even those that are poured on the Sun into the Air or on the River Euphrates they all touch the concern of the Beast that rose out of the Earth as you may see by the Exposition of the Vision And the first Vial poured on the Earth in this sense reacheth them immediately it inflicting so noysome and grievous a sore on those that are the marked slaves of the two-horned Beast especially their Interest being so much concerned in the fall of Babylon and the Rising of the Witnesses Wherefore that Cup of Intoxication and Dementation through Envy Malice Rage and Fury as it is said ch 11. v. 18. upon the Rising of the Witnesses and Doxology of the Elders And the Nations were angry which answers to the effect of the effusion of this first Vial the noysome sore on the marked slaves of the Beast that Cup I say is really the pouring forth of this first Vial which is a grievous plague indeed Impedit ira animum And Quos Iupiter vult perdere eosdem dementat prius So that by the Remarker's leave these are no sorry conceits nor the Expositor's private opinion but the opinion of worthy Interpreters before him b But the Remarker's is a groundless conceit to apply that which belongs to the times preceding the Rising of the Witnesses to the Vials which come after their Rising as is most plain to them that do not wilfully wink against the Truth Wherefore the War of the Hussites c. is such a business as the Albigensian War and if justifiable to be referred to the War betwixt the Beast and the Saints ch 13. v. 7. c Nor has the Remarker any evasion out of this evidence of truth but by an unworthy vilifying of the Protestant Reformation which undoubtedly was the Rising of the Witnesses and most certainly was a very illustrious Atchievement of Providence and quite wiped away that foul face of things which Custome and Law had established before and is described in the Idea of Antichristianism and therefore it is most wretched Ingratitude to undervalue so great a Bounty of the Divine Majesty towards his servants like the murmuring of the Israelites against Moses and Aaron by whose conduct they were delivered from the bondage and Tyranny of Pharaoh Nor was the Pope's Supremacy onely rejected and some gross corruptions here in the Church of England suppose reformed but all gross corruptions nor were there any left that can be a just cause of Separation from our Church But the cavil now forsooth must be because they retain still Political Government for Popish leaven in matters of Religion which is reformed to the pattern of the Times that were symmetral is plainly outed from our Church and continue in the same worldly state and station the terms for Political Government as if all Political Laws and Orders though they were made and managed for the support of the Kingdom of God and the purity of his Worship were worldly How freakish is this But how outragious to make the Reformed Churches merely for this cause to continue Members of the Beast This is such a wild Imagination that it is more becoming those Dreamers St. Iude describes that despise dominion and speak evil of dignities than any sober Christian d And lastly as I remember I noted before the Spirit of life entring into the Witnesses has not a Spiritual sense but Political And the Genius of Prophetick Iconisms and of the Apocalyptick Prophecies is rather to adumbrate the External and visible state of the Church than the Internal There is onely one thing remaining in this Remark at the beginning that I may seem to have slipt over viz. That the effect of the first Vial namely that rankorous sore does not seem to be imputed to the effusion of the Vial but to the Rising of the Witnesses But I answer that it is sufficient that this sore rages in the time of the Vial-Angel For here are seven distinct Times allotted to the seven Vial-Angels as there are seven distinct times allotted to the seven Trumpet-Angels and what happens in the said allotted times is attributed to the Angel to whom the time is alloted whether the Angel contribute any thing to it or no. Nor does any one imagine that the Locusts and Euphratean Horse-men were blown out of the fifth and sixth Angels Trumpets but that those things happened under the times allotted to them And the Rider of the red Horse under the second Seal he is said to take peace from the Earth merely because in his time there were such killing and slaying one another And it is something Idiotical to think otherwise of these things But supposing there must be some real activity in this first Vial-Angel for the inflicting this angry Aegyptian boil there is not the least absurdity in allowing it viz. That as an evil spirit from the Lord haunted Saul when his Melancholy fits came upon him so this first Vial-Angel may commissionate some spirits upon the envy and the anger the Bestians had conceived against the Risen Witnesses to actuate them with more than ordinary rage and madness against them and so infatuate their counsel by this distemper This I hope will take away all scruple touching this first Vial. Vers. 3. The second Vial is made to synchronize and in substance to be the same with the first the first being supposed to be the envious raging at the Reformation by the enemies of it and the second the Reformation it self in rejecting the Pope's Autority c. Ans. This second Remark is a mere calumny For the first Vial does not synchronize with the second because the first viz. that exulcerated Rage of the marked slaves of the Beast began presently upon the Rising of the Witnesses while the Reformation was but fresh young and tender and not so thoroughly established but was capable of quick Reciprocations of affairs as it happened here for example in England Queen Mary so suddenly succeeding King Edward But after this there was a more full settlement and firm establishment of the state of the Risen Witnesses so that through many Provinces Principalities and Kingdoms which are so many Seas the Pontifician party was hopeless and helpless those Seas becoming by the effusion of the second Vial as the bloud of a dead man For they were all dead to the Emissary fisher-men of the pretended successour of St. Peter nor a live Fish to be taken for their game The perfect Revulsion of these great Parts of the Pontifician Iurisdiction from those that his power still did actuate and enliven and the hindering them from reuniting for a due time till they were turned into the congealed bloud as it were of a dead man this was the effusion of the second Vial and plainly distinct from the first and such as to which the first might well contribute For the marked slaves of the Beast being dementated with wrath would necessarily doe such things as would excite the other party to use all possible care and
founded yet not excluding an allusion to such qualities in any of the stones as will bear an apt application But straining here to give a particular account of them all hath caused a strange luxuriancy of fancy Ans. To slubber over the Mystery of the twelve stones with those two significations onely in general of splendour and solidity is again to make the Spirit of Prophecy to trifle And being thus niggardly as to admit of but two properties it is still worse in that one is less proper for a Wall which is a structure for defence rather than for beauty and ornament But take them both in if this were the business one kind of stone would have served better than all twelve and that is the Diamond which out-does them all for solidity and splendour What stone so hard and invincible as it What stone so beautifull and splendid But yet in a better mood he seems inclined to admit of an allusion to such qualities in any of the stones as will bear an apt application But if in any why not in all He saith straining here to give a particular account of all hath caused a strange luxuriancy of fancy But how can that fancy be luxuriant that is not exorbitant but keeps within a prescribed compass and takes notice of no virtues in any of these stones but what tend to the safety and security of the City to preserve the Philadelphian State therein and hinder it from lapsing into the Laodicean But that is the very thing that the Remarker has a pique at the presumption of the Expositor for that he would give an account of every stone in the Wall they several of them supposing and so aptly complying with his Hypothesis of making the Philadelphian state and New Ierusalem state all one and the Laodicean to succeed so that he cannot endure it and upon that account calls that strained fancy in the Expositor which is strickt and unexceptionable Reason as any one that examines it without prejudice will find it Vers. 23. Christ's Kingdom being Spiritual the Kings or Rulers there will rule by a Spiritual Power by which they will be also Priests such as the twenty four Elders are to the four Beasts and such as they and the four Beasts to those they shall reign over And therefore to suppose as here is done that Monarchs or crowned Heads who rule by worldly power shall be Kings or Rulers in Christ's Kingdom shews little understanding of the state of it or something worse Of that Lordship which the Kings of the Gentiles exercise and of their being called Benefactors our Saviour says It shall not be so among you but he that is chief as he that serveth Luk. 22.25 And their profession of Christianity while they rule by the same Worldly and Political Government cannot make them Christian but rather the more complete Antichristian Rulers But the Autority that those Spiritual Kings and Priests will have in the Millennial State over those they govern may be likened to that Rule and sway which the Nobility Gentry and Clergy have over the Commonalty saving the great difference that whereas the one is gained by worldly means and managed for worldly interest to the much grievance and oppression of the people the autority of the other will be exercised with a true Christian spirit to the full satisfaction and joy of those who are governed and so will cause the fulfilling of what was told at our Saviour's Birth of great joy and gladness that should be to all people and of that Doxology ch 5.13 of every Creature in Heaven and on Earth Blessing honour glory and power c. Ans. This is one of the oddest Remarks of the whole pack We will therefore consider each passage therein more strictly Christ's Kingdom being spiritual says the Remarker the Kings or Rulers there will rule by a spiritual power by which they will be also Priests Here we are first to consider in what regard the Kingdom of Christ upon Earth may be called spiritual in such sort as to be inconsistent with its being a Kingdom Political which is settled by Councils and ordered by Laws and Decrees For certainly the Kingdom of Christ was a spiritual Kingdom from the Apostles times and onward at least till the Christian Religion became the Religion of the Empire and yet the affairs of the Church were regulated by Laws and established by Councils There was at least twenty Councils before Constantine's time So that the Church was both a Spiritual and Political Kingdom of Christ at once In what regard therefore was it spiritual It was spiritual first in regard of its Erection which was not by an arme of flesh or worldly forces as other Kingdoms ordinarily are raised but by the Spirit of God in powerfull preaching of the Gospel and in doing of Miracles Secondly It is an holy spiritual Kingdom antistoechal to the Kingdom of evil spirits against which this Kingdom of Christ was erected to rescue us from their Temptations and the thraldom of sin and wickedness under them And St. Paul declares Ephes. 6.12 That we wrestle not against flesh and bloud as if we had any carnal or worldly design of wrestling the dominion of the World into our own hands that we might enjoy the World but against Principalities against Powers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against the present Princes of the dark World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Syrus legit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Grotius against the evil spirits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the airy Regions which is an Hellenism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 answering to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which often signifies no more than the air And Drusius on the place cites one of the Commentators on Liber Aboth who tells us A terra usque ad firmamentum omnia plena esse turmis praefectis infra plurimas esse creaturas laedentes accusantes omnésque stare ac volare in Aere c. Which shews plainly that Drusius is of the same mind with Grotius In this sense therefore is the Kingdom of Christ a Spiritual Kingdom in that by the working of the Spirit in his servants it wrestles with opposes and finally overcomes the Kingdom of evil spirits tempters to all manner of wickedness and debauchery under which the Souls of men were enslaved Thirdly and lastly The Kingdom of Christ is a Spiritual Kingdom because the proper aim and scope thereof is merely spiritual viz. the end and aim of it is not worldly and temporal things but things spiritual and eternal The Polity Laws and administration thereof by those that have the Spirit of God tend to this scope that all the Subjects thereof may advance in the state of Regeneration by the power and working of the Spirit of God in them here that they may be Heirs of that Heavenly invisible spiritual and eternal Kingdom in the world to come Whatever more than this is imagined of the spirituality of Christ's Kingdom will end I fear
peace which are to flourish in his Kingdom yet this King so acknowledging him and honouring him with splendid superstitious devotions shall notwithstanding continue the same iron Kingdom as formerly though mixt with Clay in the sense mentioned Vis. 1. viz. the same Kingdom of violence and war Ans. Nothing was ever writ with more judgment elegancy and solidity in Explication of Prophecies than what that excellent Interpreter Mr. Mede has writ on this and the foregoing verse Which yet this conceited Remarker very superciliously calls a conceit and says is very remote from the intended sense of the Text when nothing is more congenerous thereto the Prophecy intending to describe the State of the Church as to Religion and Divine Worship in that space of the Time and Times and half a Time when the little Horn which is this King of Pride should rule the rost And therefore we may be sure it will not omit to perstringe the Idolatry then sprung up I mean the Pagano-christian Idolatry or an Idolatry of a new Mode For it is said of this King of Pride v. 37. That he shall not regard the God of his Fathers i. e. either none of the Pagan Gods he shall regard none of them or if you will more particularly he shall not regard that proper God of his Fathers viz. Mars whom Grotius would have understood by the red Dragon Of which Mars Romulus and Remus were born and he is the special Presidentiary God of the Roman City and Empire as Grotius himself also will have it This God of his Ancestors this King of Pride does not regard but is one who with his Hierarchy professes Celibate forbidding to marry a single life for him and his Adherents being most sutable and for their ambitious designs and preferring his own Politick ends before any God or Religion it follows v. 38. according to a true skilfull and faithfull account of the sense out of the Hebrew Together with God he will in his place or Temple where he is worshipped honour the Mahuzzim not Mars the proper God of his Ancestors but these new 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Mahuzzim may signifie from the Seventy's Translation Psal. 31.3 these new Numina defensoria of his Empire even with a God his fathers knew not which is Christ shall he honour them with gold and silver and pretious stones c. This is the onely easie and genuine sense that can be made of the 38 th verse And it being thus plain to any unprejudiced eye that these Mahuzzim are the Daemons that S. Paul speaks of 1 Tim. 4. where he tells us that the Spirit has foretold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expresly that those that forbid to marry c. will bring in the worship of Daemons which express Prediction is no-where but here and the degenerating Church looking upon the Relicks of Saints and their consecrated Images whose form of consecration does sometimes specifie their intended virtue against the Invasion of Enemies to be the Defence of the City where they are and the Saints themselves to be their Mahuzzim their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Martial and Warlike Defenders of the City where Temples or other places are consecrated to them What a groundless Cavil is this of the Remarker to except against Mr. Mede's rendring the sense of this present verse thus which is exquisitely according to the Hebrew viz. And he shall make the Holds of the Mahuzzim jointly to the foreign God understanding it of Churches and Monasteries For the Mahuzzim being once such Warlike Defenders expressed so under that Notion and their help being supposed to come from the places consecrated to them what an easie and obvious Analogy is it to call those consecrated places strong Holds or Forts a And the Prediction is not of what they would be in Reality but what they would be thought and reputed Which therefore is a foretelling of those delusions in the Church under the reign of the King of Pride That the people should put their trust and confidence in such vanities b What the Remarker would substitute in lieu of this excellent account of Mr. Mede is very frigid and jejune it giving notice of nothing but that the King of Pride will be for war as well as other Potentates and so making him to honour the God of forces he makes him still a worshipper of Mars the God of his Ancestours contrary to the Text. Besides there is this other Incongruity in this conceit in that this Prince of Pride is not a Sword-man but Rex sacrorum and his power lyes merely in a manner not in Martial forces and feats of Arms but rather in Magical Incantations and lying Miracles and prestigious charming of people into such superstitions as make most for his own advantage and such whereby he has an hank upon the Empire and deludes them with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness c And as for the Antithesis in professing Christ who is the Prince of Peace and yet to be given to War Is not the Antithesis at least as full when Christ came to introduce a pure divine Worship to Worship the Father in spirit and in truth that this King of Pride has filled all with superstitious Rites and Idolatries towards the Mahuzzim the Daemons or deceased Saints And lastly there is another a more near proper and immediate Antistoechy or Opposition betwixt the Genius of this King of Pride and his Ancestours in Mr. Mede's way they worshipping the God Mars in a gross Pagan secular sense he the Mahuzzim which are as it were so many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Paganochristian Mavortes in a sense more Spiritual and Ecclesiastical To all which you may add That Grammar and Criticism will not so easily comply with the Remarker's way But I have been too long on this Remark already Vers. 44. Thy tydings out of the North is surely more likely to be meant of the Germans Poles Muscovites c. than of the Tartars both because they are directly North of the Turks whenas the Tartars are as much East as North of them and also because the End here foretold against the Turks is more likely to be executed by the Christians than by those of the same Religion with the Turks especially whenas it is sent upon them in reference to the advancement of Christianity which is the occasion of its here being foretold Ans. That the tydings out of the North is surely more likely to be meant of the Germans Poles Muscovites c. than of the Tartars is spoke with more confidence than sound assurance of Reason For the Tartars being North-East of the Turks but much more properly North than the Persians it is easie and natural to conceive that the tydings out of the East being out of Persia that the News of the Stirs in Tartary would be called the Tydings out of the North the Tartars being a people so hugely more North than the Persians Any one that but casts his eye on a Map
so the prophetick sense of the Epistles reacheth but to the commencement of the Millennium Ans. It is sufficient that others would call those Churches that did not keep to the foundation but added doctrines and practices contrary thereto And therefore Asia's signifying Fundamentum is not needlesly superadded to design the truly Catholick Church That Asia signifies Action is granted on both sides but it is Illogical to deduce Conflict from Action and the Arguing à genere ad speciem as if one should say It is a living Creature Therefore it is a Man Though all Conflict is Action yet all Action is not Conflict This is foisted in to serve a false Hypothesis and to exclude the Millennium out of the Intervals and to make them reach but to the beginning thereof Rem 2. There 's no need of the Ephesine State of the Church its ending at the beginning of the Persecution in Nero's time but it may continue after as the Pergamenian State does continue through the succeeding Epistles For as the advancement of the Church to that State was from Christianity's being received by Autority so the continuing of Autority to profess that Religion is a continuing that State though from a new emerging condition the Church may receive a new denomination And so the Ephesine State being agreeable to the whole Primitive time though the emerging Persecution does give the denomination of a new State to the Church yet it destroys not the former that is consistent therewith That the Ephesine Church was not tainted with Nicolaitism is no Argument that it expired before the beginning of that Sect but rather of the contrary For if that Sect was not then in being it was no commendation of the Church not to be tainted therewith nor could it be said to have it Ans. It is sufficient that from a new emerging condition the Church may receive a new denomination and so begin a distinct Interval and thus will the whole Succession of time from the beginning of the Church to the end of the World be distinguished into so many Intervals So limited as History complying with the characters of the Prophecy will ratifie which is all that is intended And thus the Ephesine State or Interval will be naturally terminated upon the commencement of Persecution in Nero's time the Smyrnean then beginning And the Smyrnean end upon the emerging of the Church out of persecution by the Emperours turning Christian and the Pergamenian then begin But the Church quickly degenerating into Idolatry and persecuting the Apostolick Christians and so long a time continuing so from some remarkable change of the Modes of their Idolatry and Persecution and other degeneracies of the Church this Pergamenian denomination may cease and the degenerate Church be called Thyatirian and the true Church be said to be the Church in Pergamus and the Church in Thyatira because it was within the Jurisdiction of the degenerate Church so denominated c. As for that touching Nicolaitism it is a mere cavil or quibble For it plainly was a commendation of the Ephesine Interval that there was not yet that uncleanness found in it that was after set on foot by the Nicolaitans And the Nicolaitans being Christians they could no sooner appear but the Church ipso facto would be defiled by them Wherefore the Ephesine Interval of the Church being now defiled by them it 's a sign that Interval comes short of the times of the Nicolaitans Chap. 2. Vers. 11. THE promise here to the overcomer being onely that he shall not be hurt of the second Death gives no assurance thereby of being partaker of the first Resurrection The crown of life which is promised to them that are faithfull to death must certainly be meant of the reward in the other life And what reward would it be to the sufferers unto death to have their successours obtain the imperial Crown Besides take it to signifie the reward in the other life and it will so agree with what follows the Epiphonema the one promise explaining the other whereas the senses here given of both are so different as to make them badly sute for promises of the same Epistle Ans. The promise here to the overcomer according to the Elliptical intimations in the Apocalypse is the promise of partaking of the first Resurrection and so has the ancient Church expounded it And to ask what reward it would be to the sufferers unto death to have their successours to obtain the imperial Crown is to tell us without asking that selfishness or want of that unselfinteressed love which makes us prefer the publick good of the Kingdom of Christ before our own causes the Remarker to make such a weak objection as this And if the Crown of Life and not being hurt by the second Death explained each other and were but the same thing it would be a needless tautology whenas taken in these different senses it is a double promise to encourage the Smyrnean Church to suffer Martyrdom the one that their sufferings shall turn the Roman Empire Christian the other that they for their Martyrdom shall partake of the first Resurrection a privilege peculiar to Martyrs c. To which may be added that it is observable where there is any promise or threatning before the Epiphonema it indicates things Political touching this state on Earth but if placed after the Epiphonema the invisible state and concerns of the other world And why may not one Epistle use both these arguments they having both force to persuade to the same thing Vers. 13. The Pergamenian state commencing at the Emperours professing Christianity the testimony and suffering of Antipas is not to be applied to the Pope onely but does primarily respect that haughty imperious spirit which was generally observed in Patriarchs and Bishops after they grew so great through the protection and favour and bounty of Princes which begat such fierce contentions amongst themselves and furious ragings against their adversaries or opposers Ans. The sufferings and testimony of Antipas does chiefly respect those that were martyred by the Church of Rome under the Pope in this Interval which is bounded by the ending of the War against the Waldenses and Albigenses which were slain with the sword These things are certain and conspicuous as is made out in the Exposition of the seven Churches As for smaller matters if any have the like evidence let them add them that will Vers. 16. I will come unto thee quickly is taken in a distinct sense from the following words And I will fight against them c. Whenas plainly the coming quickly is to fight c. And this threatning to fight with the sword of his mouth is against the true Church which by transgression had deserved such sharp rebuke and therefore cannot be intended against the enemies of it Ans. What strange confidence is this upon no ground at all I will come unto thee I will fight against them Is not thee and them sufficient notes of
as the Beast was revived when the former Politick state of the Empire was restored in the Ten-horned Beast so when the Pope created a new succession of Emperours it then became a complete Image of the former Beast So that the Beast and his Image are not so denominated from the affairs of Religion but from the Civil state of the Empire yet so as to include Religion as it is complicated with the civil affairs Ans. Here the Remarker again misseth the mark quite by not taking heed to that inviolable Rule in expounding the Opened-book-prophecy viz. that it sets out the state of the Empire in reference to matters of Religion and the pure worship of God and Christ and that these Expositions are the surest that respect that For what cares the Spirit of Prophecy for taking notice of the changes of secular States and Kingdoms but so far as God's true Church and the Purity of his Worship are concerned and consequently those that worship him according to the Laws he has appointed The Pagan Emperours of Rome were Pontifices Maximi as well as Emperours and the Pagan Religion part of the Laws of the Empire it being enacted and ratified by the Supreme Powers thereof as the civil Laws were Wherefore the Pagan Religion equally if not more being the very life and soul of the seven-headed red Dragon that is of the Pagan Empire which would cease to be the red Dragon if the Pagan Religion ceased than the Civil Laws themselves when the Pagan Religion was in a sort abolished by the sixth head of the red Dragon his turning Christian namely the Emperour Constantine c. Certainly that was the Head and then that was wounded to death and wounded to death in the fullest sense that the Opened-book-prophecy can be truly thought to take notice of as chiefly to aim at For what is the Church concerned in the affairs of Kingdoms but so far as they either hinder or further the pure worship of God and Christ And in the same sense that the Head was wounded to death is the Beast said to be wounded in this verse by the sword namely in the red Dragon's fight with Michael and the Martyrs the battel being described in the immediately foregoing Chapter and therefore where should he get his wound but there For the Martyrs sticking close to the truth of the word which is the sword of the spirit got the victory over the Beast they loving not their lives unto the Death Add unto all this that the Beast could not revive before his head wounded to death was cured Neque enim sanatio istaec factum aliquod posterius fuit sed ipsa Nativitas Bestiae novissimae as Mr. Mede judiciously concludes from the genuine sense of the Text of the Prophecy But in this civil or secular sense that the Remarker drives at his head was not cured till Carolus Magnus was made the Western Emperour But he is represented in this Vision in the beginning of it as with ten crowned Horns so with his head cured Such he was when he emerged out of the Sea he was revived again from his deadly wound Therefore the Epocha of this Vision as I noted before commenceth as low as the reign of Carolus Magnus according to the Remarker and the 42 Months of the Beast must end after two thousand years after Christ. And besides this according to the Remarker's sense of the reviving of the Beast and Beast's Head will continue dead near three hundred years after the body of the Beast was revived This it is to attempt to unlock the Apocalypse without that excellent Key the Rule I have so often mentioned Chap. 14. Vers. 7. IF the zeal of those Greek Emperours named were not a sufficient fulfilling of the monition of the first Angel the overrunning of the Empire by the Saracens would be far more proper to make it up both in regard of time and other respects than the subduing by the Turks But neither of them are signified being Visions belonging to the sealed Book Nor needs there any farther fulfilling than what was by those Greek Emperours Ans. The Expositor's words on this verse are these That this Angelical Monition was the most loudly and earnestly urged upon the Christian World at the dreadfull siege and storming of Constantinople and subduing the whole Eastern Church and Empire to the Turk Which makes neither the plague of the Saracens nor Turks to belong to the Opened-book-prophecy but lets them keep their place in the Prophecy of the sealed Book But implies onely that the voice of that Angel is not confined to the Greek Emperours onely but may be stretched to as many either secular Potentates or Prelates or other eminently zealous men and observant of the severe judgment of God against the Idolatrous Greek Church For ought I know those early Evangelici may come in for a share here who were Preachers of the everlasting Gospel that which was purely contained in Scripture and declared against the Idolatries and Superstitions of the Church of Rome and sealed their Testimony with their bloud I mean the Waldenses and Albigenses Who if they made any use of the judgments of God by the Saracens on the Empire as well as others might do of his judgments by the Turks and it can be made out I am not against it And from the end of the Albigensian War which was finished Anno 1242 to the taking of Constantinople which was in the year 1453 in that Interval there were many famous men declaring for the everlasting Gospel against the Antichristian doctrines and practices and they making the Pope of Rome the Antichrist could not but denounce this approaching judgment You may see their names in Alstedius and David Pareus And upon the taking of Constantinople by the Turk the voice of this first Angel would be louder in preaching the everlasting Gospel and denouncing the fall of Antichrist or Babylon till the second Angel could tell the news that it was done See Alstedius his Chronologia testium veritatis where you may easily make Collections to this purpose Vers. 8. The fall of Babylon viz. the commencement of it is most aptly applied to the separation of the Albigenses and Waldenses from the communion of it to which may be added the separation of the Greek Church from it before the subduing of the Empire by the Turks But to apply this to the Reformation will clash with the admonition of the third Angel Ans. The Waldenses and Albigenses could not be the Angel that declared that Babylon was fallen but were a people that were aggrieved that it stood but were an holy good people and truly Evangelical and preachers of the Everlasting Gospel and denouncers of the judgments of God against Babylon predicting that it would fall and therefore belong to the first Angel And though Mr. Mede would draw the affairs of the Waldenses and Albigenses to the voice of the second Angel yet he has not the confidence to say
by Iustinian was the making of the Image of the Beast that is again a conceit impossible For as much as the Image of the Beast is the Image of the Red Dragon whose character is Idolatry and Persecution and therefore the Remarker here stands in his own light that would restrain his sense to Political or Civil Laws not Laws about Religion But as for Civil Laws I proved before they did obtain so that Iustinian did not play the Painter to draw an Image of the Beast but rather the Physician that cured the Beast of a Fever and gave the course of Law more free passage which is as the bloud and life in a body Politick And besides this it is suggested in History that Iustinian was not so good a Painter as to draw a true Image of the Beast his under Work-men failing him For Tribonianus who was the greatest Lawyer and most in his favour it is said of him that he was a covetous fellow and did pretio leges figere refigere make and null Laws merely for money In the Code says Sleidan Quam plurimae sunt Justiniani Leges quae superioribus derogant And the Novels the Remarker mentions bear no good Omen in their Name They were new Laws made upon new emergent occasions See Antonius Contius his Preface to the Novels So sorry an Image is this of the former Roman Polity Fifthly Whereas he says That this Image is completed in the Pope's creating the German Emperours to be the Emperours of the Western Empire I say whether these Emperours or the Popes be conceived to be the eighth Head of the Beast the seventh being supposed as the Remarker would have it the Ostrogothian Kings and the raising the living Image of the Beast the subjection of the Barbarians to the Roman Political Laws collected by Iustinian it will follow as I think I have elsewhere noted that the Beast will be some hundred of years revived before his Head than which what can be more absurd in Reason and Philosophy And lastly for the Pope's giving life to this Image of his making it being onely a civil Image as the Remarker would have it and not reaching Religion and Ecclesiastick affairs the Pope has not so little to doe as to inspire any life into it but if this Image reach Religion and Ecclesiastick affairs then the Remarker contradicts himself Thus I think I have sufficiently proved that the Remarker's sense of that Description The Beast that was is not and yet is is so far from being the plain sense that it is grosly false it being understood of the Civil Roman constitution onely which all the time he speaks of never ceased to be Whence it could never be said properly of it it was because that is of things past nor is not because that is not true of things present nor is not and yet is because that is non-sense applied to the same thing still in Being So infinitely false is this conceit of the Remarker But that it is also impertinent I shall dispatch in one word This gives us no instruction touching the State of the Church as to the purity of Religion and Worship and therefore is useless and impertinent and uncompliable with the main and general Scope of the Opened-book-prophecy Vers. 12. Receive power as Kings one hour with the Beast viz. not the two-horned but ten-horned Beast headed with the eighth Head or two-horned Beast For when the Empire invaded by the Barbarous Nations setled again into a subjection or conformity to the Roman Laws then did the Princes or Christians of those several Nations become setled as Kings in the several Countries of the Empire where they were seated Ans. The Ten-horned Beast contains the Roman Empire with its ten Kings Wherefore if the Beast does not include Idolatry here in it the sense will be The ten Horns will receive power as Kings when all the ten Kings of the Empire receive power as Kings that is They shall receive power when they shall receive power What a trifling is this But if we take Beast in its proper sense according to the Prophetick style it will naturally signifie as the Expositor has noted That about that time that the Roman Empire which was Christian before begins to revive into the Image of the Dragon for Superstition Persecution and Idolatry then shall the Ten Horns also be receiving their power as Kings c. This sense as it is plain so it is instructive and compliable with the general scope of the Opened-book-prophecy that informs us of the State of Religion and of the Worship of God and Christ in the Christian World But what Iustinian's Code has here to doe I know not Theodorick was appointed King of Italy by Zeno the Emperour before Iustinian's time Chap. 18. Vers. 1. THE Description of this Angel does much agree with that chap. 10. The crying here mightily with a strong voice answering to the crying there with a loud voice as when a Lion roareth and the enlightening the Earth with his glory here to the face of the Angel like the Sun there yet they seem not to be the same But this here seems to be the great Prince Michael who Dan. 12. is said to stand up in the time of great trouble such as never was since there was a Nation and then the people of God should be delivered c. Ans. That the Angel here described may reach into the times of Michael Dan. 12. I will not deny But then that is no bar to the sense the Expositor hath given For by Michael not Michael himself but some illustrious Persons on Earth are understood And when so many Illustrious Persons Kings and Princes appeared for the Truth at the partial Fall of Babylon or Rising of the Witnesses viz. at the late Reformation that partial fall may well be taken in to this account But the Times of Michael are afterwards and may respect the Kings of the East and the Conquests of the Rider of the white Horse with a sword coming out of his mouth Which are the affairs of the sixth and seventh Vials Vers. 2. Babylon is not said to become the Habitation of Devils after its power is utterly destroy'd but when the people of God are warned to come out of her lest they partake of her plagues so that her final destruction was to come Which when it is come her whole Politick body will then be dissolved that then she will cease to be Babylon nor will the people of God then need any admonition to come out of her when they can have no motives to stay in her But she is said to be fallen here because she had lost the Authority with which she formerly ruled in the world and her game she had now to play was with all her force and Arts of Policy to defend her self against the great judgment coming upon her Ans. Babylon is undoubtedly said to be the Habitation of Devils after she is utterly overthrown and
the Doxology of the Elders and contrary to the usual mode of the Apocalypse that ever closeth the good success of the Church with some Indications of Joy and Thankfulness as chap. 12. vers 10 12. chap. 19. vers 1. and again vers 21. which concludes with a feast of Joy and Thanksgiving for the victory of the Rider of the white Horse d And now to go on mindless in what follows of the Remarker's haughty verbosity the fruits of an heated Melancholy and a crazied fancy which makes him reproach the most sound and usefull Truths I will onely take notice of what is most material he says on this present argument He says it was advisedly done of the Expositor to omit instancing in the words that do so glance at the fourth fifth sixth and seventh Vials because it is so hard to doe it But I answer The Expositor omitted it because it is so easie for any one to doe that reades his Expositions of this part of this Vision chap. 14. and that of the Vials chap. 16. How these comport one with another is manifest For the Mystical Interpretation of the fourth Vial shews in what a wretched and damnable condition they are in that adhere to the Papacy their sad case being so manifest out of the word of God which is the Sun a Lamp unto our feet and a light unto our paths And this answers to vers 9 10 11. of chap. 14. where eternal Torment and damnation is denounced to them that worship the Beast and his Image c. And it is told in what unquietness of conscience they are in that in the light of those times adventure to doe so And for vers 12. Here is the patience of the Saints that will not go against their consciences but rather suffer that answers to that part of the fourth Vial And men were scorched with great heat and blasphemed the Name of God which Rage the Mother of Persecution does hugely well comport with the affliction of the Saints and the patience they are put to for that time But under the fifth Vial there is better news especially from the Political sense thereof as if there would be some such change of affairs in the behalf of the Evangelici that the seat of the Beast would grow unfrequented and his Kingdom considerably clouded and darkened upon which sense therefore of the fifth Vial the 13 verse of chap. 14. may very well be thought to glance Blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord for their works do follow them i. e. the effect or success of their works and labours for the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ and the fall of Antichrist From henceforth from such a time of the Sardian Interval viz. under the fifth Vial will the scales turn and the Evangelical power begin to be preponderant to the Antichristian Now the sixth Vial concerns the Conversion of the Iews haply with some other Eastern people How fitly therefore and plainly does the Harvest mentioned chap. 14.15 glance at the sixth Vial For conversion to the Gospel is reaping the Harvest as our Saviour himself has used the similitude Ioh. 4.35 And lastly what an assured Complication of time and affairs there is betwixt the Vision of the Wine-press the seventh Vial and the battel of the Rider on the white Horse is so fully made out by the Expositor that no man that has read what he has writ can doubt of it e Farthermore Whereas the Remarker says it does not appear of what use the so glancing at the affairs of the Vials here and the slight Intimations of them aforesaid at the seventh Trumpet can be save onely to give colour to the placing of the Vials in the seventh Trumpet I say that that use alone were abundantly sufficient for the Spirit of Prophecy to frame these two first Visions of the Opened book so as that by those Intimations and Glances not onely colour but sound evidence may be given that all the Vials are placed within the seventh Trumpet For from hence it will infallibly follow that they are to be placed after the Rising of the Witnesses and that the Rising of the Witnesses was the late Reformation begun by Luther c. which is of vast consequence to be understood and acknowledged That God may have condign praise and thanks for so great a mercy to his Church That broils and stirs of Phantastical and Fanatical people may be prevented who are apt to be encouraged to attempt Innovations upon that false conceit that the Rising of the Witnesses is near and that then forsooth that very Reformation will be indeed that is the true Rising of the Witnesses Whenas most certainly the Vision is accomplished already It will also beget a just esteem of the present Reformation and make men with quiet of conscience and chearfulness of mind hold communion with the established National Churches which is good for all the Reformed Nations and Kingdoms And lastly it will whenas things shall appear so well constituted without make men that have any sense of or propension to Religion and a desire to excell therein to look within themselves and to use all their zeal and heat against those faults that are to be reformed within as Pride Self-conceitedness Envy Wrathfulness Implacableness Censoriousness Covetousness Persidiousness Contemptuousness Malepertness against their Betters Indulging the use of the Creature Unconversableness Cavils against publick administration of affairs and despising and speaking ill of them that be in Autority with whatever other vices they discover in themselves I say they having no proper Object without to exercise their zeal on in reference to matters of Religion it will be more hopefull they will turn it inward against their own corruptions but now falsly fansying so much defect or corruption in the established Religion and Ecclesiastick Constitutions they are prone foolishly to imagine themselves Saints for their bitter inveying against the publickly constituted Religion and the administration of things there when as they lye cold enough to that necessary inward Reformation and are little sensible of it Wherefore as I said this use alone of the Intimations and Glances of the two first Visions on the Vials namely that we may thereby be assured that the Vials are all to be placed within the seventh Trumpet is sufficient that the frame of those two Visions should be so contrived But questionless there are other Uses also which would be too long to note These Intimations and Glances give the better assurance of the sense of the Vials As in the sixth Vial for example which Interpreters expound of the Conversion of the Iews understanding them by the Kings of the East But there is nothing to signifie conversion there But in this glance here by the mentioning of Harvest conversion is implied And if any one will say There 's nothing signifying the Iews yet I say the Intimation in the first Vision respecting the sixth Vial is the Ark of the Covenant which must needs
were held together in before and subjecting them to the Gospel of Christ this shall be effected upon several Nations that were before Paganochristian in the Sardian Interval What can be more easie and clear Vers. 28. There 's but one Morning star and that is bright so that the Morning-star and the bright Morning-star must signifie the same And they are so far from signifying several states of the Church that the one is spoken onely of Christ himself viz. he calls himself the bright Morning-star But what the Morning-star is which is promised to the overcomers in the Thyatirian Church is hardly to be understood farther than we are partakers thereof but seems to be of like signification with 2 Pet. 1.19 both seeming to respect an addition of light of life to the light of truth before received Ans. There 's but one Morning star indeed which is Christ who is here signified but in a political consideration as Prince of his Empire on Earth which may have degrees of largeness and lustre And that Christ is here understood in a Political sense the foregoing verse intimates that speaks of the enlargement of his Kingdom Of which also the subsequence of the Epiphonema farther assures us according to the rule noted in the Exposition of the seven Churches And where Christ is called the bright Morning star Apoc. 22.16 it is not spoke there simply of his Person abstracting from his Kingdom on Earth because he says immediately before it I am the off-spring of David which is a challenging his right to all the Kingdoms of the Earth upon that score of his descent from David the King to whom God had made the promise Ps. 2. And this following the description of his glorious Reign in the new Ierusalem and relating to those times he saith not as in the Sardian Interval I am the Morning-star but the bright Morning-star by reason of his exceeding great lustre and glory in his Millennial Reign Why should any one wink against so clear a light and inviolable coherence and congruity of things But why he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Sardian Interval the Expositor has noted in his Exposition of the seven Churches Chap. 3. Vers. 4. WAlking with me in white is in this Verse made signifie that conversing with Christ by his Spirit whereby they shall be inabled to walk with him in all innocency and integrity But in the following Verse the being cloathed in white rayment which is the same with walking in white is taken in a different sense viz. to be prosperous in the propagating the affairs of Christ's Kingdom Also in the said following verse those words I will not blot his name out of the book of life which interpret the foregoing words viz. that the walking in white and the being cloathed with white rayment is the walking in the light of life whereby we become heirs of the crown of life and so written in the book of life are yet taken to signifie a continued succession of such men to the end of the world whereas the continuance of such a succession is no reward to the Sardian Church though it may be joy to them as they are concerned for the propagation of Religion Ans. If there be any Errour in this Interpretation it is in that the Expositor has not expounded to walk with me in white in the same sense he expounded to be cloathed in white rayment which has a Political sense and signifies the good success of affairs with them For the Remarker was to remember that the Expositor was giving the prophetical sense of these Epistles not the literal moral or spiritual And that therefore according to that solid Rule set down That the Declarations touching the success of the Church that is writ to before the Epiphonema signifies politically so this being cloathed in white is to be expounded accordingly But being whiteness signifies as well Innocency as Prosperity and Innocency is a fitting these few names in Sardis for their prosperous success that I made use of these different significations so well subordinated one to another deserves not to be cavilled at but rather to be approved And correspondently to this Prophetical sense which must be Political I will not blot his name out of the book of life is to be understood that these few names are the durable seed of such a Church as shall last to the end of the World But to say this is no reward to them that they have such a durable succession is a reproach to the Remarker as if he were a stranger to the true Christian State and knew not the gratifications of a soul regenerate into the living Image of Christ who with his Church is one mystical body in succession through all ages and therefore what any part of them suffer for the present if it make for the greater good of the Church for the future they take themselves to be amply rewarded by so happy an event And such a success as causes joy to them as the Remarker acknowledges must be a proportionable good to them and if consequent upon their labours and sufferings a reward thereof So that such Allegations as these are mere affected Cavils Vers. 8. The opened door that cannot be shut and the little strength signifie not any outward force or army but that spiritual strength that is attained to by faith working by love which makes us become freed by the truth from the thraldom of the worldly Powers and gain that enterance into the Kingdom of our Lord as never to fall Both this and the four following verses do shew the Philadelphian Church to be in a Militant State in progress to the victorious state of rest and glory in the Millennium And what is said in these verses is spoken of the entire State of the Philadelphian Church and therefore cannot be referred to the seventh vial as the commencement thereof But to instance in their signifying a Militant State c. The promise v. 9. to make them of the Synagogue of Satan who say they are Iews to come and worship c. does plainly shew the Church to be in conflict with such Enemies as pretend to be true Christians and yet refuse subjection to the true Church which cannot agree with the Millennial State when Satan shall be bound and all Enemies put under the feet of Christ c. The promise v. 10. to keep from the hour of Temptation that shall come upon all the world c. does evidence and a State far different from that of the Millennium and does seem to signifie that time of great trouble precedent thereto Dan. 12. The promise also v. 11. to come quickly and warning to hold fast c. does also plainly shew that the time of the Millennium when God will reward all his servants ch 11.18 is not then come though it be near approaching And the several promises v. 12. made to him that overcometh do
Bloud of the Lamb so as to be exalted to the Heavenly station of ruling by the Man-child being caught up unto God and his Throne c. and obtained sentence against their Adversary to be cast out c. yet was that sentence executed as before by the War v. 7. Ans. See what head-strong prejudice will doe As if the Remarker shou'd say though this eleventh verse does imply that the War was betwixt the Primitive Christians and their Persecutors yet it was not But it does most certainly demonstrate that the War was betwixt the Primitive Christians and their Persecutors For the words are these For they overcame viz. the red Dragon by the bloud of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony and they loved not their lives unto death What can be a more express description of Martyrdom than this This is not a description of a War of Emperours against Emperours with their armies in the field where they fight upon equal terms but of Martyrs with the word of their testimony passively undergoing for their witnessing to the truth what their cruel Persecutors would inflict upon them Vers. 12. The Dwellers in Heaven are bid to rejoice by reason of the salvation and strength and Kingdom of God and power of his Christ which was to come and therefore surely must signifie them to whom the same came whose particular concern this matter of joy was whereas Angels and Martyrs are no farther concerned in it than in general as they are concerned for the welfare of the Church Nor can those that were exalted by preferments to the Political Heaven of the Empire be concerned in it farther than they were in such a state as to have the coming of salvation and strength and the Kingdom of God fulfilled in them For it onely respects those that are in such a state who are called dwellers in Heaven in respect of the Heavenly station that they were exalted to thereby after the Devil and his Angels were cast out and the autority of Christ established as Prince of the World For then they became the joyfull company with the Lamb on Mount Sion singing the Song of the victory c. who as they are there markt on their foreheads for preservation so they are the worshippers in the Temple and Altar or the two Witnesses meted for the same purpose and are the same that are called dwellers in Heaven Ch. 13.6 and are thus distinguished from those dwellers on Earth against whom the woe is pronounced by reason of the power the Devil will have over them still after he is cast out Ans. The Expositor has taken in both senses of Heaven political and natural they being both sure and consistent one with another and the joy of Angels and Martyrs at the welfare of the Church is too great to be slighted or omitted But to ramble into mystical senses and reach out to the company of the Lamb on Mount Sion is not to interpret by rule but to trifle All Apostolick Christians were concerned in this victory of the Church and most of those in high place in the Empire turned Christian. But the foregoing verse so plainly determining this joy to the victory of the Church in the times of Constantine which shews that the Kingdom of God and power of his Christ was come already and is said to be so v. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. not yet to come it is a strange vagary to ramble from the Antemedial synchronals to the middle synchronals which undoubtedly the company on Mount Sion belong to And for the Remarker's groundless conceit touching the worshippers in the Temple and Thysiasterion the vanity thereof has been above sufficiently shewn And for the dwellers in Heaven Ch. 13. v. 6. we shall consider it when we come at it But for this present place if the Dwellers in Heaven be those in high degree the Dwellers on Earth must naturally signifie those in low degree or common people as the Expositor has interpreted it Vers. 15. Arianism cannot be here intended more than the Catholick doctrine they both running into extremes and each maintaining their cause with like fumous Animosity But by the Serpent's casting out water like a floud seems to be signified the frequent tumultuating of the common people and Magistrates that continued Pagans against the Christians whereby great outrages were oft committed But such Arians and Catholicks may be also included who under a cloak of Religion did violently prosecute each other out of enmity or self-interest to the great reproach and ruine of Religion Ans. The contention betwixt the Arians and Catholicks is most certainly included and is that which History most of all rings of and most highly concerned the Church and therefore could not be omitted in this Opened-book-prophecy which concerns the state of the Church As for any other contests less notable betwixt Christians and Pagans they were such as could not hazard the Woman's being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 her being carried away with the sloud None but a contention betwixt the Christians themselves and such as shaked the very foundation of their Religion could put her in that hazard So that this is a very lank sense which the Remarker gives of this passage Vers. 16. The Earth that helped the woman by swallowing the sloud may signifie the sober stayd sort of people who being either seasoned with principles of Religion or being of peaceable spirits and obedient to authority did endeavour to asswage all such tumults and discountenance and oppose all such furious Animosities and were for composing all differences in a legal orderly and peaceable manner Ans. Undoubtedly that sloud of contention was the hot Contest betwixt the Arians and Catholicks Could therefore the soberer sort of common people Christians or Pagans compose this difference What an absurd conceit is this The Earth that swallows up this sloud does not signifie the common people here though sometimes it is a Symbol of them But the sense is onely this That this floud of contention was swallowed down and dried up by the help of Oecumenical Councils as some rapid Torrent is suck't down by the gaping of the Earth This is enough But farther curiosity might invite a man to fanfie that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is included in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence Oecumenical comes is alluded to or Earth in general put for clayish Earth which in Daniel is a symbol of the Ecclesiastical Power of which Councils did consist And then it fits obviously and exquisitely Chap. 13. Vers. 1. THE name of Blasphemy if it does intend Idolatry yet it hath a farther signification as All sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven men but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost c. Where the malignant reproach of God's Spirit evidencing it self in the works of our Saviour is said to be unpardonable blasphemy And the like reproaching of the holy Spirit manifesting it self in the Saints is likewise blasphemy though not of so heinous a
the debauchery of the Empire by Pagan-like Superstition and Idolatry there he may have a positive influence and help on the mischief by his invisible Forces Vers. 3. The deadly wound of one of the Heads of the Beast is not the Ruine of the Pagan Empire by its Conversion to Christianity but it 's that wound by the sword vers 14. viz. the ruine of the Empire by the Incursion of the barbarous Nations and the extinguishing of the Western Emperours in Augustulus Ans. The deadly wound of one of the Heads of the Beast is the Conversion of the Emperour the sixth Head to Christianity which was the issue of the War betwixt Michael and the Dragon the War betwixt the Primitive Christians and their Persecutours ch 12. as has been there proved against the Remarker And the wound by the sword v. 14. relates to that Battel It was by their faith in the Word which is the sword of the spirit that the Primitive Christians overcame their Persecutours This meaning is very easie and natural But that the Remarker would distort this passage to the Incursion of the Barbarous Nations and the extinguishing of the Western Emperours in Augustulus shews him less mindfull of that indispensable Rule in the Interpreting the Visions of the Opened-book-prophecies especially which set out the affairs of the Church That that Interpretation is to be preferred that points at the state of the Church and matters of Religion This is a most certain Truth And to shew how unsuccessfull he is by balking it it is said v. 3. that the Head that was wounded was healed So that this Vision represents the Ten-horned Beast whose ten horns were crowned and wounded Head healed at the same time under his healed condition though the perfection of his cure extended farther But in the Political sense this Western Head was not healed till Corolus Magnus his time So that by this account the Epocha of this Vision must be 800 years after Christ and the continuance of this Beast which is 42 Prophetical Months commence from thence Which I think is sufficiently absurd Vers. 6. His Name his Tabernacle and them that dwell in Heaven may signifie three states or degrees of Saints in whom God was blasphemed by the contempt and reproaches cast on them by the Beast to represent them as evil doers and falsly accuse their good conversation in Christ. The first such as are but in a Legal state under a Christian profession and therefore are peculiarly characterized by bearing the Name of God because the loving and professing the same is the height of such a state Therefore Esay 63.19 makes it the distinguishing character of the Jews from other Nations that they were called by God's Name and on their revolt from their obedience Ier. 44.26 they are threatned that God's Name shall be no more named by any of them And our Saviour's first Petition in his prayer seems to respect this state as preparatory to that which he teacheth next to pray for The second such as by faith have attained to an entrance into life or communion with God by his Spirit but not thereby to such a full subjection to him or victory over the World whereby to live in a constant communion with him but his abode in them is as the sojourning in a Tabernacle and this state of Christians does answer to the outward Court which was left out and not meted to be preserved from profanation c. Rev. 11.1 2. Whence at the descent of the new Ierusalem which is at the Restauration of the outward Court it 's said The Tabernacle of God is with men The third such as answer to the Worshippers in the Temple and at the Altar and are measured for preservation when the outward Court is left out to be profaned and troden down during the Antichristian Apostasie These overcome the Beast and are those Inhabitants of Mount Sion that were redeemed from the Earth and follow the Lamb whereever he goes being without fault before the Throne of God c. In whom God is not a sojourner as in a Tabernacle but makes his constant abode in them by that communion with him in life which they enjoy as in a Temple and who though as being the two Witnesses they are described in a mournfull condition by reason of their being sorrowfully affected with the evils of the World they testifie against yet they are joyfull Harpers on Mount Sion ch 14. to whom that voice is directed ch 12.12 Rejoyce ye Heavens and ye that dwell in them But to make the Idolatrous worship of God or of Saints and Angels supposed here for the dwellers in Heaven to be signified by the blaspheming of him and them is a forced construction being what is done is out of a real design of paying due worship and honour to them Though it be erroneous and corrupt yet can it badly be called a blaspheming of them which imports rather a malignant purpose to reproach them than to honour them especially in reference to Saints and Angels who have by such worship more ascribed to them than is due though it may be in reference to God who hath thereby less ascribed to him than his due and so is dishonoured Ans. That there are two states of men in reference to Religion I allow a legal or exteriour state when out of fear of Hell and hope of Heaven they live as near as they can according to an external Rule and a spiritual state which is the state of Regeneration and of the spirit of life in the new Birth which may be less or more perfect whereby they have a sense of the sweetness and loveliness of the Divine life and are held thereby in communion with God And I allow also that this state may be either vincible or invincible So that the Remarker may imagine three estates if he will but by the like subdivision of the legal state there may be four For there may be such a strong fear of Hell in an unregenerate man that it may make him also invincibly resist all such Injunctions as are put upon him which seem repugnant to the word of God for fear of being damned and tormented in Hell So precarious is this conceit of just three states But grant just three states I deny that the men under these three states are signified by the Name of God by the Tabernacle of God and by the dwellers in Heaven First because men merely under such dispensations who yet are neither extraordinarily inspired Missionaries as Christ and his Apostles nor publick Magistrates which the Scripture calls Gods and the like are not capable of being blasphemed that is the phrase is not proper for them and therefore it is a sign they are not here understood Again the Remarker cannot produce any places of Scripture where the Name of God signifies Men in a legal state or the Tabernacle of God signifies men in a less perfect spiritual state or that the Dwellers in Heaven
denote men precisely in an invincible spiritual state As for the Scriptures cited for the first God's name was not the people of Israel themselves and when we pray Hallowed be God's name do we understand the people of God there by God's name What trifling is this And lastly besides all this if by God's name is meant those that bear his Name this according to the style of the Apocalypse signifies the highest attainment in Christianity as being the character of the Philadelphian state ch 3.12 I will write upon him the Name of my God And so the Tabernacle of God it cannot be the Note of the less perfect degree of the spiritual state because it is the Ierusalem-state the highest degree of the spiritual state that is Apoc. 21.3 and the condition there described is a permanent condition so that this conceit of sojourning is a perfect mistake According to which the Restauration of the outward Court would be a restoring of it to a sojourning condition How repugnant are these things Nor is there any thing brought to prove that the dwellers in Heaven signifie men of the third state but that of ch 12.12 Rejoyce ye Heavens and they that dwell in them Which we have proved to belong to the Times of Constantine And as for the conceit touching the Worshippers in the Temple and Thysiasterion the groundlesness thereof was shew'd in my Answer to the Remarks on Chap. 11. So that this whole Remark hitherto is a strange incoherent dream of forced and far-fetched fancies And for his impugning the Expositor's Interpretation it is as weak as the other was wild For supposing the Idolatrous worship of God Saints and Angels to be well meant by them that so worship them though the gain of the Church more than the glory of them that they so worship is in all likelihood aimed at by them that give the example to the people yet it does not follow but that this worship is really a reproach to them Which Reproach they being all made Objects of Religious worship is properly called Blasphemy as Act. 19.37 the Town-Clark clears the Apostles from being blasphemers of the Goddess Diana That they are all reproached both God Saints and Angels is made good in the Exposition and it is farther fitting that this reproach should be called Blasphemy that by this sharp reproof they may be the more effectually staved off from committing Idolatry in such worship of God Saints and the holy Angels To all which you may add that it is usual in Scripture to charge the sinner with that directly which he commits but interpretativè as Ier. ch 2.27 the Prophet there makes the Jews to say to a stock Thou art my father and to a stone Thou hast begotten me for their praying to stocks and stones See Synops. Prophetic Book 1. Chap. 1. Vers. 10. This Scripture is of like sense with Reward her as she has rewarded you c. chap. 18. but the sense here given is to make a mercy and blessing to be threatned instead of a judgment and the Scripture to speak so ambiguously as to be unintelligible Ans. This is a comfortable promise to them that suffer for the present that their cause shall obtain at last and a threatening to the unconverted part of their enemies that they shall lose so much of their dominion by those that are converted and this certainly was to come to pass and did come to pass against the Papal Power in the Rising of the Witnesses the late blessed Reformation which was more considerable than the killing by the Sword in a literal sense which was no farther to come to pass than themselves necessitated it This verse therefore sets out the expectant state of the Soldiers of the Lamb the firm hope of victory at last for their sufferings as is expresly said in those last words Here is the patience and faith of the Saints But the news of their actual victory is by the second Angel ch 14.8 Vers. 12. The exercising all the power of the first Beast c. does signifie the temporal dominion of the two-horned Beast by plucking up three Horns by the roots and for the better countenancing the power he did exercise he as a Prophet or Christ's Vicar did confirm the exercise of the same power by the Beast and so caused all to worship him But his exercising all the power of the first Beast cannot signifie his making Laws in matters of Religion for if the first Beast had such power which is not to be granted yet that cannot be called all his power nor the greatest part of it Ans. One would think the Remarker a man of a mighty secular and worldly Genius when notwithstanding this Opened-book-prophecy related to the state of Religion in the Church he ever distorts things to a Politick or Civil sense which yet are most naturally understood of Religion For the words here run thus And he exerciseth all the power of the first Beast before him and he causeth the Earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first Beast whose deadly wound was healed Before which immediately precedes And he spake as the Dragon viz. decreed Idolatries and the reason then follows because he had got the autority of the first Beast into his own hands whereby he reduced the world again to a Draconick Religion bloudy and Idolatrous He had got all this kind of power into his hands the two-horned Beast I say had so but he had not got all the secular power of the Empire into his hands no not by plucking the three Horns up by the roots For the ten-horned Beast signifies the whole secular Dominion of the Empire Besides that the two-horned Beast began to renew the Image of the Dragon before he had plucked up the three Horns by the Roots So that that passage all the power of the first Beast must be understood of that kind of power it being false of the other And this power of approving and allowing matters of Religion in the supreme secular Magistrate as it is declared in our Church is most certainly their right but this is not a place to dispute the point Thus safe is it to stear the sense of the Opened-book-prophecy by having an eye to the affairs of Religion in the Empire Vers. 14. The change of Religion by the victory of the Martyrs cannot be called a deadly wounding of the Beast by a sword nor was there any ruine to it thereby for the same Politick Body of the Beast continued till it was wounded to Death by a sword viz. ruined by the Incursion of the Barbarous Nations And as he was not ruined by the ruine of the Pagan Religion so the restoring of the like Religion was not the reviving of him But he lived again when the like Politick body or Civil state of affairs in the Empire was re-established by the Ten-horned Beast by the barbarous Nations settling into a subjection to or a compliance with the Roman Laws And
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deut. 9.15 Testimony And this other is called the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony And Exod. 25.21 it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but also before v. 16. the same thing is said and Vatablus from the Hebrew renders it Ponésque in arca Testimonium quod dabo tibi upon which Cornelius excellently well Hinc says he dicta fuit Arca Testimonii id est Legis Arca Testamenti id est Foederis Continebat enim legem quae erat conditio foederis inter Deum Hebraeos initi Consequenter Tabernaculum ab Arca quam continebat vocatum est Tabernaculum Foederis Tabernaculum Testimonii So Cornelius à lapide Whence we see plainly that the Temple in these two places named is one and the same Temple which Temple stood open out of which the Vial-angels came as well after the Doxology of the Elders ch 11. as after the Song of the Harpers in this Chapter But ch 11.19 the Ark of the Testament is said to be seen in it because this points at the sixth Vial which synchronizeth with the Harvest by both which is understood the calling of the Jews And therefore by the Ark of the Testament being seen in Heaven is signified that that was the time in which God would have an eye to his everlasting Covenant made with the Jews and resume them again to be his People which sense is worthy the taking notice of though it was omitted before c That sense which the Remarker would put upon the Ark of the Testament being seen in Heaven ch 11.19 I have shewn the vanity thereof sufficiently above nor need I here repeat it His conceit therefore sailing and there being no mention of opening the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony or Testament in Heaven but in these two places ch 11. and ch 15. and they both being after a Song of Thanksgiving it is a shrewd Indication d That the times of the opening the Temple here and those in ch 11.19 are one though the mention of the Temple being opened ch 11. be deferred till v. 19. that it may set off the appearing of the Ark of the Covenant with a greater grace but the time of seeing the Ark of the Covenant differs from the time of the opening of the Temple for the former is at the sixth Vial the latter just before the first Wherefore in brief The opened Temple in Heaven ch 11. and this opened here being one and the same and this in order to the effusion of the Vials this is no small confirmation of the Expositor's Interpreting the two last verses of ch 11. touching the affairs of the Vials which was worth noting by the bye Vers. 6. The seven Angels coming out of the Temple may signifie that it 's by the Worshippers in the Temple and at the Altar viz. the two Witnesses that they pour forth their Vials and that they minister to them in that service Their being cloathed in white linen and girt with golden girdles signifies the righteousness and holiness of their administration for the advancement of Christ's Kingdom which though spiritual extends to the executing Justice and upholding true Worship and they are the Ministers of God's wrath for transgressions against both Ans. That the Worshippers in the Temple and at the Altar are not the two Witnesses I have shewn above and therefore the Angels coming out of the Temple here cannot denote them and if the two Witnesses be the Ministers of God's wrath it is the more unlikely that that effusion of bloud from the Wine-press so that it would reach to the Horses bridle for sixteen hundred furlongs together should be understood Literally and not Parabolically else these Ministers of God's wrath must shed the bloud of an Army nine thousand times bigger than that of Xerxes as was noted above A Butchery incredible to be perpetrated by the Saints and holy Witnesses of God Chap. 16. Vers. 2. a TO understand the pouring forth of the first Vial on the Earth in such a general sense as the command is to pour all the Vials on the Earth so that it is onely to correspond with the other Vials in the Cortex is to make it signifie nothing and therefore the effect of the first Vial viz. the grievous sore on the Worshippers of the Beast is imputed to another cause viz. to their exulcerate rage at the Rising of the Witnesses b These are but sorry conceits for which one should reject Mr. Mede's far more current account of this Vial viz. that it signifies the Bohemian War that ensued the sufferings of Huss and Ier. of Prague whereby great ruine fell on the Popish Clergy and the religious houses in that and the adjoining Countries and miraculous defeats on the great Popish Armies sent against the Bohemians c. Which plague is aptly signified by the Vial poured on the Earth the two-horned Beast rising out of the Earth And that there was then the like spirit in agitation in other Countries though it did not break forth may appear by our Commons Petitioning in Parliament about the same time Henry the fourth and the Lords that he may have the Temporalties of the Bishops and Clergy which were consumed in unnecessary courses c. And also by the Parliaments importuning Henry the fifth to suppress the Religious houses as being Nurseries of Idleness and Cages of unclean Birds To divert which storm the Clergy set on foot the claim of the Crown of France and the War thereon c. c Also there could be no such exulcerated rage at the Rising of the Witnesses because the Reformation was not the Rising of them For though thereby the Pope's Supremacy was rejected and some gross corruptions reformed yet did the Reformed Churches retain generally the same Political state of Government and so much of the Popish Leaven in Matters of Religion that they did not cease to continue members of the Beast d Nor did there appear any such Spirit of life in them to set them on their feet and cause them to ascend c. they continuing in the same worldly state and station though freed from some Popish Grievances Ans. a Though the first Vial were poured out on the Earth in that general sense doth its pouring forth signifie nothing It will necessarily hit some particular thing or person or other and it particularly hits the marked slaves of the Beast and inflicts a sore on them and so every Vial the pouring it forth will mediately or immediately concern the Terraqueous Globe namely the Inhabitants thereof But for that special meaning of Earth which the Remarker takes notice of and I have noted to answer to the Clay in Daniel and to signifie the Ecclesiastick Rank of men if this in general were understood by the Earth v. 1. it were an Hypothesis very allowable yea laudable being these Vials concern the Pontifician Hierarchy which Mr. Mede calls Bestiam Antichristianam and all reach him either immediately or mediately
brought to ruine the haunting of Devils and unclean Birds being the very character of such ruined places and alluded to here Nor are the people of God warned to come out of her ruines but that voice out of Heaven to God's people to come out of her was uttered before the Rising of the Witnesses and this Angel's strenuous proclaiming the fall of Babylon This warning I say precedes both the partial and final overthrow of that great City But the description of her desolation and ruines from their being haunted with Devils and unclean Birds respects especially her final overthrow Nor are the people of God bid to come out of her Ruines as I noted before but to come out of Babylon both before her partial and consummate fall Here therefore is an Hysterology in the Cortex But the description of so complete an overthrow of Babylon does plainly shew us and assure us that the bidding to go out of her is before her fall And therefore this voice from Heaven commanding God's people to come out of her answers to the voice of the first of the three Angels ch 14. flying in the midst of Heaven and exhorting men to fear God and to worship Him that is the Creator of all things that is to say to cease from Idolatry The voice from Heaven here is coincident with the latter part of the time of the voice of the first Angel from the midst of Heaven Examples of such Hysterologies in the Cortex are so frequent that I need not name any Vers. 3. There 's no need of taking Merchants of the Earth in any other than the literal sense But then it 's not to be applied solely to the City of Rome but to all other Cities under her Jurisdiction which being of the same Political body are comprehended under the name of Babylon and by imitation of her delicacies and splendour became in like manner enrichers of her Merchants Ans. It is not likely the Spirit of Prophecy would spin out so long a Threnodia if it was onely the howling of some secular Merchants that their worldly Traffick failed them What 's this to the Church and Religion which the Opened-book-prophecy has always an eye to And what a sapless thing is the literal sense of this lamentation in comparison of the Parabolical And what Jurisdiction has Rome as a secular trading City over other trading Cities of the Empire The new Ierusalem to which Babylon is directly opposed does not signifie a material City but a State or Polity therefore undoubtedly Babylon signifies so too And lastly this City of Babylon is said to deceive all Nations by her Sorcery and to be guilty of the bloud of Prophets and Saints c. Are secular Merchants such profound Magicians or so concerned to suck the bloud of Saints and Prophets This therefore is an overmuch homespun and secular conceit in the Remarker to fansie the Parabolical sense needless of this lamentation Vers. 17. As we said v. 3. Merchants needed not be taken in any other than the literal sense so consequently Sea will not need here to be taken in any other sense though in the Prophetick style it hath another sense Ans. That both Merchants and Sea should be taken in a Parabolical sense in this prolix Threnodia I have declared sufficient reason I hope upon v. 3. Chap. 19. Vers. 4. THE Doxology supposed to end here is continued in the three following Verses and the four first Verses seem to respect onely those who are called to the Marriage-supper or appertain to the new Ierusalem and the following three verses the joining all others with them in the Doxology who are concerned in that great Revolution and blessed Renovation of the World when the earnest expectation of the Creature which waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God shall be answered and thereby the Creature it self that had been so long subject to vanity shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God Rom. 8.19 20 21. and there 's no going back till verse the eleventh Ans. The four first verses do plainly contain a Doxology or the praising of God for his just judgments upon Babylon as is plain from v. 2. where he is said to have judged the great Whore This is the occasion and object that this Doxology is conversant about And the occasion and object of the following Doxology in the three next verses is the Marriage of the Lamb as is plain v. 7. Let us be glad and give honour to him for the Marriage of the Lamb is come c. Wherefore they having distinct occasions and objects it is sufficient Reason they should be look't upon as distinct Doxologies and that the former should not be conceived to be continued three verses farther than it is Whence it follows the Marriage of the Lamb or Conversion of the Jews synchronizing with the sixth Vial as the Battel of the Rider of the white Horse with the seventh that the going back must be before vers 11. viz. at vers 5. Vers. 12. The Crowns here signifie not the Kings of the East submitting themselves to the Rider of the white Horse For those are Believers who are to reign with Christ but wear no such Crowns as are here signified For the Crowns here are of those Kings that war with the Lamb but he shall overcome and so he wears the Crowns which he had won Ans. If there were an accession of many Kings to the Kingdom of Christ whether they yielded voluntarily or by force there was an accession of so many Crowns ipso facto and their Conviction by the power of the Gospel is the best kind of vanquishing in the Kingdom of Christ and his Militia Vers. 14. The Armies being cloathed in white linen does well accord with understanding the war literally For this cloathing does onely signifie that it 's an holy war being under the conduct of him who in righteousness doth make war Ans. White linen may signifie holiness but by no means a carnal war If that had been meant it would have been said they were cloathed in white armour bright and shining Which would aptly have signified both holiness and war too Vers. 15. Nor does the sword issuing out of his mouth wherewith he smites the Nations shew it to be no carnal or literal warfare but signifies the sharp but righteous sentence of judgment which he does first pronounce against his enemies and then does the war execute the same And also signifies farther that spiritual slaughter or powerfull conviction of the Remnant v. 21. Thou shalt rule them with a rod of Iron and break them c. does plainly signifie the absolute subjection he shall bring his obstinate enemies into as the admonition in the following verses thereto in Psal. 2. does shew To which does answer in Psal. 110.2 God shall send the rod of thy strength out of Sion rule thou in the midst of thine enemies But contrition of heart
they that doe such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God But the fruit of the Spirit is Love Ioy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance And as to the former he saith That they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts And as to the latter he admonisheth If we live in the spirit let us also walk in the spirit But now if we crucifie the one and live and walk in the other shall we not then be in reality no conceited and presumptuous Saints so fansied by our selves onely or by our own party but truly become such in the sight of God and all discerning people And this assuredly those may attain unto who under the dispensation of God's Providence are called unto the Communion of the Church of England if they be not wanting to themselves in the use of the advantages thereof And if so what can the cavilling at and calumniating the Constitution of things what the vilifying and speaking contemptibly of them and what the Insensibleness of the wickedness of Schisms and Divisions what can these proceed from but from the Spirit of Pride and Hypocrisie which would seem some extraordinary thing in Religion when indeed it 's nothing but its mere self that is a proud Hypocritical and many times Hypochondriacal Spirit fermenting and swelling it self into a conceit of its affecting a more perfect state of Holiness and Saintship than is consistent with communion with the publick Religion established by Divine Providence here in England suppose but in the mean time it self neither crucifying the flesh nor the lusts nor ill humours thereof as Hatred Variance Emulations Strife Wrathfulness Schismaticalness Fierceness of Spirit c. nor walking in the Spirit of Love Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness and Meekness whenas the Wisedom that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle c. And therefore this is a false satisfaction of a tumid mind that has no real thirst after true Holiness and Righteousness indeed such as the Spirit of God has exhibited the light of to us in the Scriptures but this false spirit would cloathe it self in a counterfeit shew of Saintship of its own devising and rellishing which being extravagant and out of the road of the established Rule it fondly hopes will approve it self to be extraordinary And truly this is the ordinary cheat whereby spiritually proud men impose upon themselves and others that are no wiser than themselves They think themselves extraordinarily holy and singularly Religious for their extraordinary zeal against or contempt of the publick Religion appointed by the special Providence of God and the Sovereign Autority of the Nation and deem it in a manner profane because common or publick Whenas if they would but cast their eyes upon those Texts above cited that set out so fully and expresly the works of the Flesh and the fruit of the Spirit and examine themselves by that Rule that is so intelligible and wherein there is no freakishness nor canting and resolve to indulge themselves in no sin as there is no sin required as a condition of Communion with the Church of England and out of a firm faith make their earnest addresses to God for strength and assistence to overcome all our inward corruptions and perfectly to mortifie the old man that we may attain to that newness of life through the Spirit of Regeneration and so be wholly quit of the works of the Flesh above enumerated by the Apostle and walk in the spirit and the fruits thereof I say if they would examine themselves whether they doe thus or no whether they have mortified or at least do sincerely endeavour to mortifie all those works of the flesh there mentioned or any other any way a-kin to them and whether they be revived into those fruits of the spirit there specified and have a real savour and rellish of them and are ashamed in themselves and perceive it a burthen to them to find themselves in any other Temper this is the onely way for them to discover their own Hypocrisie and to bring them into a true method of becoming real Saints indeed And this they may be holding communion with the Church of England as I shew'd above But to bear themselves high in their own conceit for their pragmatically fansying rather than espying faults in the Constitutions of a Church so well established and to have a huge zeal for a purer external Reformation of the Publick while that private internal Reformation upon a false satisfaction of mind from that zeal for an outward is so blindly neglected this is the most effectual method I know to make them become and ever remain haughty and headstrong Hypocrites and as to all true and real spiritual Religion very cold and dough-baked Christians This high haughty but really empty Schismatical Spirit is the very pest of the Reformed Churches and I pray God it may never prove the utter Ruine and Destruction of the Reformation And let this serve for a Return to the Remarker's rude and irreverent scorn and contempt he has cast upon the Reformation wherein Divine Providence it self suffers and his Spirit of Prophecy who has plainly declared it to be the Rising of the Witnesses as has been above demonstrated mauger all the pretended Objections of the conceited Remarker But now lastly Whereas the Remarker will have the Reformation sufficiently prophesied of by the second Vial onely it is a thing utterly incredible that so glorious a passage of Providence should be passed over with so short and slight an intimation which is onely this The second Angel poured out his Vial on the Sea and it became as the bloud of a dead man and every living soul dyed in the Sea This is all according to him that prefigures this stupendious passage of Providence whenas the Victory of the Primitive Christianity over Paganism is set out most magnificently and copiously at the opening of the sixth Seal chap. 6.12 as also again by the victory of Michael over the red Dragon chap. 12.7 and there are great Acclamations and Rejoicings thereupon But according to the mind of the Remarker the victory of the Evangelical Christians over Antichrist and horrid Enemy of the Church of Christ and over Pagano-christianism consisting of many gross Superstitions and multifarious Idolatries and execrable Cruelties and Butcherings nothing inferiour to those of the red Dragon all this is hudled up into two or three lines without any Acclamations of Ioy Doxologies or Songs of Thanksgiving for such an inestimable Mercy which yet to such a vast atchievement of Providence according to the usual mode of the Apocalypse ought expresly to have been annexed Wherefore though the second Vial may be a Type of the settled state of the Reformation after some short Reciprocations of affairs after the Rising of the Witnesses yet it cannot be in any reason or congruity of sense reputed the Type of the Reformation it self in its first and fresh
of Babylon and Rising of the Witnesses for all the Vials are after their Rising it necessarily follows that the aforesaid Reformation is the partial fall of Babylon and the Rising of the Witnesses which was the thing to be demonstrated And this succinct Master-Reason of the Expositor as I may so call it may go for a more general Confirmation of all his particular Reasonings on this subject though they are sufficiently firm also of themselves and shews how skilfully he has allotted the several passages of the two Visions that follow the fall of Babylon and Rising of the Witnesses to several of the Vials which are certainly in that time after the said Fall and Rising It shews also the assuredness of his judgment in making the three days and an half that the Witnesses lye slain to be the same with the three times and an half or 1260 days and that the Expositor's six arguments for it as they are rational in themselves so they conclude a certain Truth and that the Remarker's Answers to them are mere Whifling For the late Reformation being demonstrated to be the Rising of the Witnesses all the Remarker's conceits about this matter are quite out of doors These are the genuine Corollaries of this solid Demonstration as to speculation but as to use this one is inestimable That it naturally gives a stop with all that are not out of their wits to their conceiving any hopes of Innovations in State or Church from the near approach of the Rising of the Witnesses the completion of that Prophecy being so plainly past And farthermore for the quieting of their Spirits does plainly inform them of the Excellency of the Reformation made by our Reverend and Royal Reformers here in England and that therefore to separate from such a constitution so well approved of by Divine Testimony is a piece of gross disobedience to the Magistrate and hatefull Ingratitude to the goodness of God and his benign Providence over his Church ARITHMETICA APOCALYPTICA OR A RESOLUTION TO Three main QUERIES Touching the NUMBERS OF THE Medial-Visions OF THE APOCALYPSE Added by way of APPENDAGE to the Answer to the foregoing REMARKS UPON Dr. HENRY MORE HIS APOLOGY LONDON Printed by M. F. for Walter Kettilby 1684. ARITHMETICA APOCALYPTICA OR A RESOLUTION to Three main QUERIES c. WHile my Answers to the foregoing Remarks were in the Press by a lucky Providence there came into my hands certain Apocalyptick Papers sent me in a Letter from a friend who desired my judgment touching them The Papers were the more welcome because the Authour of them seemed to be convinced of that grand truth contended for by Dr. H. M. in his Apology viz. That the Protestant Reformation was the Rising of the Witnesses To which that Authour addeth also that they rose in the year of our Lord 1559 but that their mournfull Prophesying did not conterminate as naturally it doth with their Resurrection and Ascension but was to continue 127 years longer and to expire in the year 1686. In which year he declares with a strange scheme of Enthusiastick confidence that Babylon will be utterly ruined and all Antichristianity quite rooted out of the Church Which look't so like an intended defeat to the important usefulness of the assurance of the Doctrine That the Witnesses are risen already which is the quieting mens minds and preventing stirs and commotions and the conciliating a good opinion of the present constitution of things in matters of Government and Religion here in England that I thought I was obliged the more narrowly to consider the grounds of so Triumphant a conclusion And especially my friend in his Letter pressing me the most earnestly thereto to settle according to my best judgment the Epocha of the Medial Visions which the Authour of those Papers makes to be the year of our Lord 426. Which depends upon his making the Epocha of the Sealed-book-prophecy and the Opened-book-prophecy to be the year 66 in which he supposes that S. Iohn received those Prophecies in the reign of Nero. Wherefore to demonstrate the folly of that Enthusiastick confidence in the Authour of those Papers according to my friend's desire I have here settled the true Epocha of the Medial Visions or of the Apostasie or Reign of Antichrist the usefulness of which we shall consider in its due place Nor content with this I have prefixed two other Queries that tend to the satisfaction of them that urge against the truth of the doctrine That the Witnesses are risen that they are made to rise while the last semitime is but current and not expired as if this destroy'd the usefulness of the Prophecy by giving so large a latitude of time as the space of 180 years for the fulfilling its prediction and were also inconsistent with its synchronizing with the 42 months and 1260 days those days not admitting of any latitude but necessarily signifying strictly so many years The use therefore of these two first Queries for the solving this difficulty I shall also take notice of in its due place In the mean time we shall produce into view the Queries themselves of which this is The first Whether Daniel's Three times and an Half however disguized or varied into 42 months and 1260 days be not the standing Authentick measure of the Medial-Visions of the Apocalypse The second It being granted that Daniel's Three times and an Half is the standing Authentick measure of the Medial-Visions what may be the genuine use and purpose of varying them into 42 months and 1260 days The third What is the precise Epocha of the Medial-Visions or of the Apostasie or Kingdom of Antichrist These be the three Queries And as to the first I say That Daniel's Three times and an Half or seven Semitimes is the standing Authentick measure of the Medial-Visions of the Apocalypse Of which that of the woman in the Wilderness is one of whom it is said Apoc. 12.14 That she was there to be nourished for a Time and Times and half a Time with which abiding of the woman in the Wilderness The Entireness of the Rule of the seven-headed Beast restored The Outer Court troden under foot by the Gentiles The two Witnesses prophesying in sackcloth The entire Dominion of the two-horned Beast or false Prophet or of the great Whore or Mystical Babylon according to Mr. Mede and according to the truth do synchronize Of all these Visions therefore are Daniel's seven Semitimes the standing Authentick measure for the computing the event of any Medial-Vision however varied into 1260 days and 42 months nor is there any more precise restriction as to eventual prediction than there would have been though the expression of Three times and an Half or seven Semitimes had never been varied into 42 months and 1260 days And my Reasons for this my Assertion are these First It looks something absurdly and derogatorily to the Omniscience of the Spirit of Prophecy as if he were farther advanced in Knowledge in St.
to the affairs of the Church and the seventh saith he contains both the Trumpets and Vials and the Vials relate to the affairs of the Church and therefore three or four of the Seals being clearly and confessedly descriptive of Church affairs why should the others be of a different nature from them it being the very argument Mr. Mede himself uses against those that would interpret some of the Trumpets of Heresies and othersome of warlike Invasions and so bring things of a different nature under one Name This is the main of the Annotatour's justification of himself for his deserting Mr. Mede in the Interpretation of the Seals And To this I answer That the true Church of Christ being so mingled with the body of the Roman Empire it will be hard to find any thing to fall out on the one but it will some way or other concern the other but the distinction of sorting the affairs to the one and to the other is to be taken from the opposition of the true Church of Christ to the body of the Empire and the Religion thereof as counter-distinct to that of the true Apostolick Church And therefore those Visions that relate to the state of the Empire so described as to a fit object of them must be the Visions appertaining to the state of the Empire but those that in such a sort relate to the state of the Church must appertain to the Church that is to say The pure Religion of the Church or its body must be the Object in the one and the false Religion of the Empire or its body must be the Object in the other And this therefore it is I declare in the behalf of Mr. Mede that the Visions of the first six Seals and the first six Trumpets which are part of the seventh Seal that is to say that all the Visions of the Sealed book so far as it has pleased the Spirit of Prophecy to unseal them before he descends to the Visions of the Opened book are rightly said to respect the state of the Empire remembring also that Axiome that Denominatio est à parte potiori Wherefore I answer as to the first and sixth Seal that they do most palpably and eminently set out the intended Conquest and final overthrow of the impure Pagan Religion of the Empire and the Imperial Crown is given to the Rider of the white Horse and the success of this Heros is against the Religion of the Empire and the sixth Seal the overthrow thereof to omit the affairs of the Iews and the siege and sacking of Ierusalem which concerns the body of the Empire and is referrible to the Rider of the white Horse Nor was the overthrow of the Pagan Religion under the sixth Seal without large effusion of the bloud of the body of the Empire So that five of the six Seals plainly respect the state of the Empire as their Object And if the fifth did not yet Denominatio est à parte potiori as I said But under that Seal the Christians being part of the Civil body of the Empire and the vast effusion of their bloud there intimated though it was Semen Ecclesiae yet a weakening of the Empire and the Empire threatened therefore that Seal plainly respects the Empire also In brief the fifth Seal is a most terrible commination of a dreadfull vengeance on the bloudy and Idolatrous Empire So plainly is the Empire the Object of that Seal And for the seventh Seal the Vials are no part of it but belong to the Opened-book-prophecy the Object of the Vials is the true Churches gaining ground upon Antichrist till the utter Subversion of his Kingdom But the seven Trumpets belong to it viz. to the seventh Seal and as they are Martial Instruments so they every one of the first six of them betoken Invasions and war and spoil and destruction on the Empire and Mr. Mede's application of History thereto is very apposite and fit So that it is plain that the Sealed-book-prophecy so far as it has pleased the Spirit to unseal it respects the Fate or State of the Empire in the six Seals and six Trumpets But the seven Thunders that succeed in the place of the seventh Trumpet as the seven Trumpets did into the place of the seventh Seal what they uttered Iohn is commanded for the present to conceal So that the Annotatour's reason for his interpreting the Seals all of them of the affairs of the Church quite vanisheth and in so doing he must needs find himself in a wrong box or others will easily so find him he not interpreting the Visions according to the genuine meaning of the Prophetick style as Mr. Mede does but according to his own private fancy But that I swell not my Appendicula to an undue bulk I must not enter much less insist on these things We haste therefore to what follows In Sect. 7. The first thing that occurs is his allowing the Doctour's dividing of the third Period or seventh Trumpet into seven Thunders to be an ingenious Invention but withall perstringing it as a Notion that has no ground in the Text. But what we have answered to the Remarker in his Remarks on the tenth Chapter of the Apocalypse will sufficiently demonstrate that this Invention of the Doctour is plainly grounded upon the Text and confirmed therefrom and so is not onely ingenious but also true To which Answer therefore I refer the Reader and proceed to what occurs next which is his Assertion that the things prefigured by the Inner and Outer Court of the Temple do synchronize The absurdity of which conceit I have abundantly demonstrated against the Remarker upon chap. 11. Whither I might again refer the Reader But because the Annotatour here in his Preface pretends to prove his erroneous Assertion which he follows Mr. Durham in by no less than six arguments I will briefly hint the weakness of every one of them Arg. 1. His first Argument insinuates that the Coherence betwixt the first and second verse of chap. 11. is no other ways to be understood than by allowing what things are signified by the Inner and Outer Court to synchronize V. 1. Rise and measure the Temple V. 2. But the Court that is without or rather according to the Greek but the Outer Court of the Temple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cast out or pronounce to be rejectaneous For it is given to the Gentiles and the holy City shall they tread under foot Of which two verses the most easie and natural coherent sense is this That Iohn is bid by the Angel to arise and measure that is forthwith to set himself to the measuring of the Inner Court as denoting the present state of the Church which he should find symmetral to the Rule But as for the Outer Court denoting a state of the Church to come that should bear the same proportion of time or duration to the present state of her that the Outer Court does to the Inner of