we would understand them of natural Angels as few or none do But the meaning is The seven Churches contain a very great Mystery throughout the Vision of the Churches Even as upon the forehead of the Woman Rev. 17. 5. was a Title written Mystery Babylon the Great c. that is Understand that whole Inscription in a mystical Sense or to carry the Mystery of the Apostate Church in all Successions so Understand the seven Churches carrying the Mystery of the Christian Church throughout And it is observable the word Mystery is expresly applyed to the True and False Church As it is said here The Mystery of the seven Churches and their Stars or Angels So there I will tell thee the Mystery of the Woman and of the Beast the Fallen Star with the Key of the bottomless Pit that carries her And proportionably this whole Prophecy of the Kingdom draws down into it self the Great Mystery of that Kingdom spoken of by all the Prophets since the World began viz. THE TRUE CHURCH IN GLORY The particularizing upon the Churches the so Apocalyptick Argu. 2 number Seven assures us It will bear its proportion to all the other Sevens And seeing there are no sevens to introduce them nor to receive them and carry them on They must themselves by their own Time Sevens and Symbols embrace the whole Apocalyptical Time and its Sevens For the Book of it is the Book of the Kingdom the Kingdom is the Mystery of God The Churches are the true Kingdoms when they come to their Glory and so a Mystery The Apostate Church is a Mock Kingdom the Kingdom of Antichrist foisted into the place of Christs Kingdom and so a Mystery but a Mystery of Iniquity The Kingdom of Christ and his universal Monarchy is an Empire in a Church of which He is the Head The last State of the Roman Monarchy is an Imperialism by vertue of an Ecclesiastical Image made to it which is a false Christship that is an Empire in an Apostate Church of which Antichrist is the Head How fitly therefore are these Things displayed in the Symbolisms of Churches It is certain There hath been a Christian Church in all Argu. 3 Ages from the Resurrection of Christ to this Day and shall be to the New Jerusalem and to the End of the World This is grounded upon those two Places Matt. 16. 18. Vpon this Rock will I build my Church and the Gates of Hell either of Hell as it signifies the Grave Mortality and Death or the Powers of Darkness shall not prevail against it and Matt. 28. ult Lo I am with you always unto the end of the World Nor is this controverted among any Christians From hence it follows we cannot be Time-bound or straitned in space of Time to place these Successions in For there must necessarily be a Succession of this Christian Church in several Ages and States and so must continue till the End which must as necessarily run a long Apocalyptical Time and so give a bottom to found such Symbols upon if it pleas'd as we suppose it did the Prophetick Spirit to give them As there must necessarily have been a Variety of States of Arg. 4 this one Church so the first of them must needs have been settled and founded in Doctrine Worship Rules of Life Order and Discipline by immediate Inspiration divine Authority and Institution through the Ministry of the Apostles This is most evident from that Book of Scripture written to that purpose The Acts of the Apostles as also from all the Apostolical Epistles From hence it follows the Apostolical Church in its Apostolical State was first in order whether therefore we will allow it to be symbollically represented or not in that first Church of Ephesus it is certain that Labour and Patience twice repeated that trying them which said they were Apostles and were not and finding them Lyars importing the exact consigning all Apostolical Truths and Rules into an authentick Canon of Scripture does most admirably represent that truly Primitive Apostolical State Besides the daily or every days Miscarriages from this excellent Arg. 5 State by Heresies Errors and bad Practises to which degenerate and deeply corrupted Humane Nature is so subject and of which Apostolical Writings take so continual notice there was foretold an eminent visible and notorious Apostacy fix'd and settled upon its own Base out of which Antichrist was to come and so very fit to be taken notice of in this Book of the Kingdom Now this Apostacy was declar'd expresly by the Apostle Paul to be at work in a mystery of Iniquity and the Spirit saith expresly that in the latter Times which latter Times as we have before affirm'd were then begun though every day more and more latter Some that is not a few but a certain sort of men that should make a Body or Species of Men should depart from the Faith If then it had begun so 1 Tim. 4. 1. Written to Timothy as then at Ephesus early in some Lineaments of it although not in that of Nicolaitanism and that it daily proceeded and grew much higher after the Apostles Departure or Death ravening Wolves and Men teaching perverse things arising from Christians themselves Act. 20. 28. c. remonstrated also to this very Church of Ephesus Their leaving their first Love the removing this Candlestick out of the Superiority and Excellency of Primo-geniture and conferring it on Smyrna in the Crown of Life and Philadelphia in the Scepter of the New Jerusalem are most lively Symbols to such a purpose though yet the Overcomers of this protoplast Church are assur'd to eat of the Tree of Life in the midst of the Paradise of God This Apostacy being to become so grand an Apostacy it Arg. 6 must needs proceed and work on by degrees so as that some Church and its Bishop deriving it self from the Apostles should very elderly vere towards a Synagogue of Satan and there should be such an Assumption by it and Deference of Advantages to it by many in the whole Christian Church tending towards and preparing for such an Apostacy that it gain'd Pretensions undesign'd yet to it particularly to intitle it self to such a blooming Antichristian Power as was foretold to come out of the Apostacy for if it could not derive high from Antiquity it could not rise to that Grandeur of Apostacy under the Profession of Christianity And yet in the mean time the Vniversal publick Christian Church may not only remain pure but be first in deep Sufferings for Christ and so fill up the Number of Martyrs dying under the Pagan Draconick Empire but also receive the Crown of Life and of the Glory of the New Jerusalem in a Figure by the Empire becoming Christian as it did in Constantine Now what Type of such a State of the Church could be more express in all this than the Church of Smyrna For whether it was so design'd by the Spirit or not it is certain in
seven Churches that is proper and particular to the Church wherein the Churches as Symbols sustain the whole Prophecy which is worthy the Spirituality and Clearness of a New Testament Prophecy so to Order and of great Grace Elegancy and Condecency to God's great Regard to his Church The Second is that which embraces the whole State of the Church but propp'd and supported with such Imperial Events as most nearly related to the Church adorn'd with such Symbols such Notes of Time such Events as agree to those Times whereby History both Common and Ecclesiastick may be adjusted to and concerted with both and the Truth of the Prophecy and its true Interpretation justisted before and by all the World And this is that Systeme or Complex of Prophecies that first by the Seals runs through the Roman Empire till the sixth Seal Pagan and Christian in the sixth and seventh Seals in those things wherein the Kingdom and Church of Christ are most interessed until the Empire was blasted in the first Trumpet and true publick Worship also by the 1260 Days of the Daily taken away entring The Imperial City was thrown like a Mountain into the Sea in the second and in the third Trumpet when the Roman Empire expiring in the West was surrogated or new founded in the Beast succeeding in his forty two Months and so the Prophecy goes on in the other Trumpets till it comes to the Kingdom of Christ in the seventh Trumpet in its just Succession to the last State of the Roman fourth Monarchy according to all Prophecy And this till the thousand Years runs through the Voices of Preparation into the Vials and the Vials prepare to the thousand Years glorious Reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then this is the only true proper Division of this Prophecy into its two Systemes of the Churches and then rise the Seals Trumpets Voices Vials in another Systeme supporting all things relating to the Church by Imperial Motions Mutations and Times And in the latter Systeme all these Tubes of Time are each Sett of them and each of each Sett so united one to another that they can neither be disjoyn'd from their immediate sequence one upon another nor mov'd out of their order so that the Trumpets follow the Seals the Voices the Trumpets the Vials the Voices and each Seal Trumpet Voice and Vial follows immediately upon its foregoing Seal Trumpet Voice and Vial and every seventh comprehends the following Sevens the seventh Seal the seven Trumpets the seventh Trumpet the seven Voices the seventh Voice the seven Vials and each precedent Seventh hath some grasp on all the following Sevens So the seventh Seal comprehends the Trumpets the Voices the Vials the seventh Trumpet the Voices and Vials the seventh Voice the seven Vials so admirably is this Prophecy united and interwoven And to other Division than this of the second Systeme of Prophecies I can by no means subscribe as of the Prophecy divided into the sealed and open Book-prophecy or the Prophecy of the Empire first and then of the Church For that remarkable part of the sealed Book-prophecy viz. the palm-bearing Company by peculiar Right pertains to the open Book or that must be so if there were such an open Book-prophecy and much of the open Book-prophecy allowing such a one must needs pertain to the sealed but indeed there is no such Thing as an open Book-prophecy in that place where it is said to be open'd for the Book was no sooner open'd but it was eaten and so absconded assoon as open'd till open'd by the Voices c. 14. as shall be farther clear'd nor is there any Prophecy of the second Systeme but pertains properly to the Church as within first the Pagan then the Christian then the Bestian State of the one Roman Empire and lastly of the Vniversal Empire and Kingdom of Christ. Now in this Order apocalyptical Both Visions and Times in the first Systeme run through the six Churches In the second through those four Sets of prophetical Tubes Seals c. 6. c. 7. c. 8. to v. of Trumpets c. 8. v. 8. to the end of c. 11. of Voices c. 14. of the Vials c. 15. c. 16. and so laying these Chapters together the order is most exact except that in c. 7. There is an Anticipation of the Triumph of the New Jerusalem from v. 9. to the end In c. 11. there is a Collection of the whole State of the Apostasie during the six Trumpets into one Body together as it consists of the Sufferings of the Witnesses and the Tyranny of the Bestian Apostasie excepting some close Intimations in the very Composure of the Symbolisms of those Trumpets for the great Reasons hereafter to be given that refer to the same Apostacy and begin at the first Trumpet And then in the twelfth and thirteenth Chapters the extravasated Account of the Dragon watching the Woman and her manly Birth the Dragon cast down and the manly Birth caught up is to be reduc'd within its most proper Channel viz. the fifth and sixth Seals And this prepares for the right understanding of the Beast mention'd ch 11. as deriv'd from the Dragon c. 13. arriving his Number 666 which belongs to the six first Trumpets and it is there fitly set to prepare for the Vision of the Lambs Number c. 14. And as to the Chapters 17. 18. and 19. they are most evidently the Progress of the History of the seventh Vial and the full Relation of its Effects To prepare for which an extraordinary Description of the Woman or Great City reigning over the Kings of the Earth opposite to the Woman in the Wilderness is prefix'd and on her occasion a more perfect Portraicture of the Beast and of his ten Horns or Kings is given in preparation to the Judgment executed on all c. 19. And then the Milennial State being drawn up c. 20. it is carried on to the end of Apocalyptical Time as it reaches into the complemental State of Eternity which the Prophecy briefly absolves and then returns upon its more proper Subject or the 1000 Years of the New Jerusalem c. 21. c. 22. Now this Order began with the Preface to the Churches Vision of the first Systeme c. 1. and then the Preface of the second Systeme and lastly a Postscript returning especially c. 4. c. 5. c. 22. 16. to the Vials as given by the first Angel of the Vials This Order is I say the whole entire natural Order of this Apocalyptical Prophecy which is contriv'd indeed suitable to the Secrecy and Mysticness of the Prophecy so as often symbolically to declare when these Prophecies would have the clearest and most efficacious Discoveries in the Church viz. after the Half Time when the Thunders had utter'd their Voices and the Book open was shewn in the hand of Christ. That was the just Season for the Discovery of the Apostacy in the suffering of the Witnesses and the Tenthly Fall of the City and then after the seventh Trumpet
by which they are all kept in a close successional Connexion one with another and the seventh Seal hath its Hold upon the whole even to the last Day of Judgment when the whole Book of the Kingdom is resign'd back into the Hand of God out of whose Hand it was received by Christ seal'd 1 Cor. 15. 24. c. I am therefore now and in the first place to speak of the first part of this second giving of the Line of Time and that as in the Seals before it came to the Trumpets 1. And because there is one general Preface to this whole Repetition of the Line of Time I shall first consider how adequate it is to the whole Line and to the great Administrations of it in a brief or summary Survey of it For to assure us The Preface was to the whole Apocalyptical Book or Time adorn'd with new Figures and Sculptures John heard the first Voice that spake to him and it was as it were of a Trumpet saying to him I will shew thee Things that must be hereafter Rev. 4. v. 1 2. and immediately he was the second time in the Spirit where the Distinction of things hereafter from the things that are as Rev. 1. 19. was made only as the Types of the Churches had a real Existence at that Time as Types in the then begun Christian Church but the following were deriv'd from things to come And after this there was no more any such Voice of a Trumpet speaking to John no more being in the Spirit except a being carried in the Spirit into the Wilderness to see the Apostate Church and then to a Mountain to behold the Holy City The Voice speaking again c. 10. v. 8. evidently relates to the first Voice in that chap. saying seal and write not v. 4. and then take the Book and eat c. and c. 1. 10. c. 4. 1 2. not to these Trumpet-Voices 2. At this second Apocalyptical Volume we have the great Theatre of the Throne and the whole Grandeur of it and adorn'd every way suitable to the Doctrine of the Gospel and as it were in the first Apostolical Church settled first in God as the Doctrine of the One God made known in the Father the Son and the Spirit is the Foundation of Christianity For the Father the Word and the Spirit bear Record of it in Heaven and these three are one in that Record as they are in themselves ONE 3. About this Throne at each Angle or at each of the four Points of it are four Living Creatures so I choose to translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not Beasts properly and distinguishingly in this Prophecy call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and these four Living Creatures represent the Apostolical Church of the New Testament as in four Ternaries or Threes of the twelve Apostles in perpetual Action and therein as it were encircling the twenty four Elders of the pure Israelitish Church The Elders are upon Seats round about the Throne and with Crowns on their Heads as being of old a Kingdom of Priests and they are in this Prophecy introduc'd in Service to the Kingdom of Christ that shall be at the New Jerusalem together with and as by the Apostolick Church who shall be Kings and Priests together with them represented by these four and twenty Elders Heads of the priestly Courses who are first plac'd as leading the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his Kingdom by Prophecy but yet in the very first Action the Order is revers'd and the living Creatures are first in giving Glory First there is the particular Song to the Divine Nature on the Throne as the absolute Creator and Lord of all ending in this For thy Pleasure all things are and were created and so are absolutely under his Dominion and Dispose before whom they cast their Crowns 4. The grand Symbol of the whole Apocalyptical Time and its Events and of the supreme Conduct and Government till they issue into the Kingdom of Christ is the seal'd Book in the Hand of Him that sat on the Throne seal d with the seven Seals which Seals have under them the whole Course of preparatory Events to this Kingdom and the Kingdom it self till it be resign'd back to God Thus Daniel saw Prophecy and Vision seal'd up Dan. 9. and the Book seal'd Chap. 12. 5. There is Proclamation made by the loud Voice of a strong Angel for the finding out a worthy Person to open the Book and loose its Seals And none in Heaven or Earth was found worthy to open the Seals or so much as look thereon All which is certainly as Divine a Symbol to set out the supream and sole Excellency of the Lord Jesus Christ as far above all Principalities and Powers and every Name in Heaven or Earth as could be found out and surpassing all Understanding or Invention finite and is in surprize of any Admissions of Angels or Saints into any parts of his Mediatory Office the very least so much as an Ability to look thereon as also to foreclose that grand Antichristian Assumption of the man of Sin for his very Supremacy is hereby plainly declar'd to be Antichristianism who undertakes not only to look upon this Book but to open the Seals and herein he shews himself in the Temple of God as God 6. The much weeping of John that none was found worthy to open the Book does most exactly and critically point to the time of the Death of Christ or his lying in the Grave when there seem'd a Despair upon all the Creation in that dark Interval and a suspension of the Consolation of Israel and when all the Apostles had given up as it were the hopes of it of which the Apostle John was here a Symbol and represented all the Apostles 7. The same Article of Time is farther assur'd and confirm'd by the one of the Elders as a Representative of the whole Israelitish Church who lead to Christ Thus Christ open'd the Scriptures of the Old Testament especially of Daniel That Christ was thus to suffer and to enter into his Glory viz. of sitting first at the Right-hand of God till his Foes should be made his Footstool He sate down on his Fathers Throne in his Father's Kingdom He shall have a Throne and Kingdom properly his own 8. Christ hereupon exactly as in the Time according to the History of the Gospel appears as on the sudden and unexpectedly in the midst of the Throne of the Elders and the living Creatures a Lamb as it had been newly slain and now risen and ascended and so the Epoch of the Apocalyptical Time is most strictly defin'd and fully assur'd And at this Point of Time he receives the Book which is the very same with sitting on God's Right-hand till his Foes shall be made his Footstool for when the Book is unseal'd and the thousand Years begin Then there is a putting down all Rule and Authority At the End of the thousand Year and the Day of
Usage by Pharaoh argued against their Deliverance by Moses All the Disaffection in the Age to Interpretation of Prophecies or its insensibleness of them can no more disprove them than Christ's coming as a Thief upon Sardis at an Hour it knew not shall be disprov'd by the Sleepiness and Unwatchfulness of that Church Let us then with Resolution Constancy of Obedience Strength of Faith Labour of Love Patience of Hope wait for and come to the end of these ten days and from them to the 1335 Days where Blessedness shall certainly be But if we should say We may dye before those Ten Years are come to their Period and there is no Probability or Possibility we should live to the seventy five beyond or the 1335 of Blessedness I answer The Saints of God living on Earth shall receive their share in all the Glories of his Kingdom and the several degrees of it and they that dye hoping waiting desiring praying shall be rais'd in the very same posture of Soul wherein they died so that they who by a general Faith and Obedience waited and came in Daniel's Time and ever since viz. by earnest Prayers Come Lord Jesus Come quickly shall be blessed even as they who by particular Faith and Obedience wait and come at the Time it self And in the mean time the Souls of Saints above the Spirits of just men who shall be perfected at that time celebrate in Heaven all the Advances of Christ's Kingdom even as they pray for it as the Souls under the Altar cry How long Lord c. so they rejoyce at every Rising of Christ's Kingdom so do the same Souls Rev. 12. 10. So Rev. 14. 3. They that sing that new song harping with their Harps So They Rev. 15. 3. So they Rev. 19 c. Such is the universal Song of Triumph of the Palm-bearing company Revel 7. 10. Let us not therefore despond but be abundant in the work of the Lord knowing our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. Why should it be thought an incredible thing that God Remark 6 should draw in his Word the Plot of Future Time to so great a Period as the Kingdom of Christ That all Futurity is within the Grasp of Infinite Omniscience cannot be doubted Known to God are all his Works from the beginning to the end The Scheme of all that hath been before it was or that shall be is always with Him as if it just now was in all the circumstances and Life of a present Appearance in whose Eternity All present past to come are all one The whole Table of Time is always before Him Does it then pertain to the Prerogative of Omniscience that Future Things should be known only to himself It does so indeed any further than he is pleas'd to reveal them But He that challenges the false Divinities of the Heathen that they could not declare things to come hath certainly given Isa 42. 23. Instances of his own Prescience and Demonstrations of it to his People Hath he not done so in all Ages by his Servants the Prophets Is he not as Liberal to the Ages of Christianity to the state of things under the Gospel of his Son whom he hath constituted Heir of all things and put in subjection to him the World to come of which we speak Or is the Glory of Divine Truth so great that even as immediate Appearances the Power of Miracles and extraordinary Revelations have ceas'd since the full Settlement and Sealing the Volume of Truth in the Gospel so Prophecy needs not now This indeed hath much of Reason yet even as all Truth is compriz'd in that Volume so are the Grand Revolutions pertaining to the Christian Church in the same Volume and therefore whatever God hath done for the former World the very same hath he summ'd up in the New Testament When therefore we have besides the Interspersion of Prophecy in several places of it a Book wholly Dedicated to Prophecy Blessed is he that heareth and readeth the words of this Prophecy Have we not reason then to expect the course of things to the very end in it But does not the Prophecy it self say The Things were shortly to come to pass So that what is to be found in it pertain'd to the primitive Age the Destruction of Jerusalem to the Time when Christianity was well settled and till Pagan Rome became Christian It is true indeed The Divine Revelator Jesus Christ our Lord does say the things were shortly to come to pass that is to begin to come to pass They were then upon motion but as a great Army is said to come immediately when the Avant-Corriers are coming or come although the whole Body and Rear may be considerable distances off so this whole Series and Chain of Events in the Revelation come quickly although the first and the last part differ so many Ages Is it not clear and visible that there is the Beginning of Things and the End of Things in every mans Apprehension plain and evident that is from the Resurrection and to the Day of Judgment and why then should we not believe there is the Middle of Things also Why should we imagine Prophecy hath made such a Leap over the Between Lying Times seeing they were very great Did it not behove his Church and Servants to know of so great and wide spreading an Imposture as Mahometanisme Was it nothing to it Christianity should be in so low and dark a state as it was from the lowest Fall of the Western Empire to the Ruine of the Eastern Empire in both which the principal Residences of it were and so long space as from 666 to 1453. But still it may be said If such a Prophecy be it does not become us to pry into it it is the Ark of secret things that do not belong to us Why then does Christ say Blessed is he that heareth the words of this Prophecy Why doth he command him that hath Wisdom and Vnderstanding to count the Number of the Beast Why doth He in explication of the Seven Heads say Here is the Mind that hath Wisdom Why had Christ the Revelation to shew to his Servants But was it not all one as if they had not been reveal'd since the Revelation was not pretended to be understood in former Times I answer we do not know what was understood the Apostacy so cover'd and muffled all Things and does yet so darken them The universal prejudice against the Explanation of this Prophecy is I doubt not the effects of this Apostasie But that there hath gone a stream of Light from hence to the Servants of Christ by the Witnesses in every Age is to me out of all question and that it hath discover'd the Things most necessary to that Age although the Light hath been not only clearer but the knowledge that such a Light hath been more certain to us since the last Age and Half and shall be every day clearer and clearer When
accompanied with the Mahometan Force and yet even that remains a scourge upon it since the Reformation until now and cannot cease to be so while Antichristianism it self shall survive But if things had thus gone on The Kingdom of Christ had long ' ere now appear'd Let us then consider the Agreement of the Symbols of Prophecy with the stay of this Glory of Christ that it did not proceed to the utmost in the Ruine of Antichrist and the Revelation of his supream Dominion The first Estopple on the Kingdom of Christ is the sealing of the Thunders the constant Symbol of some breaking out of Christ's Kingdom for they were such powerful Voices of Highest and most Excellent Truth that if they had been written as John in Zeal to the Glory of Christ was about speedily to write them and not seal'd They had rent the Heavens and the Kingdom of Christ had been proclaim'd as by the Voices of the seventh Trumpet The clear shrill and exalted Voice of Divine Truth is Luc. 17. 24. as the Lightning that with the Thunder shineth from one end of the Heaven and that shineth to the other end of Heaven and brings forth the Day of the Son of Man which the Antichristian Kingdom trembles at and is shiver'd by as by the stroke of Thunder But written and seal'd are oppos'd in this Prophecy as immediate coming to pass and reserv'd to come to pass hereafter are oppos'd one to the other There is a Recognition and Renewal of the Oath of Christ concerning Time Times Half-Time Dan. 12. 9. Indeed the Front and Aspect of the Oath there is turn'd another way for then it was directed upon these Times as to come and the Oath is They shall be here it points upon them as past and Christ swears Time shall be no more but till the seventh Trumpet and then all should be finish'd spoken by the Prophets of his Kingdom which is such a Mystery the World will not believe however told them They are angry whenever Christ takes his Power to him and reigns and much more angry at Rev. 11. 18. any mention of it before hand at any unlocking or reading viz. interpreting Prophecy concerning it But Christ swears There shall be no more Time Or no Kalendar of any Kingdom but his own at the seventh Trumpet it shall then immediately succeed and be proclaim'd Till then Time is allowed for the thunders to remain seal'd Then they shall be opened And if the Thunders had not been sealed before the Oath the Oath had cut off that Time also but because the half Time cannot be less then it self The Thunders remain seal'd neither more nor less than the half Time So it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Time but only a half Time and a whole Time could be no more 4. The eating the Book It s being sweet in the Mouth and bitter in the Belly and prophecying again signifie altogether the retirement of Christs Kingdom anew into Prophecy in place of present Accomplishment and of that Kingdom then appearing For therefore was Its sweet in the Mouth because the Discourse of that Kingdom as in the Voice of Thunder was exceeding sweet as importing its present Appearance But the Discourse of it as matter of Prophecy and the Re-absconding it to that purpose into the Belly was exceeding bitter as signifying its Delay and Secrecy for longer time yet as Belly imports secretly Whereas therefore the Book in regard of the half-season ended was opened as if then to be accomplish'd and the things written in it to be finished It s remanding into the Belly of the Prophet concludes its delay and this was bitter The Book therefore was sweet in any presence bitter in any Delays of the Kingdom The Kingdom is not to be yet while the half day lasts It must be when that ends in the seventh Trumpet therefore it remains in Prophecy And of the Servants of God continuing to Prophecy in Sack cloth because of the delay of Christs Kingdom and to prophecy again before many Peoples and Nations and Tongues and Kings whom this Kingdom concerns John is here the Representative the prophetical Scheme or Symbol For this Prophecy is unto and so before many who will not vouchsafe to hearken or attend to it yet it is unto them before them and will take hold of them But while the Book is in Prophecy in the Belly It is Bitter and the Witnesses prophecy in Sackcloth So John Personates or Proxies for them The sealing then of the Thunders as also the Voice of the Roar of the Lion by implication retiring the Eating of the open Book or returning it into Prophecy Argue It must remain in Prophecy as it had done the whole Time of the Trumpets after the Seals opened because of the 144000 seal'd and that the Kingdom did not appear when it had in the Christian Emperours made so loud a claim And now by the Thunders utterances a so publick challenge of its Right yet it must return again into Prophecy and be Bitter in the Belly All these are the clear and evident Importance of these Symbols in a due compare of the Parts of this Prophecy between themselves And if we look not only into History but Knowledge it cannot be denyed but that the Kingdom of Christ hath not yet appear'd in Glory The blessed Effects of Christian Religion The great Prophecies concerning those Effects that even swell the Womb of Prophecy have not yet been brought forth The Antichristianism the Bestianism the Apostle Paul the Apostle Pet. Epist 2. c. 2. c. 3. Peter the Apostle John especially in his Apocal. describes hath yet a too sad Interest in the Christian World Mahometanism covers a great part of the habitable Earth and till very lately as in signification of the Time of Christ's Kingdom to be proclaim'd near at hand hath been the Scourge and Terror of Christianity but more particularly as according to this Prophecy of the Antichristianity of East and West and holds a very considerable part of the Profession of it under Slavery Pagaism we know possesses except obstinately blind interspers'd Judanism the rest of the World All which must remove at Christ's Kingdom And if we consider the State of Christianity more Reformed to it self to speak in the Language and Symbols of this Prophecy There are very great Parts of the Reformation that are within the Bowels of the yet Antichristian Princes and so within the Dition and Kingdom of the Beast when ever it pleases God to give scope to that Power They are all manner of ways persecuted and harrass'd even as the Succession or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Church of Thyatyra were to be and their last Works and Sufferings thereby became more than their First Rev. 2. 19. c. and are so far from being perfectly risen and out of Sack-cloth that they make an appearance of the Witnesses again Hungary France slain as in Neighbour Countries of