implanted into him Rom. 9. Wherefore it is no wonder S t Iohn did so profound Reverence to the messenger of News so unspeakably grateful acceptable and enravishing And he said unto me See thou do it not For it should seem the mien of his face conjoyned with the posture of his body betrayed such a pitch of veneration and worship as might seem more than Civil and not due nor warrantable from one fellow-Creature to another I am thy fellow-servant and the fellow-servant of thy brethren that have the testimony of Iesus worship God Reserve such high pitches of affection and veneration for God alone whom thou art to love with all thy heart and all thy soul but thy Neighbour only as thy self And if Iohn's worshipping this Angel visible and present be thus reprovable what is the worshipping of Saints and Angels invisible in Temples and at Altars and Images consecrated to them but the dregs of Idolatry For the testimony of Iesus is the spirit of Prophecie He was not to be taken with so profound admiration and veneration of the Angel for that he was such a Prophet for he was yet but his fellow-servant as also of others that had the Testimony of Jesus For no man can say Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost They cannot be true and faithfull Witnesses of Jesus out of love and loyalty to him but they must be inspired by his spirit and so their witnessing of him is an effect of the spirit of Prophecy the spirit enabling them firmly to believe and declare beyond what flesh and blood can attain to Such a spirit of Prophecy was in the two Witnesses Chap. 11. whose faith was so strong that they could suffer the utmost for the Truth 11. And I saw Heaven opened Now follows the Vision that contemporizes with the treading of the Wine-press and with the seventh Vial which will give admirable light to both And behold a white Horse An Horse with his Rider doth signifie Rule and Command and the colour white Prosperity and Success And he that sat upon him was called faithfull and true and in righteousness doth he judge and make war In the seventh Vial there was mention of the battel of that great day of God Almighty but no mention there of any Armies or any Captain of the Forces Lo here is the Commander of the Army Christ himself the Eternal Logos joyned with the Humane Nature who in Righteousness doth judge and make war 12. His eyes were as a flame of fire Fire is a symbol of Intellectuality especially a flaming fire that implies light Thus we read of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fiery Intellect in the Magick Oracles and of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shining fire attributed to the Soul as being a certain Divine and Intellectual Essence as Plethon speaks wherefore the Logos here is rightly said to have eyes like a flaming fire because he is not only Intellectual but that great and Eternal Intellect from whence all Intellectual Beings are as also their Operations exercised by virtue of the more pure etherial and igneous spirits And on his head were many Crowns For the Kings of the East by this time had submitted to him besides what might be done under the fourth Vial. And he had a name written that no man knew but himself This in brief signifies the incomprehensibleness and imperscrutableness of the Divinity of our Saviour he alone that is it being able to comprize it 13. And he was cloathed with a vesture dipt in blood This partly relates to his Humane Nature and Passion and partly to the Vision of the treading of the Wine-press where blood is said to ascend up to the horse-bridles whence his garments would be dipt in blood And is a sign that these two Visions this and that of the Wine-press tend to the same thing And his name is called the Word of God which may include not only the Eternal Logos that was made flesh but even the written Word of God also The false Prophet or Idolatrous Hierarchy of Rome upon their pretense of Infallibility had silenced not only the express Law of the written Word of God but most coarsly and barbarously had trodden down those innate Principles of Morality and Reason that the Eternal Word had implanted in the souls of men and by terrour and cruel force did what she could to smother stifle and extinguish them But here the scene of things is changed and the pure Word of God like a valiant Heros triumphs over the corrupt superstitious idolatrous and contradictious Doctrines and Institutes of a company of deceitful and deceivable men which in this Vision is called the false Prophet 14. And the Armies which were in Heaven followed him Here be the Armies as before we noted the Commander which belong to the battel of the great Day of God Almighty under the seventh Vial Upon white Horses cloathed in fine linnen white and clean A strange kind of Armature if it were to be understood literally of such a battle as Soldiers ordinarily fight in the Field But white horses and fine linnen white and clean signifie the Righteousness and good success of these Evangelical Warriours that shall bestir themselves in those dayes 15. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword that with it he should smite the Nations This again showes that this is no Carnal Warfare but as it is said in the Epistle to the Hebrews The Word of God is quick and powerful sharper than any two-edged sword And he shall rule them with a rod of iron in allusion to the second Psalm which is a Prophecie of these Times of the Messias Thou shalt Rule them with a Rod of Iron and break them in pieces like a potters vessel which is a Prophetick symbol of that wonderful contrition of heart that the word of God makes when it is sincerely seasonably and powerfully evibrated against the Enemies of his Kingdom And he treadeth the Wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of God Almighty This referrs to the Vision of the Wine-press Chap. 14. whereby it is again manifest that those two Visions belong to one and the same thing But the treading of the Wine-press is there explained and the Explanation ratified by this of the sword coming out of the mouth of the Rider of the White Horse 16. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords which sheweth the Royal descent of Christ even according to the flesh as if he had laid claim to this Soveraignty by descent from David the King accordingly as it is said Chap. 22. I am the Root and Off-spring of David and the bright Morning Star the Root of David as to his Divinity and the Off-spring of David as to his Humanity 17. And I saw an Angel standing in the Sun that is those signified by this Angel stood in the most bright and glorious Light of the Gospel or Word of God as
therefore they deserve very ill of the Christian Church who either rashly or out of design instead of the true and genuine meaning of the Visions of the Apocalypse give unnatural forced senses of them disterting them from their intended scope applying mean sapless insignificant useless and inept meanings to them instead of those that are proper and adequate Which not to dissemble the Truth Grotius though otherwise a Learned Writer has most wretchedly done For this makes the very pretense of understanding Prophecies ridiculous and deprives Christ of his Glory and of one of the most Illustrious Fruits of the Passion and Apotheosis and the Church of her so Eminent Priviledge above all other Religions For such meager dry distorted and contradictions Expositions as Grotius has given of the Apocalypse if there were no other to be had than those would never argue it a Book Divinely Inspired but to be rather a confused heaping up of vagrant thoughts and fortuitous imaginations And yet these fond conceits of Grotius forsooth must stifle the genuine meaning and due efficacy of the Apocalypse that is We must rob Christ of his Glory and the Christian Church of her high peculiar Priviledge above any other Churches or Religions nay take take away that extraordinary support which not only Christianity but even Natural Religion it self has from this Book of the Apocalypse in a meer Complement to the Church of Rome that she may not seem as well by Divine Testimony as by Humane Reason guilty of Idolatry See my Synopsis Prophetica Book II. Chap. 2 3 4. and my Mystery of Godliness Book V. Chap. 16. Which Chapters if you attentively read though with the Favourers of Rome and Grotius you may think me not over-civil yet you will certainly conclude me very true and just in this my censure This I thought fit though it is against my Genius to lessen any ones performances plainly to declare that no man may be fobbed off from embracing the Truth by the specious name of Hugo Grotius prefixed to such weak and imperfect Essayes upon the Book of the Apocalypse where amongst other things it is to be noted that the six first Seals and the six first Trumpets which are indeed all the Visions of the Sealed Book he interprets of things which were transacted before the Prophecy was writ than which nothing can be more wild and preposterous A third considerable Usefulness of our Exposition is that it is a plain justification of all Reformed Churches Prince and People for their having left the Communion of the Church of Rome and a discharging of them of that perverse and unjust imputation of Schism which the Church of Rome would fain cast upon them For though they do loudly miscall them by the name of Hereticks yet they have nothing to lay to their charge but the disowning those things which it were Heresie for them to embrace and are nothing but unsound Doctrines and foul Trumperies and Principles of Idolatry which pretended Holy Church holds up for her unholy and secular ends or worldly interest For the main Body of Protestants hold all that were accounted Articles of Faith in the first Ages of the Church about the first four hundred years while the Church was deemed Symmetral as is intimated in the Apocalypse Chap. 11. whence it is impossible they should be Hereticks And that neither Prince nor People in the Reformed Churches are guilty of Schism besides the nature of the thing it self that no man is bound to disobey God under pretence of obeying a Church that is Idolatrous there is not only a Commission but a Command to all to leave her Communion Apoc. Chap. 2. ver 20. and Chap. 18. vers 4. And I heard a voice from Heaven saying Come out of her my people c. So that both Prince and People every where have a Commission from Heaven to leave her Communion so far are they from being Schismaticks for leaving it A fourth Usefulness may be and that again to the Reformed Churches which are the Church in Sardis who are reprehended by Christ in his Epistle to that Church for having a name of living as having a zeal one against another about things of smaller consequence and from thence making Schisms and Dissentions in the Reformed Churches but being even dead otherwise to that which is the onely Life of a True Christian which is Charity or Love the character of the Philadelphian Church Which the Sardian Church is heartily to breath after that all their breaches may be healed and defects made up and that Peace and Truth and Righteousness may flourish amongst them But as yet it is too true that her works are not found perfect before God as Christ complains of her in his Epistle Which Epistle of Christ to the Church in Sardis I wish all the Reformed Churches would seriously peruse and take notice of the heavy Commination against them If they do not watch and stand upon their guard and endeavour to strengthen the things that are ready to dye namely true Faith in God and in Jesus Christ and the promised asssistances of his Holy Spirit to subdue our Corruptions to the Scepter of his Kingdom and a sincere Zeal against all scandal and debauchery of Life and gross Superstition and Idolatry and against hankering after the Flesh-pots of Aegypt as thé Israelites did when God had brought them out of the House of Bondage into the Wilderness Which state is something analogous to the Sardian Interval in respect of the Philadelphian which is as it were the taking possesssion of the Holy Land and more analogous than we could wish in murmuring against their Governours and that Government which obtained in the Church even in those times which by the Spirit of God were accounted Symmetral Apoc. cap. 11.1 If they do not remember how they have received and heard and hold fast and repent namely how they have received from the Apostles themselves by their Writings and from Apostolick men raised up in the late Reformation who generally declared against the Idolatries of the Church of Rome and declared the Pope with his Hierarchy to be that Man of Sin the Antichrist even those that professed themselves not to know what to make of the Book of the Apocalypse as Luther and Calvin whom Cornelius à Lapide affirms to have cast it out of the Canon which is a sign that the Idolatry and Antichristianisme of the Roman Church was to their judgements so gross that they wanted no such helps to assure them thereof How they have received from S t Paul Children obey your Parents in the Lord as well as Fathers provoke not your Children to wrath Ephes. 6.4 And that Love is the fulfilling of the Law Galat. 5.14 For all the Law is fullfilled in one word even in this Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self but if ye bite and devour one another take heed that ye be not consumed one of another These and the like sins is
Sun elsewhere is expounded by the illumination whereof they were able to play the part of such auspicious Heralds touching the victory of the Evangelical Party that it would go on their side And he cryed with a loud voice saying to all the fowles that fly in the midst of Heaven Come and gather your selves to the Supper of the Great God 18. That ye may eat the flesh of Kings and the flesh of Captains and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of them that sit on them that is the flesh of Horsemen by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the flesh of all men both free and bond both small and great These are the slain by the sword of him that sate upon the Horse for the Beast and the false Prophet are cast into a Lake of Fire and Brimstone so that the Fowles of the Air could not feed on them Wherefore it is plain that those slain with the Sword are those that are converted by the powerful Preaching of the Word which is sharper than any two-edged sword And then this great Feast of the Fowles is the Joy of Angels who if they rejoyce so much at the Conversion of one single sinner what a feast of Joy is it with them when whole Countries and Kingdoms are converted to the True Faith in Christ and are made part of his Church or Kingdom * And that Fowles signifie Spirits and good Spirits here or Angels is plain from the Cabbalistical signification of that Word and the tenour of this Vision 19. And I saw the Beast either the two-horned Beast or the ten-horned Beast namely the remainders of him or else both which is one part of the Adversaries of the Evangelici or of the Armies of this illustrious Heros on the white Horse And the Kings of the Earth and their armies that is the Infidel party the other adversaries of the abovesaid Heros who with his Armies make up the Tripartition I observed in the treading of the Wine-press and in the seventh Vial Which is another argument of the coincidency of these Visions Gathered together to make war against him that sate on the Horse and against his army which exactly answers to and makes a supplement of what is wanting Chap. 16. v. 16. This therefore is the Army that was gathered together in Armageddon 20. And the Beast was taken the ten-horned Beast namely the remainders that was left of him at this time And with him the false Prophet who is mentioned also in the seventh Vial viz. The Roman Idolatrous Hierarchy That wrought Miracles before him with which he deceived them which had received the mark of the Beast namely of the two-horned Beast see Chap. 13. vers 13 16 17. which is the same with this false Prophet And them that worshipped his Image viz. the Image which the two-horned Beast made who debauching the Christian Empire by the introduction of the old Idolatry under new names made it the lively Image of the Pagan These both were cast alive viz. the Beast and false Prophet not slain by the Sword that comes out of the mouth of the Rider of the white Horse that is not converted from their Antichristianity to the pure Apostolick Faith into a Lake of fire burning with brimstone whereby their Idolatrous Power and Tyranny was abolished and consumed 21. And the remnant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the rest that is the other of the two parties that opposed the Evangelical Armies namely the Infidel party were slain with the sword of him that sate upon the Horse which sword proceeded out of his mouth and all the Fowles were filled with their flesh that is all the Holy Angels were feasted and filled with the Joy of their Conversion For this Sword is the cutting conviction of the Word of God and of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus preached effectually in the power of the Spirit whereby they were converted It is here compared to a sword as Chap. 14. vers 19. to a sharp sickle whereby the Vine of the Earth was gathered and cast into the great Wine-press Which Vision as I said is the same with this as also that of the seventh Vial. In all which Visions three parties of men are plainly distinguished In the Vision of the Wine-press the Vintagers or Treaders of the Grapes are the Evangelical or the pure Christian party In the seventh Vial the said party are those that are the Armies of God Almighty at the battel in Armageddon or those Boanerges's with the third part of the City which they thundered over so divided viz. into three parts In this Vision the Heros on the White Horse with his Armies This is the pure Christian party in all these three Visions But the obdurate Antichristian party in the Vision of the Wine-press is the City without which as being a company uncapable of conviction and contrition the Wine-press is trodden In the seventh Vial the Beast and false Prophet or Babylon the Great who pelted with Hail-stones of a talent weight blasphemes but does not repent And in this Vision of the Rider of the White Horse the Beast and the false Prophet This is the Antichristian party in all the three Visions But the Heathen or Infidel party is denoted in the Vision of the Wine-press by the Grapes there gathered and pressed and having their Edomitish blood squeezed out of them who is this that comes from Edom with his died garments from Bozrah which Bozrah the very name signifies Vintage In the seventh Vial by those under the Dragon for all Pagans or Infidels are so he being the Old Opposer of the Kingdom of the Messias and by the Cities of the Nations or Heathens who are said to fall as being thunderstruck at the powerfull voice of those Evangelical Boanerges's over the great City divided into three parts And in this Vision by those that are slain by the sword of the Rider of the White Horse For these being a distinct Party from the Christian Party the Armies of that Divine Heros and from the party Antichristian the Beast and the false Prophet what can they be but Infidels Which three Visions therefore thus dispersed and so maimedly and obscurely described single but so fully and certainly to be understood compared together is one special instance of that admirable artifice in this Book of close Concealment and certain Revealment of the Truth in these Prophecies NOTES CHAPTER XIX Vers. 5. Praise our God all ye his Servants c. That is no bar to Christ his being the Precentor here because he saith Our God as if it were below his Divinity to use that phrase For his Humane Nature is a Creature Besides he saith expresly to Mary John 20.17 Go to my Brethren and say unto them I ascend to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God See also Apoc. 3.12 Vers. 18. And that Fowles signifie Spirits c. That Fowles or Birds signifie Spirits or Angels with the
Horns of the Lamb falsly pretending to be his Vicar but spoke like the Dragon decreeing Idolatries and barbarous persecutions And his servants shall serve him they shall serve him with a willing and prompt mind in this day of his power 4. And they shall see his face They will enjoy the full light of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. His Life and his Spirit will be most palpably and sensibly revealed in them And his name shall be in their foreheads It shall also be plain to all from their outward Conversation whose they are and to whom they belong viz. That they are the faithful Servants of Jesus 5. And there shall be no night there No ignorance nor any persecution for not being ignorant and for not admitting of things blasphemous and impossible That ignorance is the Mother of Devotion will be out of date in those days which Principle sate like the darkness of midnight on the Church during the time of the Idolatrous Hierarchy And they need no candle no factitious lights or false Instructions of carnal men Nor the light of the Sun no pretended Infallibility of the Pope whom his flatterers make the Universal Sun of the Christian World and put the Emperour like the Moon under his feet For the Lord God giveth them light namely by his Word and by his Spirit and they shall be no longer slaves to the cunningly contrived Opinions of men And in this freedom of the Light of the Word and Spirit they shall reign for ever and ever that is this Kingdom of Christ shall never be subjected again to the power of the wicked Nor shall that numerous rabble of Gog and Magog be able to take this City but it shall continue to the visible Coming of Christ to judgement and his sentencing all the Ungodly to the Lake burning with fire and brimstone which is the second Death 6. And he said unto me These things are faithfull and true namely these predictions of the Excellent state of the Church in the Philadelphian Interval described or set out by the New Ierusalem and as stupendious as it may seem to flesh and blood yet is a most certain truth And the Lord God of the holy Prophets sent his Angel to shew unto his Servants both this great Mystery of the New Ierusalem and other things the things which must shortly be done namely under the first six Seals 7. Behold I come quickly to support my Church in her Smyrnean condition under the second third fourth and fifth Seals and to deliver her from her Persecutions under the sixth Blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the Prophecy of this Book that is That observeth what is writ therein for his own Direction and Comfort 8. And I Iohn saw these things and heard them and when I had heard and seen I fell down to worship before the feet of the Angel which shewed me these things and amongst other things the great Glory of the Catholick or Universal Church set out by the description of the New Ierusalem Which did so overcome him with joy as that assurance of the Conversion of his own Countrey-men the Jews that again he was carryed away into the greatest Affection and Veneration for the Messenger of such enravishing news 9. Then saith he unto me See thou do it not For I am thy fellow-servant and the fellow-servant of they Brethren the Prophets viz. of those that truly believe in and bear witness of Jesus Christ by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost And of them which keep the sayings of this Book That observe them understand them and believe them and have faith and courage to act accordingly which no man can do but by the power of the Spirit of God Worship God Accordingly as our Saviour has prescribed Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serve 10. And he saith unto me Seal not the sayings of the Prophecy of this Book as if it concerned onely Times afar off or many ages to come For the time is at hand that is The time of exercising the Faith of the true Followers of Christ in the Smyrnean Interval of the Church and of discovering the barbarous and brutish cruelty of Paganism against them Which Tragedy will be acted over again in the Pergamenian and Thyatirian Intervals of the Church by a Pagano-christian Synagogue whereby the Faith of the True Church will be exercised and more illustriously appear and the wickedness of a false hypocritical Hierarchy more notoriously manifested to the World Divine Providence administring occasion for the discovering both in their colours not forcing the Wills of either by his Absolute Omnipotency Whence it follows in the next Verse 11. He that is unjust let him be unjust still and he that is filthy let him be filthy still Let their unjust cruelty and barbarous persecution and foulness of Life and filthiness of Idolatry go on in the Pagan and afterwards in the Pagano-christian Polity till they are ripe for Judgment I will not stop them And he that is righteous let him be righteous still and he that is holy let him be holy still that is increase more and more in honesty of Conversation unblameableness of Life and purity in Religion and in Zeal against all Idolatry not refusing the assistances of my Spirit and Grace 12. And behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be I will demolish or abolish the Pagan Religion and set up the Christian under the sixth Seal in the Reign of Constantine and judge the Whore the Idolatrous Hierarchy under the sixth Trumpet and utterly destroy her under the seventh Vial and he that is righteous growing still more righteous and he that is holy still more holy introduce the glorious State of the New Ierusalem under the second Thunder These things are within the compass of my Providence and Power and therefore will certainly come to pass For 13. I am Alpha and Omega the Beginning and the End the First and the Last My Kingdom shall out-last all Kingdoms neither shall any Power upon Earth survive my Reign in the Holy City Ierusalem Whence follow the words of Saint Iohn as relating to those Times 14. Blessed are they that do his Commandments that walk uprightly according to the external Word or Law That they may have right to the Tree of Life that is be baptized at last into the dispensation of the Spirit of Life in the New Birth And may enter through the Gates into the City that is be baptized and admitted Citizens in order to the aforesaid attainment to be true Members of this Living Church of Christ the New Ierusalem and enjoy all the holy and healing priviledges thereof which have been above described 15. For without are Dogs and Sorcerers and Whoremongers and Murderers and Idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a lye that is brutish obscene and Atheistical men and jugling pretenders to
and such things as these Dissenters suffering for which are against common Sense Scripture and Reason and against the honour and Institutes of Christ and only make for the interest of the Antichristian Hierarchy to enrich and magnify their Priesthood as if they were more Omnipotent than God Almighty who according to their own Schools can do nothing that implies a contradiction to be done whenas Transubstantiation is nothing but a fardle of flat contradictions it may justly amaze any considering person that the Civil Powers in this long Reign of Antichrist have been so little sensible of their own Secular Interest For in the multitude of People is the Kings honour but in the want of people is the destruction of the Prince as Solomon speaks as to have suffered so many thousands of their useful innocent Subjects to be sacrificed to the lust and ambition of that proud and bloody Hierarchy to say nothing of that great guilt of blood that lay upon the Civil Powers themselves for listening to the counsels of that Iezebel The account that lay upon them in those times was heavy enough when the earth was as well full of darkness as of cruel habitations as the Psalmist speaks But now the fuller light of the Gospel being so manifestly dispread through so great a part of Christendom and the gross Idolatries Impostures and Cruelties of the Roman Church so generally known which cannot but take hold of the consciences of them that have the greatest sense and fear of God and the most sincere inclinations to approve themselves the faithful servants of Jesus Christ and therefore will be the most certain to suffer by the barbarous suggestions of that Woman that is said to be drunk with the blood of the Saints and the blood of the Martyrs of Jesus what a vast weight of guilt will lye upon such Civil Powers of Christendom as at this time of the day shall listen to the wicked suggestions of the abovesaid Iezebel for the destroying of the Prophets of the Lord and whither and how far it will sink them I dread to think and am afraid to speak out But it may be easily collected from the voice of that Angel Rev. 14. vers 9. If any man worship the Beast and his Image and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone and the smoak of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever And if this be the fate of those that suffer themselves through fear and violence to be thus debauched what will be the fate of them that force them and debauch them The mighty shall be mightily tormented Wisd. 6. vers 6. Such things as these being exhibited to the view of all men in this admirable Looking-Glass of Providence the Apocalypse which doth so fully and faithfully set forth the state of the Church and how necessary it is to reform from the Roman Impurities rather than to have an hankering again after the fleshpots of Egypt their gross Superstitions and Idolatries hath made me with all possible care and diligence unfold the continued sense thereof with an unexceptionable coherence of things from the beginning to the end of the Interpretation And in this Epilogue thus industriously to confute any thing that might seem to have any shew of argument against the truth of my Exposition And that the Reader may be less prone to sleight my pains herein I give him to understand that nothing but the clear evidence of the truth hath driven me this way things manifestly appearing to me thus 1. Against my natural inclination which disposeth me to make the best of the Phaenomena of Providence which I meet with in the world and to interpret them with all imaginable favour and advantage out of that love and honour I bear to that Holy Godhead that is at the Helm and steers all And yet let me look never so earnestly upon things and never so favourably I cannot perceive otherwise than that the Church of Rome is very grosly guilty of Idolatry and consequently of most barbarous Murthers of conscientious men that cannot comply with her in that hainous sin against God 2. Against my repute and estimation in the World the pretending to understand the Apocalypse seeming a fanciful ridiculous thing to the Wits of this age that are ready to snear and flear at any such profession and indeed at the serious profession of any Religion at all as if it were an indication of but mean parts and wit and of great ignorance in matters of Philosophy 3. Against the civility of my nature thus to declare in such harsh terms as they cannot but seem to more courtly ears That so great a part of the Christian Church as the Roman Hierarchy is the Whore of Babylon which yet closely and impartially attending to the Interpretation of the Angel Revel Chap. 17. vers 8 9 c. I am as well assured of and as little doubt of as I do of any demonstration in Euclid 4. And lastly Against all my worldly Interest and the safety of my person as is plain I think to any one that considers the circumstances of things of late There being therefore thus many clogs in my way I think any man may be well assured as well as I am my self that it is merely the Evidence of the truth that has driven me to assent thereunto But they that are of another mind from me I will leave to themselves and others to consider whether some carnal sense or worldly Interest hath not swayed their judgments For as for prophane Wits and impatient of considering any thing that is weighty and serious I will only say to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 while my self in the mean time am so well assured of the Truths I stand for that I hope I shall not stick if Providence call me forth to it through the assistances of the promised Spirit of our Lord Jesus for our strength is not of our selves rather than to sin against God and my own Conscience to Seal the said Truths with my Blood FINIS A Catalogue of all the Treatises contained in D r H. More 's Philosophical and Theological Volumes many whereof having been originally writ in English are with the rest now published in Latin by the same Authour PRaefatio generalissima in qua nonnulla obiter de Vita Authoris habentur de Scriptorum verò occasionibus ac stylo generalÃque universorum scopo fatìs fusè agitur Enchiridium Ethicum praecipua Moralis Philosophiae Rudimenta complectens c. Scholiis subinde illustratum Enchiridium Metaphysicum sive De Rebus Incorporeis succincta luculenta Dissertation c. Scholiis multò jam auctior facta Ubi inter caetera Objectionibus respondetur Viri Clar. I. C. Sturmii Math. Phys. P. P. Altdorffini Philosophematum eruditi Authoris Difficilium Nugarum de Principiis Motuum Naturalium sive de Essentiis mediis de modo Rarefactionis
Book what acclamations in Heaven were there thereupon For the four Beasts and four and twenty Elders fell down before the Lamb having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odours which are the prayers of the Saints And they sung a new Song saying Thou art worthy to take the Book and open the Seals thereof for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood As if this priviledge of obtaining such a wonderful power of predicting things to come and communicating such a Book as this of the Apocalypse unto his Church were one special fruit of his Passion and the shedding his most precious blood upon the Cross. And therefore let them take heed that despise this Book of the Apocalypse so much and all endeavours to understand it aright that they be not found in the number of them that tread under-foot the Son of God even in those things for which he is the most highly admired and extolled by the blessed Saints and Angels which is the greatest slight and affront of him imaginable and count his precious blood shed upon the Cross whereby he procured this transcendent priviledge to himself and them of fore-knowing things that concern all Ages of his Church an unholy thing and do despite to the Spirit of Prophecy In the mean time this may at least excuse them that seriously and soberly endeavour rightly to understand the Visions of this Book from being reputed men less judicious or else very unfortunate to spend their time and labour on so mean and obscure an argument as this Book of the Apocalypse as some for want of judgement or good will have perstringed that excellently learned and pious person M r Joseph Mede But what a vast difference is there betwixt the Spirit of the holy Evangelist John and the great Spirits or Wits as they would be accounted of this Age He wept out of an eager desire of understanding the Prophecies of this Book they laugh at any one for a fool that pretends the endeavouring to understand them or thinks they are to be understood But I hope that will be found true that Solomon sayes Prov. chap. 14. vers 6. A scorner seeketh wisdom and findeth it not but knowledge is easie to him that understandeth Which I distrust not but will be made good in any intelligent Reader of my Exposition of this Book It will prove easie to him upon his taking notice of the meaning of the Prophetick stile and supposing the grounds I go upon which are but few and allowed generally by all Protestant Churches that I know of viz. That the Church of Rome is Idolatrous which will imply that the Greek Church also was so as is plain from the second Nicene Council which the Romanists alledge That the said Church is murderous as having put to death many and many thousands of innocent Souls because their consciences would not allow them to joyn with this Church in their Idolatrous Worship And lastly that she is Imposturous in pretending to many miraculous Acts that exceed the power of Nature or the faculties of any ordinary men As changing the Elements as they call it of Bread into real Flesh and of Wine into real Blood by saying certain words over it In exorcising or enchanting of Statues or Images and of Water Oyl and other things by certain words into a power of keeping off Enemies repelling Diseases ceasing Thunder and Lightening and driving away the Devil nay in pretending to a Power of thunder-striking men down into hell which is only in the hand of God Almighty to do at his pleasure and not for men to do at their pleasures because others will not joyn with them in their gross Doctrines and Idolatrous Worship This if it were true were a stupendious Miracle indeed thus to bring fire from heaven to thunder-strike innocent men into the pit of hell But such pretended feats as these this Book elegantly expresses by the phrase of Sorcery or Magick as it may be called as being an imitation of the pretences of Magicians thus to act above Nature by words and charms These are the main things that are supposed concerning the Church of Rome which if they be admitted the sense of the Apocalypse will run as glib as may be upon a little knowledge of the Prophetick stile And I shall wonder at any one that is satisfied concerning these that shall stick at the truth of our Interpretation which as touching this part is so throughly demonstrated in my Joynt-Exposition or rather in the eight last Chapters of the first Book of my Synopsis Prophetica that I cannot tell what can be more fully evidenced to the reason of a man namely That the Beast that was and is not and yet is is the Roman Empire and the Woman that rides him the Roman Hierarchy after the times of the seventh King that was to stay but a little while which are the pure Christian Caesars Wherefore the Roman Hierarchy after that time being set out by the symbol of a Whore for so that Woman is called viz. the Whore of Babylon and the Beast she rides on said to be full of Names of Blasphemy it is manifest that both the Empire and Hierarchy are become Idolatrous Besides that if the Apocalypse were silent in this matter of their being Idolatrous the Writers of the Protestants have over and over again demonstrated them to be so and for them that are so perswaded not to acknowledge their condition to be predicted in the Apocalypse but to conceit it silent therein is to envy God and Christ the Glory of foretelling things to come and the Church the priviledge of having them foretold her and the advantage of confounding her enemies thereby And now for the state of the Reformed Church that it will be at last so well Reformed and so largely amplified that Peace Truth and Righteousness shall at last over-spread as it were the face of the earth and that herewith the Iews will be called and make one part of the Catholick Church this is a thing both believed and hoped for by all good men and expresly pointed at in several places of Scripture as well as in the Apocalypse And lastly for the first Resurrection the proper priviledge of the Martyrs at the entrance of the Millennial Reign of Christ upon Earth that this was the general Opinion of the Primitive Church is made out notably by M r J. Mede in sundry places of his Writings And that way that I have explained it here in my Exposition it cannot have the least scandal or offence the Martyrs according to my Explication not living upon Earth but being revivificated into their Glorious Bodies reign with Christ in Heaven Wherefore the things that I suppose being so certain or unexceptionable and my Exposition consequential to these and perpetually made out according to the known meaning of the Prophetick stile and agreeably to the truth of History without any violence done to either
Grammatical Criticisme or the Rules of Rhetorick and observable Genius of the very stile of this Book of the Apocalypse it self if such an Exposition for so far as the time of Prophecies is already past be not true what Exposition of any Prophecy or of any thing else can be thought to be true And the things that are to come as the Calling of the Jews and the utter breaking in pieces of the Roman Idolatrous Hierarchy sore against their will considering the sweet relish of domineering and imposing upon the world and their obdurate pretence of Infallibility it were a Miracle indeed to think they will ever confesse themselves convinced of those enormous Errours and Crimes that are so justly laid to their charge And being they would fall of themselves did not some Secular Power support them it therefore is rational to conceive that some Remnant of the Roman Empire may stick to them to the last Vial So solid is our Exposition in that part also And concerning the Calling of the Jews I have noted already how generally the Opinion is allowed of and how often intimated in the Scriptures To which I may add that it does not seem probable that they are preserved a distinct People from the rest of the world all this time for nought And then for the flourishing of Peace and Truth and Righteousness in the times of the New Jerusalem so universally over the face of the Earth It is a thing that has been so little done already and so fully and repeatedly inculcated by the ancient Prophets as well as set down so exactly in the Apocalypse that unless a man will question the Truth of Scripture he cannot but admit it to be true From which considerations I hope it will appear that our Exposition of the Apocalypse is throughout true and that I have not rashly called it Apocalypsis Apocalypseos it being a plain and true unveiling of the Apocalypse or stripping it of all those coverings and disguisings contained in the Prophetick stile and whatever other Artifices of Concealment and laying the sense bare and open to the eyes of all that will not wilfully wink that they may not see the Truth And that there may be no distrust of the assuredness of our Interpretation by pretending that others have interpreted the Apocalypse another way I shall give notice here by the bye that I have with all care and diligence perused other Interpreters and the very best of them Grotius and Ribera for as for some Modern Buffoones rather and abusers of the Apocalypse than serious Interpreters of it no sober man will think-himself obliged to take notice of them and in those two chefest Chapters as to the Controversie betwixt the Church of Rome and us whether they are not to be proved from thence Idolaters I mean the thirteenth and seventeenth Chapters of which I have made a Joynt-Exposition in my Synopsis Prophetica I have shewed how absurd and impossible both Ribera's and Grotius his Interpretations of those Chapters are And in Grotius his Exposition of them who yet is now accounted the Chiefest Interpreter and most accommodate to baffle the true and genuine meaning of those Prophecies I have noted near fourscore such flawes as I should be loth any one should be able to find one in my whole Exposition of the Apocalypse besides his absurd mis-timing of the Visions which would show though otherwise his Expositions were more tolerable that they were nothing to the purpose And that they are mis-timed I have abundantly demonstrated in my Synopsis Prophetica Book II. Chap. 2. So that there is the greatest assurance imaginable of my Exposition of the thirteenth and seventeeth Chapters of the Apocalypse as you may be fully satisfied by the reading of my Joynt-Exposition of them Synops. Prophet Book I. Chap. 12 13 14 15. And if this Bulwark of my Joynt-Exposition stand impregnable as most certainly it will none that perceives the force thereof but will easily admit of the rest of our Interpretations as solid and true And thus much briefly of the Truth of our Exposition of the Apocalypse Now the usefulness thereof which I proposed in the third and last place it is exceeding considerable First against Atheists and those that believe neither Angel nor Spirit for there being a deduction of things foretold from the beginning of the Church to the end of all so natural so solid and so true and every way unexceptionable to any Rational Man this is the greatest Evidence desirable to evince a Divine Providence over the Church and the Affairs of Mankind and consequently the existence of a God as also of Angels the Ministers of his Providence which is all along inculcated in this Book of the Apocalypse And particularly it is asserted in the beginning of the Book that this Revelation was made to S t John by the Ministry of an Angel And that this can be no imagination of S t John 's as the prophane Hobbians and Spinozians would be ready to suggest out of the Principles of their stupid and incredulous minds but a real thing the Book it self is an ample Testimony and plain demonstration it being out of the reach of any man by his own natural wit or fore-sight to write a Book of such comprehensive Prophecies and so continuedly true to say nothing of the manner of writing it the very Wit and Artifice thereof which seems to imply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Stile and Wit is not the Stile and Wit of a Man but certainly of an Angel Nor does the Apocalypse only support the truth of Natural Religion which is the belief of the Existence of a God and of Spirits or Angels good and bad and of a Blessed Immortality after this life but it is a most special and extraordinary confirmation of the truth of the Revealed Religion of Christianity and the most assured Argument and most lasting and satisfactory of the Apotheosis of Christ that the Wit of Man can excogitate or his heart desire For reading this Book and comparing it with the History of the Affairs of the Church and of the Nations so far forth as they have had any thing to do with the Church or the Church with them he may as it were see with his own eyes and feel with his hands the Truth of our Religion in the veracity of our Great Prophet and Saviour and in the exact completion of the Predictions he has communicated to his Church as hitherto Which standing Miracle is of as much weight with the Intelligent for the confirmation of their Faith in Christ if not more than if they lived in our Saviours time to see his Miracles or conferr with the eye-witnesses of them And it is an extraordinary glorious priviledge of the Christian Church to have such a Book of Prophecies as these and peculiar to her above all Religions else in the world that ever was and so easie and naturally applicable to the events predicted And
dishonour that Noble Name and Calling by proving themselves of the Synagogue of Satan and betrayers of the Kingdom of their Lord that bought them fast slaves to the flesh and impatient of all persecution worse than Peter whom notwithstanding when he would have discouraged me from my sufferings on the Cross I sharply rebuked with a Get thee behind me Satan for thou savourest not the things of God 10. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer nor imitate that base cowardise of that Synagogue of Satan for they are no Church of mine but a cage of perfidious hypocrites Behold the Devil shall cast some of you into prison that ye may be tryed and ye shall have tribulation ten dayes The Devil and his Ministers under Paganism will cast some of you into prison for the tryal of your faith and constancy and you shall have the tribulation of ten dayes even of those ten bloody persecutions under the Pagan Emperours Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a Crown of Life Be in no wise discouraged but continue faithful unto death and I will give you a Crown of Life even the Imperial Crown Constantine turning Christian which will be a Crown of Life and security to you my Church and save you from death and persecution This shall be the external effect and fruit of your sufferings or the Political reward thereof 11. He that hath an ear let him hear what the spirit saith unto the Churches He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death He that stands out this tryal and valiantly suffers martyrdom shall not be hurt of the second death but have his part in the first resurrection accordingly as it is written Apoc. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection on such the second death hath no power This is the promised priviledge of those Martyrs that suffered persecution in this Smyrnean succession of the Church under the Ten hot Persecutions And as that other promise that preceded the Parabolical Epiphonema was external and political So this reward that follows the said Epiphonema is invisible and belonging to the other State which distinction is to be observed in the rest of the Epistles and that the promise that follows the Epiphonema He that hath ears let him hear c. belongs to what is spiritual and invisible 12. And to the Angel of the Church in Pergamus write viz. to the Bishops and Pastors c. of the Pergamenian succession of the Church which reaches from the end of the Smyrnean succession namely from the year three hundred twenty four to the year one thousand two hundred forty two when the Popes Legate Ameline with Trancavel the Bastard Son of Count Beziers ended the War against the Albigenses * and which has its condition signified by its name write thus These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges Who salutes them wearing the Title of this part of his Representation by a kind of Antithesis this Sword that comes out of his mouth being the Sword of the Spirit in opposition to the Sword and Arm of Flesh that persecuted the True Church in this succession 13. I know thy works and where thou dwellest even where Satans seat is and thou holdest fast my Name and hast not denyed my Faith I observe how well thou carryest thy self though thou dwellest under the Dominion and Jurisdiction of the first-born of Lucifer that man of Sin and Son of Pride a right Pergamenian lofty and haughty under whose Jurisdiction notwithstanding thou art found to dwell and yet holdest fast to my Authority and the pure Christian Profession nor hast apostatised from the Ancient Faith and Purity of Worship untainted with Superstition and Idolatry Even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr who was slain among you where Satan dwelleth No not in those dayes when Antipas those faithfull and couragious Opposers of Holy Father the Pope for so the word plainly signifies the Waldenses and Albigenses were cruelly slain with the Sword within the Jurisdiction of that first-born of Lucifer 14. But I have a few things against thée because thou hast there them that hold the Doctrine of Balaam who taught Balac to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed to Idols and to commit fornication You have those that comply with the Pseudo-prophet Balaam the lofty Lord of the People for so Balaam signifies who has taught Balac the Secular Power now but a shadow or cypher it being in this Interval evacuate in a manner as the name imports by the over-topping of the Power Ecclesiastical to force the Israelites that is the true and genuine Christians of which the Israelites were a type to come to Mass and by partaking thereof to partake of Idolatry they making by their Idolatrous usages there the Lords Supper which is a Feast upon a Sacrifice like to the feeding upon Idolothyta upon things sacrificed unto Idols 15. So hast thou also them that hold the Doctrine of the Nicolaitans which thing I hate And besides these complyers with the Mass though they be in their own judgements against it there are amongst you also that indulge too much to the liberty of the flesh and imitate the Sect of the Nicolaitans a thing which my soul abhors 16. Repent or else I will come unto thée quickly amend these faults or else I will come unto you quickly by a more strict vigilaney of the Lords of the Inquisition whose Rule was most notorious in the succeeding Interval of the Church and then the more frequent terrour of being burnt at the stake will more effectually extinguish the flames of your wantonness and lust Be ye therefore pure and holy as I also am pure and holy And will fight against them with the sword of my mouth And as for those that opress my faithfull ones I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth and cut off whole Nations by vertue thereof namely of the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God convincingly preached from the Idolatrous Roman Church This is a reward political and visible to be fulfilled in the next Interval at the close thereof 17. He that hath an ear let him hear what the spirit saith unto the Churches To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna He that stands out in purity of heart and a good conscience he instead of that sweet consecrated wafer that pretended visible Manna shall eat of the true hidden spiritual Manna spoken of Iohn 6. My flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed For the words I there speak they are spirit and they are life And if he dye he shall eat Angels food and pass unto their Communion and Society And will give him a white stone and in the stone a new Name written which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it that is though he be accused and
I have not found thy works perfect before God For you do not go on towards perfection nor are ye in a growing state though ye have not yet reached your due stature approvable before God which is a sign you are in a state of languishment and vergency towards death 3. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard and hold fast and repent Since you profess your selves reformed into a true Apostolick Church remember what you have heard out of the Apostles writings How that I so loved my Church that I gave my self for it that I might sanctifie it that I might make it a glorious Church having neither spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish And let not the vain glosses of any faint-hearted hypocrites deceive or discourage you Remember also what ye heard of Antichrist That man of sin that exalts himself above all that is called God and worshipped and for ever abandon that wicked and Idolatrous Communion And take heed of that nauseous and detestable ingratitude of not setting a due value of my redeeming you from that worse than Aegyptian or Babylonian Captivity into the Gospel-liberty And be not imposed upon by the fine words and subtil sophistry of either known enemies or perfidious brethren These and such like things as these taught by my Apostles and repeated again by the first Reformers be sure to hold fast and repent of your slipperiness and remisness of your easiness and inclinableness again to the flesh-pots of Aegypt the carnal entertainments under that mystical Pharaoh at Rome If therefore thou shalt not watch I will come on thée as a thief and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee These things therefore I strictly command thee and charge thee to do which if thou wilt not carefully and diligently observe and have a due watch over thy wayes I will come on thee of a sudden and surprize thee with some terrible judgement for thy gross ingratitude and thou shalt not know what hour I come upon thee before the storm certainly overtake thee God make the Reformed Churches sensible of this sad commination which is foretold them for no other purpose than that by their timely repentance and carefull watchfulness they may avoid it 4. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments and they shall walk with me in white for they are worthy There be some few excellent persons and of a true Christian Spirit scattered up and down in the Reformed Churches though the generality be so bad and imperfect who have not defiled their Garments the inward nor outward cloathing of their Soul nor spotted the decency of their conversation by any scandal of the flesh With these innocent and spotless souls not soiled or stained with the filth of the usual tinctures of the flesh will I converse by my spirit whereby they shall be able to walk with me with all innocency and integrity of heart for ever For they are persons meet and fit for such converse 5. He that overcometh the same shall be cloathed in white raiment They that overcome all difficulties inward and outward and persist in purity and true holiness they shall be cloathed in white rayment that is they shall be successfull and prosperous in the affairs of my Kingdom which they endeavour to propagate And I will not blot out his name out of the Book of Life that is this sort of men shall continue to the Philadelphian succession and onwards to the end of the world And this Book of Life to them shall be as the Crown of Life to the Smyrnean succession shall be their security from persecution and death That Church which they introduce into the world which is the Philadelphian shall never be brought again under the Subjection Tyranny and Persecution of any Power whatsoever But I will confess his Name before my Father and before his Angels I will in a special manner recommend them to the good Providence of God and the watchful Ministry of his holy Angels 6. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches The Reformed Churches especially let them take particular notice what the Holy Ghost has here delivered That Christ who holds the seven Stars in his right hand and appears thus to the Reformed Churches as he did to the Ephesine or first Apostolick Church is as ready and serious in the renewing and the reforming of his Church as he was then in setting it on foot first in the world And he appears as then walking in the midst of the Golden Candlesticks which signifies his helpfull presence to his Church so here with the succour of his Divine Graces and Ministry and assistance of his holy Angels So that nothing is wanting to rouse us effectually out of this carnal drousiness toward the attainment of the dispensation of the Spirit and Power except our own sincerity and diligent attention to and firm belief of the Oracles of God So that the main success of things hitherto as to the effect of Religion in the Reformed Churches lies at our own doors God give us grace to consider it 7. And to the Angel of the Church in Philadelphia write To the Bishops and Pastors especially but together with their Charge of the Philadelphian succession which begins where the Sardian ends and reaches to the fourth Thunder * and discovers its nature and condition in its name write thus These things saith he that is holy and speaks to a Church that willingly listens to such monitions as these Be ye holy for I am holy and Be ye perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect He that is true And will verifie all his glorious promises in the Philadelphian succession or blessed Millennium to all those that trust in his Word He that has the key of David He that is the Chief Minister of State to the Eternal God * whom the Apostle Iohn calls LOVE He that openeth and no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth He that when he will can open the door of success to his own and shut it again when he will against his Enemies and so administer all things prosperously 8. I know thy works and designs and highly approve of them I know thou doest nothing out of bitter zeal faction or self-seeking nothing out of vain-glory or any other worldly end but simply out of love of Me and of my Righteousness and out of love to all Mankind for the promoting of whose both present and future happiness thou dost all thy endeavours and therefore Behold I have set before thée an open door and no man can shut it against thee For thou hast a little strength and hast kept my Word and hast not denyed my Name Though thou hadst but a little Force or Army in comparison of the rest of the world yet thou hast been valiant and stood for my Word stoutly and couragiously
to Heaven Earth or Sea even the Infernal Spirits themselves shall in the inward powers of their minds and consciences be forced to break out and confess upon the completion of this Book of Prophecies That all Blessing and Honour and Glory and Power is due unto him that sits on the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever 14. And the four Beasts said Amen Unto this the four Beasts that is the Church of Christ here upon Earth we may be sure will say Amen that is consent to such a doxologie And the four and twenty Elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever that is All the Kings and Princes of this truly Catholick and Apostolick Church will fall down and worship him that was dead but is now alive and behold he liveth for evermore that is they will devotionally adhere to him serve him and obey him who according to the promise made to his Church has brought things at last to such an Admirable Heavenly Holy Righteous and Peaceful Constitution So Glorious an Effect will there be of the completion of the Prophecies of this Book both as to Christ and also as to his Church Which shows how detestable the ingratitude is of such either shallow and frivolous or prophane Spirits or cunning obdurate Politicians that phancying it not to sute with their worldly Interest vilifie and decry it when as indeed this Book of Prophecies will prove the most effectual instrument in the hand of Providence that may be for the rooting all Atheism and Infidelity out of the world and Converting all the Kingdoms of the Earth to the Faith and Profession of our Lord Jesus Christ. CHAPTER VI. 1. HItherto the Introduction to the Prophecies of the Sealed Book we come now to the Prophecies themselves And I saw says Iohn when the Lamb opened one of the Seals that is the first Seal And I heard as it were the noise of thunder one of the four Beasts that is the first of the four Beasts the Lion whose place is towards the East saying Come and see Where we may observe how some parts of the Introductory Representation are made use of in this following Vision as some parts of the description of him that was seen amongst the golden Candlesticks are made use of in the Prefaces of the Epistles to the Churches 2. And I saw and behold a white Horse and he that sate on him had a Bow Which Heros on horseback and on a white Horse signifies a great Commander or Emperour Righteous Prosperous and Glorious in his undertaking And in that he is said to appear upon the first Beast the Lion placed on the East side his saying Come and see it is a sign that he is an Emperour from the East part of the World and in a word it is the Lion of the Tribe of Iuda that Captain of our Salvation Jesus Christ who being ascended into Glory was yet present with his Church affording them all succours to carry on their Spiritual Warfare And these Gospel-soldiers came from Iudea in the East And in that he is said to have a Bow it denotes that he aimed at something of no mean importance And this Heros on Horseback with his Bow answers to the Ephesine succession of the Church whose name imports earnest purpose or desire but the thing aimed at or designed is specified in the following words And a Crown was given unto him to wit the right of it even the Roman Imperial Crown and this Bow-man hat the mark when the Emperour Constantine turned Christian This is also the Crown promised to the Church in the Smyrnean succession Be thou faithfull unto death and I will give thee the Crown of Life the Crown of security from Pagan persecution And he went forth conquering and to conquer This Heros on the white Horse went forth conquering and to conquer till he obtained this Crown under the sixth Seal 3. And when he had opened the second Seal I heard the second Beast that is the Calf or Oxe say Come and sée 4. And there went out another Horse that was red a colour significant enough of the effusion of blood as the Oxe also of the great slaughter that was to be under this Seal and what follows plainly implies so much And power was given to him that sate thereon to take peace from the Earth and that they should kill one another and there was given to him a great Sword as a token of exceeding much blood-shed on the Earth under the second Seal This Seal therefore begins with Trajan a Spaniard and therefore an Emperour from the West In his Reign and Adrian's his successor there were so great commotions in the Empire that there were slain in those Tumults and Rebellions at least fifteen hundred thousand men 5. And when he had opened the third Seal I heard the third Beast that had a face like a man and was placed on the South say Come and see And I beheld and lo a black Horse and he that sate on him had a pair of balances in his hand The black colour betokens Gravity Severity Justice which Justice also is intimated by the face of a Man this third Beast is said to have Prudence and Justice being the proper characters of a Man Which sutes well with the last part of the description the pair of Balances in the Riders hand which argues him Severe Just Frugal and Provident 6. Which accordingly is exprest by that voice in the midst of the four Beasts And I heard a voice in the midst of the four Beasts say A measure of wheat for a penny and three measures of barley for a penny and see thou hurt not the oyl and wine that is the Rider of the black Horse will take special care 1. That if one Choenix of wheat be sold for a penny that three of barley shall be sold for a penny 2. That men shall live by their honest labours not by theft or rapine For Choenix signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the food for a day and Denarius the wages for a days labour 3. There shall be no stealing nor robbing but buying by measure though it should prove so hard a time that their dayes labour will but find them food 4. He will provide that they shall have a Choenix for a penny viz. that the price of bread-corn and necessary victuals shall not exceed a dayes wages And so of Wine and Oyl he will take care that there be no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no fraud in buying and selling there neither nor spoil and wast by unruly Soldiers Which prediction was egregiously fulfilled in Septimius Severus an African and therefore an Emperour from the South and in Alexander the Son of Mammea both of them notorious lovers of Justice and severe punishers of Thieves and Robbers To the latter the sight of an unjust Judge was so nauseous that he was ready to vomit at him and he was famous for that Christian Motto Do as
is they were quite vanquished neither was their place found any more in Heaven 9. And the great Dragon was cast out that old Serpent with whom Christ had had no small combating long before called the Devil and Satan the reproacher and opposer of the Kingdom of Christ in all places and ages which deceiveth the whole world and seduceth them into false and idolatrous worship He was cast out into the earth and his Angels were cast out with him This appearance thus in Heaven signified the destruction of the Empire as Draconick and Idolatrous that none of that foul stamp should be in high places of the Empire but such as were professed Christians 10. And I heard a loud voice saying in Heaven Now is come salvation and strength and the Kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ. This is contemporary to the affairs of the sixth Seal or rather with the close thereof and the commencement of the Pergamenian Interval For the accuser of our brethren is cast down which accused them before God day and night What the Devil is said to do concerning Iob accuse him before God the Pagans are here understood to do before the Emperour and other Magistrates of the Empire to raise most wicked calumnies concerning the Christians objecting against them Thyaestean Suppers Incests Adultery promiscuous Lusts Murders Conspiracies against Princes Plagues Famine Mischiefs by Fire or what other calamity happened in the Empire 11. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb through the merits of Christ crucified on the Cross and by the word of their Testimony and spending their own blood also in way of Martyrdom For it is said And they loved not their lives unto the death This Verse makes it plain that the Battel that is said to be in Heaven denotes a Battel here on Earth betwixt the Christians and their Persecutors 12. Therefore rejoyce ye Heavens and ye that dwell in them Ye Angels and Holy Martyrs not without an intimation also to the Political Heaven in the Roman Empire to those in high Places and Offices under the Christian Emperour Wo to the Inhabitants of the Earth and of the Sea that is to the lower multitude For the Devil is come down unto you having great wrath and will stickle to do as much mischief as he can amongst you while he may because he knoweth that he hath but a short time For though the Great Ones of the Empire were turned Christians yet many of the Common People were still Pagans wherefore the Devil will find out a fetch to strengthen those in their Paganism and dissettle the other in their Christian Profession 13. And when the Dragon saw that he was cast unto the Earth and reduced to such a low base condition He persecuted the Woman which brought forth the Man-child An envious revengefull persecuting temper rose in him against her 14. And to the Woman were given two wings of a great Eagle that is by reason of the Roman Empire becoming Christian and now divided into two parts Eastern and Western and that the Eagle is the Ensign of the Roman Empire is notorious enough which these wings might represent she was in such a state that by a Prophetick Hypallage it might be said of her That she might fly into the Wilderness into her place that is the wilderness condition of the Church would come shortly upon her wherein she should by Divine Providence be ever safe from the red Pagan persecuting Dragon as it follows where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time from the face of the Serpent That is for three Prophetick years and an half which is seven Prophetical half years or semitimes which are the measures intended as seems to be insinuated by expressing the one thousand two hundred and sixty days vers 6. by a Time and Times and half a Time 15. But before the commencement of the Time as if he had a mind to overwhelm her before she could reach the appointed place it is said And the Serpent cast out of his mouth water as a stood after the Woman that is the water of Heresie and Contention that sore division of the Church by reason of that Heresie of Arianisme That he might cause her to be carried a way of the Flood That the Church which stood out the hottest persecutions with invincible valour against the red Dragon may now perish by the over-speading of Heresie and Intestine Division this furious controversie hardening the hearts of the unconverted people and staggering the converted in their Faith and Profession 16. And the Earth helped the Woman and the Earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood which the Dragon cast out of his mouth that is the Church was delivered from this overflowing Heresie and Dissension by the Decree of an Oecumenical Council viz. the first Nicene Council their opening their mouth in a Decree against Arianisme and condemning it for an Heresie was like the opening of the mouth of the Earth to a flood that presently sinks and never is seen any more Partly this real Analogie is alluded to and partly there may be an allusion to the title Oecumenical which is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which implies in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Earth For such gentle touches and glances at the signification of words are not unusual in the Prophetick stile 17. And the Dragon was wroth with the Woman and went to make war with the remnant of her Séed which kéep the Commandments of God The former wicked project failing the wrath of the Dragon was again incensed against the Woman viz. the Woman with the Crown of twelve Stars on her head and the Moon under her feet the pure Apostolick Church and went to make war with the remnant of her Seed those namely that she was to bring forth while she abides in the Wilderness which will approve themselves her genuine Off-spring by keeping the Commandments of God who forbids us making any graven Image to bow down to it or worship it and bids us worship serve and pray to himself alone And have the Testimony of Iesus Christ. For the Testimony of Jesus is the spirit of Prophecy in which sense the two Witnesses are said to prophecy as well as to witness The Testimony therefore of Jesus is to witness to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ not from mere custom or education because others have told us it is true but because we are assured of the truth thereof from the spirit of God and in virtue of the spirit of life in the new birth From this living Principle do these faithful Servants of Christ bear witness of the truth of his Word revealed in the Gospel and witness against the wicked inventions of an Apostatized Church and loath them and detest them For they are not dead vessels that will receive wholesome liquor and poyson alike but the Living Creation of God and therefore have an antipathy against all the
these plagues belong to that City or Society that is spiritually called Aegypt namely to the Papal or Antichristian Hierarchy that has so long kept the Children of God in bondage and in which the Witnesses have been so often slain Earth therefore here is chiefly repeated to bear a correspondence in the outward Cortex with Sea Rivers and Air as if God would stir up all the Elements or Nature to fight against the Beast and the Antichristian Powers And there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the Beast and upon them which worshipped his Image that is the minds of the Pontifician party were extreamly enraged and exulcerated with fury and envy against the risen Witnesses as an Evil Spirit from the Lord troubled Saul when they beheld them Chap. 11. vers 12. ascending to Heaven that is called up to high places and dignities in Church and State and that the Papal Idolatrous Power and Tyranny was abolished This Cup of Bitterness Wrath Envy and intoxicating Zeal for so foul a Cause was the effusion of the first Vial upon them which did so work upon them and dementate them that they made themselves still more execrable and odious by their impotent and unsuccessful attempts against them that God had thus exalted above their reach In the mean time we see how naturally besides the letting loose Evil Spirits upon them the first Vial follows the rising of the Witnesses accordingly as it is glanced at Chap. 11. vers 18. immediately after their rising and those Triumphant Doxologies for the same those Songs of Joy from whence the Sardian Church has her Name which here commenceth And the Nations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Heathen were angry c. by which are understood the Antichristian party as by Iews the truly Christian chap. 2.9 in the stile of the Apocalypse 3. And the second Angel poured out his Uial upon the Sea that is upon some parts of the Sea And Sea in the Prophetick stile signifying the gathering together of the People into one Polity or Kingdom it must signifie some parts of this Kingdom or Polity which is here the Jurisdiction or Dominion of the Papacy Of some parts therefore of this Sea it is said And it became as the blood of a dead man and every living soul died in the Sea viz. in these parts of this Sea which were turned into blood there were no live fishes to be caught there any more and fishes dead in the Sea signifie disappointment of hope and that what we expect will not come to pass In such a state was the Papal Hierarchy after the settlement of the Reformation in so many Provinces Principalities and Kingdoms which deadness and hopelesness of his affairs there brought to pass by the good Providence of God was the pouring out the second Vial upon these parts of this Sea or Jurisdiction and turning them into blood and the quite spoiling any further fishing there 4. And the third Angel poured out his Uial upon the Rivers and Fountains of waters and they became blood As Sea signified above Politically so Rivers and Fountains of Waters or Springs must that are the Heads of Rivers and both come from the Sea and return thither again viz. the water of them A Sea therefore here being a Kingdom or Polity the Rivers must be Emissary Powers of the said Kingdom whether Armies or other Agents with those that Head them or Govern them who may be deemed the Spring-heads of them they taking their directions and motions from them and depending on them as Rivers do on their Springs And this plague of turning Rivers into blood being manifestly one of the plagues of Aegypt these Emissaries must be the Emissaries of that City or Polity which is spiritually called Aegypt which is the Papal Hierarchy And the turning these Rivers into blood is the putting to death such Emissaries for their treasonable attempts against Kings or Princes and the setled Religion and Government of the place 5. And I heard the Angel of the Waters say viz. the Prefect of the multitudes of people Thou art Righteous O Lord which art and wast and shall be that is thou art just O Jehovah thou great Judge and King because thou hast judged thus 6. For they have shed the blood of Saints and Prophets namely in the Pergamenial Interval in which thy faithful Martyr Antipas was slain with the sword besides many other bloody butcheries and massacres of the people of God And thou hast given them blood to drink for they are worthy as having shed so much innocent blood 7. And I heard another out of the Altar say that is out of that place of the Temple where the Altar stood and where so many Burnt-offerings were made Even so Lord God Almighty true and righteous are thy judgements For I can witness what a number of Innocent Souls were burnt with fire and fagot in the Thyatirian Interval of the Church because they would not submit to the gross Superstitions and Idolatries and incredible nay impossible figments of the Roman Hierarchy and so were made Burnt-offerings or Sacrifices to their intolerable Avarice Ambition and Tyrannical Cruelty 8. And the fourth Angel poured out his Uial upon the Sun Sun here may have either a Political sense or a Mystical Mystically understood it may be the Word of God which is a Lamp unto our feet and a light unto our paths as the great Lamp of the Universe is naturally understood to be The Vial therefore poured upon the Sun are clear convictive explications of the Word of God the Prophetical parts thereof especially whereby manifestly are discovered the unrighteous Mysteries of the Kingdom of Antichrist that men may see in what a foul condition they are how apostatized from God and Christ and how plainly and reproachfully their abominable doings are characterized by the finger of God in Scripture and how lively their most direful and diabolical Image is there described Whence it is no wonder that it immediately is said And power was given unto him to scorch men with fire 9. And men were scorched with great heat and blasphemed the Name of God which hath power over these plagues and they repented not to give him Glory They are so vext that they blaspheme the Name of God and rather vilifie the Scriptures and the Spirit that wrote them than repent them of their sins and give Glory to God by acknowledging the Truth as certainly the true sense of the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse where they are known and acknowledged tend exceeding much to the Glory of God and the illustration of the constancy of his Providence And this may go for the mystical sense of the effusion of the Vial upon the Sun But there may be also a Political one and then Sun is to be understood of the greatest Secular Power within the Papal Jurisdiction which therefore is the German Empire Wherefore if any German Emperour or any
to the Opinion even of the Ancient Fathers As the Empire was healing into the Image of old Paganism again and became a Beast it grew actually divided into several Kingdoms which therefore is as much if not more express than the Crowns upon the ten horns of the healed Beast Chap. 13. vers 1. And therefore the more needless to mention the Crowns here 13. These have one mind and shall give their power and strength unto the Beast that is shall be of one Paganochristian Religion whereby the Empire had again become a Beast and shall give their power and strength unto the Beast being ready by force of Arms if need be or by what other Power or Authority they have to maintain this Beast in its beastly that is in its Idolatrous condition and Pagan-like Superstitions 14. These shall make war with the Lamb and the Lamb shall overcome them namely at the last by that patience and truth that is found in his followers For he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings So already by right and his Father has decreed that at last he shall have full and quiet possession that all the Kingdoms of the Earth shall become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. And they that are with him are called and chosen and faithful The great stress lies upon chosen and faithful For many are called but few are chosen But those choice ones that are said to be with him are stout Soldiers that will follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes never leave him for any persecution whatsoever but be firm and faithful unto him be their patience never so much exercised by sufferings 15. And he saith unto me The Waters which thou sawest where the Whore sitteth are Peoples and Multitudes and Nations and Tongues Even all the Nations and People in the Roman Empire 16. And the ten Horns which thou sawest upon the Beast viz. under the seventh head that is the Paganochristian head be it Pope or Emperour for the Supreme Power Paganochristian be it lodged where it will is the head of the healed Beast or of the Beast that was and is not and yet is These some of them at least shall hate the Whore that is the Idolatrous Hierarchy and Church of Rome particularly And shall make her desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire The making of her desolate and naked is the stripping her of her wealth and revenues and bestowing of them upon better uses And the eating of her flesh may partly have the same signification Flesh signifying wealth with the Onirocritical Interpreters But it may also signifie carnal Ordinances and Institutes Superstitious and Idolatrous which are the fulsome flesh of this Whore And the eating this flesh of hers and burning her with fire is the abolishing of these grosly Superstitious and Idolatrous Rites through the spirit of Truth and Zeal which is likened to fire This has been done in its measure in the Reformation when so many Kingdoms and Principalities forsook the Church of Rome but may be further that is more extendedly fulfilled under the fourth and fifth Vials Politically understood 17. For God hath put in their hearts to fullfil his will It is easie enough to conceive that by Gods connivence at these times of ignorance as the Apostle speaks of the Gentiles it might be permitted to the Pseudoprophetick Beast through the officious assistance of the Powers of darkness to do such Miracles and use such wayes of imposing upon the ten Kings as would certainly enough determine them to the Idolatrous Religion of the Empire But that they were thus certain to be deceived is the fault of their own lapse and of the after-consequences of it not any injustice in God who no otherwise here is said to put in their hearts to fullfill his will c. than in Exod. he is said to harden Pharaoh's heart from letting the people of Israel go And to agree and give their Kingdom to the Beast the same that was hinted vers 13. and so to be understood Until the words of God shall be fulfilled For Dan. chap. 7. it is plainly said of the little Horn which there takes upon him to change Times and Laws that they shall be given into his hands for a Time and Times and half a Time which therefore is a Time determinate by God But then it presently follows But the judgement shall sit and they shall take away his Dominion to consume and destroy it to the end And that little Horn is the Whore of Babylon as I have proved Synops. Prophet lib. 2. cap. 14. sect 12. 18. And the Woman which thou sawest is that great City which reigneth over the Kings of the Earth that is which reigned in S t Iohn's time over the Kings of the Earth whereby it is manifest that Old Rome is understood not New Rome or Constantinople For no Polity seated upon seven Hills but what was there reigned over the Kings of the Earth in S t Iohn's time The sense therefore of the Verse may be clearly delivered in this short Paraphrase The Woman which thou sawest riding on the Beast whose name is Was is not and yet is is that great City that now ruleth over the Kings of the Earth namely Rome whose Inhabitants though flowing successively are accounted one and the same City because included within the same reputed walls and buildings as that is accounted one and the same River that flowes betwixt the same banks though the same water does not continue for a day together Therefore the Ruling Power Ecclesiastick or Hierarchy of seven-hilled Rome in Italy as the two-horned Beasts name is Latinus in the other Vision chap. 13. is this Woman that rides the Beast that was and is not and yet is and most principally concerned in this Vision which contains as it were the Arraignment of her person described from her Quality or Dignity being Queen or Empress as it were of the whole Empire signified by the Beast she rides on and from her Gorgeous Apparel and from her Palace or Chief Place of her Residence seven-hilled Rome But the Crime or Charge against her is the corrupting of the whole Empire with Idolatry and Cruelty murdering the Saints of God and Martyrs of Iesus Her doom or condemnation is very copiously and pompously set out in the Chapter following And this I think is a very easie natural and coherent Exposition of this Seventeenth Chapter of the Apocalypse and such as cannot but abundantly satisfie any unprejudiced Reader But whoever will take the pains carefully to peruse and throughly to understand the eight last Chapters of the first Book of my Synopsis Prophetica amongst which is my Ioynt-Exposition of this Seventeenth and Thirteenth Chapters of this Book of the Apocalypse I hope be he never so much prejudiced if he will speak his own conscience he will confess that I have made out with evidence even mathematical and undeniable demonstration that the sense
I have given of this Chapter here is true and that the Roman Hierarchy is that Great Whore riding the Beast that was and is not and yet is viz. The Empire since it was corrupted from pure Christianity and relapsed again to a kind of Idolatrous Paganochristianism For what Roman Polity can rule this Empire but what is contemporary to it Wherefore the Woman that rides the Beast is not Pagan but Paganochristian that Paganochristian Hierarchy of Rome NOTES CHAPTER XVII Vers. 8. His Name is c. This I intersert because it is a Prophetical Ellipsis which is one of the Figures that make up the artifice of Concealment in this Book of Prophecies But such an Ellipsis is so natural that it is used where there is no such design as Exod. chap. 3. vers 13 14. And Moses said unto God Behold when I come to the Children of Israel and shall say unto them The God of your Fathers hath sent me unto you and they shall say unto me what is his Name What shall I say unto them And God said unto Moses I am â—hat I am Where there is plainly an Ellipsis instead of My Name is I am that I am as is obvious at first sight But in this place of the Apocalypse such an Ellipsis is made use of but purposely in such a way as that it is not obvious to discern there is an Ellipsis the sense seeming so perfect and running so glibly without one which therefore is the artifice of concealment in this place and without which it had not been a Prophetical Ellipsis but a common one See Synops. Prophet chap. 4. sect 6. and chap. 13. vers 8. sect 13. Whence you may more fully understand how certain it is that such an Ellipsis is to be acknowledged in this place and that there is to be interserted His name is c. CHAPTER XVIII 1. THe Arraignment and Accusation of the Great Whore was in the preceding Chapter now follows her doom or Condemnation And after these things I saw another Angel come down from Heaven having great power which intimates that those Agents that are prefigured by him and are to effect what he predicts are Persons of high place And the Earth was lightened with his glory that is the Earth was enlightened with his brightness which signifies that these great persons being themselves fully illuminated through the Spirit by the light of the Gospel did most effectually enlighten others of the meaner sort by their example and godly profession of the pure Apostolick Faith 2. And he cryed mightily with a strong voice He predicts the doom or pronounceth the sentence against the great Whore with a strong and strenuous voice in token of the assuredness and certainty of the execution thereof saying Babylon the Great is fallen is fallen which words though they be the same with those Chap. 14. vers 8. yet they are not to be restrained to that time which was but the partial fall of Babylon in the first Reformation at the Rising of the Witnesses but to be extended further to the final destruction of the Whore and the Beast under the seventh Vial when the Beast is to go into utter perdition which time of his final overthrow is not limited in Chap. 17. as it is in the Vision Chap. 13. of his partial overthrow viz. to the seventh Semi-time of the forty two Prophetical months And therefore this doom of Babylon contains both her partial and final destruction And is become the habitation of Devils and the hold of every foul spirit and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird The desolation and destruction of Babylon which is the Roman Idolatrous Hierarchy or Polity not a City of Stones or Brick a thing childish to be conceived is set out by the description of ruined and desolate Cities and particularly of Babylon literally understood Isai. 13.2 And their houses shall be filled with dolefull Creatures and Owles shall dwell there and Satyrs that is shaggie-haired Devils shall dance there c. But the mystical meaning of this place as I conceive is that when the power of this Hierarchy is utterly destroyed yet in the ruines thereof there will be lurking assemblies of such kind of persons as are deciphered by Devils or foul Spirits in that sense that unclean Spirits are said to come out of the mouth of the Dragon Beast and false Prophet and by hateful and unclean Birds The character of whom and who are said to be without the Holy City which appears after the destruction of this Babylon is set down chap. 22. vers 15. For without are Dogs and Sorcerers and Whoremongers and Murderers and Idolaters and whosoever loveth or maketh a lie This is the Cage of unclean Birds or impure Spirits that the ruines of Babylon are the habitation of who having now no power over others will exercise a power amongst themselves And one Aethiopian or Leopard will wash and absolve another 3. For all Nations have drunk of the Wine of the wrath of her fornication that is of her poisoned Philter or Love-Cup whereby they have been intoxicated And the Kings of the Earth have committed fornication with her She has corrupted the Ten Kings of the Empire with the Abominations of her Idolatry And the Merchants of the Earth that is the Ecclesiastical Merchants that prog'd for great Dignities and Preferments under her which she chaffered for the maintaining or advancing her own interest and greatness who are here called Merchants of the Earth in reproach to their false pretense of spirituality and of acting still in behalf of Holy Church when their designs are really sensual worldly and earthly Are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies that is from the luxuriancy of her wealth and from their accustomed luxury the later an incitement to get wealth that they may be in the mode and the other a supply to their desire 4. And I heard another voice from Heaven saying which therefore is a commission nay a command from Heaven to the first Reformers and all others after to forsake the Communion of the Church of Rome Come out of her my people that you be not partakers of her sins by being at her Masses and other Idolatrous worship And that you receive not of her plagues Whether in this world or in the world to come 5. For her sins have reached unto Heaven and called for vengeance there in the ears of God And God hath remembred her Iniquities and will repay her in part at the Rising of the Witnesses but pay her home under the seventh Vial when her power shall be utterly abolished as it follows 6. Reward her even as she rewarded you and double unto her double according to her works in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double that is spare her not but punish her severely for all her abominations and wickednesses which is a prediction of what will come to pass notoriously under the seventh Vial. 7. How much
death is the death of this body Wherefore it is here a seasonable monition Fear not them which kill the body but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell which is the second death infinitely worse than the former 15. And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life that is in the Book of Life of the Lamb as a faithful Soldier and true Member of his Kingdom was cast into the lake of fire and underwent the same doom with the Apostate Spirits which implies that those which were found in that Book of Life were adjudged to the enjoyment of Eternal Life to reign with Christ for ever in Heaven in the Kingdom of his Father as he promises in his Epistle to the Church of Laodicea NOTES CHAPTER XX. Vers. 4. And I saw also those that had not worshipped the Beast c. That the beheaded and these are two distinct sorts of persons methinks is plainly enough insinuated in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. He saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the Word of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and those who had not worshipped c. David Pareus supposes an Ellipsis which he would supply thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so secure is he that two several sorts are meant If this be not the sense why is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 interposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been sufficient without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So the Text should have run And besides why is it said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they lived and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they lived again if both the Beheaded and the Not-worshippers of the Beast were of the same kind But indeed Interpreters do generally understand them to be of two sorts though otherwise they cannot hit it among themselves about the sense of this place the one sort Martyrs the other Confessours And I add surviving Confessours who with their Successours survive the Cruelty of the Beast and his Image See my Mystery of Godliness lib. 5. cap. 15. sect 6. CHAPTER XXI 1. ANd I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth One would think upon the Conflagration of this Earth immediately mentioned before But this is but the artificial embellishing of the outward Cortex of this Book of Prophecies in this place * by a Lemmatosynechia as it is called in my Synopsis Prophetica For the first Heaven and the first Earth were passed away namely the former Heaven and Earth or World in the sense of the Prophetical stile according to which they denote a Polity which therefore intimates here that the Tyrannical and Idolatrous Polity of the Beast and the false Prophet which is the great Whore or great City of Babylon was now abolished as appears by Chap. 19. vers 20. And there was no more Sea no unquiet multitudes of the wicked who are like the raging waves of the Sea foaming out their own shame Tumults War and Bloodshed was under that Polity that is cast into the Lake of Fire Chap. 19. vers 20 which was the Reign of Antichrist But now the Reign of Christ is at hand who is the true Melchizedec King of Salem or Ierusalem King of Righteousness and Prince of Peace This Vision therefore goes back to the second Thunder 2. And I Iohn saw the Holy City New Ierusalem The truly Holy City not pretended Holy Church and the New Jerusalem not that Old Prophet-killing Jerusalem which is also spiritually called Sodom and Aegypt the Roman Hierarchy where Christ in his Faithful Witnesses were persecuted to death This sight therefore of the City Ierusalem is exhibited as a Polity succeeding the great City of Babylon and in opposition thereto Coming down from God out of Heaven which shows it is a Polity here upon Earth and of Divine Institution and to be setled after the utter destruction of the Whore of Babylon by a Council truly Holy and truly Oecumenical being persons of pure and upright Spirits and without all worldly interest and moreover inspired extraordinarily by the Spirit of God This is the meaning of this descent of Ierusalem from God out of Heaven all things then being to be ordered by that Wisdom which is from above when as the Constitution of the City of Babylon was from that Wisdom which is from beneath and is earthly sensual and devilish Prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband Not as a Whore to commit Fornication with the Kings of the Earth as Babylon did This Constitution of things is setled under the second Thunder after which immediately follows the Millennial Reign of Christ and is described in the following Verses 3. And I heard a great voice out of Heaven saying Behold the Tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people And God himself shall be with them namely by his Spirit whose presence shall sensibly and feelingly be acknowledged by all the Inhabiters of this New Ierusalem For this is the Reign of the Spirit or the Reign of Christ in the Spirit of which the Apostles of old witnessed Know ye not that your bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost But in the City of Babylon instead of being taught and guided by the Holy Ghost they were forced to follow their blind Guides that led them into all manner of Superstition and Idolatry and gross Disobedience to the Laws of God and Christ unless they would be persecuted and barbarously murthered And be their God that is their Protector and Defender from all manner of Evil As it follows 4. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes This Reign of Christ in the Millennium will be with that equity goodness and sweetness that no mans heart that is good shall need to be oppressed with grief or express his grief by his tears And there shall be no more death no more bloody massacrings of the Faithful Witnesses of Christ or burning them at the stake with fire and fagot as was done under the Tyranny of the Great Whore neither sorrow for the loss of Friends thus barbarously and inhumanely murthered nor crying no clamours against gross injustice and cruelty or crying out for the tortures that are inflicted on poor innocent men for keeping a good conscience towards God Neither shall there be any more pain by noisom and wearisom imprisonments or what other hardships they are put to for the testimony of a good conscience For the former things are passed away The bloody Whore or false Prophet with the Beast are now in the Lake of fire burning with brimstone And Babylon the Great like a milstone sunk into the bottom of the Sea never to rise again Such is the state of the blessed Millennium when it comes nor shall Gog and Magog prevail against the Holy City in the Laodicean Interval 5. And he that
sate on the Throne said Behold I make all things new A New Heaven and a New Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness And he said unto me Write For these words are true and faithful that is what I have told you will certainly come to pass There will be such a blessed Millennium as here has been hinted at 6. And he said unto me It is done The thing is as sure as if it were done already This is a farther confirmation to him of the truth of the things affirmed And this earnest and repeated assertion of this Truth is no more than needs it being foreseen how incredulous not only those would be whose interest it is that it were false the Idolatrous Hierarchy I mean of the Antichristian party but even those that were it not for the carnal sluggishness of their Natures might easily conceive it were their Interest that it should be true I am Alpha and Omega the Beginning and the End I comprehend all within the compass of my Providence and Power Therefore never distrust but that what I have told will come to pass These things reach into the Laodicean Interval In the Epistle to which Church Christ calls himself the Amen the Faithful and True Witness and the beginning of the Creation of God And what follows belongs to the last Judgement of all the Eternal Reward of the Good and the punishment of the Wicked I will give unto him that is athirst of the Fountain of the water of Life freely He that does seriously desire and endeavour to obtain Everlasting Life according to the wayes prescribed in my Gospel I will give it him freely He need not buy it by large summs of money or what other gainful conditions imposed upon him by that Merchandizing City of Babylon touching whose Merchandizing it is said Coelum venale Deusque They set Heaven and God himself to sale for money 7. He that overcometh the flesh the world and the Devil shall inherit all things He shall be an Heir of God and joynt-heir with Christ in the glorious Kingdom of his Father and this certainly comprizeth all that heart can wish And I will be his God and he shall be my Son And if Sons then Heirs as I said before Heirs of God and joynt-heirs with Christ if so be we suffer with him that we may be also glorified with him that is be made partakers of his Heavenly Kingdom and Glory according as he has promised to the Church of Laodicea To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my Throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his Throne Where Throne plainly implyes a Kingdom 8. But the fearful and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all lyars such as the great City of Babylon abounded withall shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death Which therefore undoubtedly is the Conflagration under the last Thunder which plainly shows that from the second Verse to the ninth is a brief description of the affairs of the Church from the second Thunder to the last or to the end of the world Now as after a brief mention of the destruction of Babylon chap. 16. vers 19. there is a large description of her and her destruction in the two following Chapters viz. chap. 17 and 18. so here after a brief intimation of the emersion of the New Ierusalem into Being there is a full and glorious description thereof from this ninth Verse following of this Chapter to the sixth of the next 9. And there came unto me one of the seven Angels which had the seven Uials full of the seven last plagues and talked with me saying Come hither I will shew thee the Bride the Lambs Wife It is likely it was the same Angel that before shewed him the Judgement of the Great Whore Whose destroying was in order to the Lambs Wife taking place And therefore the showing him the Lambs Wife was to show him the main end of the effusion of the Vials and therefore a fitting office for one of these Angels to do 10. And he carried me away rapt in the Spirit to a great and high mountain The height of the Mountain denotes the height and power and dignity the pure Apostolick Church is then arrived to And shewed me that great City as being the Church Catholick spread far and wide the holy Ierusalem as being the truly holy Catholick and Apostolick Church not a City of Idolaters and murderers descending out of Heaven from God as whose constitution and institutes are not the carnal invention of men but the pure Laws of the God of Heaven and the living Dictates of his Spirit 11. Having the glory of God not as the Pharisees in the old Ierusalem that sought Glory one of another but were strangers to that Glory that is of God the Glory of true approved Wisdom and unspotted Righteousness And her light was like unto a stone most precious even like a Iasper-stone clear as Crystal The Luminary of this City which was instead of a Sun for the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a Luminary or that from which the light proceeds not the Lumen dispread from the Luminary is likened to a most precious stone a Iasper-stone clear as Crystal By which I conceive is understood the Holy Ghost whose Holiness Purity and Illumination is set out by this Iasper-stone clear as Crystal But the Natural Sun it self is not without its scum and spots wherefore this is the most proper symbol thereof And the Times of the New Ierusalem are Regnum Spiritûs as the Cabbalists call them 12. And had a wall great and high namely for the security of the City And had twelve gates and at the gates twelve Angels and names written thereon which are the names of the twelve Tribes of the children of Israel The number Twelve is sacred in the Holy Scripture for the twelve Patriarchs sake and the twelve Apostles The former are mentioned here the latter vers 14. and both concurr in this New City of Ierusalem it being the time when Iew and Gentile shall accord in one Faith and be one sheepfold The twelve Angels may signifie either the safety of the City by the guard of Angels For if God by his Angels keep not the City the Watchmen wake but in vain or else the Pastours under these twelve Angels who have occasion to admit Converts into the Church from all quarters of the world as it follows in the next Verse 13. On the East three Gates on the North three Gates on the South three Gates and on the West three Gates Three towards every quarter as Grotius and others would have it in token that the Converts are to be admitted to the profession of their Faith in the Holy Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost at their Baptism Nor does this season being Regnum Spiritûs superannuate
this Sacrament but rather call for it according to that saying of S t Peter Can any one forbid water that these should not be baptized which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we There may be also no mean nor useless mystery in the Inscription of the names of the twelve Tribes of the Children of Israel on the Gates of the City rather than elsewhere For the Jews being a Nation under the Law and the dispensation of the Law being to live under an external Rule though we have not yet arrived to the Spirit of Life it is implied that there is no entrance into this dispensation of the Spirit without endeavouring as well as we can to live up to those external Rules exhibited to us from the Word whereby we break off from all external evil courses and imitate all good and laudable actions as well as we can with all sincerity of heart which is the summe of true Repentance 14. And the wall of the City had twelve Foundations and in them the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb which sheweth the pure Apostolicalness in this constitution of the Church and insinuates the safety of this Apostolicalness For walls are for safety and these are the very Foundations of the walls 15. And he the Angel that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the City and the Gates thereof and the wall thereof Apoc. chap. 11. there the Church was measured by a Man but this new state of things by an Angel That simply with a Reed this with a golden Reed which implies that this new state of things will as much surpass that state of the Church though symmetral to the Reed it was then measured with as Angels do men and a golden Reed an ordinary combustible one as there indeed was in those first four hundred years which are accounted the symmetral Ages of the Church that which was very combustible and ought to be consumed But the pure Word of God and Spirit of Love abide for ever And this is the golden Reed that adequately measures the New Ierusalem For the Word of God abideth for ever and Charity never ceaseth 16. And the City lyeth four square which Figure as well as the Number Four are symbols of Righteousness And the length is as large as the breadth that 's but an explication of the squareness thereof And he measured the City with the Réed twelve thousand furlongs the length and the breadth and the height of it are all equal that is the City is in the form of a Cube which plainly shows it cannot be a City literally understood but a Polity and signifies not walls and houses but men The solid Content therefore of the City is said to be twelve thousand Furlongs to signifie how entirely Apostolical the constitution of things then will be And to show that this City is more peculiarly described in opposition to the Roman Hierarchy the Perimeter of the Cube twelve thousand Furlongs is the circuit of Ierusalem as the Perimeter of the Cube twenty five thousand Furlongs which twenty five is the Root of the number of the Beast is the circuit of Rome But this it may be is a curiosity that might as well have been omitted as I do also for brevity sake omit That to the twelve Gates Angels Tribes Foundations in the New Ierusalem do answer twenty five Gates Pastours Parishes Cardinals c. in the City of Rome 17. And he measured the wall thereof an hundred forty four Cubits according to the measure of a man that is of the Angel in the shape of a man and whose measuring is to be understood humano more by extracting the square Root Now the Root of 144 is Twelve which shows the height and thickness of the wall and being Twelve it denotes again the pure Apostolicalness of the frame thereof and the strength of it from this Apostolical fabrick thereof 18. And the building of the wall of it was of Iasper the Hebrew word which is rendred by the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as much as Ictibus resistens as Grotius Notes which is not to be subdued by the knocks of the hammer but rather so strong that it breaks all that strikes against it In which sense the wall being of Iasper signifies how firm and inexpugnable it is throughout and is a symbol of invincible patience or fortitude without which all the rest of the vertues are in a manner useless especially in the day of tryal And the City was pure gold like unto clear glass Whence it perfectly resembles the Amber in Ezechiel's Vision which is that Divine Element of Regeneration as I elsewhere more fully show But the golden colour is the tincture of the Spirit of Love or Charity which high perfection and the highest that is of the Soul I conceive to be here signified by Gold in this Vision where ever it is mentioned Gold being by far the most Noble of all Metals most pure and most permanent as the Apostle takes notice that Charity is which never fails whatever becomes of other Gifts and Graces And this City is the Philadelphian Interval of the Church whose proper character is Divine Love 19. And the Foundations of the Wall of the City were garnished with all manner of precious stones that is to say the beauty of them was the garnishing but the substance of them the safety of the City which is the end for which walls are built The first foundation was a Iasper That by Iasper more peculiarly was signified the holy Spirit that is said to be the Luminary of this City I have noted above But he is not only the Luminary of this City but the first foundation of the Wall thereof that is the principal ground of their safety Ephes. 3.16 That he would grant you according to the riches of his Glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit c. And a little after That ye being rooted and grounded in Love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having your foundation in Love c. which is this Spirit of Love the first foundation of the wall of this City And which is such a Spirit as will drive away all evil or foul Spirits such as have their haunts in the ruines of Babylon chap. 18. vers 2. as the Iasper-stone is said in Dionysius Afer to be an Amulet against all Empusa's and other specters And others write of it that it stops the tumults of thoughts and inconstancy of mind arising from the motions of the blood which in an higher sense in the proper office of the Holy Spirit of which the Iasper is a symbol The second a Saphir The Saphir is a stone of the colour of the Heavens which therefore is a fit note of Heavenly-mindedness and is said to be an Amulet against Lust This is another security of their City that they set their mind upon Heavenly things whereby they escape the
things of the greatest importance makes men careless and remiss and destroyes all order and discipline weakens the health of the body and makes the soul incapable of the holy influences of the Spirit of God So necessary a stone therefore for the safety of the City is this Amethyst to be placed in the wall thereof 21. And the twelve Gates were twelve pearls every several Gate was of one pearl which shows plainly the thing cannot be literally understood unless there were Oisters or other Conchae bigger than one of these Gates or Porches But in that the Gates viz. Inletts into the City are said to be Pearles that Gemm sets out the condition of them that are fitted to enter into the City For the colour of the Pearle shows the mild innocent child-like meekness of them that are fit to enter as our Saviour has declared Vnless you be converted and become as one of these Children you cannot enter into the Kingdom of God The Notation of the word also intimates what is requisite to Baptism viz. Repentance For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnio from whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is derived alludes to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mixture of bitterness which denotes the wholesome cup of Repentance But the whiteness of the Pearles may insinuate also the washing away of the guilt and stain of Sin in the Sacrament of Baptism which Interpreters make these Gates to be a symbol of And the street of the City was pure gold as it were transparent glass The street that is Forum Vrbis as Grotius notes the publick place where they meet and transact businesses It is said to be pure gold like to transparent glass because they converse one with another bonâ fide in pure love and sincerity as if they were transparent to one another and could see one anothers hearts and thoughts 22. And I saw no Temple there No such Temple as was amongst the Jews which together with the Divine Residence supposed in it as being deemed the house of God is properly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such a Temple as this there was none in the New Ierusalem For the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the Temple of it The eternal Deity is the object of their worship and the Lamb the body of Christ the Holy Catholick Church is the house wherein he resides the same with the City it self which from his presence there is called Iehovah Shammah Ezech. 48.35 God therefore immediately residing by his Spirit in the hearts of his people the Citizens of this New Ierusalem this is instead of the Temple of the Ancient Jews And according to the Prophetick stile Lamb will more naturally though it does not so usually signifie the body of Christ his Church than Christ himself 23. And the City had no need of the Sun neither of the Moon to shine in it This may allude to Isai. 60.19 The Sun shall be no more thy light by day c. But the more peculiar sense of the place I conceive according to the Prophetick stile which makes the Sun the highest Power in any Polity and the Moon next to it as an Emperour and an Emperess in an Empire or an Vniversal Patriarch and Emperour as the Popish Interpreters expound the two great Lights the Sun and the Moon the one of the Pope the other of the Emperour the Ecclesiastick Power being the Sun the Secular the Moon the sense I say is this That no man imagine any necessity in those dayes when the Kingdoms of the World shall become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ that there should be any such Oecumenical Patriarch Pope or Bishop over the Church of Christ or any Vniversal Monarch or Emperour over his whole Empire it is expresly said that the City had no need of the Sun neither of the Moon to shine in it no need of any one Vniversal Prelate and Vniversal Monarch as some would fancy the Pope and the Emperour to have been For the Glory of God did lighten it that is the Spirit of God which is compared to the Iasper-stone vers 11. which is said to be the Luminary thereof this is the Sun or Supreme Power thereof which is to hold all together And the Lamb is the light thereof namely by shedding the promised efficacy of his Spirit into it The Kings therefore of those many Kingdoms that in those dayes become the Kingdom of Christ shall have no other Supreme Head over them but Christ himself but be as the four and twenty Crowned Elders before the Throne of the Lamb and have no other Superiour neither Patriarch nor Monarch but he Of those times is said that of Isai. chap. 24.23 Then the Moon shall be confounded and the Sun ashamed all that have born themselves as Universal Monarchs in Church or State hitherto when the Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Sion and Ierusalem namely in this New Ierusalem and before his Ancients gloriously those Ancients described Chap. 4. as cloathed with white rayment and sitting upon Thrones with golden Crowns on their Heads which signifie the Kings of those Times when Jew and Gentile shall make one Fold and the Church be reduced to her Apostolick purity in the blessed Millennium over whom there will be no Head but God and Christ nor will they have need to be held together in one Universal Kingdom of Christ by any other Tye than his Laws and the Union of his Holy Spirit which will be so abundantly shed forth in their hearts in those days namely in the Philadelphian Succession 24. And the Nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it Extra Ecclesiam nulla est salus is a maxime amongst the Pontificians confining Salvation to a blind implicit Faith in the Infallibility of their Pope and Church But the Iasper-stone the influence of the Holy Spirit which is the Light of this City is that by whose guidance the Nations now walk in the wayes of Salvation And the Kings of the Earth do bring their Glory and Honour into it that is turn Converts to this dispensation of the Spirit where the Word and the Spirit is the Rule not the blind Decrees of both a fallacious and fallible Polity of men that adulterate Doctrine for their worldly interest 25. And the Gates of it shall not be shut at all by day Their prosperity and great knowledge and illumination will not make them proud disdainful or careless of others happiness and salvation but they will be ever ready to embrace and admit by Baptisme all Converts from all quarters of the World upon their sincere Repentance and Conversion For there shall be no night there no Adversity nor Ignorance in this Philadelphian Interval while the Eternal Spirit of Love shines upon them And therefore they will be alwayes ready at every one of their twelve Gates standing open to all the four quarters of the world to admit all single-hearted and sincere Proselytes 26. And they shall
bring the Glory and Honour of the Nations into it The best Spirits and the most Noble and Considerable Persons of all Nations will flow in to them and be proselyted by them be admitted Citizens of the New Ierusalem and Members of this truly Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church of Christ. 27. But for so may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie there shall in no wise enter into it * any thing any person that defileth or is of a scandalous conversation neither whatsoever whosoever worketh abomination that is committeth Idolatry though the Whore of Babylon would admit none but such or maketh a lye No Legend-mongers nor obtruders of absurd and impossible Doctrines such as the Artificers of Babylon forged for filthy lucre-sake no such may be admitted to come into this City whose Gates are pure Pearl But they only who are written in the Lambs Book of Life as breathing after a Life sutable to his But the description of this Glorious City is not yet finished it reaches further into the five first Verses of the following Chapter NOTES CHAPTER XXI Vers. 1. By a Lemmatosynechia as it is called c. Lemmatosynechia is an Apocalyptick Scheme or Figure whereby as the word signifies the Cortex or outward Letter of the Text is held together or continued in such sort as if there were a real connexion and dependance of one part upon the other when as in the inward sense there is no such matter An elegant instance of this is to be found Chap. 16. vers 18 19. where upon the mention of the great Earthquake it is presently said And the great City was divided in three parts as if that Division had been a diruption caused by that Earthquake when as what is meant by that great City were three distinct parties before A like example of this figure is also Chap. 11. vers 7 8 9. where the two Witnesses are said to be slain as it were at the ending of their witnessing and their dead bodies to lye three dayes and an half unburied where the three dayes and an half are set at the end of the One thousand two hundred and sixty dayes as if they were the latter end of them when as they in truth commence as high as the One thousand two hundred and sixty dayes and the same time with them But the Parable runs smooth in the outward Cortex as if they were distinct and the death of the Witnesses for three dayes and an half together occasioned by their One thousand two hundred and sixty dayes prophesying See also Chap. 19. vers 5. But as eximious as any is this present example of a Lemmatosynechia the mention of a New Heaven and a New Earth being immediately made upon the burning of this Natural Earth Which therefore in the Cortex implyes that the destroying of that gave occasion of making a New Heaven and a New Earth when as they are not Natural but Political as both Grotius and Doctor Hammond acknowledge and the Text will extort it from any one that reads this twenty first Chapter considerately Vers. 27. Any thing any person c. It is usual with S t John to put the Neuter Gender for the Masculine as Joh. 6. vers 36 38 40. See Grotius upon the place CHAPTER XXII 1. AND he shewed me a pure River of Water of Life clear as crystal proceeding out of the Throne of God and of the Lamb What this River may signifie that in Amos may be a Key to Let Iudgement run down as water and Righteousnesse as a mighty stream Again touching the uttering of Divine and Holy Doctrines it is said of God Ecclesiastic 24.25 He filleth all things with his Wisdom as Phison and as Tigris in the time of the new fruits He maketh the Vnderstanding to abound like Euphrates and as Jordan in the time of Harvest c. Wherefore this River of water of Life from the Throne of God is the faithfull and effectual Administration of Justice and pouring forth Holy and Wholesom Doctrines and Monitions in the demonstration of the Spirit by them that are in highest Authority in this City of God which Authority is understood by the Throne of God and of the Lamb who in right of his Father is Supreme Governour over all and the immediate actuator of his Vicegerents 2. In the midst of the street of it that is in the midst of the Forum of the City or broad open place where their meetings were to serve God consult of their Affairs and administer Justice And of either side of the River which ran from thence through the City was there the tree of Life that is Trees of Life else how could they be in rowes on this side and that side the River By which Trees according to the Prophetick stile must be understood Men and that not of the meaner sort but Grandees in Church and State And being they are called Trees of Life it intimates a state quite contrary to that of the wicked Iud. 12. Trees whose fruit withereth without fruit twice dead c. beside that it signifies that the Life of the Lamb is in them Which bare twelve manner of fruits and all worthy the profession of the pure Apostolick Faith and yielded her fruit every month of the year So uncessant are they in the bringing forth the fruits of true Faith which are good Works Here seems to be an allusion to the description of the Righteous Man Psalm 1. He shall be as a Tree planted by the Rivers side c. And of these happy times of the Messias in the expected Millennium is that Psalm 72.7 understood In his dayes shall the Righteous flourish like a Palm Tree as it is elsewhere said or like a Cedar in Lebanon The sense therefore is That by the free current of Justice and the countenancing pure Doctrine from the Higher Powers which the Throne of God intimates Holy and Good Men both in Church and State will be in Authority and Esteem to manage the Affairs of Christ's Kingdom obliging all unto them by their Christian Goodness and Equity which is the constant Fruit which they bear And the leaves of the Tree were for the healing of the Nations that is the People of those several Nations which are then brought under the Empire of Christ Which is an insinuation of the gentle but effectual Healing Discipline which will be in this Philadelphian Interval Those are the leaves of these Trees to heal the sores of the People by gently drawing away the corruption whatever may be remaining in them 3. And there shall be no more curse no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No more furious Papal Anathema's or Excommunications to depose Kings and Princes and to involve the Christian World in blood But the Throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it that is Christ shall be in it The meek Empire of the Lamb of God shall obtain after the Tyranny of the bloody Antichrist or two-horned Beast who wore the
that way Ambrosius Aretas Andreas Caesareensis and others See Ribera on the place Vers. 18. But I conceive also there is besides this a further sense and the truth is that other sense does very hardly agree with the beginning of the Verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For I testifie In so much that Ribera is fain to acknowledge that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here is only an expletive Particle and signifies nothing at all And adds further how several MSS. are without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Grotius follows those Copies But if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the force thereof be retained and we read For I testifie unto every man it involves a reason why every man should close with this free Invitation made before implying that this excellent state of things is really intended by Christ a state so pure and so perfect and that all other things condemned in this Book are to be rejected And therefore he that would either admit or foist in any of those rejectaneous things or hypocritically diminish the Faith or Belief of so great perfection of the Church as there is set out by the description of the New Jerusalem the Commination is to him And this threatened punishment is also an argument of the truth and seriousness of Christs proposal which I would have them seriously to consider that make it their business to decry all hope of those good Times when Peace and Truth and Righteousness shall Reign upon Earth to lull themselves and others asleep in their sins And farther to confirm this sense of ours D r Hammond upon this and the following Verse Whosoever sayes he shall go about to infuse any other expectations into men than what are agreeable to these Visions God shall bring on him the Judgments that are denounced against Gods greatest Enemies And whosoever shall derogate any thing from the Authority of this Prophecy or occasion mens not receiving the admonitions of Christ he might have added also or their not believing his promises contained here in every part thereof of which that of the State of the New Jerusalem is one of the chief God shall cast him off and account him uncapable of all the blessings which are here promised to the faithful Christians Which Paraphrase of this Learned and Pious Doctor of our Church on these two Verses is not much unlike ours which is no small Argument for the naturalness of the Interpretation in that though we disagree in other things we both agree in this THE EPILOGUE I Have now Reader I hope made good the promise of my Title Page and exhibited to thy view and judgment as well a plain and perspicuous as continued Exposition of the Apocalypse from the beginning to the end Which whole Exposition though it be intirely of one piece yet that more be not attributed to my performance than I deserve the invention of every part thereof is not from one man but whatever I have drawn in from others it is like well concocted food made a congruous and congenerous part of the whole body of my Exposition I admitting nothing but what I first carefully considered and if need was rectified polished illustrated and amplified And he that I am most of all beholden to is that incomparably Pious and Learned person M r Ioseph Mede once one of the Fellows of our Colledge in whose steps where he treads right I thought I was bound to insist as also in any others so far as they are in a true path For I account it a juvenile piece of pride and wantonness in any one to innovate where things seem right already unless he bring that which is plainly truer For this affectation of bringing of something new in interpreting Scripture does but dissettle the minds of those that are to be informed and makes the Holy Writt to lose its scope and efficacy and to seem more uncertain and obscure than indeed it is And therefore Enthusiasts that attempt any Expositions of this Book without carefully consulting the most likely Interpreters before them it is no inspiration of the Spirit in them but a blind puff of pride and vanity of mind a blast of self-conceitedness that drives them upon such rash and dangerous enterprises out of a bold presumption that others have not attempted these things as much in the fear of God and with as good assistances of his Spirit as they can pretend to Such men as these seek not the interest of the true Apostolick Church but do sacrifice to their own pride and seek to be accounted somebody amongst men or to make a confusion of all But for my own part I can call God and my own Conscience to witness and I think the circumstances of the times we are in may assure any one of my integrity in this protestation that nothing but the mere service of the truly Catholick and Apostolick Church has invited me to publish this my Exposition of the Apocalypse as being full perswaded of the truth and manifold usefulness thereof which I have showed in my Preface to the Reader and that especially amongst the rest that it does so plainly demonstrate both the Protestants freeness from the guilt of Schism as to the Church of Rome and the Church of Rome's guiltiness of that hainous and intolerable crime of Idolatry which is a further confirmation of the Protestants freeness from the guilt of Schism I confess that our Writers by sound and irrefutable Reason have proved the Church of Rome guilty of this crime But by reason of the hardness of the hearts or foreheads of our Adversaries God himself has set his hand again and again in the Apocalypse to this Accusation or rather as a truly infallible Moderator has decided the Controversy on the Protestants side expressly and repeatedly against the Church of Rome I will hint some few examples as in the Prophecy of the Seven Churches my Exposition whereof is so confirmed in the tenth Chapter of it to omit other arguments that I think it is impossible for any man that is not prodigiously laden with prejudice not to be convinced there in the Epistle to the Church in Pergamus and again in the Epistle to the Church in Thyatira both which successions of the Church succeed the Smyrnean which are those ages of the Church in which the Church suffered bitter Persecutions from the Pagans doth the Spirit of God complain of their eating Idolothyta which is turning the Lords Supper which is a Feast upon a Sacrifice into an Idolatrous Solemnity like the eating of things Sacrificed unto Idols In which the Idolatry of their Mass is plainly perstringed And this is evidently in the successions of the Church after she had got the victory over crude Paganism Again in the Sealed-Book-Prophecie where such an Exposition we have given out of M r Mede of the six first Seals as against which neither Papist nor Protestant can justly except and whence the six Trumpets must needs shoot into the Pergamenian
understood of that time of the succession of this Beast which followed after it had ceased to be yet for sureness that you may not mistake the Angel calls him at the latter end of this Verse The Beast that was and is not and yet is Which therefore is necessarily understood of the latter part of his time after he once ceased to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Beast that is after this Empire had ceased to be a Cruel Idolatrous Empire but had become a Cruel Idolatrous Empire again though not perfectly the same Idolatrous Empire it was before which is the natural and necessary meaning of is not and yet is But yet we are never the wiser what Empire certainly to pitch upon if the Angel stick here and therefore he holds on vers 9. The seven Heads are seven Mountains on which the Woman sitteth who is also said to sit upon the Beast Now he comes up closer to the business which plainly showes this Empire to be the Roman Empire whether you understand the seven Hills of Rome or Constantinople or both they both belonging to the Roman Empire Wherefore it is manifest the Roman Empire is here meant in that succession of Time after it had ceased to be an Idolatrous Empire which it did for a Time while pure Christianity prevailed and till the Apostasie came in After which it became the Beast that was and is not and yet is It was of old the Pagan Idolatrous Empire but is not so now and yet it is in a very considerable sense it being a Pagan-like or a Paganochristian Idolatrous Empire and cruelly persecutive of the pure Christians And that you may still be the better assured that this latter part of the succession of the Empire namely after it had become Christian and Apostatized again into Idolatry was aimed at the Angel holds on vers 10. And there are seven Kings namely which are the heads of the Beast and must take up the entire Times of the being of the Beast both the former and latter part thereof unless we will admit of a living Beast without an head Five are fallen and one is Now let any man living show five Heads that is five Supreme Governours to be fallen or past in S t Iohn's time unless they be those five sorts of Governours of the Roman State or Empire Kings Consuls Decemviri Consular Tribunes and Dictators No five single Emperours can fill up that space of time and therefore it must be understood of sorts of Governours whereof five had ceased in S t Iohn's time and one is that is was in his time viz. the Pagan Caesars or Emperours What can be more plain and assured But the other is not yet come namely the Christian Caesars or Emperours For the Emperours were Pagans in S t Iohn's time And when he cometh he must continue a short space that is the pure Christian Caesars Reign would be short the Apostasie into an Idolatrous Paganochristianism being so quickly to prevail in the Empire And the Beast that was and is not that is to say the Paganochristian Head be they Paganochristian Emperours or Popes that get the Soveraignty it is all one they make still or continue the Paganochristian Head of that Beast For that Beast is the Empire not the Head of the Empire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is both the eighth and one of the seven that is he is both the eighth King and seventh head of the Beast For the Beast is the Empire quatenus Idolatrous and so has but seven heads though there be eight Kings the seventh of them being King over the Empire while it ceased to be a Beast or Idolatrous or while the publick Religion of the Empire was purely Christian. And the ten horns which thou sawest namely on the seventh head are ten Kings which have received no Kingdom as yet viz. in S t Iohn's time but receive Power as Kings one hour with the Beast This also plainly denotes the time of the Beast commencing with the discerption of the Roman Empire into many Kingdoms which happened not while the Religion of the Empire was purely Pagan but when it was Apostatizing again into a kind of Paganochristian and Idolatrous condition The Empire therefore debauched again with Superstition and Pagan-like Idolatry and Cruelty after the expiration of the pure Christian Caesars or seventh King who was to continue but a short space is the Beast upon which the Woman rides And who this Woman is is plainly indigitated again and more precisely than in the ninth Verse viz. vers 18. And the Woman which thou sawest is that great City which reigneth over the Kings of the Earth In the ninth Verse the seat of the Woman are Seven Hills and here in this Verse She is that great City that in Saint Iohn's time is said to reign over the Kings of the Earth which no City on seven Hills then did besides Rome But the Walls and Houses of Rome did not then Reign over the Kings of the Earth but the Roman Polity here signified by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a City did then Rule over the Kings of the Earth And therefore the Roman Polity it must be that rides the Beast that was is not and yet is but not the Roman Polity Pagan For that Beast which is here ridden is after the expiration of Paganism properly so called and therefore it must be the Roman Polity Paganochristian that is the Roman Hierarchy which rides this Beast Which Roman Hierarchy the Spirit of God here calls the Whore of Babylon Quod oportebat demonstrare And what more assured demonstration of any thing can R. H. or any man living else desire than of this so concerning a truth And what a notable Key this is to unlock the sense of the Prophecies of the Sealed Book and Opened Book I will briefly show after I have smoothed the flawes and wiped off the rust that R. H. seems to fancy to stick on it I will produce his most material Cavils that by them you may judge of the rest 1. The first is touching the Hills of Rome which though at first they were seven three were after added while Rome was Pagan and that Papal Rome stands but upon two and no more 2. That Kings Dictators and Emperours being but one kind of Governours we shall fall short in our account of making up seven Heads of the Beast 3. That when it is said Five are fallen the meaning is not that Five are fallen in S t Iohn's time but that Five are fallen that is shall fall before the seventh Vial. Forasmuch as the Apostle writes a Prophecy not an History And therefore it must be understood of things to come 4. And the like he objecteth concerning the 18 th Verse That it does not speak of a City which raigned over the Kings of the Earth in Iohn's time but which is to raign in the time of the seventh Vial because the Apostle writes not an History but