Cabbalists that saying of R. Moses Corduero will evince Quando Neschamah exit in hunc mundum duas Aves id est duos Angelos custodes ex arbore volitare cum ea And Tertullian himself briefly and smartly Omnis Spiritus ales est hoc Angeli Daemones Every Spirit is a Fowle or Bird whether they be Angels or Devils CHAPTER XX. HItherto none of the Visions of the Opened Book have reached any further than to the last Vial which takes up the forepart of the Philadelphian Interval To which Church it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou hast a little Army so Grotius Which Army is that which is under the Command of that victorious Heros on the White Horse And the effect of his victory will make good what Christ promises to the Philadelphian Church Behold I will make them of the Synagogue of Sathan which say they are Iews that is Christians and are not but the slaves of Antichrist Behold I will make them come and worship before thy feet The residue of the Visions of the Opened Book take up the following part of the Philadelphian Interval and the whole Laodicean and so reacheth to the end of all Or for more distinctness it takes up the space of the six last Thunders as the effusion of the Vials did the first 1. And I saw an Angel come down from Heaven whose Commission therefore must be from God having the key of the bottomless pit the supposed habitation or prison rather of Evil Spirits And the having the Key thereof signifies the having Power and Authority to do things there For the very Kingdom of the Devil is subject to the Power of God And a great chain in his hand which is the Power of Legislation or making Laws as some as to the sense well though not so critically derive Lex à ligando which are bonds and iron chains to tye up the wicked from doing mischief By this Angel therefore according to the Apocalyptick stile after the abolishing the Antichristian and Infidel Power are those persons understood that are impowered from God to make Laws for the more sure support of the recovered Kingdom of Christ. 2. And he said hold on the Dragon that Old Serpent which is the Devil and Satan that is the surviving wicked Ones of the Earth for whom the Dragon the Old Serpent and the Devil is here put as the Angel before for those Evangelical Legislators And the Dragon is here explained by the Devil and Old Serpent that the sense might not be restrained to the remainder of Pagans but reach also to those of the Antichristian Party now subdued which were the two-horned and ten-horned Beast to whom the Dragon yet gave his power By these express severe Laws touching the indispensable duties of a Christian not insignificant trifles and superstitions is the Dragon that is the wicked ones of what denomination soever to be laid hold on This is the constitution of the New Polity after the abolishing of the Antichristian Tyranny where it was more safe to serve the Devil and Antichrist than to approve a mans self the faithful Servant of Christ. This Constitution of things being setled which is dispatched within the space of the second Thunder then it follows And bound him a thousand years which is the Time of the third Thunder and of the blessed Millennium properly so called Which reaches to the end of the Philadelphian Interval 3. And cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set a seal upon him that he deceive the Nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled Therefore during the happy Millennium of the Reign of Christ he is as close a prisoner as can be imagined or expressed Which is a demonstration this Millennium is not yet come The Parable is of the Devil but so as to be understood of his Children here on Earth that they shall be kept under with iron or adamantine chains of rigid severe and inviolable Laws nor be permitted to do any thing that is really Profane Wicked or Antichristian nor to tempt or seduce others to do it They shall have no publick permission or connivance for such things And after that he must be loosed a little season namely in the Laodicean Interval the Evangelical Party growing more coole and remiss and the Church degenerating in many from the state of Philadelphia to that of Laodicea of whom Christ complains in his Epistle to her This loosing of Satan is conceived for order and distinctness sake to happen under the fourth Thunder 4. And I saw Thrones and they sate upon them and Iudgment was given unto them This Vision runs back as it was usual in the former to do and commenceth with the second Thunder Then were there Judges sitting upon Thrones and they gave judgement touching the Christian Confessors and Martyrs whether under Antichrist or the Red Dragon as follows And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Iesus and for the Word of God * And I saw also those which had not worshipped the Beast nor his Image neither had received his Mark upon their foreheads or in their hands Of these two distinct sorts it is said in common 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they lived as being true of them both and reigned with Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not a thousand years but the thousand year viz. of the blessed Millennium but it is not said where and therefore it is to be understood the Martyrs in Heaven where Christ is personally and visibly present the other with their Successours on Earth where Christ is also present but by his Spirit these in bodies Terrestrial those Revivificated into their bodies Coelestial and Glorified an early priviledge peculiar to the Martyrs And therefore it follows 5. But the rest of the dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lived not again much less were thus revivificated as the Martyrs were till the thousand years were finished Where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being made use of and it being unproper to be said of the Confessours with those that succeed them they being considered as alive on Earth must needs respect those that are said to have been beheaded to insinuate their priviledge or different condition from all others and that though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might be truly said of them as being they that were to be revived into their glorified bodies at the beginning of the Millennium yet it was not to be said of any other men it not being to be fulfilled of them until the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till the thousand years of the Millennium be expired nay till the end of the Laodicean Interval under the sixth Thunder This is the first Resurrection This namely of the Martyrs according to the Opinion of the Primitive Fathers and that intimation to the Church of Smyrna Chap. 2. vers 11. when so many Christian Martyrs suffered He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death as to whom
of them though in a Prophetick stile yet in the entrance of the Prophecies represent Things or Times partly past and partly present neither of which are the proper objects of Prophecy when S t John was in Patmos and therefore so far are rather an History than Prophecy though disguised or adorned with Prophetick Iconismes and consequently that that little snip of time the Ephesine Interval contains though an History rather than an Epistle may as well be set down in an Epistolar form as the other in a Prophetical These things I say being considered the using this form of an Epistle to the Ephesine succession that it might keep conformity with the rest the usefulness of which Epistolar forms I have declared in my Prophetical Exposition of the Seven Churches is not only tolerable but very fit and commendable And yet this is not all that I have to say For being there was a Real Church in Ephesus in S t John 's time which according to the literal sense of these Epistles might be concerned therein and that there is also a Moral use and sense of them according to which they may be applicable to this or that state of any particular Church of Christ in any particular Place or Age of the World so richly usefull is the contrivance of this holy writing for the edification of the Church of Christ though the main be the Prophetical design as to the illustration and Confirmation of his Providence over his Church and that the Vision of the Seven Churches is a Prophecy properly so called I have by no less than twenty Arguments confirmed in my Exposition of the Seven Churches this Epistolar Form I say to the Ephesine succession is not only tolerable fit and commendable but altogether necessary Which things though I have sufficiently noted and confirmed in my said Exposition of the Seven Churches yet I thought fit to give an hint of them here that no man unawares may stumble as is said at the very threshold CHAPTER II. 1. UNto the Angel of the Church of Ephesus write that is to the Bishops and Pastors c. of the Ephesine succession of the Church which begins with the beginning of the Church of Christ and ends in the tenth year of Nero * whose name bears with it the signification of its condition These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand and walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks And he salutes you under the Title of this part of his former Representation that you may run the race more chearfully that now is begun he going along with you even to the end thereof He supports comforts and guides all the seven successions of the Bishops and Pastors of the Church that labour in the Word and Doctrine and is in the midst of all the seven successions of the Church throughout all Ages minding their Conversation and assisting them that are true of heart even to the end of the world 2. I know thy works thy labour and thy patience and how thou canst not bear them which are evil I know your works and approve of your labour industry and patience and commend you for that loathing and detestation you have of lewd and wicked men And thou hast tryed them that say they are Apostles and are not and hast found them lyars That also I commend that you can sift and try such as pretend to be sent from me and to be Apostles and are not but are Lyars and Deceivers mere Impostors and Counterfeits 3. And hast born and hast patience and for my names sake hast laboured and hast not fainted I commend you for this your first great fervency and desire of enlarging my Church or Kingdom and bearing patiently all crosses and difficulties you meet with in the carrying on the work and for your not fainting under so great pains and travail 4. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thée because thou hast left thy first Love There is not that earnestness of affection for me as at the first nor fervency and zeal for the enlargement of my Kingdom but you are more cold and remiss 5. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent and do the first works that is act with that constancy fervency and sincerity you did before Or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place except thou repent that is I will raise such a tempest of Persecution against the Church that she will not be able to keep her place but be shaken and driven with the violence thereof This you must expect unless you repent 6. But this thou hast that thou hatest the déeds of the Nicolaitans which I also hate This was yet the priviledge of this Ephesine Interval of the Church that she was not then tainted with the lusts of that filthy Sect of the Nicolaitans which the soul of Christ so abhors 7. He that hath an ear let him hear what the spirit saith unto the Churches in these Prophetical Parables For it is of great concern and edification for them to consider and understand them through all the successions of the Churches that what is recommended they may follow and eschew the contrary at all times To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life which is in the midst of the paradise of God that is he that overcometh through his much labour and pains he shall be refreshed with the food of the Tree of Life and for his patience and sufferings enjoy a Paradise of pleasure in Heaven 8. And unto the Angel of the Church of Smyrna write To the Bishops and Pastors c. of the Smyrnean succession of the Church which reaches from the end of the Ephesine succession to about the three hundred twenty fourth year of Christ * and bears the signification of its condition in its name write to them thus These things saith the first and the last which was dead and is alive Who salutes you therefore with this part of his former Representation as his most proper Title here for an encouragement in the bloody persecuting times you are in For if you dye Martyrs you shall as assuredly be alive again as I am that was once Martyred and Crucified And I am the First and the Last and will make my Church hold out to the End and stand Conquerour in the Field 9. I know thy works and tribulation and poverty but thou art rich I know how you are destitute of all the comforts of life and conflict with the greatest necessities but yet ye are really rich full of Christian patience and meekness and of invincible courage amidst all the dangers of death And I know the blasphemie of them that say they are Iews and are not but are the Synagogue of Satan That say they are Christians and are not for so Iews signifies in the Apocalyptick stile and so by their dastardliness and perfidiousness blaspheme and
against all gainsayers and hast never behaved thy self otherwise than becomes a sound and faithfull Christian and such as is resolved never to dishonour that Profession or Name 9. Behold I will make them of the Synagogue of Satan which say they are Iews and are not but do lye Behold I will make them that are the Synagogue of the Devil for their pride falsities and murderous cruelties and yet call themselves Iews that is Christians nay Holy Church the Type as above being used for the Antitype but are so far from being so that really they are but Pseudochristians or rather the Synagogue of Antichrist who under pretence of professing Christ do most wickedly oppose him by nulling his Laws and barbarously murthering his true and faithfull Subjects for not committing Idolatry and other abominations they would force upon them whereby it is manifest though they call themselves Holy Church and Christians they are counterfeits and lyars Behold I will make them to come and worship before thy féet and to know that I have loved thée Behold I will make them to come instead of kissing the Popes Slipper to worship before thy feet to be subjected unto thee and to do thee homage And to acknowledge how much I have loved thee and set thee above all the other Princes of the Earth 10. Because thou hast kept the word of my patience I also will kéep thée from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the Earth Because thou hast showen all along such invincible meekness and patience in maintaining my cause and undaunted faithfulness in that great confusion commotion and temptation under the last Vial which shall come upon all the world to try the Inhabitants of the Earth I will keep thee and protect thee and thou shalt be safe and victorious in all 11. Behold I come quickly Even in this last Vial into which thou art already entred Hold that fast which thou hast that no man take thy Crown Thou art a Church after my own hearts desire O Philadelphia nor do I accuse thee of any thing thou carriest thy self with that integrity and sincerity only hold fast to that perfection thou hast attained that thou mayst not be deprived of the Crown I intend for thee For in thee shall be accomplished all the glorious Promises concerning my Kingdome upon Earth 12. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the Temple of my God and he shall go no more out To you that overcome to you it shall be given to be Pillars in the Temple of my God you shall be an holy fixt and stable People the true holy Catholick Church that shall never fail but shall endure till I come in the clouds to judgement at the last day All other forms and denominations shall perish but this shall obtain the Dominion unto the end And I will write upon him the name of my God and the name of the City of my God which is New Ierusalem which cometh down out of Heaven from my God and I will write upon him my new Name And on these lasting Pillars shall the Name of my God be written and the new Nature in you shall be visible and legible as it were to all how heavenly it is and Divine and how you are really that Church represented by the City in Ezechiel which is called Iehovah Shammah God is there For your conversation will be such that every man will be ready to say God is amongst you of a truth and that you are really as well as called the New Ierusalem which cometh down out of Heaven from my God And lastly I will write upon you my New Name not the Morning Star but the Bright Morning Star or that newly purchased Title in the Battle where the Beast and False Prophet are taken and cast into a lake burning with brimstone and the rest slain with the sword of him that sate on the White Horse which sword cometh out of his mouth viz. the Title of King of Kings and Lord of Lords For it is then that you shall be the greatest Empire upon Earth 13. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches 14. And unto the Angel of the Church in Laodicea write Unto the Bishops and Pastors especially and the charge under them in the Laodicean succession which reaches from the fourth Thunder till Christ visibly appear in the clouds of Heaven * and whose name denotes the nature thereof write thus These things saith the Amen the faithfull and true witness in whom all the Promises are Yea and Amen Whose faithfulness is seen in bringing to pass the Philadelphian Estate that marvellous purity and external prosperity of that succession of the Church and therefore we are to believe his Promises of the Eternal Felicity he reminds us of in this A Blessed Immortality after this Life and his visible coming to judge the quick and the dead and his putting an end to this Terrestrial Scene though in this declining Age of the Church in the Laodicean succession some may be too slow to believe it And therefore these Titles of assuredness and veracity are here used And he is called a Faithful Witness also because he so impartially witnesses of the State of the Laodiceans and does not flatter them The beginning of the Creation of God It may be well understood of the New Creation or Constitution of things under the Gospel which he having carried on all along hitherto according to Prophecy and Prediction he is the more certainly and readily to be believed in this last Catastrophe of things Or taking the beginning of the Creation of God with an higher reference to that Title of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which respects his Divinity or the Eternal Logos without whom nothing was made or created Then the importance of of it is this That as sure as he made this Earth this habitable round world so we may be as sure that he both can by the same power and also will destroy it again in this Laodicean succession by a final Conflagration taking vengeance of the wicked and resetling all true Believers in an Eternal State of Glory 15. I know thy works that thou art neither cold nor hot But that you are careless formal luke-warm Christians Thou retainest indeed still the external form of the Philadelphian Church as to Doctrine and Worship but thou art destitute of that Spirit of Life in the New Birth which was the proper character of thy deceased Sister Philadelphia I would thou wert cold or hot For though it be not better in it self to be quite cold yet it were for thee that thou mightest the more easily be convinced of thine own wants and by repentance and mortification enter into the state of Regeneration and be made partaker of my Spirit 16. So then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot I will spew thée out of my mouth I will
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
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-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
the Sardian Church to repent of and to stand upon their watch lest the judgement of God suddenly surprize them before they be aware Apoc. 3.3 A fifth Usefulness of our Exposition is in reference to the Jews for the facilitating their before in Jesus the true Messias For that perverse Objection of theirs against the Messias having been already come above sixteen hundred years ago seeing such gross Idolatry and bloody persecution has been so long a time in the Church against those men that have had the most Conscience touching the Purity of Gods Worship and the greatest Zeal against Idolatry This Objection I say is easily answered out of our Exposition of the Apocalypse that these things are no otherwise than the True Messias has predicted they would be whence the Argument is retorted against themselves that it is the greater Demonstration that Jesus is the True Messias and not only this but moreover which is the chiefest of all That all things predicted in the Apocalypse from the beginning of the Church to this day have exactly come to pass which is a pledge of Christs veracity touching the future state of the Church that is That this bloody and Idolatrous Hierarchy will be put an end to and that both Jew and Gentile will become One Fold under One Shepherd Jesus the True Messias namely at the descending of the New Jerusalem out of Heaven from God in which will be accomplished al the Glorious Promises of God touching his Church predicted by the mouths of his Holy Prophets Which cannot but be a full Answer to this Objection of the Jews The sixth is a particular Usefulness for the undeceiving the Fifth-Monarchy-Men as they are called and any others that are inclinable to such Opinions as they are of viz. That upon the Rising of the Witnesses a Fifth Monarchy must be erected in which Jesus Christ is personally to Reign with the revived Martyrs in the Millennium here upon Earth and that the way to these Times is to be made by the Sword For according to our Exposition the Witnesses are already risen in the late Reformation and the Time of the One thousand two hundred and sixty dayes expired that no watch-word may be taken to any Tumults from any such indication of Time But the most certain sign of the downfall of Antichrist will be the raising again in the Reformed Churches a sincere and fervent Zeal after Truth and Holiness hearty Love and Amity amongst themselves and a Conversation unspotted and unexceptionable and such as will convince their very Adversaries that they are in good earnest Christians and demonstrate their faith by their works and that they have not shaken off the Yoke of the Pope to serve themselves or to turn Slaves to their own Lusts but to be the Faithful Servants of him that redeemed them out of that House of Bondage If this were seriously minded in the Reformed Churches and due discipline kept up to that purpose the Papacy would melt away like a bank of snow in the summer-sun or consume as the fat of Lambs as the Psalmist speaks yea even as the smoak would they consume away And as for any Fifth Monarchy in which Jesus Christ shall visibly and personally Reign as the Monarch thereof or any one else as an Universal Monarch over all those many and large Kingdoms that shall then be Christian that the Fifth-Monarchy-men may not substitute this instead of the other our Exposition is not at all favourable to any such conceit as neither to that of the Reign of the revived Martyrs upon Earth in the blessed Millennium And I am so far from countenancing the Opinion that these Times are to be brought in by the Sword unless it be by the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God that that most dismal Prophecy Chap. 14. vers 20. where it is said that blood came out of the Wine-press even unto the horse bridles by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs and that Prophecy of the battel of that Great Day of God Almighty Chap. 16. and the other of the rider of the white horse Chap. 19. where the Fowles of the Air are called unto the Supper of the great God to eat the flesh of Kings of Captains and of Mighty Men c. that I interpret I say all these not litterally but mystically not of slaying of bodies but of converting and saving of souls And I hope the Reader will be convinced when he considers the places that my interpretation is true The seventh and last Usefulness of my Exposition redounds to the Pontifician party themselves as many as are predisposed to hear plain and evident truth For according to our Exposition which how true it is I have above made good and it will approve it self true to any Intelligent and unprejudiced Reader those that stay in the Communion of the Roman Church when as they should be the faithful Members of Christ they are ipso facto the Members of an Harlot that is of an Idolatrous Church which the stile of the Apocalypse calls the Whore of Babylon And how assured a man can be of his Salvation in such a state I 'le leave to himself to judge Or rather let him hear what the Angel sayes Chap. 18. vers 4. Come out of her my People lest ye partake of her sins and of her plagues As also what another Angels sayes chap. 14. vers 9 10. If any one worship the Beast and his Image and receive his Mark in his forehead or in his hand the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his Indignation and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy Angels and in the presence of the Lamb and the smoak of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever This is the doom of those that forsake not the Communion of the Church of Rome but obey the Two-hundred Idolatrous Beast that has the horns of a Lamb but the voice of a Dragon decreeing gross Idolatries and bloody Persecutions This plain therefore and evident Exposition of the Apocalypse I hope may be an Instrument to bring off those that are any thing well disposed out of those gross and damnable Errours into the way of Saving Truth and keep those more stedfast that are in it For though there will be those and they not a few that will remain obstinate and unconvinced especially of the Roman Hierarchy it self even until the effusion of the last Vial yet there may be many particular gleanings and some larger harvests in the mean time to which so sound and faithful a sense of the Apocalypse as our Exposition exhibits to the Reader may be effectually subservient And truly this one usefulness thereof may very well seem a sufficient compensation for my labours to any sincere lover of the Souls of Men. Wherefore to come to a Conclusion
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
up with all the false Deities and Priests therein as a scrowl of parchment that hides the letters therein contained as it is rolled up And every Mountain and Island were removed out of their places that is their high places where they sacrificed and their Temples divided from other houses for their supposed sacredness were demolished at last by Theodosius 15. And the Kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief captains and the mighty men and every bondman and every fréeman hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains that is all sorts of men from the highest to the lowest were sorely affrighted and dismayed at this terrible storm that came upon the Pagan Hierarchy nor were able to resist the force thereof not Maximianus Galerius not Maxentius not Maximinus with Martinianus Caesar not Licinius nor Iulian the Apostate who all felt the irresistible Power and Wrath of the Lamb and some of them viz. Galerius Maximinus and Licinius their miserable conditions even whether they would or no forced them by open confession to give Glory to God 16. And said to the mountains and rocks Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the Throne and from the wrath of the Lamb like that of Esay 2.20 And they shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth for the fear of the Lord and for the Glory of his Majesty when he ariseth to shake terribly the Earth as he did in this shaking of the Pagan Religion of the Empire and abolishing their Idols 17. For the great day of his wrath is come and who shall be able to stand Not Galerius not Maxentius not Licinius nor Iulian nor the Tyrants Eugenius and Argobastus with all the Power the Pagan party were able to make could stand against this storm of the wrath of the Lamb. So that the Church upon the Conversion of Constantine to the Faith entred into the state of the Pergamenian succession being exalted out of the dust And O that she had not been thereupon exalted so much in her own mind and become the Pergamenian succession in the worst sense that is proud and cruel as well as exalted in Power CHAPTER VII HItherto the first six Seals which are contemporary with the Ephesine and Smyrnean succession and with the forepart of the Pergamenian while the Church was only exalted out of her Smyrnean affliction in which she had been so trod to the ground not yet grown haughty and Antichristian and persecutive of the true members of Christ nor apostatized into gross Superstition and Idolatry as she was after in the far greatest part of the Pergamenian Interval and in all the Thyatirian in both which the eating things offered unto Idols is mentioned which tract of time is equal to the first six Trumpets which together with the seven Thunders fill up the whole space of the seventh Seal Which seven Thunders are put in the place of the seventh Trumpet on purpose that the six first Trumpets may be noted as a more peculiar space of time wherein as vengeance was taken on the Roman Empire by the Incursion of the Barbarous Nations for the persecution of the Primitive Christians so in the mean time a kind of Paganochristianism and Antichristian Power sprung up in the Church and grew to the height I say this being the condition of things under the first six Trumpets the artifice of the following transition from the first six Seals to them is admirable and of grand consideration The hundred forty four thousand sealed and so taken special notice of by Divine Providence intimating that the true Apostolick Church should be still preserved all this time notwithstanding all the incursions and devastations of the Barbarians and all the gross Apostasie Idolatry and Antichristian cruelty from a wickedly degenerated Church against Christs true members that held to the pure Apostolick faith and practice 1. And after these things viz. after the opening the six Seals I saw four Angels standing on the four corners of the Earth holding the four winds of the Earth that is He saw the Ministers of Gods Power in making War and Peace and blusters in the world and that at that time they held all in peace as for any Incursions of the Barbarians into the Empire That the wind should not blow on the Earth nor on the Sea nor on any Tree should not blow down buildings nor cause shipwracks on the sea nor break off branches of trees or tear them up by the root Houses Ships and Trees in analogie signifying Political Fabricks and Constitutions And the Babylonian Kingdom in Daniel is expresly represented by a Tree 2. And I saw another Angel ascending from the East that is from Christ * one of whose Titles is the East having the Seal of the Living God having a Commission from Christ to protect such certain men from the imminent destruction now coming upon the Empire And he therefore cryed with a loud voice to the four Angels to whom it was given to hurt the Earth and the Sea that is to raise tempests of War and Invasion on the Empire 3. Saying Hurt not the earth neither the sea nor the trees that is forbear to bring in those tempests of the Barbarians upon the Empire Till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads That is marked them out for deliverance and protection Which insinuates the assured Providence of Christ over his True Church and living Members of his Body in all that confusion and corruption that would be under the first six Trumpets 4. And I heard the number of them that were sealed which is not numerally to be understood but symbolically noting the condition of the sealed And there were sealed an hundred forty four thousand Which Chiliads or Thousands are Cubical numbers and signifie therefore Stability or Constancy But it is said there were an hundred forty four thousands it being the square number of these Chiliads or Companies of which the Root is Twelve which is the Apostolical number Of all the Tribes of the children of Israel namely the twelve Patriarchs typically or figuratively being put for the twelve Apostles and the children of Israel for the Church of Christ of which the Israelites are here a Type as they are in the Epistle to the Church in Pergamus in which Pergamenian Interval this sealing begins Wherefore briefly by the hundred forty four thousands are meant the faithful constant Apostolick Christians that submitted not to the Tyranny and Idolatry of the Apostatized Church but were preserved pure and safe by Divine Providence during the sounding of the first six Trumpets under which notwithstanding the Empire was broken in pieces and the Tyranny and Idolatry of Antichrist rising and increasing and growing to the height So great was the Providence of God in his preservation and protection of his truly Apostolick Church for all this 5. Of the Tribe of
demonstrated in my Synopsis Prophetica Nor can any man wonder that the Apocalypse affects such high figures as these are if he consider that this is one part of the artifice of Concealment which is so studiously intended in it But if we understand this power given to these Witnesses of the oral denunciation of these Aegyptian plagues that also is very plausible from Jer. 1.10 where God speaks thus to Jeremiah See I have this day set thee over the Nations and over the Kingdoms to root out and to pull down and to destroy and to throw down and to build and to plant Which is not to do these things but to denounce them CHAPTER XII 1. ANd there appeared a great wonder in Heaven a Woman cloathed with the Sun and the Moon under her féet and upon her head a Crown of twelve Stars This is the primitive Apostolick Church before the Apostasie Where being clothed with the Sun signifies her being environed with the pure Light of the Gospel or the Sun of Righteousness communicated to her And her being crowned with twelve Stars denotes that it was her Glory and her Crown that she was not yet degenerated from the True Apostolick Faith and practice nor did as yet either Iudaize or Paganize but trod under-foot both the Carnality of the Judaical Rites whose Feasts and Legal Observances were appointed according to the course of the Moon and also the gross Superstitions and Idolatries of the Pagans which are rightly deemed the works of darkness or of the night of which the Moon is Governess 2. And she being with Child cryed travailing in birth and pained to be delivered These sharp throes signifie the cruel cutting persecutions the Primitive Church was under and the many martyrdoms they did suffer before that promise of Christ was made good to them Fear not little stock for it is my Fathers good pleasure to give you the Kingdom This state therefore of the Church is contemporary with that of the earnest Ephesine and bitter Smyrnean succession and with the inward Court where also stood the Altar of Holocausts betokening the Primitive Christians frequent sacrificing their lives in Testimony to the Truth 3. And there appeared another wonder in Heaven namely while this Woman was thus in travail And behold a great red Dragon that is bloody and cruel having seven Heads and ten Horns on his seventh head suppose but without Crowns to intimate they are not yet in being though the heads be said to be crowned as well the five past and that one to come as the present sixth head the better to understand thereby that they are Men or Magistrates not Hills that are intimated in this place that is the reason it is said And seven Crowns upon his heads 4. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of Heaven and did cast them to the Earth that is his Military Train or Armies had subdued in S t Iohn's time the third part of the Kingdoms and Principalities of the then known world And the Dragon stood before the Woman which was ready to be delivered to devour the Child as soon as it was born The Dragon that is the Roman Empire Pagan known by its seven Heads which allude also to the seven Hills Chap. 17. as well as to the sevenfold succession of Government in it but Pagan in that it is in the shape of a Dragon as being under the Dominion not of Christ but Satan and also because seven Heads are only named and the Horns of the seventh Head yet uncrowned Wherefore this Vision belongs to the Empire while it was yet purely Pagan and the sense of that last clause is briefly this That the Roman Pagan Emperours and their Ministers the Devil assisting watched as close as they could that the Church of Christ never should come to such Power as to have an Emperour of their own Religion and so the Roman Empire come into their hands but so soon as any such thing appeared they endeavoured to quash it and defeat it 5. And she brought forth a Man-child who was to rule all Nations with a rod of Iron But notwithstanding all their envious and malicious watchfulness the Woman brought forth a Man-child a Mystical Christ or Christian People that at last would make themselves Masters of the Empire and Rule the wicked persecutive Pagans with such severity as they deserved which is intimated by what follows And her Child was caught up unto God and to his Throne He was advanced to the Imperial Dignity which is called here the Throne of God in such a sense as Supreme Magistrates are called Elohim Gods in the Hebrew Idiom because they are Gods Vicegerents and Representatives here on Earth whence their Majesty is also called Sacred And this was plainly fulfilled when Constantine turned Christian. The watchfulness therefore of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this quick-sighted vigilant Dragon seems to be contemporary with the Travail of the Woman till she had brought forth a Man-child that might rule all Nations with a Rod of Iron 6. And the Woman fled into the Wilderness But a little after this external prosperity of the Church and deliverance from the present Pagan persecution she was yet fain to take shelter in the wilderness the outward Catholick Church becoming little better in a short time For which reason she is said to fly into the Wilderness being more safe in this Christiano-gentilism than in that open furious oppression of the Pagan red Dragon thought in propriety of speech the desart or Christiano-paganism came swiftly upon her rather than she by any will of her own fled into it but it is a Prophetical Hypallage Where she hath a place prepared of God that they should feed her there The Apostolick Church should be preserved by Gods Providence all the time of this her abode in the Wilderness or Christiano-gentilism namely about the time of a thousand two hundred and threescore dayes Prophetical that is years Or the time and times and half a time as they are afterward called and sometimes resolved into Dayes sometimes into Months for * particular symbolical meanings and for the embellishing of the Cortex of the Apocalypse but to be understood alwayes seven Semitimes in whatever other disguise expressed whether of Dayes or Months These 1260 dayes therefore is the same time with forty two months of the treading down the outward Court by the Gentiles 7. And there was war in Heaven which betokens the like affair to come upon Earth Michael and his Angels fought against the Dragon and the Dragon fought and his Angels which implies the invisible assistances and oppositions of Angels good and bad the one on the Primitive Christians side the other on the Pagan Empires side during that strong conflict betwixt the Church and the Pagans their persecutors in the Ephesine and Smyrnean succession with which the pangs of the Woman in travail also is contemporary 8. And the Dragon and his Angels prevailed not that
she has glorified her self and lived deliciously that is magnified her self or boasted of her self and lived pompously and luxuriously so much torment and sorrow give her Fill to her a cup as full of vexation and grief For she saith in her heart I sit as a Queen Thus she might say in the Thyatirian Interval before the Reformation or Rising of the Witnesses but whether she will be in that case to say so again that will happen according as the Reformed Churches shall behave themselves And am no Widow But the Bride of the Lamb the Spouse of Christ the only Holy Catholick Church the rest that call themselves Christians a company of Schismaticks and Hereticks nor worthy to breath on Gods Earth but to be massacred and burnt with fire and fagot And shall see no sorrow Thus I say might she boast in the Thyatirian Interval And if by the demerits of the Reformed Churches she ever recover unto that plight again yet the great doom will certainly at last be executed upon her as it is set down in the next verse 8. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day unexpectedly and contrary to her boastful presages Death and Mourning and Famine This Roman Hierarchy shall be Politically killed devested of all Power and Authority From whence will naturally flow Mourning and Famine grief of heart with scarcity and poverty to requite their luxury before The word Famine is used in allusion to scarcity of provision in besieged Cities And she shall be utterly burnt with fire The Roman Idolatrous Hierarchy shall be quite destroyed and abolished Then shall that in the highest degree be fulfilled which is written Chap. 17. vers 16. They shall make her desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire For strong is the Lord God that judgeth her And there is neither wisdom strength nor counsel against the Almighty 9. And the Kings of the Earth who have committed Fornication and have lived deliciously with her that is have been of the same Idolatrous profession with her and have lived luxuriously with her it being with them like Priest like people even to the highest Priest and highest of the people Shall bewail her and lament for her when they shall see the smoke of her burning This Idolatrous Church having accommodated their Religion to the gusto of great men it is no wonder that some of the Kings of Princes of the Earth bewail her burning 10. Standing afar off for fear of her torment saying Alas alas that great City Babylon that mighty City for in one hour is thy judgement come But though her judgement be come in one hour yet the execution of it may take up a considerable time And this description belongs as well to the time of the Rising of the Witnesses as to the latter Vials and especially the last of all 11. And the Merchants of the Earth shall wéep and mourn over her As if the Merchants of the Earth were so much concerned for Rome literally understood and could not as conveniently traffick elsewhere and buy the following commodities as well if not better in other places Wherefore the Merchants of the Earth as I noted above are Ecclesiastick or Spiritual Persons which in reproach to their worldliness in their pretended Holy and Spiritual Functions are here called the Merchants of the Earth For no man buyeth her Merchandise any more The usual traffick in the Roman Church where all is supposed to pass or to be disposed of for money or Earthly Interest now ceaseth sith she her self ceaseth and is devested of all her Power and Wealth Therefore no man buyeth her Merchandise any more 12. No Merchandise of gold and silver and precious stones and of pearles and fine linnen and purple and silk and scarlet the rich attire of those higher parts of the Whore as you may see in the foregoing Chapter fit for Popes Cardinals and other great Personages of that Babylonish Body and their Officers No Thyine wood for the roof of their Temples or for carved Idols to whom sacrifice is done for I suspect some such allusion in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no Incense for Burnt-offerings for their adored Images * No Images or other utensils of Ivory precious Wood Brass Iron or Marble which in the Text are called all manner vessels of Ivory and all manner vessels of most precious wood and of brass and iron and marble 13. No Cinnamon and odours and ointments and frankincense and wine and oyl and fine flower and wheat and beasts and sheep and horses and chariots and slaves and the souls of men No traffick any longer in Aromatick Odours Oiles or Ointments for sacred Unctions No man will participate any longer of her Panis benedictus nor taste of her Idol Wafer made of the finest flower nor sip of the Wine of her chalice though she would offer it to the lips of the Laity For their Idolatrous Mass shall cease and the besprinkling of Sheep and other Cattle with holy Water by the Friars of S t Antony and all other profits issuing from them shall cease also and the redemption of Souls out of purgatory for money And lastly the merchandise of Chariots Horses and Slaves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which alone being in the genitive case they go together as one commodity that is the Merchandise of such dignities in their Church as whose Equipage it is to go with their Coach and Horses and Lacqueyes to run by them this amongst the rest will fail in the ruine and desolation of Babylon 14. And the fruits that thy soul lusteth after are departed from thee and all things that were dainty and goodly are departed from thee and thou shalt find them no more at all These great and opime preferments and dignities which thy ambitious and worldly mind so longingly hanker'd after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those fat and fair objects that make their mouths run a water so in this full Babylonish market where every thing is to be had for money and nothing without it all these are vanished never to appear again 15. The Merchants of these things whether buyers or sellers which were made rich by her shall stand afar off for fear of her torment being solicitous for themselves nor able to help her weeping and wailing 16. And saying Alas alas that great City that great Hierarchical Polity that was cloathed in fine linnen and purple and scarlet and decked with gold and precious stones and pearles the very habit of the Whore above described Chap. 17. and not a City of Stone and Brick 17. For in one hour so great riches are come to nought The sense is such as in Verse 10. And every ship-master and all the company in ships and saylers and as many as trade by Sea stood afar off If we consider what Sea signifies in the Prophetick stile the multitudes of men upon Earth we shall not much be at a loss to understand * what is intimated by Ships namely
Miracles and Kainish Persecutors had they but Power and in the mean time gross Idolaters and either lovers of lying Legends or Inventours of them These unclean Birds are kept out of the New Ierusalem but have their dismal haunts in the rubbish and ruines of the demolished Babylon as has been observed above 16. I Iesus have sent my Angel to testifie unto you these things in the Churches alluding to the Churches in Asia which signifie the whole succession of the truly Catholick and Apostolick Church to the end of the world The Churches therefore for whose use this Book was written are the Churches in Smyrna Pergamus Thyatira Sardis Philadelphia and Laodicea The whole Book of the Apocalypse is as it were an Epistle to them all as they are concerned in their several Successions Which passage is a farther confirmation of the Prophetical sense of the Epistles to the seven Churches in Asia I am the Root and the Off-spring of David * Which may denote his Divinity and Humanity as also his being the Off-spring or Son of David the true Messias his Right to the Kingdoms of the Earth as it is foretold in the second Psalm Ask of me and I will give thee the Nations for thine Inheritance and the utmost parts of the Earth for thy possession And therefore because of the greatness and glory of his Kingdom it follows And the bright Morning-Star In the Sardian Interval he was onely the Morning-Star here the bright Morning-Star which is a sign this saying glances at the Philadelphian Interval in the commencement thereof under the last Vial which sutes with the saying of S t Iohn in the next Verse 17. And the Spirit and the Bride say Come The Spirit because this is the commencement of those Times that are properly called the Reign of the Spirit by the Cabbalists And the voice of the Bride is added as a Testimony of the Churches desire of the settlement of things into the Glorious Condition of the New Ierusalem upon the destruction of the blood-drunken Idolatrous Babylon And let him that heareth say Come that is Let him pray for the acceleration of so glorious a settlement of things And then our Saviour speaks for this latter part of the Chapter from vers 10. to the end is a kind of Dialogue as both Peganius and Grotius have observed And let him that is athirst come that is He that sincerely hungers and thirsts after Righteousness And whosoever will that is whosoever has a Will and Desire let him take the waters of Life freely Let him enjoy the happy priviledge of this Living City of God and so grow up in all true Holiness and Godliness in Communion of the Spirit This priviledge shall he enjoy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gratis or freely without money as the Prophet speaks 18. For I testifie unto every man that heareth the words of the Prophecy of this Book If any one shall add unto these things Interpreters and not without reason take this to be a commination to terrifie men from being so negligent as to let any Errata slip into the Copies of this Book of Prophecies where every word was so curiously weighed by the Pen-man thereof or from being so bold as on purpose to alter any thing therein by adding or taking away * But I conceive also there is besides this a 〈◊〉 sense and that it is a prohibition from bringing in their carnal Inventions to add inconsistently with the pure Apostolick Doctrines and Institutes of this City Whosoever would do any such thing God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this Book whether they concern this Life or that which is to come the sulphurous lake of fire which is the second Death 19. And if any man will take from the words of the Book of this Prophecy and be faint-hearted or of little or no Faith and contend there never will be such an Excellent State of the Church upon Earth God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life and out of the Holy City and from the things that are written in this Book He shall never be able to enter into the blessed New Ierusalem state by reason of his unbelief 20. He that testifieth these things saith Surely I come quickly that is for the fulfilling of the Visions of the first six Seals and what contemporizeth with them to assist his Church and support them in their Smyrnean Affliction and to defeat the Enemy under the sixth Seal To which Saint Iohn answers Amen Even so Come Lord Iesus This was seasonable for Saint Iohn to say in his time in reference to Christs Coming to subvert the Power of the old Dragon and abolish Paganical Idolatry and Tyranny As it was also in the Pergamenian and Thyatirian Intervals for the oppressed and afflicted Church to say in respect of his coming to judge the Great Whore the pagano-Pagano-christian Hierarchy who had been drunk with the blood of the Saints and with the blood of the Martyrs of Jesus And in the Sardian that he would consummate the Judgement begun to be executed on the false Prophet who is perfectly to be consumed under the seventh Vial. And lastly in the Laodicean Interval it will be again very seasonable by reason of the inclining of things again to worse to pray Come Lord Iesus come quickly to that general judgement when Death shall be swallowed up into Victory and all the Saints shall be translated into the incorruptible state of heavenly Bliss and Glory And this whole Book of Prophecies being as it were one entire Epistle Monitory to the Church of God throughout all Ages of the world as there is mention Vers. 16. of witnessing these things to the Churches in Asia no doubt that is over the face of the whole Earth and successively through all Ages or Intervals from Saint Iohn's time to the end of the world Smyrnean Pergamenian Thyatirian Sardian Philadelphian and Laodicean This whole Book I say being such a general Monitory Epistle it is but sutable that he conclude with that usual form of valediction in the Epistles of the Apostles 21. The Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ be with you all Amen NOTES CHAPTER XXII Vers. 16. Which may denote his Divinity and Humanity c. This any one that firmly believes the Divinity of Christ and that he is the Eternal Logos united with the Humane Nature will easily admit to be suggested here though Grotius is content to understand no more by Radix Davidis than Surculus Davidis and I must confess that according to the use of the Hebrew word Radix is sometimes the same with Surculus But being that Root ordinarily signifies that from which another grows not that which grows from another and that this sense here is both true and more ample and sublime and therefore more sutable to the Genius of the Apocalypse I thought it was more probable to be meant here as also in the fifth Chapter And generally the Ancients go
neither the one hundred forty four thousand sealed Ones are the same individual persons continuing all the space of time near one thousand two hundred and sixty years nor the Two-horned Beast some one particular Witch or Magician nor the Two Witnesses two particular persons as R. H. with his litteral sense would have all these expounded but all of them successions of such and such Bodies or Companies of Men for such a space of time together And before we go any further let us observe of those Synchronals we have noted hitherto what either correspondent opposition or else close cognation or identity they have one with another which is a further marvellous confirmation of their Synchronizing That the Two-horned Beast and the Whore signifie one and the same thing and that the Ten-horned Beast Chap. 13. and the Ten-horned Beast Chap. 17. are one and the same Beast I have noted already and the cognation of the one two with the other two is apparent the former being the Ecclesiastical part of the Roman Empire and more particularly the Roman Hierarchy as appears by the Name and Number of the Two-horned Beast and the Seven Hills the seat of the Whore for which Rome is most remarkable as also that it is the City that ruled over the Kings of the Earth in S t Iohn's time according to the Interpretation of the Angel and the latter the Secular part of the Roman Empire debauched chiefly by the Roman Hierarchy with gross Pagan-like Superstition and Idolatry And the Secular and Ecclesiastick part together thus Paganizing in a new Mode are the Gentiles that tread under foot the Holy City or Outer Court of the Temple till the seventh Semitime of the forty two Prophetical months that is till the Rising of the Witnesses And these are the Synchronals of the debauched part of the Roman Empire for this time But the Apostolick Church never failed notwithstanding in this Apostasie This sincere part therefore that run in correspondent opposition to the former are set out by The Woman viz. crowned with twelve Stars to denote her Apostolicalness though now in the Wilderness The two Witnesses prophesying in Sackcloth The Servants of God sealed in their foreheads The bodies of the Witnesses lying dead three dayes and an half and unburied which showes that the Apostolick Christians though in being could not be a Living Body Politick that is invested with Open Power and Rule during the seven half-dayes or semitimes of the Beast till they were in the seventh Semitime expiring As the two mournful Witnesses could only protest and witness against the cruel Idolatrous proceedings of the Beast and denounce the judgements of God against them but proceed no further For that the three dayes and an half of their bodies lying unburied is the same with the one thousand two hundred and sixty dayes of their mournful Prophecy is plain from hence that else no war was made against them nor they either Politically or Naturally slain till the last three years and an half of their prophesying whenas they were Politically slain all the while and some hundred thousands of them in a Natural sense slain at times some by the sword others by fire and faggot c. Which is a demonstration that the three dayes and an half must be understood in the same sense that three times and an half or one thousand two hundred and sixty dayes The Virgin Company also by their avowed and resolved Virginity was a perpetual reproach to the Whore of Babylon and the one hundred forty four thousand marked with the Lambs Name and the name of his Father in their forehead are in an apparent opposition to the marked slaves of the two-horned Beast And this being the state of the Roman Empire for about something more than four hundred years after Christ till the seventh Semitime was expiring it is no wonder that the Judgements of God thundered upon them under the sounding of the six first Trumpets and that at the beginning of their sounding one hundred forty four thousand Servants of God are marked to save them both from these Judgements and also from the debauchings of the Two-horned Beast or Whore of Babylon which signifies that God would preserve to himself a pure Apostolick Church notwithstanding all the Calamities Persecutions and gross Superstitions and Idolatries raging in the Empire And conformable to the account of this period of time are the Pergamenian and Thyatirian Intervals For during eight parts of nine of the Pergamenian Interval and all the Thyatirian was this Pagan-like Superstitious and Idolatrous State of the Church and there is express mention of the Idolothyta in both those Intervals but in none else and the persecuting the Pure Christians by the sword in one and by fire and faggot in the other is plainly made out in our Exposition So admirably do the Visions correspond belonging to this Time and State of the Roman Empire which the Angels Interpretation hath pitched upon So that there is all the assuredness of the truth of the thing hitherto that Humane Reason can desire and that the middle Synchronals are to be expounded in such a sense as I have expounded them in my Exposition of the Apocalypse But let us now proceed and see how the Antemedial Synchronals will sute with the Times which they necessarily run into for that they all precede these middle Synchronals and so Synchronize one with another has been plainly proved in my Defence of M r Mede which Antemedial Synchronals are The six first Seals immediately preceding the six first Trumpets The Inner Court which is the Court of the Temple and the Altar symmetral or commensurate The Woman clothed with the Sun and crowned with twelve Stars not yet gone into the Wilderness and The fight of Michael with the Dragon while this Woman is in travail These are the Antemedial Synchronals and therefore all of them necessarily run into the Primitive Times of the Church before its Apostasie and reach up to its very first beginning as soon as the Church assisted by the promised aids of Christ after his ascending to his Father began to propagate his Kingdom There was the beginning of the parturient state of the Woman whose throes were great and sharp till Constantines Time and the Dragon spued out a flood after her while she was making into the Wilderness that flood of Contention about the Arrian Points Here I will appeal to R. H. or any man else living what a fit resemblance the sharp throes of the Woman is of those fierce resistances and cruel persecutions the Church of Christ found in preaching his Gospel and in their endeavouring to enlarge his Kingdom And how naturally the conflict betwixt Christianity and the Old Roman Paganism is expressed by the Fight of Michael with the Seven-headed Dragon And how significative the Inner-Court that is said to be measured and allowed but the Outer rejected as incommensurable is of the first Ages of the Church not
yet lapsed into those gross Superstitions and Pagan-like Idolatries And lastly for the first six Seals though the Sealed Book-Prophecy respects the Fate and Affairs of the Empire rather than of the Church yet the first Vision viz. of the first Seal namely the Heros on the White Horse I doubt not but it is Christ more particularly guiding and assisting the Apostles and other Agents for the enlarging of his Kingdom in those Times by sending of the Holy Ghost and enabling them to do True Miracles one of the greatest whereof is this Apocalypse written by S t Iohn and the mention of a Bow and a Crown of which the Right was given him denotes him aiming at the possession of the Imperial Crown the making the whole Roman Empire his Church or Kingdom which causing such great mutations in the Empire the fate of the Empire may very well be conceived to be concerned therein The three next Seals how exquisitely they fit with those Times of the Riders of the Red Black and Pale Horses the Exposition makes good and they are in a manner merely touching the Affairs of the Empire though useful also to the Church to know where or in what Times they were and what to expect next But the fifth Seal exhibiting the Souls of the slain under the Altar martyred or sacrificed for their bearing Witness to the Christian Truth is hugely congenerous with the sharp throes of the Womans Child-bearing and the Affairs of the Empire are here also concerned great Calamities being to come upon it for the effusion of this Innocent Blood And lastly that great Earthquake under the sixth Seal which brought the confusion and subversion of the Old Pagan Religion as the Fate of the Empire could not but be concerned therein so also it doth fitly fall in with the Victory of Michael over the Dragon and his casting him down unto the Earth So agreeable are the Primitive Times of the Church to all these Antemedial Synchronals And what is still more admirable we may further observe how exactly the Ephesine and Smyrnean Interval of the Church agree with those Times and with the said Antemedial Synchronals of the Sealed and Opened Book For as in the first Seal the Heros on the White Horse is brought in earnestly aiming with his Bow and Arrow at a Crown the Right of which is given to him so the first Interval of the Church viz. the Ephesine has its name from a Paronomastical Allusion to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that signifies an earnest desire after a thing and in the Smyrnean Interval which with the Ephesine equalizes the Time of the Fight of Michael with the Dragon till his Victory over him under the sixth Seal and is the Interval of the Ten noted Persecutions of the Church it is said to the Church in that Interval Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee the Crown of Life that is the Imperial Crown Constantine turning Christian under the sixth Seal at the expiration of the Smyrnean Interval so called from the bitterness of Persecution in that succession of the Church But the great Encomiums of the Church in those two Intervalls answer handsomly to the Inner Court of the Temple and Altar which is said to be symmetral and allowed and the Altar there to the many Martyrdoms of the Primitive Christians sacrificed for the profession of the Christian Faith in the Smyrnean Interval of the Church So wonderful an harmony is there of these Antemedial Synchronals of all sorts with the History of those Primitive Times and with one another So that it must be mere stupidity or obstinate perverness that hinders any one from assenting to the Truth in this point We have seen what a fit and effectual Key the Interpretation of the Angel has been for the opening the true meaning of all the Antemedial and Medial Visions of the Apocalypse Which since they concern things past the sense of the Visions is the more assured and certain to us But the Postmedial Visions being all of them in a manner to come the sense cannot be so precise fixt and certain But thus much is manifest out of the Interpretation of the Angel that they are to succeed the Rising of the Witnesses or the expiring of the seventh Semitime of the forty two Prophetical months of the Beast which seventh Semi-time or seventh Semiday or Half-day by the Interpretation of the Angel reaching to our Times or the Times of the Reformation it is evident that the Reformation is the Rising of the Witnesses After which immediately succeeds the seventh Trumpet within which in gross or at large are contained The Millennial Reign of Christ The Ligation and Incarceration of Satan The Palm-bearing Company The time of the New Ierusalem or of the Lambs Wife And this is so firmly proved by M r Mede's Synchronisms that there can be no doubt but that those glorious and happy times of the Church upon Earth are yet to come which is the main scope of the Postmedial Visions But in our Table of Synchronisms things are delineated more distinctly and particularly and it mainly differs from that part of M r Mede's Table in that I have divided the Seventh Trumpet into Seven Thunders and placed the Seven Vials under the First Thunder For in that they are the Seven last Plagues that they should belong to the last Wo-Trumpet there is all the reason in the world And that the Vials must of necessity follow the Rising of the Witnesses I have elsewhere sufficiently demonstrated It remains only that we briefly note the Reasonableness of the order of the Postmedial Visions in my Table and the Congruity of those that are set down as Synchronizing one with another all which I have referred to the order of the Seven Thunders And that we also observe how the expiration of the time of the Beast and his destruction and so likewise of the Whore at the Rising of the Witnesses is to be understood only of the Entireness of their Kingdom or Rule And that according to that analogy all the rest of the Synchronals are to be understood namely as there is but a partial destruction of the Kingdom of the Beast and the Whore so there is but a partial and imperfect advance toward the Millennial Reign of Christ and the New Ierusalem c. This being premised we will take notice of the order of the Seven Thunders and what Visions Synchronize with them As with the first Thunder Synchronizeth the effusion of the Seven Vials as the Seven Thunders with the Seventh Trumpet and the Seven Trumpets with the Seventh Seal With the Sixth Vial synchronizeth the Harvest and also the Preparedness of the Spouse of the Lamb. Whereby the conversion of the Iews is intimated to be under the Sixth Vial as also in part at least by the Sixth Vial it self And if this be not the time of their conversion there appears none in the Apocalypse for them And R. H. himself is very
and prophane in these words vers 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the Outer Court of the Temple leave out and measure it not as being to be trodden down by the Gentiles and to be defiled by a new kind of Gentilism and Idolatry contrary to the Word of God which is the true measure of all Christian Rites and Usages with which these times not squaring they are called Incommensurate or Asymmetral So fitly do these two Courts denote these two different States of the Church But they signifie not only the order of Dignity or Worth of one before the other but of Time also for the Inner was before the Outer And moreover there is the same proportion betwixt the Inner and the Outer Court which is as two to seven according to Villalpandus his compute that there is betwixt the Symmetral times of the Church and the Asymmetral Thus have I crowded in more than could be well contained within the ordinary compass of an Epilogue but it was out of an extreme solicitude that nothing might be wanting to the clear understanding and certain assuring of the truth of this our Exposition of the Apocalypse it being of so mighty concernment for the Christian World that this Book be rightly understood that men may know what Religion they ought to adhere unto and what to forsake and that the great Potentates and Prelates of Christendom seeing the State of the Church thus lively and truly represented in this Looking-glass of Divine Providence may conscientiously guide their Affairs accordingly with judgment and prudence removing what is an offence in the eyes of God and like Fathers of their People and true Sons of the most High after so long a Tyrannical Reign of Antichrist bethink themselves of the further introducing and enlarging the Righteous and Comfortable Kingdom of Christ which according to the Romish Expositors themselves is thus described Isai. Chap. 32. Behold a King shall reign in Righteousness and Princes shall rule in judgment And a man shall be that is men shall be and especially they in power an hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest as rivers of waters in a dry place as the shadow of a great rock in a weary Land Such nursing Fathers and nursing Mothers will the Higher powers be in the Reign of Christ to all his True and Living Members whenas in the Reign of Antichrist or the Roman Hierarchy they are the only men that are exposed to danger and have been slaughtered and massacred and burnt with fire and faggot some hundred thousands of them for keeping Faith and a good Conscience towards God upon pretence of their being Hereticks Whenas there can be no Heresie but it must be the profession of something contrary to the truly Catholick and Apostolick Faith whereas the Reformed Churches generally hold all those points of Faith that were professed in the Symmetral Times of the Church about four hundred years after Christ before the Apostasie came in And certainly the Christian Faith was abundantly complete in those Primitive Ages and wanted nothing But the Dissenters from the Church of Rome are held Hereticks by them for not embracing such Articles and Rites and Usages as are maintained by them for mere worldly Interest for encreasing the Power and Revenue of Holy Church as they call it though in what it differs from the Reformed Churches suppose this of England for Example Holy Church or the Roman Hierarchy are nothing else but a Body Politick of Men that drive on a Secular Design under a Religious pretense and so may be looked upon rather as a Secular Polity than Spiritual but Christian no further than as to the profession of that Christianity we both agree in a subserviency to their worldly designs For if they did in good earnest believe and love the Ancient Apostolick Christianity which obtained in the Symmetral Ages of the Church which was then consummate and abundantly sufficient to Salvation they could not murder those that do heartily profess it the rest being no part of that consummate Christianity but at best mere moss and filth added to it From whence it follows that no one that suffers in the cause of the Roman Hierarchy or Church of Rome as opposite to the Reformed Churches suffers as a Martyr for Christianity but as a Souldier of fortune that espouses the cause of a worldly Polity that guilds it self over with a specious Title of holy Church And truly it were very well if they quitted their lives thus as mere Souldiers of a secular Power But they giving testimony to all the Abominations of the Roman Religion by their thus suffering for they suffer not for the primitive Apostolick Faith wherein we are all agreed they giving testimony I say to all their Idolatries gross superstitions wicked and Tyrannical Laws against the true Members of Christ whom they nickname Hereticks which things make the Roman Hierarchy the real Antichrist they are not only not the Martyrs of Christ but the real Martyrs of Antichrist they suffering for such Doctrines and Practices as are against the law of Christ and are the very support constitution and peculiar interest of Antichrist But as many as suffer by this Roman Hierarchy as the faithful servants of Christ in Obedience to his Laws that are contrary to the Institutes Doctrines and Practices of Antichrist they die as the real Martyrs of Christ and faithful witnesses against Antichrist their witnessing serving no Secular design but the keeping faith and a good Conscience and the approving themselves the sincere servants of Christ. The main thing therefore that I aim at is this That they that suffer by the Roman Hierarchy instigating the Princes of Christendom to persecute the conscientious being the real Martyrs of Christ and their persecution only for such things as are both against the Laws of Christ and only for the Interest of the Antichristian Hierarchy nothing for the secular Powers themselves such as are the Invocation of Saints the Worshipping of Images the Adoration of the Host the Doctrine of Transubstantiation than which nothing can be imagined more reproachful and blasphemous against the person of Christ it exposing him to be swallowed down into that bag of filth the bodies of men or to be imprisoned in a Pyxis to be gnawn with rats and mice or if fallen to the ground and he cannot stay himself I mean this Deus Panaceus this Breaden-God of the Pontificians to be licked up by every obscene dog And yet as glibly as he goes down he is a whole man with head arms and legs with flesh and bones and thus all swallowed down at once without gnawing or chawing nay and that which is still more prodigious it is a whole living man in health and vigour with arms and legs able to run away from either mouse rat or dog or chase them away from himself and yet he suffers himself to be gnawn and eaten up by these vermin I say these
Condensationis Examinatio cum Responsione ad ejusdem Objectiones Quaestionésve circa Principium Hylarchicum sive Spiritum Naturae quae est prior Enchiridii Metaphysici Appendix Adnotamenta in duas ingeniosas Dissertationes alteram Tentamen de Gravitatione Non-gravitatione corporum Fluidorum alteram Observationes circa Experimentum Torricellianum quae est Enchiridii Metaphysici Appendix posterior Ad clarissimum eruditissimum virum Christianum Knorrium de usu decem Sephirotharum c. Epistola Trium Tabularum Cabbalisticarum decem Sephirothas sive Numerationes exhibentium viz. Tabulae Iudaicae vulgaris Tabulae Knorrianae vel Lorianae in sublimioris Cabbalae Clavem Zoaristicam destinatae Tabulae Sephirotharum Graecanicae sive Pythagoricae ab H. M. restitutae Descriptio Expositio Quaestiones Considerationes paucae brevésque in Tractatum primum Libri Druschim quibus accessit ad Cl. eruditissimum virum Christianum Knorrium de rebus in Amica sua Responsione ad dictas Quaestiones c. contentis ulterior Disquisitio Visionis Ezechielis sive Mercavae Expositio ex Principiis Philosophiae Pythagoricae praecipuÃsque Theosophiae Iudaicae Reliquiis concinnata mirâque cum locis quibusdam S. Scripturae hactenus obscuris luculentâque congruitate consolidata Catechismus Cabbalisticus sive Mercavaeus quo in Divinis Mysteriis Mercavae Ezechielis explicandis memoriâ retinendis decem Sephirotharum usus egregiè illustratur Fundamenta Philosophiae sive Cabbalae Aeto-paedo-melissaeae quae omnem Creationem propriè dictam negat Essentiámque supponit Divinam quasi Corporeo-spiritualem Mundúmque Materialem aliquo modo Spiritum cum brevi ac luculenta praedictorum Fundamentorum Confutatione Philosophiae Teutonicae Censura sive Epistola ad Amicum quae Responsum complectitur ad Quaestiones quinque de Philosopho Teutonico I. B. illiúsque Philosophia Ad V. â— Epistola altera quae brevem Tractatûs Theologico-politici Confutationem complectitur paucáque sub finem annexa habet de libri Francisci Cuperi scopo cui Titulus est Arcana Atheismi revelata Demonstrationis duarum Propositionum viz. Ad substantiam quatenus substantia est necessariam Existentiam pertinere Vnicam in mundo substantiam esse quae praecipuae apud Spinozium Atheismi sunt Columnae brevis solidáque Confutatio Divinorum Dialogorum tres priores qui de Attributis Dei tractant ejúsque Providentia in genere Rerum ac verborum locorúmque Scripturae in hoc primo Tomo Voluminis Philosophici occurrentium Index Collectio Philosophica in qua continentur Praefatio generalis Antidotum adversùs Atheismum Appendix ad dictum Antidotum Enthusiasmus Triumphatus sive de Natura Causis Generibus Curatione Enthusiasmi brevis Dissertatio Immortalitas Animae Conjectura Cabbalistica sive Mentis Mosaicae in tribus primis capitibus Geneseos secundùm triplicem Cabbalam Literalem Philosophicam Divino-moralem Interpretatio cum singularum Cabbalarum Defensione Ad Defensionem Cabbalae Philosophicae Appendix Scholiis multùm aucta ubi inter alia Examini respondetur Cl. viri S. Andreae S. S. Theologiae Doctoris Philosophiae Professoris Herbornensis Divinorum Dialogorum duo posteriores qui de Regno Dei tractant de speciali illius Providentia per Christum super Ecclesiam à principio ad finem seculorum Rerum ac verborum locorúmque Scripturae in hoc altero Voluminis Philosophici Tomo contentorum Index Praefatio ad Lectorem Visionum Apocalypticarum Ratio Synchronistica Magni Mysterii Pietatis Explanatio sive Vera ac fidelis Repraesentatio Aeterni Evangelii Domini ac Servatoris nostri Jesu Christi Dei Filii unigeniti Hominúmque Principis ac Angelorum Mysterii Iniquitatis Pars prior sive Diligens justáque Delineatio verae Ideae Antichristianismi in Realibus genuinÃsque illius membris Mysterii Iniquitatis Pars posterior sive Synopsis Prophetica compendiosum continens Prospectum in illa sacrae Scripturae Vaticinia quibus Regnum Antichristi insignÃsve lapsus seu Degeneratio Ecclesiae in eis rebus omnibus quae in Idea Antichristianismi comprehenduntur praefiguratur vel praedicitur Expositio Prophetica septem Epistolarum ad septem Ecclesias Asiaticas De veris Rationibus sive Fundamentis Certitudinis Fidei in rebus Religionis brevis Dissertatio Antidotus adversùs Idololatriam sive Dissertatio brevis multa complectens Theoremata ad dignoscendum quid sit haberÃve debeat Idololatria apud Christianos apprimè utilia cum Applicatione ad doctrinam Concilii Tridentini Antidoti Appendix in qua vera adaequata Notio seu Definitio Idololatriae communiter sic dictae proponitur Exempla plurima istiusmodi Idololatriae in Romana Ecclesia per propositam Definitionem examinantur Consuetudines quaedam in Ecclesia Anglicana vindicantur seriaeque aliquot Monitiones de Idololatria Spirituali demum annectuntur Divinorum Hymnorum Heptachordon Carmina quaedam in Scriptis Philosophicis Anglicè occurrentia Latinè hîc per Authorem reddita Rerum ac Verborum locorúmque Scripturae in hoc Volumine Theologico explicatorum Index locupletissimus Praecipuorum Membrorum Antichristianismi Descriptionum simul Praedictionum eisdem respondentium Index particularis FINIS 1 The Authentickness of the Apocalypse II The Intelligibleness of the Apocalypse * Synops. Prophet Book 1. chap. 2. III The Excellency of the Book of the Apocalypse IV The peril of slighting the Apocalypse and the study of understanding it V The grounds the Authour goes upon in his Exposition of the Apocalypse how assured they be VI How grosly Grotius has overshot himself in his Interpreting the Apocalypse VII The Usefulness of the Authors Exposition against Atheism and for the defence of Natural Religion VIII The usefulness of it for the confirming of Christianity IX And for the justifying the Reformed Churches from all imputation of Schism X And for moving them to repentance and amendment of their lives XI The Usefulness of his Exposition in reference to the Jews XII A particular usefulness for the undeceiving the Fifth-Monarchy-men XIII The usefulness of it in the behalf of the Pontifician Party XIV The Conclusion XV Of his Epilogue to be annexed at the end of his Exposition * See Notes vers 4. Eph. 5.30 * Chap. 1. Sect. 6. * Chap. 10. Matt. 16.23 John 14.20 23. Cap. 6. vers 2. 2 Esdr. 13.38 * See Synops Prophetic Book 2. c. 12. sect 3. Dan. 9.24 Jer. 10.11 Acts 4.19 Dan. 7.14 Joh. 4.35 2 Corinth 7.11 1 Sam. 16.14 Esai 25.7 2 Esdr. 13.38 Mat. 21.13 Rom. 11.15 1 Corinth 12.3 Isai. 63.1 Matt. 10.28 Jude 13. 1 Corinth 6.19 Rom. 8.17 Joh. 5.44 Acts 10.47 * See Mr. Potters Interpretation of the Number 666 cap. 21. * See Mystery of Godliness lib. 5. cap. 16. sect 8. * Chap. 5. vers 24. I Of what Writers and in what way the Author has made use of in his Exposition of the Apocalypse with a Monition not rashly to attempt the expounding of that Book without consulting former Writers II The repeated Testimony of the Spirit of God in the Apocalypse against the Idolatry of the Church of Rome III The Authors Answer to certain invidious Cavils against the Protestant Exposition of the seven Heads of the Beast IV His Answer touching his interpreting the two Horns of the Beast of the Episcopal Mitre and his sharpness of stile in his Exposition V The Authors Table of Synchronisms proposed and explained VI The main difference betwixt M r Mede 's Table of Synchronisms and the Authors VII The Authors Defense of M r Mede ' s Synchronisms against R.H. so far as they agree with his own VIII The Authors Defence of Mr. Mede ' s opinion that a new set of Prophecies begins Rev. 11. whereof some commence from the same Epocha the Prophecy of the Seals does IX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no arguments that the Vision of the Seven Churches the Prophecy of the Seven Seals do not Synchronize X No good sense to be made of the Apocalypse but Mr. Mede 's way The ridiculousness of R. H. his way whereby he would gratify the Church of Rome XI R. H. his extravagant Positions touching the Interpretation of the Apocalypse together with his Reasons of them and their Confutation XII The Key of the Prophecy of the Seven Churches XIII The Key of the Sealed Book and Opened Book Prophecies which is the Angels Interpretation of the Beast and the Woman sitting on him Revel chap. 17. XIV R. H. his Objections against this Key proposed and answered XV The admirable usefulness of the abovesaid Key for the certain unlocking of the Sealed and Opened Book Prophecies XVI The Cognation and Identity or correspondent Opposition of the Middle Synchronals XVII The Antemedial Synchronals how well they sute with the Times they run into XVIII The Post-medial Visions their Order and the Congruity of those that are made to Synchronize one with another XIX R. H. his groundless drolling against the Mystical sense of the Apocalypse with an Answer to some chief Objections of his against Mr. Medes Expositions XX What the Motives were that drove R. H. to reject the Mystical way of Interpreting the Apocalypse and embrace the Litteral and how insufficient XXI That Mr. Mede never disapproved or was out of conceit with his own Synchronisms XXII A confutation of a novel conceit of R. F. that the Number of the Beast is not 666. but 42. XXIII The number twenty five in what regard a character of the Roman Hierarchy or Church of Rome XXV What a true and clear Looking-glass of Providence the Apocalypse is and of what great consequence it is for all Christians high and low to have a right understanding thereof XXVI Of Heresie and of the secularity of the Roman Hierarchy and how they that suffer for that Church are no Christian Martyrs XXVII That they that suffer for conscience sake by the Church of Rome are Christian Martyrs and how much their sufferings are against the Interest of the Secular Powers And what a weight of guilt lies upon them that have gratified the Papal Hierarchy by such persecutions of the conscientious XXVIII What assurance the Author himself has and others also may have concerning him that nothing but the meer Evidence of Truth has cast him upon such sentiments touching the Church of Rome Vol. Philosop Tom. 1. Vol. Philosop Tom. 2. Volum Theologic
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