Enemy and the other an avowed The one established himself as a Fox the other as a Lion. The one assaulted Religion in the West the other in the East The Bishop of Rome begun to fall away in the fourth Age Mahomet appeared in the seventh His abominable Religion followed the fall of the Roman Bishop as the Wo of the fourth Trumpet followeth the Wo of the third XIV ILLUSTRATION Of the fifth Trumpet The Key of the bottomless Pit given to the Star that fell from Heaven REV. CHAP. IX V. 1. And the fifth Angel sounded and I saw a Star fall from Heaven unto the Earth and to him was given the Key of the bottomless Pit. V. 2. And he opened the bottomless Pit and there arose a Smoke out of the Pit as the smoke of a great Furnace and the Sun and the Air were darkned by reason of the smoke of the Pit. WE have seen the Fall
uttered their voices I was about to write and I heard a voices from heaven saying unto me Seal up those things which the seven Thunders uttered write them not ACcording to the Stile that the Scripture useth to speak in the Earth signifies the East and the Sea signifies the West that is the Isles and countreys that ly near unto the Sea. The Roman Empire was divided into that of the East and into that of the West So that when it is said that Jesus Christ being come down from heaven Set his feet the one upon the Sea and the other upon the Earth the meaning is that he took hold of these two Empires in order to make the light of his word shine there and to establish in them the purity of his worship Moreover according to the Scripture stile whensoever the Earth and Sea are spoken of the Earth is named before the Sea but here the stile is changed and the Sea is both mentioned first and Iesus Christ sets his right foot upon the Sea. Which is as if he would assuredly tell us that he will make the light of the Gospel break out in the West sooner than in the East and that he will begin the work of Reformation in reference to Popery sooner than in reference to Mahometanism This the Event will clear And what we shall see fall out in the West in relation to Popery will be an Earnest of what we may expect will come to pass in the East in relation to Mahometanism The great Cry of the Angel as when a Lion roareth doth threaten all the Enemies of the Gospel alike and the seven Thunders do presage their total ruin The great cry was heard in the work of the Reformation but the entire destruction of the Enemies of the Gospel is put off till another time namely until under the Effusion of the Vials And this is the reason why St. Iohn is forbid to write the things declared by the seven Thunders because there was a considerable space of time to elapse between the cry of the Angel that was heard at the Reformation and the time of pouring out of the Vials For that the Seven Thunders are the same with the seven Vials of the 16th Chap. appeareth evidently from this in that the Thunders do necessarily signify the Judgments of God by which his Enemies are to be overwhelmed and in that the seven Vials do denote the same thing According as it is said chap. 15. v. 1. that the seven Vials are the seven last plagues by which the wrath of God is consummated XIX ILLUSTRATION Of the Angels Oath and of the finishing the Mystery of God. REV. CHAP. 10. V. 5. And the Angel which I saw stand upon the Sea and upon the Earth lifted up his hand to heaven V. 6. And sware by him that liveth forever and ever who created heaven and the things that therein are and the Earth and the things that therein are and the Sea and the things which are therein that there should be Time no longer V. 7. But in the day 's of the voice of the seventh Angel when he shall begin to sound the Mystery of God shall be finished as he hath declareth to his Servants the Prophets IT must needs be that what is treated of under the 7 th Trumpet is both great against all appearances to the contrary and a thing hard to be believed because it is nor only called a Mystery and a Secret but because to render it credible the Lord would give assurance of it by an Oath But this withall do's give us to understand that it is not the last Resurrection nor that Trumpet of the Arch-Angel which is here spoken of to be done under the sound of the Seventh Trumpet is to be understood It must then be the 1000 years Reign as hath been already shewn and that which consisteth in the destruction of Babylon in the calling of the Iews in the reuniting of Iews and Gentiles and in that renowned State on Earth which the Prophet Isaiah hath promised to the Church in his 62 Chap. that these great things which seem to be above all Belief above all Imagination are here meant intended For indeed who of the Papists can imagine that Rome and her Religion are to be destroyed how few Protestants can believe that the Jews are to be united with the Gentiles and that the Church of God shall have an intire peace on the Earth for many ages Nevertheless this is that Mystery which the Angel hath promised with an Oath shall be fulfilled soon after the sounding of the seventh Trumpet And this is the Reason why he declared that there shall be time no longer that is there shall be no more a deferring and a delay but that the seventh Angel shall have no sooner finished to sound the seventh Trumpet than that we shall see the consummation of the Mystery of God. XX. ILLUSTRATION Of the Angel's giving the Book to St. John to be Eaten and of the Effects which Ensue thereupon REV. CHAP. 10. V. 8. And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again and said Go and take the little Book which is open in the hand of the Angel which standeth upon the Sea and upon the Earth V. 9. And I went unto the Angel and said unto him Give me the little Book And he said unto me Take it and eat it up and it shall make thy belly bitter but it shall be in thy Mouth Sweet as honey V. 10. And I took the little Book out of the Angels hand and ate it up and it was in my mouth sweet as honey and as soon as I had eaten it my belly was bitter V. 11. And he said unto me thou must prophesie again before many people and Nations and Tongues and Kings ST Johns taking the little Book from the Angel representeth those whom the Lord shall raise up to re-establish the purity of divine worship through preaching of the Gospel 'T is for this that St. Iohn took the Book out of the hand of the Lord because it is the Lord who gives Ministers theiâ— Mission nor are they to go till they have received it from him according as he himself told the Apostles go teach all Nations teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Matth. 28. 19 20. It was also for this that he not only took the Book but that he eat it up because no one is properly a holy Minister if he be not full of the Word of God and if he be not possessed of all Truths through having well meditated upon them This Book meditated upon and well understood produceth necessarily two effects One is a consolation that ravisheth the Soul through the knowledg of the Mysteries of salvation and the hope of an happy eternal life The other is the mortification of the flesh by that Law which God hath prescribed of denying our selves and of dayly taking up the cross St.
Zechariah And they are withal said to be two in Allusion to their Testimony the old Testament which beareth witness of Christ to come and the new Testament which testisieth of Christ as come They are moreover stiled two because the Christian Church which had subsisted in the Valleys of Angrogna and Piedmont from the time of Sylvester and Constantin became at last divided into two Branches that are called Protestants as if you would say Attestants and Witnesses against the usurpation of the Church of Rome and these two are the Calvinists and Lutherans who together make up one and the same Body with those that were stiled the Waldenses and the Albigenses The Sackcloth in which these two Witnesses prophesied for 1260 days which is the same time with that designed by 42 Months signifieth the contempt and persecution which the Defenders of the Truth underwent all that time from and by the Antichristian party Nor was there any kind of injuries and vexations which was not put in practice to weary them and to stop their Mouths They were called Berengarians Stercorists Waldenses Albigenses Leonists Petrobrusians Henricians Wicliffists Lollards c. as they are now stiled Lutherans Zuinglians Calvinists Sacramentarians Hugonots Hereticks Schismaticks c. And to these reproaches there were added Fines Confiscations Imprisonments Banishments and Condemnations to death But if they were treated with that contempt and rage by the Antichristian Church the Angel of the Covenant who hath given them in command to Measure the Temple and to leave the outward Court of the Temple out will both advance their honor and avenge the outrages that they have suffered when he comes to pour forth the plagues of his wrath upon their persecutors The Holy Spirit do's ascribe unto these two Witnesses the vertue and power of Moses and Elijab of turning waters into bliod and of shutting heaven The Heathens used to accuse the primitive Christians of being the Cause of all the Calamities that befell the Empire And in one sense they had reason for it seeing the motive to Gods inflicting Civil wars Famine and Pestilence upon them was to punish the Empire for the miseries that they made the Church to suffer The case is the same in reference to these two Witnesses to whom God says as he did to Jeremiah chap. 5. v. 14. I will make my words in thy mouth fire and this people wood and it shall devour them Finally whereas these two Witnesses are called two Olive Trees and two Candlesticks standing before the God of the Earth it is an Allusion to the 4th Chapter of Zechariah where it is said that he saw a golden Candlestick standing between two Olive Trees which distilled down oyl into the Candlesticks The Candlestick there represents the Church and the two Olive Trees represent Zerobabel and Iehoshua by whom the Church of Israel was then conducted So that Ministers who Teach the pure word of God are the Olive Trees of Zechariah and the Flocks that hearken unto and obey them are the Candlesticks XXIII ILLUSTRATION Of the Witnesses being overcome and Slain and left unburied REV. CHAP. XI V. 7. And when they shall have finished their Testimony the Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them and shall overcome them and kill them V. 8. And their dead Bodies shall lie in the street of the great City which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified V. 9. And they of the People and Kindreds and Tongues and Nations shall see their dead Bodies three day's and an half and shall not suffer their dead Bodies to be put in graves V. 10. And they that dwell upon the Earth shall rejoice over them and make merry and shall send gifts one to another because these two Prophets tormented them that dwelt on the Earth THis Beast is the same with that which arose out of the bottomless pit having two horns described Rev. chap. 13. v. 11. c. It is said also of the first Beast that arose out of the Sea and which is described Rev. chap. 13. v. 1. that he should make war with the Saints and overcome them but not that he should kill them as it is of the Beast mentioned here of whom it is said that he shall slay the Witnesses But whereas 't is said that the Beast shall kill the Witnesses when they have finished their Testimony this is not to be understood absolutely as if they were not to be overcome and slain till after the 42 Months or the 1260 days which the Reign of the Beast is to continue But when they are about to finish their Sachcloath Testimony and when the Beast beginneth to fall and when the Witnesses appear in some degree of honor through the Reformation's being supported by publick Authority then the Beast growing inraged and transported with fury shall make war with them overcome them and kill them So that this War is different from that which had been during the time of the Witnesses prophesying cloathed in Sackcloth That is said to have been made against them as cloathed in sackcloth because there was no Sovereign Prince who did then protect them or gave them liberty to bear their Testimony But this War is made against them after they have put off their Sackcloth and while they are countenanced in their Profession of the Gospel by the Edicts of Soveraign Rulers In that their Enemies made use of Massacres and Gibbets and put the Witnesses actually to death in this they neither use Massacres nor Gibbets but suffer them to live only they put them to a civil Spiritual death as hath been done to the Protestant Churches in France Savoy c. I call that a Civil Death in those Churches that they have no more Pastors that they can no more assemble neither publickly nor privately neither in secret nor apart that they can no more sing Psalms nor read the Word of God that they dare neither stile themselves Protestants nor Reformed nor Hugenots For when a witnesses mouth is shut that he can no more plead for the Truth that is such a kind of death as may be termed a Civil Death I call that a Spiritual Death in those Churches to be forced by the violence of armed Troops and by Dragoons sent forth as Missionaries by the great Dragon compelled to abjure the Reformed Religion to enter into the communion of the Roman Church and to practise their Worship The present State of the Churches in France c. is then a Captivity which the Holy Spirit representeth to us under the Image and Emblem of a Death So the Prophet Hosea stiled the Babylonish Captivity in that he says chap. 6. v. 1 2. Come let us return unto the Lord he will revive us and we shall live in his sight And the Church being in that Captivity is introduced speaking in the same manner Psal 85. 6. Wilt thou not O Lord revive us again that thy people may
if they can find way of escape which they uncessantly seek for And the number of these being doubtless the greatest it may be said that the Reformed are not buried because the greatest part practise that which they do with regret and have the Mass and all which doth attend upon it in the same abhorrency that they had them heretofore For I do account those who willingly go to Mass to be dead and buried altogether nor is there any hope of their return But for those who go with repugnancy and sorrow tho they be dead yet they are not buried and there is cause to hope that they shall suddenly rise They are dead in the esteem of those who have compelled them and who reckon upon them as good Catholicks whom they shall in time bring to what they would have them But they are not put into Graves they are not yet infected there is some hidden spark of life in them which will speedily manifest it self This spark of life consisteth in the sorrow they are under for what they are forced to do in a more ardent love to their Pastors than heretofore and in those prayers which without ceasing they make unto God for their restoration And to say all that I think on this subject So long as there remain of those seeming Converted and forced Catholicks in France it cannot reasonably be said that the pretended Heresie of Calvin is extinguished or that the Witnesses are burried The Witnesses do yet appear as Bodies not interred and exposed to be seen and are look't upon by the Papists themselves as dead of some they are lookt upon with pity of others with horror and of all with mistrust If the Popish Clergy had been hearkned unto who are animated by that murdering as well as lying Spirit we should have seen the revival of St. Bartholomew's day for the burying of those Witnesses whom they have killed and for the final extirpating of the pretended Heresie For they do see that there is no other way to compass their End. Their inclination to Massacre appeareth in the cruel treatment which they use towards those seeming Converts who to repair the injury they have done when they come to die refuse to partake of the Popish Sacraments whose dead bodies the Priests cause to be drag'd along the streets and thrown on the Dunghils We may very well say that the rage of Papacy hath no bounds seeing after they have murdered the Consciences of these new Converts they persecute their very Carcasses not only without shame but without fear of being reproached for their inhumanity This murdering Spirit which animates the Clergy induceth them to demand of the King or of his Council a general Massacre that they may thereby hinder the Heresie which they have extinguished from recovering life and strength again But the Kindreds Tongues Peoples and Nations will not suffer that the King should consent to a general Massacre for either the seeing the prejudice which that violent Counsel would do to his State the advantage which that effusion of Blood would give his Enemies or the fearing to provoke his Neighbours against him makes that his Majesty will not hearken to those Sanguinary Sollicitors for the burying of the Witnesses We are carefully to observe the place where the Witnesses are to be overcome killed and left without burial It is saith the Text in the Street of the great City This observation obviates an Objection that may be made against what we have alledged in our affirming the Extinction of the Protestant Churches in France to be the putting the Witnesses to death For some may say are the two Witnesses no other save the Reformed Churches in France The Church of England the Churches of the United Provinces those of Piedmont those of Switzerland those of Germany c. are not all these Churches of the number of the Witnesses as well as those of France Yes without doubt But neither the United Provinces nor the Cantons nor Swedland nor Denmark nor Hess nor Saxony nor Brandenburgh are Streets of the great City The Pope receiveth no Tribute from thence nor hath he any power in any of them Neither is there any place except Piedmont where the Papists have begun to make the like War as they have done in France As for England I know not if it may be sayd that it is become a Street of the great City because that Popery's being reestablished on the Throne in the Person of the King who declared himself a Roman Catholick upon his coming to the Crown Nor do I know whether we are not to expect the effect of that secret Plot of which there hath been a rumor in that Kingdom for these twenty years before we can tell whether the prophecy about the death of the Witnesses be fulfilled and before we can particularly determin the time of their Resurrection But the word used here in the Greek do's deliver us from that Entanglement For the Text not speaking of places but of one place doth thereby seem to inform us that the Witnesses are not to be killed any where else save in that place or Street which the Text doth design Which seems beyond all contradiction to be France in that we see the Witnesses Killed there not put into Graves XXIV ILLUSTRATION Of the Rising of the Witnesses their ascending into Heaven and of what follows upon their Triumph REV. CHAP. XI V. 11. And after three day's and an half the Spirit of Life from God entred into them and they stood upon their feet and great fear fell upon them which saw them V. 12. And they heard a great voice from Heaven saying unto them come up hither and they ascended up to Heaven in a Cloud and their Enemies beheld them V. 13. And the same hour was there a great Earthquake and the tenth part of the City fell and in the Earthquake were slain of men seven thousand and the remnant were affrighted and gave glory to the God of Heaven IF the 1260 Days signify 1260 Years as shall be proved in another place then there is no reason for the understanding the three days an half wherein the Witnesses lie dead for three Natural day's So that it is three years and a half that the Witnesses are to continue dead and without being put into Graves After which time they shall rise and shall ascend into Heaven This Resurrection and Ascention of the Witnesses doth import two things First That the Reformed Churches shall be reestablished and that in such a manner that the hand of God shall signally appear in it because there is none besides God who can raise the Dead 2ly That they shall be setled in a more Advantagious State than they were before even as the life which Christ had after his Resurrection surpassed that in glory which he laid down on the Cross That is the meaning of the Allusion which the Holy Spirit maketh here to the Resurrection and Ascention of our Saviour
while he is speaking of the reestablishment of the Church Because their death was in this like unto that of Jesus Christ that they were killed and extinguished by Roman Souldiers even as our Lord was For this is a Fact as remarkable as it is notorious that they are the Prelates who have let loose the Kings Troops against the Reformed Churches and that they are the Curates who have removed them from such of the Reformed as have come to begg it under promise of abjuring their Religion So that the Death of the Witnesses bearing so great a resemblance to the death of Jesus Christ their Resurrection shall also resemble his All that is here said concerning the reestablishment of the Protestant Churches is to be considered with attention 1 'T is said that the Spirit of life from God entred into the Witnesses This Spirit of Life is certainly set in opposition to that Spirit of Death which killed them Now what was that which killed them It was the fear of men the dread of misery apprehension that they should never see an End of their torments and the Violence they were under from the Soldiers It was that fallacious and ensnaring Reasoning which they every day heard from the Mouths of their persecutors Stand out as long as you please When we have devoured you to the bone you must at last obey Flatter not your selves with hope of any ease the King will not suffer himself to be contradicted He who could take Cambray and Luxemburgh will he be withstood by a Hugonot Dog Nor shall ye be suffered to depart the Kingdom What fools are ye to suffer your selves to be devoured ye may be eased of the Dragoons by the bare saying of one word Say only I do obey the King and for the rest you may believe as you will. Do you think that the King would have you damned He purposeth to reform the Church of France as soon as he hath reduced and united all his Subjects Do ye not know what he hath done already against the Court of Rome You will suddenly see other matters Will you be they after all who shall alone make head against the King and rob him of the Title of Conqueror and of Victorious Do you not see that all do submit that young and old poor and rich Noble and Ignoble Learned and Ignorant throughout the whole Kingdom do comply This was that Spirit of Death that entred into the Witnesses It was this blast or tempestuous Wind that hath scattered and overthrown all the Protestant Churches of France And in probability the Spirit of life from God that shall enter into the Witnesses will be a way of Reasoning that is contrary to this For example what have we done unhappy creatures that we are How great is our crime We are gone over to a Religion that cannot be good forasmuch as its Ministers Bishops and Priests have let loose the Kings Troops upon us and that it is they who are the Authors of all the robberies violences blasphemies and impieties which the Souldiers have committed in order to pervert us And seeing the Bishops and Priests will have forced Consciences they cannot be the Ministers of God who requireth the heart and a willing people Nor can they be the Ministers of Christ because they have taken from us the only means of Instruction by depriving us of the Holy Scriptures together with all Books tending to piety What can that Religion be worth which reduceth the whole of Religion to the Mass where we understand nothing and where our Eyes are filled with certain ceremonies of which we comprehend nothing save that they worship an object in which we see nothing that is Adorable and where they commit that affront against the Son of God as to hale him from his throne of glory to put him into the hands of wicked persons and into the Mouths of blasphemers Can that Religion be good where we hear not a Sermon wherein they do not demand the assistance of the Holy Spirit but by the intercession of the blessed Virgin which is both a plain Idolatry and expresly condemned by those words of our Saviour I will pray the Father and he shall send you the comforter and no man cometh to the Father save by me Besides they do perform nothing of what they promised us We are not suffered to believe as we would They have not Reformed one abuse They give us no rest neither as to our bodies nor as to our Consciences They joined fraud to violence which are the two Characters of Antichrist whereby to seduce us Come let us give glory to God. Let us depart out of Babylon God will bless our Endeavours and either deliver us out of our captivity or give us strength to glorify him by our sufferings This in all likelyhood is the Spirit of life from God that after three years and a half will enter into the Witnesses 2 'T is said that the Witnesses stood upon their feet This is as much as to say that they shall come to acknowledg their crime shall forbear to go to the Mass that they shall take courage that their zeal shall revive that they shall Serve God according to his Word that they shall assemble first in secret then publickly without fearing any more either the Bishops or the Curates or the Souldiers or the Dragoons or Misery or death 3 'T is said that great fear fell upon them which saw them We are not to doubt but that the Holy Spirit do's by them that saw them understand the Authors and Executioners of the persecution For the other Papists have scarce medled in it It hath been only the Clergy and the Bigots of the Court and of the Parliaments who interested themselves in persecuting the Churches while they stood and who do now make merry upon their dissipation And they are the persons upon whom fear will fall when they shall come to see the scattered congregations gather again Nor shall they recover from that dread because the Court will be no more inclined to hearken to them but on the contrary all that will be done there shall tend to the mortifying of them and to the re-establishing the Churches 4 'T is said that the Witnesses heard a great voice from heaven saying come up hither and that they ascended in a cloud I am much deceived if this doth not signify that God who is the Master of hearts shall change the heart of the King and of his Council and that we shall see a Revolution in France of a contrary nature to what hath been seen in England As in the year 1685 we saw Popery mount into the Throne of great Brittain so after the three years and a half of the Witnesses lying dead we shall see the Reformed Religion get upon the Throne in France We have not been much surprised to see the re-establishment of Popery in England because it is long since it was known what judgment the Duke of York was of
his Vial upon the Seat of the Beast and his Kingdom was full of darkness and they gnawed their tongues for pain V. 11. And blasphemed the God of Heaven because of their pains and their sores and repented not of their deeds There is nothing here dark provided it be true that the Beast is the Papal Empire according as we have proved and that Rome is the Seat of this Empire as all men do see So that it is the City of Rome which is here threatned by God with an eternal and irrecoverable Ruin. Or rather this is the execution of that denunciation contained in the 18th Chap. and which we have explained in the first Part. Rome is threatned to be destroyed as Egypt as Babylon and as Sodom This fifth Vial shews us the fulfilling of all this Rome being destroyed the Beasts Kingdom becomes full of darkness Which in the Scripture signifies Sadness and Mourning 'T is easie to apprehend the dejection which the Papal Empire will be under and the afflication that they will be in who have the Mark of the Beast his Name or the Number of his Name when they see that Rome is no more 'T is said that they shall gnaw their tongues and blaspheme the God of Heaven i. e. they shall complain that God is wanting in making good his promises namely that Rome should not perish while the world stood and that she should be alway's the Lady and Mistriss of all Churches of Faith and of Religion Which is a horrid blasphemy for where hath God promised any such priviledg to the City of Rome The sixth Vial. V. 12. And the sixth Angel poured out his Vial upon the great River Euphrates and the water thereof was dried up that the way of the Kings of the East might he prepared V. 13. And I saw three unclean Spirits like Frogs come out of the mouth of the Dragon and out of the mouth of the Beast and out of the mouth of the False Prophet V. 14. For they are the Spirits of Devils working miracles which go forth unto the Kings of the Earth and of the whole World to gather them to the battel of that great day of God Almighty V. 15. Behold I come as a Thief blesseth is he that watcheth and keepeth his Garments lest he walk naked and they see his shame V. 16. And they gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew Tongue Armageddon The sixth Vial destroyeth the Empire of the Turks and their Religion which the sixth Trumpet had advanced to the highest pitch of its grandure For the River Euphrates does undoubtedly signify the people of that part of the world as its being dried up denoteth the End of their Empire and of their Religion After which there will be nothing to hinder either the King 's of the East who shall be enlightned and converted or the Iews who are there dispersed in great numbers from marching into the West to help to finish the destruction of the Beast 'T is remarkable that the Prophet Isaiah doth in the place where he promiseth the conversion of the Iews stile them Kings which as it hath a reference to the Millennian Reign so it induceth to a belief that the Iews are these Kings who are here spoken of The prosperity of Mahometanism and Popery hath kept back the Iews from the Christian Religion which those two Religions have so much disfigured But when through the destruction of Rome they shall behold the Seat of the Beast overthrown and when they shall see the Kingdom of the Beast become full of darkness the great River Euphrates dried up then they will open their eyes and be converted The Conversion of the Jews is unquestionably promised in this place in that St. Iohn useth an expression like to what Isaiah useth chap. 11. v. 15. where their conversion is promised For if St. Iohn speaks of the drying up of Euphrates Isaiah sayth that God will shake his hand over the River Moreover it is plainly in favour of the Jews that St. Iohn useth the Hebrew term Armageddon And there came three unclean Spirits like frogs out of the mouth of the Dragon and out of the mouth of the Beast and out of the Mouth of the false Prophet Who can doubt but that these are the spiritual Fathers of the three Orders of Monks who have made most noise and have done must hurt namely the Jacobin's the Cordeliers and the Jesuites Are not these Spiritual Fathers Do they not depend upon the Pope as upon a Deity Doth not the command of that false Prophet send them to the East-Indies to America and to all places Are they not troublesome and importunate as the Frogs are and are not the Mansions where they are Cloist'red nasty and stinking like the dirty pudles When the Pepe shall find himself threatned with a total ruin he shall send to all parts he shall hunt out these three Orders of Ghostly Fathers in order to assemble all his forces But this rendevouz is said to be in a place called Armageddon because they together with all the Enemies of the Church shall there irrecoverably perish as the Nations that were execrated and excepted from pardon for having made War against Israel Moreover what we have said concerning these three unclean Spirits doth not interfer with nor lessen the probability of the Conjecture which we made about the Monks being the Locusts For we have not said that the Monks are to be totally abolished before the effusion of the 6th Vial but all we have said was that the power which was given them to torment men five Mon'ths shall come to an End within an 150 years signified by five prophetick Mon'ths counting from October 1540. when the first Bull was emitted for the establishing the Society of Iesuites who are principally designed by the Locusts as being they who have advanced the Monastick Order to the highest pitch of their power But this doth not hinder but that both they and the other Monks and Friers shall make a last effort to uphold their own power and that of the Papacy about the time when the Sixth Vial shall come to be poured out The Seventh Vial. V. 17. And the seventh Angel poured out his Vial into the Air and there came a great voice out of the Temple of Heaven from the Throne saying It is done V. 18. And there were Voices and Thunders and Lightnings and there was a great Earthquake such as was not since Men were upon the Earth so mighty an Earthquake and so great V. 19. And the great City was divided into three parts and the Cities of the Nations fell and great Babylon came in remembrance before God to give unto her the Cup of the Wine of the fierceness of his Wrath. V. 20. And every Island sled away and the Mountains were not found V. 21. And there fell upon men a great Hail out of Heaven every stone about the Weight of a talent and men blasphemed God because
had been grown young again We may very rationally form such an Idea of the Papal or Antichristian Empire But we may according to the Scripture go a little further than the Historian Florus hath done and ascend to the very Conception of this Antichristian Kingdom For it was conceived in the time of St. Paul because he writes to the Thessalonians 2 Ep. chap. 2. v. 7. that the Mystery of Iniquity did then work It was then as an Embrio and a Foetus but it began to stir in the second Century when Victor the Bishop of Rome upon a very frivolous occasion namely about the day on which Easter should be kept Excommunicated the Churches of Asia but he was too feeble to continue and justify what he had done After the conversion of the Emperors who chose to bring heathenish Superstitions into the Church in order to facilitate the conversion of the Pagans Antichristianism begun to acquire considerable strength and strove to come into the world and to shew its head Especially when Pope Mark in the 4th age wrote those bold and blasphemous letters which we have mentioned and when Innocent I made that bold effort in reference to the matter of Appeals whereof he claimed to be Judg. But yet Antichristianism did not openly appear nor come abroad because it had not the assistance of the Secular power to midwife it into the world It was then born and came into the world when the two Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian came in to its succour and when by an Edict wherein these two Emperors joined and exerted their Authority the Bishop of Rome was established Soveraign Judg of all Bishops Since that Edict it hath been always growing It s Infancy was from Leo I. until Boniface III who improving the favour of the Emperor Phocas boldly assumed the Title of Universal Bishop which his predecessor Gregory I durst not challenge because that Iohn Bishop of Constantinople had taken it before him It s youth was from Boniface III until the time of that famous Hildebrand called Gregory VII under whose Popedom it arrived at its manly State. For to this day there was never a Pope more haughty nor a Tyrant more terrible than he was He brought Henry IV. to come and demand pardon of him in the Castle of Canoss where he made him attend three whole days without shewing the least regard to his dignity and when he had admitted him to audience treated him with the like haughtiness that the most absolute Master would treat the meanest domestical Servant It s Manhood extended from thence until the time of the great Schism which endured 50 years and was at last ended by the Council of Constance in the year 1415. And then began its Old age which is now so far advanced that it may be said to be decrepit and extreamly feeble and to have as it were one foot in the Grave XXIX ILLUSTRATION Of the Destruction of Gog and Magog REV. CHAP. XX. V. 7. And when the thousand years are expired Satan shall be loosed out of his prison V. 8. And shall go out to deceive the Nations which are in the four quarters of the Earth Gog and Magog to gather them together to Battel the number of whom is as the Sand of the Sea. V. 9. And they went up on the breadth of the Earth and compassed the Camp of the Saints about and the beloved City and fire came down from God out of Heaven and devoured them V. 10. And the Devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brim-stone where the Beast and the false Prophet are and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever THe destruction of Gog and Magog being not to arrive until after the imprisonment of Satan for a thousand years and till after the Millennian peace of the Church we cannot discourse of it otherway's than by conjecture This prediction is unquestionably the same with that of Ezekiel For there hath not hitherto been any Defeat like unto that which Ezekiel chap. 39. relates concerning Gog and Magog which he representeth to be such that they shall be seven Months in burying their dead Bodies and that the fire in which their Arms are burnt shall last seven years v. 9 12. Since Ezekiels time until this day there hath been seen nothing proportionable unto it nor any thing in the whole known world that comes near it This then being a Sealed Prophecy we must wait for the sense of it till it come to be accomplished Nor will it be fulfilled until after Satans Imprisonment and the Churches rest for a thousand years and until after the ruin of the Beast and the false Prophet who are in this Vision supposed to be in the lake of fire and brimstone So that it is highly probable that St. Iohn doth only repeat the prophecy of Ezekiel For as Ezekiel doth not relate the Destruction of Gog and Magog until after he had described the Resurrection of the Church of Israel so St. Iohn doth not treat of this Affair till after the description of the Church's re-establishment and of her peace for a 1000 years And as Ezekiel represents the people of God before they came to be assaulted by Gog and Magog as a People that were in the enjoyment of an entire peace that dwelt void of fear and who had neither Walls nor Gates nor Barrs and who without being troubled lookt after their Herds and their fields so St. Iohn do's in the same manner represent the Peace of the Church before the breaking out of the War which Gog and Magog were to be ingaged in Finally As Ezekiel after he had recounted the Defeat of Gog and Magog describes the Mystical Temple and with that finisheth his Prophesie so St. Iohn after he hath recited the destruction of Gog and Magog describes the same Temple which Ezekiel had described and which is nothing else save the Church and Mystical Temple of the Son of God and with that he finisheth his Apocalypse If it be demanded who these Gog and Magog are I answer that it appears by Ezekiel that they are a people on the north of Judea as the Tartars and Scythians are And in all likelihood they and others sprung from them are the people who being deceived by Satan loosed out of his prison shall raise the most dangerous War against the Church that she ever met with and that therefore God shall deliver her after a more illustrious manner than ever he had done before XXX ILLUSTRATION Of St. John's Offence in falling at the Angel's feet to Worship him REV. CHAP. 19. V. 10. And I fell at his feet to Worship him and he said unto me see thou do it not I am thy fellow servant and of thy Brethren that have the Testimony of Jesus Worship God for the Testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophesie SEeing the Angel reproveth St. Iohn for having east himself at his feet it must needs be that that Apostle
had therein done amiss Otherwise the fault were in the Angel in rebuking that as a sin which was an action that ought not to have been blamed Which is a thing that we are neither to say nor to think of an Angel of light But what was this fault of St. Iohn Can we say that he failed in reference to the Law and to matter of Right Certainly this Apostle was sanctified to the knowledg of the Truth by that Spirit which inspired him in his divine Writings yet sanctification being not perfect save in heaven there is no danger in confessing him to have been liable to infirmities and the rather because he himself saith 1 Epist chap. 1. v. 8. that if we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us Nevertheless seeing that if St. Iohn had failed in matter of Right he must have been guilty of Idolatry a thing he was not capable of committing neither as he was a Iew by his birth and less as he was a Christian who had received a greater measure of the light of Grace and least of all as he was an Apostle that had preached against Idolatry and who had shut up his first Epistle with that Exhortation Little children keep your selves from Idols it is therefore safest to say that he failed in matter of Fact and that being struck with the luster of the Angel he took him for one of the Persons of the Godhead for which the Angel doth rebuke him And what the Angel saith in his reprehending of him do's plainly favour this account See thou do it not say's he for I am thy fellow servant and of thy Brethren that have the Testimony of Iesus Worship God. The Angel saw that he took him not for a Creature but for the Creator For he doth it in the same manner that St. Paul and Barnabas reprehended the Lycaonians Act. 14. 15. when they would have sacrified to them as unto Iupiter and Mercury why do ye these things we also are men of like passions with you The Relapse of St. Iohn into the same fault chap. 22. v. 8. for which he was again rebuked do's invincibly prove that his sin was a faileur in matter of Fact. For who can with any probability believe that St. Iohn would have worshipped a creature if he had known him to be such or who can think but that if the Angel had thought so of him he would have rebuked him with greater severity than he did Whereas even upon that miscarriage he contenteth himself with producing the same reason a second time thar he had alledged unto him before That which the Angel addeth for the Testimony of Iesus is the Spirit of Prophecy is nothing but an Illustration of the reason which he had assigned for not suffering St. Iohn to worship him namely that I am thy fellow Servant For it is all one as if he should have said the Testimony of Iesus which is in thee as an Apostle is the same thing with the Spirit of Prophecy that is in me We are equal and therefore you deceive your self in taking me for an object which ought to be worshipped The Bishop of Rome is not so Scrupulous as the Angel was nor do's he carry it after that manner forasmuch as upon the day of his Election he suffereth himself to be set upon the high Altar where he is worshipped by all the Cardinals and by all the people By which we come to know what agreement there is between the Bishop of Rome and an Angel of light And that there is a great deal more betwixt him and the Angel of Darkness that had the impudence to require of Iesus Christ that he should fall down and Worship him XXXI ILLUSTRATION Of Christ's directing his Epistles and his Revelation to the seven Churches And why AFter that we have explained all the Visions of the Apocalypse we are not to forget to inquire the Reason why Jesus Christ judged it convenient to direct it together with the Epistles particularly to the seven Churches of Asia Ephesus Smyrna Pergamus Thyatira Sardis Philadelphia and Laodicea There is unquestionably a Mystery in it that Jesus Christ should direct this divine Book to Seven Churches neither to more nor to fewer For 1 the number seven is a Mysterious Number through this whole Book It signifieth the universality the fulfilling of all Times as appeareth by the consideration of the seven Seals the seven Trumpets and the seven Vials Because that number denoteth the whole Train of things which the Seals Trumpets and Vials fore-tell are to come to pass till the very destruction of the Antichristian Empire 2 Christ appeareth having in his hand Seven Stars which are the Seven Pastors of the Seven Churches aud walking in the midst of Seven Candlesticks which are the Seven Churches that we have mentioned But why Seven Doth he not promise to be the Protector but of these seven Pastors and the Overseer and Defender but of these Churches 3 There is a Conformity between that Vision in the first Chapter and those of the seven Seals and of the opened Book For we there find the same pomp the sound of a Trumpet and the glorious presence of our Saviour in the midst of his Church And withal he appeareth there walking in the midst of the seven Candlesticks and sitting in the midst of the four living Creatures and the 24. Elders By which conformity we are given to understand that this first Vision is of equal weight and of an equal extension with all the other And that this of the Seven Churches reached to the End of the world as all the following together do 4 Jesus Christ saith to St. John. v. 19. Write the things which thou hast seen and the things which are and the things which shall be hereafter Which is as much as if he had said write not only things which concern the Churches that are mentioned and which ought to be instructed as these are but which also concern all Churches to the End of the world and whereof the seven that are named are a model and Type 5 The Epistles which Jesus Christ directeth to the seven Churches do contain Instructions and Reprehensions which agree unto and exactly express all the different and several conditions in which the Christian Church will be found until the end of the world The State of the Church of Ephesus doth lively represent the condition of the Primitive Church where Truth prevailed and where at the last the decay of Charity became a disposition and a step to a more doleful State. Whosoever well considers what is said to the Church of Ephesus will therein find the condition of the primitive Church painted forth to the life That of Smyrna represents the State of the Church during the fourth and fifth Ages wherein Arianism had the upperhand and wherein the Orthodox were outragiously persecuted That is the Tribulation of ten days wherewith Smyrna is threatned not
and that this doth not conclude that the Vials are to be poured out so near one to another nor with so great celerity I Answer unto him that this cannot be the meaning of it because the three Woes are confined to the three last Trumpets the 1st to the fifth the 2d to the sixth and the third to the seventh For according to Mr. Iurieu the sixth hath been exerting its Influences for almost these 800 years and the 3d Wo is not yet come nor shall come till under the sound of the seventh Trumpet So that the whole course of the fifth Trumpet was not so far distant from the sixth Trumpet to which the 2d Wo is attributed as the whole Course of the 6th is distant from the beginning of the 7th under which the 3d Wo is to arrive And therefore it must be owned that the word quickly being used only in reference to the 3d Wo signifieth that all the plagues or which is the same thing that all the Vials shall be poured out close upon one another and that it doth as much as import that there shall not be so much time employed for destroying the Empire of the Beast as there was for the raising of it Mr. Iurieu had obliged the Anonymous Author if he had answered that which occurs in the Preface to his Illustrations and which is layd down in these Terms 'T is evident that there are in the Revelation three principal Visions in which are contained all the great Events that relate to the Roman Empire and to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ i. e. which concern the True Church and the False These Visions are those of the Seals those of the Trumpets and those of the Vials All the other are but Draughts in which what is represented in the Visions of the Seals Trumpets and Vials is reassumed enlarged and more circumstantially explained For the name Seven which is Mystical and which implies perfection do's inform us that these three Visions comprehend all For 't is found in that of the Seals in that of the Trumpets and in that of the Vials and also in that of the Thunders which are the Forerunners of the Vials Moreover these three Visions are immediately link'd one to another so that the second which is that of the Trumpets beginneth under the 7th Seal and the 3d which is that of the Vials beginneth under the 7th Trumpet As this is the foundation of the Anonymous Author's Systeme and as he hath there declared the Key of the Revelation Mr. Iurieu who knows the art of Reasoning might have observed in that Preface a chain of Ratiocination able to dazle the Eyes of the Reader For if it be true that the Vials are not poured out till under the Seventh Trumpet as the Trumpets sound not till upon the opening of the Seventh Seal then it is most certain that all the Vials remain still to be poured out forasmuch as the Seventh Trumpet hath not yet sounded and that we are hitherto under the Sixth Even as it might be justly said that none of the Trumpets had sounded provided it were true that we were yet under the Sixth Seal and that the Seventh were not until this time opened This Reason doth necessarily naturally follow from that which the Anonymous Author had layd down in his Preface and which is the foundation of his Systeme And if Mr. Iurieu hath vouchsafed no Answer to it doubtless it is because he could find no difficulty in it To the foregoing Arguments the Anonymous Author will add two more which whether he shall call proofs or difficulties is to him indifferent The first ariseth from the comparing Rev. chap. 11. v. 19. with chap. 15. v. 5 6 7. In chap. 11. we read that the Temple of God was opened in Heaven and that there was seen in his Temple the Ark of his Testament and that there were lightnings and voices and thundrings and an Earthquake and great haile And chap. 15. we read that St. Iohn looked behold the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony in Heaven was opened and the seven Angels who had the seven plagues came out of the Temple and one of the four Living Creatures gave to the seven Angels seven golden Vials full of the Wrath of the Living God. 'T is evident that these two Visions are parralel and that they both tend to one and the same End. For in each of them we find the opening of the Temple of God which had been shut against the Jews but is now opened to receive them In the one we see the Ark of the Covenant in the other the Tabernacle of Testimony This Ark and this Tabernacle of Testimony are Iesus Christ whom the Iews shall come to Adore Popery and Mahometism are the two great obstacles which hinder the conversion of the Iews and which confirm them in their obstinacy but behold seven Angels who receive seven Vials for the destruction of the Papacy and Mahometism Now the Temple of God not being opened till under the seventh Trumpet which hath not yet sounded it invincibly followeth that none of all the Vials are hitherto poured out The Anonymous Author's other new Argument which he addeth to the former is taken from that which St. Iohn says chap. 15. v. 1. I saw another great Sign in Heaven He had said the same thing chap. 12. v. 3. with respect to the Subject of the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns which represent the whole extent of the Roman Empire as well Civil as Ecclesiastical i. e. Papal taking this Extent and duration down from the time that these Revelations were given to St. Iohn For the 12th chap. is a commentary upon the Vision of the Trumpets because we find in that chap. the same thing that we find in the Vision of the Trumpets namely the War of the Dragon against the Woman and against those that are of her Seed So that St. Iohn coming to say chap. 15. with respect to the Subject of the seven Plagues which are the Seven Vials I saw another great Sign in Heaven 't is plain that this Sign is different from the first and represents quite another thing So that if the Holy Spirit do promise in this the ruin of the Papal Empire as he had predicted in that the birth and growth of the said Empire we cannot make the Vials to be poured forth under the Sixth Trumpet without mixing what the Spirit of God would separate and without confounding two different Signs and the different things which are represented by those Signs To which Arguments there may be yet a third subjoined grounded upon chap. 15. v. 8. For 't is there said that after one of the four living Creatures had given to the seven Angels seven Vials full of the wrath of the Living God the Temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his Power and no man was able to enter into the Temple till the 7 plagues of the seven Angels
hast to put it into practice which succeeded to them according to their desires Calcondyla reports that Mahomet II. being besieging Constantinople caused Canon to be cast of so extraordinary a bigness that there needed seventy couple of Oxen and two thousand men to draw one of them 7. The Third part of men killed intimateth the Progress and Spreading both of the Turkish Empire and of their Religion which reunited all their different principalities in the person of Tangrolipix To him succeeded Asan in the year 1059. just about the time that Pope Gregory VII raised the Papacy to the highest top of grandure And it was this Asan that rendred himself Master of all the Countries from the City of Laodicea in Syria even to the Hellespont of Antiochia of Cappadocia of Bithynia of Lycia of Pesidia of Lycaonia of Paphlagonia of Galatia of both the Celicia's of Pontus and of Anatolia And from that time the Sultans have alway's advanced their conquests and have destroyed the Roman Empire in the East having made Constantinople which was formerly the Imperial Seat of it to be that of the Turkish and Mahometan Empire 8. It was upon the Christians that the Turks made all their Conquests and of this the Holy Spirit gives such a reason as might serve to open the eyes of the Papists because it convinceth them of being guilty of Idolatry This accusation the Papists do account the most sensible injury that can be done them but it is a condemnation that they must bear For saith the Holy Spirit The rest of the men that were not killed by these plagues repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship Devils and Idols of Gold and Silver and Brass and Stone and of Wood which neither can see nor hear nor walk At whose cost was it that the Mahometans erected their Empire Against whom were they the Scourges of God for the punishment of their Idolatry It was not against the Heathens for there were none such within the whole extent of the Eastern Roman Empire It was at the expence of Christians that the Turks extended both their Empire and their Religion And therefore seeing the Holy Ghost declareth that the punishing the Idolatry of Christians was the reason of loosing of the four Angels in the River Euphrates to commit so many Murders it is from thence evident that the Christians who were subdued were Idolaters and also apparent wherein their Idolatry consisted Namely in this that they worshipped Devils and Idols of Gold of Silver of Brass of Stone and of Wood. Nor can it be denied but that the Roman Church is guilty of the same crime If it shall be said that the Roman Church doth not worship Devils as those mentioned in the Text are said to have done I answer first that the word in the Original is Demons which signifieth properly inferior and lower Gods Gods who are Mediators between men and the Supream God which is a Title liberally given to the Saints in the Church of Rome And in which sense the Word used in this place ought necessarily to be expounded seeing there were never any Christians that made profession of worshipping Devils neither could the very Heathens be said to do that forasmuch as Devils were wholly unknown among Pagans I answer secondly that all Religious worship given to a Creature is judged by the Scripture to be rendred to Devils This appeareth fully Ps 106. v. 37. where it is said that they sacrificed their Sons and Daughters unto Devils The Roman Church does believe that She worshippeth God in worshipping Images of Gold of Silver of Brass of Stone and of Wood but the Prophets do instruct us by the example of the Israelites that this Worship is given to Devils They sottishly flatter and deceive themselves in distinguishing betwixt an Idol and an Image foraâ— much as the Greek Term Idol signifieth the same that the word Image doth in our vulgar languages Moreover they who were killed by the Turks worshipped not Devils They only did as the Roman Church doth towards her Images of Gold and Silver c. Yea She doth worse than those Oriental Idolatrous Christians did For she worshippeth as God the Sacrament which must therefore necessarily be a Creature because it is a Sacrament and which cannot be Jesus Christ because it is Instituted by him For that which is Instituted must necessarily be something different from him that Ordains it XVII ILLUSTRATION Of the Angel with the Book Open. REV. CHAP. 10. V. 1. And I saw another mighty Angel come down from Heaven clothed with a Clowd and a Rain-bow was upon his Head and his Face was as it were the Sun and his Feet as Pillars of Fire V. 2. And he had in his hand a Little Book Open and he set his right foot upon the Sea and his left foot on the Earth THe Rain-bow which appeared upon the Angels Head doth place Him out of the rank of created Angels and gives us to understand that this is the Angel of the Covenant the Angel who is the Creator of whom there is mention at the opening of the Seventh Seal namely Iesus Christ And whereas it is added that his Face was as the Sun and his Feet as Pillars of Brass that is a demonstration that he is the same with him who revealed himself to St. Iohn in the first Chap. to wit the Son of God. He appeareth having in his hand a Book open Which Book is not that of the Apocalypse but that of the Holy Scripture in general For the Six Trompets having represented the spoil which popery had done in the Western Church and Mahometanism in the Eastern this Vision doth foretell how this ravage shall be repaired by the preaching of the Gospel For this is an open Book to all such as do in sincerity seek to be instructed in what it revealeth and who seek for nothing besides what is there If our Gospel be hid saith St. Paul it is hid to them that are lost whom the God of this world hath blinded 2 Cor. 4. 3 4. Mahometanism and Popery have shut this Book by exacting a blind Obedience by forbidding the examination of their Doctrine and by interdicting people from reading of the word of God. But the time will come that this divine Book shall be opened and when all men shall be allowed to read it in order to the Reforming those abuses which through the impudence of Mahometanism in the East and the craft of the Papacy in the West have abounded in the Church XVIII ILLUSTRATION Of the Voice of the Angel that had his Right Foot upon the Sea and his left upon the Earth and of the seven Thunders REV. CHAP. 10. V. 2. And he set his right Foot upon the Sea and his left foot upon the Earth V. 3. And cried with a loud Voice as when a Lion roareth and when he had cried Seven Thunders uttered their voices V. 4. And when the Seven thunders had