from the Order of the Apocalypse which having set down at the end of the preceding Chapter a description of the Day of Judgment and punishment of the Wicked it necessarily follows that in the next place should be set down a description of the everlasting glory and happiness of the Elect in Heaven The third is from that it is said Chap. 20. v. 11. That the Heaven and the Earth fled away from the face of him that sat upon the white Throne and there was found no place for them and this to have been in the last day of Judgment Wherefore the New Heaven and the New Earth mentioned in the beginning of the next Chapter forasmuch as the Universe cannot be without an Heaven and Earth must be the renewed Heaven and Earth after the Day of Judgment in which the glorified Saints enjoy themselves in their Heavenly state which is called the New Jerusalem The fourth is taken from Chap. 21.7 8. He that overcometh shall inherit all things but the fearful and unbelieving c. shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death Whence says he it is manifest that it is the Heavenly Bliss that is here promised to the Victor and that this Jerusalem therefore is a state in Heaven not on Earth Fifthly The side of the Square Area of Ezekiel's City by which the Church Militant is prefigured is but four thousand five hundred reeds or forty five furlongs but the side of the Square of the Area of the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse is extended unto twelve thousand furlongs which makes the Area of the New Jerusalem seventy one thousand and an hundred and eleven times bigger than the Area of Ezekiel's City and therefore Ezekiel's City being the Church Militant this New Jerusalem by reason of the vast difference in their capaciousnesses and S. John's City containing not the Elect of some one time but of all Ages must needs be the Church Triumphant Sixthly Those words I saw no Temple there imply That this description of the New Jerusalem is not of the Church Militant but Triumphant For the Church Militant is not without Temples Seventhly and lastly In that it is said There is no Night no Death no Pain no Curse That without are Dogs c. And that the Inhabitants of this City shall always enjoy the sight of the Face of God and the Lamb these are manifest indications that the state described is not of the Church Militant but Triumphant These are the notable Arguments of Alcazar which Pareus also applauds or approves as stiff in Alcazar's Opinion as himself But I shall answer them in order To the first therefore I say That the true understanding of the Apocalypse being by Divine Providence reserved for these latter times as it is manifestly intimated in Daniel Chap. 12.9 As it is no disparagement for the ancient Fathers not to be knowing in matters which the Wisdom of God thought fit to conceal from them so it is no rudeness or injury to their Authority that it is not admitted in cases wherein they are no competent Judges They had not the advantage we have who have so much of the Prophecies of the Apocalypse so clearly fulfilled before our eyes the fulfilling of Prophecies being the most certain Key for the opening of them It is not likely that S. Austin understood that the Whore of Babylon is the Apostatized Church that great City or Polity Antichristian and Idolatrous that was to be destroy'd by the pouring out of the Vials upon the destruction whereof one of the Vial-Angels showed this City or Polity the New Jerusalem to John as that Power or Polity that was to succeed in the others room in which the Servants of God that adhered to the pure Gospel nor would submit to the Roman Superstitions and Idolatries were cruelly persecuted tortured and murdered many hundred thousands of them which could not be without the tears of them that were concerned These things I say S. Austin being ignorant of we may well excuse him for his confident mistake who if he had known them would have easily discerned the Speech to have been figurative when it is said there shall be no more death nor crying nor sorrow nor pain and that God will wipe all tears from their eyes viz. that by a Synecdoche generis those kinds of death sorrow pain crying and tears are pointed at that were caused by that Antichristian Polity that so barbarously persecuted the Saints of God that in this New Jerusalem state they should be free from these Which is an easie and obvious sense thus understood And indeed the observing that the description of the New Jerusalem is in opposition to the Polity of Babylon which it succeeds is a special Key for the rightly opening the meaning of the Description all along as may be observed in my Exposition thereof To the second I answer 1. That the Object of the opened Book-Prophecy of which the Description of the New Jerusalem is part is not the state of the Church in Heaven but the state thereof on Earth And therefore though a description of the state of the Church in Heaven would follow here handsomly yet it being quite Heterogeneous to the nature of this Prophecy we may be sure it is not here described but a state on Earth in the Millennium and that therefore there is a going back into those times in this Description the placing of the Visions being no certain Argument of the order of time they belong to as all know that know any thing in the Apocalypse Again That there is an holy and happy state of the Church of Christ in his Millennial Reign on Earth is plain and that that State or Polity opposite to the Polity or City of Babylon is no where so fully described as the Whore of Babylon is Chap. 17. is as plain Wherefore what can be more likely than that this City the New Jerusalem is described as a Polity opposite to the City of Babylon which was drunk with the blood of the Saints and the blood of the Martyrs of Jesus from which barbarous Persecutions the Saints are secured in this New Jerusalem state Whence it is said There shall be no more death nor sorrow nor crying but that God will wipe all tears from their eyes c. Chap. 21.4 Thirdly Those many passages noted in my Exposition of this Description of the New Jerusalem which is needless here to repeat plainly demonstrate it to be a description of the state of the Church on Earth And lastly The Vial-Angel the last doubtless as being nearest to this time that shews John the Bride the Lamb's Wife in opposition to the bloody Whore of Babylon destroy'd by him under the seventh Vial how naturally does his showing John the City New Jerusalem upon his having destroy'd the City of Babylon imply that he shows him that Polity that is to succeed that of Babylon and that therefore this New
of which the Truth is to be followed and the shadow to fly away And lastly For what is alledged in the seventh Argument they are but such things as are already answered by my answering the first where I have explained in what sense there is said to be no death nor sorrow nor pain And it being said there is no curse that is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that respects the Papal Curses as is noted in my Exposition And that there is no Night is no more than is said by Esay of the state of the Church on Earth Thy Sun shall no more go down c. Chap. 60. And this state of the Church being so holy on Earth it is no wonder that such ill people as are called Dogs Sorcerers Whoremongers Idolaters c. are excluded from it and not admitted into their Communion And in that they are said to enjoy the sight of the face of God and of the Lamb what is this more than what S. Paul witnesses we are capable of in this life That God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness may shine in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ So that there being so many indications as I have observed in my Notes that the description of this New Jerusalem is a description of a state of the Church on Earth and the best Arguments alledged against it being really invalid it remains manifest that the state of the Church in the Millennial Reign of Christ on the Earth is predicted and described by this Description of the New Jerusalem But now after the pondering of the Plea of both Parties though I am very confident that the description of the New Jerusalem is a description of the Church on Earth in the Millennium yet I am on the other side as confident of what is not at all repugnant to this that this excellent Millennial state of the Church is a Type and so intended to be in its description of that more transcendently blessed and glorious state of the Church Triumphant in Heaven And the reasons that induce me to this belief in brief are these First It seems handsom and congruous that it being so universally acknowledged on all sides that the State and Oeconomy of the Jewish Church was a Type of the Christian Church which was to succeed it so the best state of the Christian Church Militant which is the Millennial state or rather the state of the New Jerusalem here described which the Heavenly state succeeds should be a Type of the succeeding Church Triumphant in Heaven Secondly There is a sufficient lively Description and sensible Representation of the state of the second Death which succeeds the general Judgment the Lake burning with brimstone and fire why therefore should there not be as lively or rather more lively description of the state of Eternal life to which the Godly are adjudged as well as the Wicked to the other state Thirdly therefore The Description of the New Jerusalem State or Polity for it is the Kingdom of Heaven immediately succeeding this Lake of fire in the very next Chapter under the very name of a new Heaven and a new Earth the same with the New Jerusalem and this after the Conflagration we are fairly invited thereby to conclude that the state of the New Jerusalem on Earth is so described that it is also a Type of the Triumphant Jerusalem in Heaven And thus far we will allow force in Alcazar's second and third Argument that they may fairly warrant in conjunction with other Considerations the description of the New Jerusalem on Earth to be a Type of the Church Triumphant in Heaven Fourthly This being a most Holy Book of Divine Visions and this of the New Jerusalem the last of the Visions what can be a more proper Vision than this that typifies also the glorious and blissful state of the Saints in Heaven to be the close of all and which not only this Book of the Apocalypse but the whole Bible aims at Fifthly and lastly It is observable and I have noted it in my Mystery of Godliness Book 7. Chap. 7. That in a Prophecy that may have a meaner fulfilling at the first and is really intended for that fulfilling yet by reason of the high actuation of the Spirit of the Prophet some expressions may come from him that much better fit the Antitype than the Type in which the Prophecy is first fulfilled This is so over and over again verified in the Prophecy Typical of our Saviour Christ that it is needless pains to name any And many such instances also are observable in the Typical Prophecies of Antichrist as that in the Prince of Type c. Now this being so observable in Predictions that are but Types of what there will be a fuller completion that there are strokes in them that properly belong not but only figuratively to the Type but to its Antitype there being this very case in the description of the New Jerusalem a Prophecy of the Millennial state of the Church on Earth that is to say there being such expressions therein that more naturally describe the state of Heaven as S. Augustine has well observed in the first Argument and Alcazar in the last the genuine Result of this Consideration is this That it is a Prophecy of such a State of the Church on Earth as is a lively Type withal of that transcendent Happiness the Saints will find in Heaven where there shall be not only no more death sorrow crying tears pain or torture from that bloody persecutive Polity of Babylon which are intimated by a Synecdoche Generis but absolutely and properly speaking without a Figure there shall be none of these things at all These are the Reasons that move me to think that though the description of the New Jerusalem be a Prophecy of the blessed Reign of Christ on Earth that yet it is withal a Type of the Joys and Glory of the Kingdom of Heaven wherewith the Saints are rewarded after the Conflagration CHAP. XXI The occasion of his more fully making out that grand Truth that the whole Apocalypse in a manner consists of three main Prophecies beginning with the Church and reaching to the end of the World viz. the Epistolar Prophecy Sealed Book Prophecy and Opened Book Prophecy with the three Introductory Visions prefixed thereto That the Epistolar Prophecy is such a Prophecy That the Sealed Book Prophecy is such And also the Opened Book Prophecy The Reference of the three Introductory Visions to the Title of the Book of the Apocalypse Introductory Visions to Prophecies in Isaiah Ezekiel and Daniel and that they are not properly Prophecies themselves The Meaning of the Introductory Vision of the Epistolar Prophecy The like Meaning of the Introductory Vision to the Prophecy of the Sealed Book The drift of the third Introductory Vision muchwhat the same with the two former and that the Angel there
the thousand years were finished may be understood of the wicked's reviving Politically after the expiration of the Millennium and the rather because the sense of the place carries it for those that at the Millennium were heretofore dead either naturally or Politically and so Judgment proceeds upon them Apoc. 20.4 which the wicked were not in a Political sense and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they lived not again must refer to that Physical Resurrection we contend for Add to all this that if the first Resurrection were understood in a Political sense and meant in general as well of them that were beheaded as those that worshipped not the Beast and in no other sense than so there is no reason why S. John should use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at first and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And we might demand if that be the first Political Resurrection which is the second unless we will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And how it can be appropriated to this first Resurrection as a special Priviledge of the partakers thereof that the second Death shall have no power over them this by promise belonging to all true Believers though not Martyrs from the beginning of the Church to the end of the World But to obtain a glorified body before the second Death or the Lake of Fire be in being which by its own Nature exempts from the harm thereof or of any thing like it in being this is a peculiar Priviledge indeed And blessed and holy and peculiarly happy is he that has his share in such a first Resurrection as this for he is actually out of the reach of all harm that may come from the Lake of Fire the being within the reach of whose power is to be obnoxious to the second Death and according to the Apocalyptick Antithetical implications or intimations he is possessed already of everlasting life in a glorified body whenas others are but Candidates for the same I hope by this time you perceive how easie smooth and natural my Exposition of the first Resurrection in a Physical sense is and how intricate harsh and perplex the contrary way would be c. CHAP. XX. That the Description of the New Jerusalem is a Description of a state of the Church on Earth The high expressions therein but such as are used in the Prophets touching the people of the Jews The Plea of those that will have it merely a Description of the Church Triumphant in Heaven consisting of seven Arguments out of Alcazar An Answer to those seven Arguments A more moderate way betwixt them that hold the Description of the New Jerusalem the one to signifie merely such a state of the Church on Earth the other the state of the Church in Heaven viz. That though it be a Prophecy of an excellent state of the Church on Earth yet the Description of that state is an intended Type also of the state of the Church Triumphant in Heaven THERE is a wide difference betwixt some Interpreters touching the Description of the New Jerusalem Apoc. 21. some understanding it to be a Description of the State of the Church here on Earth others of the State in Heaven Amongst these latter is S. Augustine especially and after him Ribera Alcazar Pareus and others Amongst the former Justin Martyr Grotius Dr. Hammond Brightman with others And I must confess I am altogether of that Opinion that it is the Description of the State of the Church on Earth after the ruine of Antichrist and so have expounded it continuedly throughout in my Exposition of the Apocalypse and have carefully suggested Arguments all along from the Text it self that it is so to be expounded So that there wants nothing for any further confirmation thereof unless I should take notice how there are no expressions so high in this Description but what are in other places of the Prophets and generally understood by Interpreters of the State of the Church on Earth namely such expressions as these In that Prophetical Thanksgiving of Tobit Chap. 13. Jerusalem shall be built up with Sapphirs and Emeralds and precious Stones thy Walls and Towers with pure Gold And the streets of Jerusalem shall be paved with Beryl and Carbuncle and Stones of Ophir In the Prophecy of Isaiah Chap. 65. v. 17. Behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth and the former shall not be remembred nor come into mind But be you glad and rejoice for ever in what I create for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy See also Chap. 66.22 In the Prophecy of Ezekiel My Tabernacle also shall be with them yea I will be their God and they shall be my people Again Isa 25.8 The Lord will wipe away tears from all faces And 54.11 Oh thou afflicted tossed with Tempests and not comforted behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours and thy foundations with Sapphirs I will make thy windows of Agates and thy gates of Carbuncles and all thy borders of pleasant stones And Chap. 60.19 The Sun shall be no more thy light by day neither for brightness shall the Moon give light unto thee but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light and thy God thy glory Thy Sun shall no more go down neither shall thy Moon withdraw it self for the Lord shall be thine everlasting-light and the days of thy mourning shall be ended What more exalted expressions than these are there in the Apocalypse in the description of the New Jerusalem All which places notwithstanding are understood of a state of the Church on Earth And so the City which Ezekiel describes by which is understood the Church on Earth the twelve Gates the River Trees and Fruit they are all transcribed into the Description of this New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse So assured a thing is it that the Apocalyptick Description of the New Jerusalem does denote a state of the Church here on Earth Wherefore it were a more fit thing to bring into view the Plea of the other Party who are so confident that it is a description of the state of Heaven than to concern our selves in any further proofs that it is a state of the Church on Earth that we may give a right judgment of the matter Alcazar who is very stiff for this Opinion produces no fewer than seven Arguments for the same The first is the Authority of S. Augustine who bluntly says in his De Civitate Dei lib. 20. cap. 17. That it is mere impudence to assert otherwise because it is said Absterget Deus omnem lacrymam ab oculis eorum mors jam non erit neque luctus neque clamor sed nec ullus erit dolor And at the end of that Chapter he says That these things are so clearly spoken of the World to come and the Immortality and Eternity of the Saints that we must not pretend that any thing is manifest in Scripture if this place be obscure The second is taken
like Introductory Vision and more ample of the glory of the God of Israel enthroned above the Cherubims is prefixed before Ezekiel's Book of Prophecies but is no Prophecy it self but a sign of Ezekiel his Call and Inspiration from God to prophesie He upon the Throne speaking to him Chap. 2.3 and saying Son of man I send thee to the Children of Israel c. there 's his Mission and then reaching him a roll of a Book to eat whereby as John Apoc. 10. doing the like he was inabled to prophesie I will add a third Example out of Daniel of that Vision of an Angel habited like Aaron the High-Priest Chap. 10.5 prefixed before the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth who communicated to Daniel the said Prophecy But now as no man is so sensless as to take those Introductory Visions in Isaiah Ezekiel and Daniel to be proper Prophecies but only or chiefly significations of the Divine Inspiration of those Prophets that they were inabled thus to prophesie by the Spirit of the Lord So it is a wonder to me that any one of wit and parts and learning should be so heedless and grosly mistaken as to make any of these Introductory Visions to the Epistolar Prophecy the Sealed Book-Prophecy and the Opened Book-Prophecy to be Prophecies properly so called and not Introductory Visions such as those in Daniel Ezekiel and Isaiah whose proper scope is to intimate the Divine Inspiration of John in writing those Prophecies which were communicated to him by Angelical Ministry upon the appointment of Christ whose Merit obtained this Revelation from the Eternal Godhead That this is the genuine meaning of those three Introductory Visions I shall now endeavour to make good in order as they lye And it is exceeding manifest in the first that the Appearance to John of one in the Pontifical Habit like that of Aaron is hugely like that Appearance to Daniel Chap. 10.5 Wherefore why should this be more a Prophecy than that But both these Appearances being in the High Priests Habit who was a Type of Christ it is a plain Argument that it is Christ himself that appeared or was represented in both places And this very Appearance dictating the Epistles sent to the seven Churches unto John as if he were his Amanuensis or Secretary and these Epistles being the Epistolar Prophecy it self it is plain that it is the first part of the Revelation of Jesus Christ signified to his Servant John And that God is here in Conjunction with Christ is manifest from his Pontifical Habit which is a Symbol of the visible World as Philo takes notice though he knew not the right System thereof But what an excellent Hieroglyphick those Aaronical Habiliments are of the true Pythagorick System thereof I have abundantly made out in the Appendix to the Defence of my Philosophick Cabbala Chap. 5. Sect. 3 4. See also the Latine Scholia thereon Wherefore the Assistance of the Eternal Divinity to the Soul of the Messias or Humanity of Christ is hence easily conceived And the like may be observed in that Vision prefixed before the Sealed Book-Prophecy contained in Chap. 4 and 5. It is no more a Prophecy than the Vision prefixed before Ezekiel's Book of Prophecies and the less likely it being in a manner the same Vision with it And therefore why should it be a Prophecy more here than there Nay if it be a Prophecy of any King or Queen sitting on their Throne in Christendom it is a very ancient Prophecy of them indeed For that Vision in Ezekiel is the very same which Moses and the Elders saw on Mount Sinai Some intimation thereof is from the mention of the Sapphir stone on which he is said to stand in the one and to sit in the other but there is that which is yet more pressing For as Ezekiel says of his Vision that it was the Appearance of the glory of the Lord Chap. 1.28 and the glory of the God of Israel Chap. 10.19 so it is said Exod. 24. that the glory of the Lord abode on Mount Sinai Which therefore what it was is amply indicated in the Vision of Ezekiel which I doubt not but is a Symbol of the spiritual and invisible Kingdom of the God of Israel where he sits enthroned amidst his bright Angelical Squadrons and the Psalmist briefly notes The Chariots of God are twenty thousands even many thousands of Angels the Lord is among them as in Sinai where there was the Representation of his Glory and Majesty in his Angelical Kingdom and 't is likely on a Sapphir Throne whose very Scabellum was also Sapphir and so his feet which is all from the Hip to the Toes rested on Sapphir For to phansie him standing does not so well agree with the Representation of Majesty But the strongest Argument is yet behind viz. That the Cherubims and the order of the Camp of Israel answer so exquisitely to this Vision of Ezekiel Whence it must be plain to him that will see Moses being to order all things according to the Pattern in the Mount that the order of the Camp of Israel and the Tabernacle c. was according to the Representation of the Glory of the God of Israel on the Mount in his Spiritual Kingdom To the perfection whereof it being not the Lot of the Church of the Jews to reach they bore notwithstanding the external and Ritual figure thereof in the order of their Camp Tabernacle c. Wherefore that Vision in the Mount again seen by Ezekiel and lastly here by S. John with some few alterations only and prefixed before his Prophecy of the Sealed Book as it is before Ezekiel's Book of Prophecies how awkward a thing is it to conceit this a proper and formal Prophecy it self of the same nature that the three main Apocalyptick Prophecies are whenas it is of no other nature than the Vision prefixt before the Epistolar Prophecy some parts of which Vision are made use of in the Epistolar Prophecy it self as there is of this in the Sealed Book-Prophecy And as that Vision being a Representation of Christ in Conjunction with his Church may have some general and less distinct significancies of her condition so this Vision prefixt before the Sealed Book-Prophecy it being really a Symbol of the Spiritual Kingdom of the God of Israel may be so framed as to have some glances on those times when this Spiritual Kingdom of the God of Israel in Heaven which is the chief aim of all shall descend thence from God and be found on Earth in the New Jerusalem state of his Church This being the great scope of all contained in both the Sealed and Opened Book-Prophecies it is not irrational to conceive this ancient Vision seen by Moses and Ezekiel to be so attempered in this seen by S. John as to have some glances at those most excellent times of which the Spiritual Kingdom of the God of Israel is the Archetypon and it being so it is prefigurative of
I shall first set down the Opinion of those Papers orderly one after another and then give my own Judgment 1. I affirm says the Author of those Papers that by opening this Book of Prophecies is meant explaining it and making it intelligible to those that read it For the truth of this Proposition I appeal to the constant and unquestionable use of that Phrase of opening a sealed Prophecy where-ever it is used throughout the Scripture there being no one instance that I know of to the contrary But where sealing signifies concealing the sense of a Mystery and opening signifies explaining it there are many As Dan. 9.24 Seal up the Vision and 12.4 Seal the Book even to the time of the end Where also the Phrase is made parallel to shutting up the words of it viz. that they might not be understood till the time of the end Also Isai 29.11 mention is made of a sealed Book viz. a Book which no man could understand Also that Opening signifies Explaining is manifest from Luke 24 32. where Christ is said to have opened the Scriptures And Acts 17.3 S. Paul is said to have opened and alledged viz. out of the Prophecies of the Scripture that Christ must needs have suffered Whence it cannot be doubted as to me it seems but that by opening the sealed Book or Mystery is meant explaining it Answ This makes a pretty confident show and may impose upon the heedless But the wary will easily perceive that unless he could prove that the word Opening simply in it self signified Explaining and sealing hiding the sense of a Writing by mystical Aenigms the Argument proves nothing That obvious Phrase of opening a Bible and opening a Text shows plainly the word Opening has its determinate sense from the thing it is spoken of To open the Bible is to unclaspe it and so open the Book that we may come at the Text. To open the Text is to explain the sense of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to explain Mysteries or to open Mysteries sometimes but Luke 4.17 it signifies only to open the Book where the Mysteries lye viz. the Book of Esay the Prophet which past into the hand of Christ he is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to open the Book and to find the place c. It is one thing therefore to open a sealed Book where the Prophecy is and another to open a sealed Prophecy The Book may be first opened to come at the Prophecy Which is plainly the case here of the seven-sealed Book But to make the opening the Book and loosing the Seals to be the explaining the Prophecies of this Book Chap. 5.2 is a plain contradiction to the very Text Chap. 6. where the opening the first six Seals is the exhibiting to John so many particular Prophetical Visions of things to come not the explaining those Visions And so the opening the seventh Seal is the exhibiting the Visions of the seven Trumpets c. Chap. 8. and not the explaining of them So that I wonder it should ever against so palpable an intimation to the contrary enter into any mans mind that the opening the Book and loosing the Seals should be understood of explaining the Prophecies and not of a power of coming at the Prophecies themselves set out in Aenigmatical Visions and to be afterwards explained by the Servants of Christ and the meaning of the Aenigmata discovered But to make this latter to be understood as a Completion of this Vision of the opening of the Seals is a plain repugnancy to the Visions Interpretation of it self The Completion of this part of the Vision of opening the Seals is our having these Apocalyptick Visions in our hands and under our eyes no other Completion is to be dreamt of 2. Touching the second Question the abovesaid Papers declare thus That by him that sitteth on the Throne with the Book in his right hand is not meant God himself but rather some Man of highest Authority sitting in the Throne of God and representing him there A reverend and learned Doctor phansies him to be the Bishop of Jerusalem the Author of the Papers to be some earthly King Answ But this to me seems point-blank against the Text nor has Grotius himself the confidence to interpret it of any other than of God Almighty by reason of that Hymn I suppose or Doxology v. 8. Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come This Hymn is sung to him that sits on the Throne the Eternal who is said to live for ever and ever v. 9. Now as this is but one single visionary Hymn so no man can have any just ground to imagine any more than one visionary Person on the Throne there is not the least show or shadow in the Vision of any more Whence comparing this Hymn with that single Person it must of necessity be God Almighty himself no earthly Potentate Representative of Him Nor is the Hymn fit to be sung to a Representative though of God sitting on the Throne For if to Him he is the Object of this Doxology and the Text says expresly it is to him that sits on the Throne And therefore it must be to God himself that sits on the Throne unless we will make this a visionary Scene of palpable Idolatry which I take to be a gross absurdity Besides that as for earthly Potentates Kings or Monarchs they are most lively described in the twenty four crowned Elders like so many Millennial Davids playing on their Harps before God The Rain-bow also plainly intimates it as in Ezekiel to be the Representation of the glory of the God of Israel So that I find no congruity or probability in this Opinion 3. Now for the third Question the words of the Paper are these I affirm saith he that the fourth and fifth Chapters of the Revelation are a description of a Church or a Company of faithful people on Earth adding This is so evident that I know of no man that denies it This therefore he takes for granted without any further proof Answ Here I refer the Reader to what I have wrote in the twenty first Chapter of this Book touching this Introductory Vision to the sealed Book-Prophecy Where though it be an Introductory Vision and a Symbol of the spiritual Kingdom of God in Heaven yet I acknowledge that it is in some things so attemperated that it is significative also of the State of the Church on Earth as that suppose of the Millennium And that the Church on Earth is some way and in some things concerned in this Vision is plainly intimated Chap. 5. v. 10. And hast made us Kings and Priests and we shall reign on the Earth But this will not serve the end of these Papers 4. And lastly for the fourth Question By the Lamb slain according to those Papers some good King or other some mystical Christ as Mr. Mede calls Constantine upon Rev. 12.5 is to be understood who after his
saying Blessing and Honour and Glory and Power be unto him that sitteth on the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever no Interpreter shews this to have been done after Christ's taking of the Book more than before From whence it is plain to me saith he that they go upon a wrong Hypothesis For if there had been any such things done on Earth no doubt some footsteps of it would have been found in History These few things as he calls them being thought by him pressing and weighty I am concerned to answer that the truth of my Exposition may not seem to be obscured thereby 1. To the first then I answer That this Proclamation was made only in this Dramatical Vision and is no more than a visionary Proclamation and brought in in this Dramatical manner to signifie the singular Prerogative of Christ given to him by his Father that he should have the ability of predicting and effecting such things as no Creature besides in the World had the like general Proclamation being made to find them out if there were any such And the Angel is said to be strong and his Voice loud that it might pierce as it were through the Universe to summon any one that would pretend to such a Prerogative as has been described 2. To the second I say There is neither any unlikeliness nor trifling in this Proclamation because it sets off the peculiarness of Christ's Prerogative in that it was given to him to open the sealed Book And it being not yet opened but being known in general to be a Book of Secrets as yet only in the Mind of God what unlikeliness or Indecorum is it that Proclamation be made who he is that shall be vouchsafed this power of opening the Book and distinctly knowing those Secrets which were only in the Mind of God before 3. To the third I answer as to the first That the Proclamation is only visionary and of what it is significative I have already said nor need again repeat 4. To the fourth I say it seems a kind of capricious Query as if it implied from that account of the Proclamation made that no man in Heaven on Earth or under the Earth was found able to open the Book that Christ was no where then else he would have been found able But as S. Paul says 1 Cor. 15.27 But when he saith all things are put under him it is manifest he is excepted which did put all things under him so say I whenas this Proclamation was made to remonstrate to the World that no man in Heaven nor Earth nor under the Earth was found able saving Christ himself to open the Book it is manifest he is to be excepted out of that Negative Catalogue as being the only Creature that was able 5. To the fifth Incogitancy I think suggested this Query to the Objector For it implies S. John wept after he understood that Christ had obtained the power of opening the sealed Book whenas his weeping was before He says so plainly himself v. 4. And I wept much because no man was found worthy to open and read the Book neither to look thereon Which is also a Dramatical passage on this Theatre intended to signifie nothing else but the great Needfulness and Desirableness of such a Book of Prophecies for the use of God's Church and their guidance in all the Tossings Changes and Revolutions in this transitory World Such a Book was so necessary and requisite that it would grieve any good Christian at the very heart who is solicitous for the Church to want such a Load-star or Cynosura 6. To the sixth I answer That these crowned Elders though they be prefigurative also of the Millennial Kings or Monarchs they are here some principal Angels of the spiritual Kingdom of the God of Israel in Heaven And why may not such an Angel be thought to be wiser than John and able to instruct him There is nothing incongruous or indecorous in this Dramatical passage and John was called up into Heaven to be instructed by his Betters This celestial Actor may well be conceived to know how the Scene would go though John in the mean time was as yet ignorant thereof 7. To the seventh Truly this is a very curious Question if it imply that one should declare who this crowned Elder was by Name It is sufficient to say it was one of the Elders that was next him and so most conveniently placed to instruct John and comfort him upon his weeping and so take that kue to carry on this Divine Scene from v. 4. to v. 8. till the slain Lamb had taken the Book out of the hand of him that sate on the Throne and had obtained power to open it By which no Event is prefigured that was to come to pass some Ages after John's receiving the Apocalypse but it is only signified in this pompous Dramatical way That this Book-Prophecy is the Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him and which he imparted to his Servant John So that the curiosity of naming the Party whom this Elder may prefigure vanisheth 8. To the eighth I say Those that are set so near the Throne of God are Members of his spiritual or Angelical Kingdom in Heaven but prefigurative withal of his Millennial Kingdom on Earth which is the main scope of his Providence over his Church that it shall at last come to pass that the Heavenly Jerusalem in Image and Resemblance shall descend from God on this Earth and his Tabernacle be with men And therefore the glory of the God of Israel is here so represented that it may also prefigure the State of the Church under the New Jerusalem as the other Introductory Visions have some glances or more general strokes at Prophetick Events in some passages And now for the new Song sung by the four Beasts and twenty four Elders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dignus es qui acciperes Thou wert worthy to receive the Book for so the Original is interpretable and to open the Seals thereof for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God and made us Kings and Priests to reign upon Earth This new Song is prefigurative of the Joy and Happiness of that State of the Church of which it is said Apoc. 21.5 Behold I make all things new which is the New Jerusalem state In which there will be such triumphant Praises sung unto the Lamb when it will be so evident he has carried his Church safe for whom he gave his Life and Blood through all the predicted conditions thereof and at last has placed them in that happy and glorious Millennial State by his faithful Conduct Wisdom and Power Which are included in the Faculty granted him by his Father of opening the Seals of the Book as I have noted elsewhere And whenas presently afterwards the whole Universe is made to ring with a loud Doxology from numerous Quires of Angels and of all Creatures in Heaven and Earth and under
the Earth and such as are in the Sea and all that are in them to him that sits upon the Throne and unto the Lamb to what times possibly can this belong but to the holy happy and glorious Millennial Reign of Christ in his Saints upon Earth The Song of the twenty four Elders and four Beasts prefigure the Joy of the Millennial Monarchs and People that of the Angels the Joy of the Angels in Heaven at this flourishing State of the Church on Earth and that of the rest of the Creatures the Conviction of all the World that the Lord Jesus was no less than he declared himself to be the Son of God and Saviour of the World to whom the Father had given all Power in Heaven and Earth of which this Millennial State of the Church is a most illustrious and glorious Effect filling all the World with wonder and amazement And this I hope may satisfie the eighth Query 9. Ninthly To the ninth Allegation I answer That the Doxology of the Angelical Quires does prefigure the Joy of Angels in Heaven for that blessed condition of the Church in the New Jerusalem state on Earth So that though this Vision which is a Representation of the glory of the God of Israel in his Spiritual or Angelical Kingdom in the Dramatical frame of things is so contrived that the four and twenty crowned Elders and four Beasts prefigure also the Monarchs and People of the Millennium yet there are left numerous Quires of Angels in counterdistinction to these to signifie Angels literally so called and the Song is to signifie their Joy at this State of the Church on Earth Nor has that strong Angel that makes the Proclamation any other sense than so that he was one of the Angelical Retinue of the God of Israel in Heaven Nor is that Rule of interpreting Angels of men in the Apocalypse universally true I am sure not in the Introductory Visions The word Angel occurs in several places of the Introductory Visions where it stands for an Angel literally so called not for a man to say nothing of other places So little force has this ninth Allegation 10. And lastly for the tenth which urges That if there had been any such universal Doxology to Him that sits on the Throne and to the Lamb after he had taken the Book that there would have been some traces or footsteps of it in History To this I answer That it is a marvellous groundless conceit and expectation that what is here Parabolically and Dramatically set down only to express that Joy and Happiness which would redound to the whole Creation from Christ's being invested with this Power of opening the seven-sealed Book that is to be enabled both to foretel and guide the affairs of his Church so as that the state thereof will be so glorious and prosperous at last here upon Earth that all the World will be convinced of his stupendious Foresight Wisdom and Power that therefore there shall be such an universal Te Deum sung to him throughout the whole Universe at once so that the Solemnity might be recorded in History This is not the meaning of the Prophetick Stile And besides if it were the time is not yet come when this is to be For such expressions as these can suit with no meaner State of the Church on the Earth than that of the Millennial Reign when the four and twenty Millennial Monarchs including both the Jewish and Gentile Sovereigns or Princes may seasonably sing this Song Thou hast redeemed us with thy blood and made us Kings and Priests and we shall reign upon Earth viz. in Christ's Millennial Empire But to expect Records of such a Doxology in History before the Doxology has been is a great Incongruity Wherefore I hope any indifferent eye may easily discern that notwithstanding all these ten Allegations my Exposition of this Vision comprized in the fourth and fifth Chapters of the Apocalypse is unexceptionably true CHAP. XXXV Three Objections from a considerate hand The first against our making the three Times and an Half the forty two months and twelve hundred and sixty days to be the same time The second against oun affirming the Euphratean Horsemen to have subdued the Eastern Roman Empire with Fire-Guns The last against our making the Aegyptian year to consist only of three hundred and sixty days in Arithmetica Apocalyptica but in Apocalypsis Apocalypseos of three hundred and sixty five with Answers to all three THE first Objection Every day in the forty two months signifying a year makes in the whole twelve hundred seventy seven years at least there being really in every year not three hundred and sixty but three hundred and sixty five days This seems to make the three Times and an Half or forty two months and twelve hundred and sixty days not to be the same Answ That the forty two months are Aegyptian Months and consist of just thirty days apiece is manifest in that thirty times forty two make just twelve hundred and sixty days And these days and those months are the time of the mourning of the Witnesses and of that which all along occasions their mourning viz. the outer Court being trodden down by the Gentiles which is a plain indication that the twelve hundred and sixty days are a note of no more nor less time than the forty two months and that therefore they must be Aegyptian Months And as it is plain that the months are Aegyptian so we must conceive that the years in the three Times and an Half are so many Aegyptian years and an half consisting of Aegyptian Months which therefore make each of them three hundred and sixty days See Rev. Chap. 12. v. 6 14. This is their solid Year consisting of so many months to which they add the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are called the Dies adjectitii which are five which here the Spirit of Prophecy takes no notice of but resolving the forty two Aegyptian months which is three solid Aegyptian Years and an half into just twelve hundred and sixty days shows that no more years than so are to be understood thereby And this not respecting at all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or five adjectitious days in this Compute of the Time of the Medial Visions all which synchronize one with another complies excellently well with that Truth which I have made out viz. That the eventual measure of the Medial Visions is not a Year which has been thought hitherto so to be but a Semi-time in respect of which seventeen years or more is not at all considerable So that there was no need of being so precise as to take the Dies adjectitii into the Reckoning and so to make the whole twelve hundred and seventy seven years at least as you would infer Wherefore though every day in the forty two months stands for a year yet these months being Aegyptian months and consisting of just thirty days apiece and there is the
New Jerusalem with Answers thereto THE first Objection upon Apocalypsis Apocalypseos pag. 4. To be Kings and Priests unto God signifies as much as a Sacerdotal Kingdom as Exod. 9.6 a Kingdom because of the reigning Estate Sacerdotal because of their Priestly Employ and in some places as Apoc. 20.6 because of the unstainedness of their condition as to Externals Now it is acknowledged that there is a Kingdom designed here on Earth for Christ and Christianity and there are a great many places that seem to promise all his faithful Adherents at least his faithful suffering Adherents of all times a share in the glory and felicity of that Kingdom-Estate as if the Martyrs of the Primitive Times and of all Times should have a Recompence for their Sufferings in the New Jerusalem-state of things as Apoc. Chap. 2. v. 26. where you acknowledge that the Ruling the Nations and the Morning-Star are matters Political If these be confined to the successive Intervals of the Church the Sardian and Philadelphian Times suppose what will they signifie in the literal Interpretation And pag. 23. of Apoc. Apocalypseos it is said the bright Morning-Star belongs to the Philadelphian Interval which is at a great distance from the Thyatirian how shall the Martyrs and Confessors in the Thyatirian Interval have any share in the happy Philadelphian state of things Or what will such a promised felicity signifie to their encouragement wherein not they but their Successors only of following times are to have an interest It is needless to mention many other places that appertain to this matter But I could never untye this knot of difficulties in the Apocalypse that is I could never conceive it possible that Christian Sufferers of all Times and Ages should partake of the Jerusalem-state of things nor how the Apocalypse can be interpreted so as not to assert it Which is the more probable because the Kingdom-state which is designed for Christ is a kind of Heavenly Kingdom-state upon Earth Answ The New Jerusalem-state is nothing else but the Triumph of the truly Apostolick Church emerging into Universal Power above their Enemies into undisturbed Peace and an Heavenly Holiness of Conversation here upon Earth Which at last she will obtain and it is an encouragement to the present suffering Martyrs that the cause they suffer for will at last appear so glorious and triumphant here on Earth while they in the mean time are better rewarded in Heaven and it were a bidding them to their loss to have them exchange their Heavenly felicity for this Earthly though gloriously flourishing condition And lastly look but on the Apostolick Church according as the Prophetick Stile represents it as one continued Body from the beginning to the end and all these promises to the Pergamenian and Thyatirian Sufferers are made good to them as being still the same Body of the Church in their Successors Nor is this Heaventy Kingdom of Christ upon Earth otherwise to be understood Heavenly than that the Spirit and Conversation of Christians in the New Jerusalem-state will be truly Holy and Heavenly So that I see no difficulty at all in this Point if we rightly conceive the matter And it will further ease the Reader 's mind if he consider what I have writ Chap. 20. That though the New Jerusalem be a Prophecy of an excellent State of the Church on Earth yet the description of that State is an intended Type also of the State of the Church Triumphant in Heaven Object 2. Upon pag. 22 23. To have power over the Nations seems to signifie That he shall be of Power over Nations or of Regal Dignity in that Kingdom-estate upon Earth which is designed for Christ by his Father Chap. 2.27 And the promise of the Morning-Star confirms such an Interpretation For it is the Star of Empire and the white Raiment promised Chap. 3.5 is an Ensign of Regal Dignity Answ The ingenious Objector seems to mistake in the propriety of the Prophetick Stile which as in the Symbol of a Woman a Man or Beast does not intimate one single Individual but a Body of men and their succession so by the single person He is not meant this or that single Man but the whole successive Body of men that are Overcomers which according to the Prophetick Stile are signified by this single person He Those that stand out through Faith and Patience to the last in those Countries where the Pagano-Christians domineered over them these with their Princes and Rulers will have the Dominion over the Pagano-Christians and will become the beginning or commencement of the great Empire of Christ So far as the Father of our Lord Christ has enlarged his Kingdom in the Sardian Succession so far these Overcomers partake thereof with him And this Sardian State of the Kingdom of Christ is the promised Morning-Star but the Jerusalem state the bright Morning-Star And lastly Though white Raiment may be a Regal Ensign yet it is most safely interpreted of prosperous Success and may answer to that in the next Epistle v. 8. Behold I have set before thee an opened door c. Object 3. Upon pag. 31 c. It is observable touching the Church of Philadelphia that there are many passages that represent her in a state of Tryal She is said to have a little strength and to have kept the word of Christ's Patience she is exhorted to hold fast that which she hath that she lose not the Crown for which she was conflicting she is exhorted to overcome and encouraged to behave her self heroically Now Sir how will this agree with the New Jerusalem-state of the Church Besides it is promised to the Philadelphians as a thing to come Chap. 3.12 But it is more observable that it is promised to the Philadelphians that their Christian Champions shall be Citizens of the New Jerusalem and that Christ will write upon them his new Name which I believe you rightly interpret King of Kings c. This therefore seems to countenance what I said before That all Christ's suffering Adherents shall have a share of the New Jerusalem-felicity here on Earth and have preferments in that Kingdom-Estate Which may seem to be further countenanced from the promise to Laodicea Chap. 3.21 That they shall sit with Christ on his Throne Answ This Objection is grounded on a mistake as if the Philadelphian Interval and New Jerusalem-state did synchronize Whenas the Philadelphian Interval begins sooner and ends sooner than the New Jerusalem-state Wherefore those Exhortations belong to that part of the Philadelphian Interval that goes before the Jerusalem-state Whence their emerging at last into that state is promised to them as a thing to come Now as for their Christian Champions c. as if it were understood of some select Persons this difficulty is grounded upon the old mistake viz. That He signifies a particular person whenas in the Prophetick sense and stile it here signifies the whole Body of the faithful Philadelphians predicting that that
the Wolf and the Lamb shall feed together is to be understood literally with Answers thereto Six Particulars in order to or compliance with the making the War of the Heros on the white Horse Apoc. 19. Literal only or Carnal With an Answer to the said Particulars IN my Exposition of the Epistle to the Church in Pergamus I interpret the Nicolaitans to be a people that sat loose enough as to the Romish Church but were also unchast and loose of their bodies And that there were such within the Pergamenian Interval which reaches from An. Dom. 324. to An. Dom. 1242. is apparent from History This the Reverend and Learned Dean of Paul's Dr. Stillingfleet has made good to our hands in the Fanaticism of the Roman Church where he tells us that this Nicolaitan Doctrine which afterward proved the very Doctrine of Henry Nicolas the Father of the Family of Love did obtain amongst them at the beginning of the thirteenth Century viz. That every Person of the Holy Trinity had his successive Time of Ruling the World That the Law of the Father continued till Christ's Coming the Law of the Son till their Time and then the Time of the Holy Ghost was to begin In which the use of Sacraments was to cease and all external Administrations c. And they so highly extolled Love that what would have been a sin without it they thought to be none with it as Fornication Adultery c. This is the Primitive Nicolaitism which was again renew'd by H. N. aliàs Henry Nicolas from whence our modern Familists spring as also at first the Quakers who still cast away the Sacraments and make nothing of external Administrations This business is related in Nauclerus and that before An. Dom. 1190. so fully is it within the Pergamenian Interval It may not be amiss to set down his words concerning the latter part of their description Charitatis etiam virtutem sic ampliabant ut id quod aliàs peccatum esset si fieret in Charitate jam illud non esset peccatum unde stupra adulteria caeteras corporis voluptates nomine Charitatis perpetrabant mulieribusque cum quibus peccabant simplicibus quos decipiebant impunitatem promittebant Deum tantummodo bonum justum praedicantes This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Christ says he hates and abhors Apoc. 2.15 And it is a surprizing hit that Henry Nicolas should be so eminent a Reviver of this Nicolaitan Doctrine But I have said enough already to confirm our Exposition of that passage of the Apocalypse I will pass hence to Chap. 8. v. 7 8 c. where the third Part mentioned at least half a score times I interpret to be a Symbol of the Roman Empire and there is very good reason for it from what occurs Chap. 12.4 where the great red Dragon with seven Heads and ten Horns which most certainly denotes the Roman Empire according to all Interpreters is said to have drawn down with his Tail the third part of the Stars of Heaven and to have cast them to the Earth that is to have brought the third part of the Kingdoms of the World under his subjection Which passage is an intended Key to that in the eighth Chapter as the seventeenth Chapter is chiefly to the eleventh and thirteenth In the ninth Chapter v. 8. where the Locusts are said to have hair as the hair of Women I as Mr. Mede before me interpret of the Saracens which are Arabians of whom Pliny writes Nat. Hist lib. 6. cap. 28. N. 30. Arabes mitrati degunt aut intonso crine And the Vision describes the Locusts as having faces of humane shape but that they wear their hair as Women as do the Arabians as being Mitrati that is having Womens Head-tire on For so Mitra signifies Pilea virorum sunt Mitrae foeminarum It was the Head-cover also of the Lydians and Phrygians but accounted less manly Whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a reproachful Title given to the soft and effeminate though the Arabians were not reputed such See Martinius Mr. Mede cites rather the sense than the words of Pliny But whether we read or aut it is plain these Arabians ordered their hair as women which therefore is a fit Character of the Saracens in these Locusts In the eighteenth Chapter v. 23. I content my self in noting that the voice of Bridegroom and Bride being no more heard in Babylon signifies that there shall be no more propagating of their Pseudo-Catholick Religion the end of Marriage being Propagation And this is a true sense and unexceptionable But it might have been fuller if we had noted also that there may be an allusion to that usurped Title of the Pope who calls himself Sponsus Ecclesiae For then the proselyting of Nations and Countries to the Papal Religion and Jurisdiction would look ever like a new Marriage But the Joy of such Marriages will cease after the final Fall of Babylon which is described in this eighteenth Chapter of the Apocalypse See Gabriel Powel in his De Antichristo l. 1. c. 14. In Chapter 22. v. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And there shall be no more curse This I expound of the furious Papal Anathema's or Excommunications to depose Kings and Princes and to involve the Christian World in blood which I do not doubt but is the proper Prophetical meaning of the place and not the Curse of God for Sin which was Diseases Death Briars Thorns the labour and sweat of Tillage and the like That Curse we shall never be delivered from till we come to Heaven And those that phansie such things here on Earth in the New Jerusalem state as in this passage so in all other passages that sound so high they are to remember that the proper fulfilling of them is to be in Heaven though in a figurative sense they will be fulfilled here and that the description of the New Jerusalem on Earth is so framed as to be also Typical of the State of the Church in Heaven as I have more fully declared in Chapter 20. of these Paralipomena But forasmuch as besides this mistake in S. E. I find a sober and judicious Writer W. A. in his Treatise of the State of the Church in the latter Ages of the World to incline to the Opinion that there will be even a Change of Nature in the Time of the New Jerusalem-state of the Church I will a while here divert into what he says Chap. 10. and produce the most material Reasons he hath for the proving that in those days there will be a Change of the World Natural as well as the World Moral as he phraseth it Those places of Scripture that seem to promise plenty of things and increase of People I conceive imply no such Radical Change in the World Natural For merely from the Moral Temperance of men in those Times there will be length of Days and the Propagation of a
sound Off-spring this with Peacefulness will cause Populousness And for Plenty which depends upon the Clouds and timely and seasonable Showres they have ever been and will be at the Command of the invisible Powers in the Air. So that that will be no insititious Change in the Natural World but the effects of free Actions in those invisible Agents But that indeed of Isaiah Chap. 65.20 if not fitly interpreted may seem to argue a Change of things more than what depends upon what is Free and Moral For after God had promised he would create a new Heaven and a new Earth v. 17. he adds a little afterwards That there shall be no more thence an Infant of days nor an Old man that has not filled his days For the Child shall dye an hundred years old but the Sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed Here the Child dying an hundred years old to the heedless may import that they shall be more longaevous then than the Patriarchs before the Floud an Hundred being to a Thousand as Seven the Age of a Child to Seventy which would imply a strange Change in the Natural World indeed But to give W. A. his due he has pitched upon the most likely sense of this Verse viz. That there shall no Child ordinarily dye by any untimely death nor an Old man that has not lived so long as in the course of Nature he might well reach That the space from Childhood to old Age shall ordinarily be an hundred years c. But I deny that this argues any more than what depends upon a Divine Morality or real Regeneration in their Parents who will transmit a sound and wholesom constitution to their Posterity Which if any one of them do not improve to the like Vertue and Piety and yet by the Benefit of their Constitution live an hundred years content mainly with the things of the Animal life such a Sinner as this notwithstanding his Longaevity is accursed both because he for the present deprives himself of the enjoyments of the Divine life and must expect also but a bad Reception when he dyes into the other State The next Text of moment which he urges is Rom. 8.21 The Creature it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God Which he would have to argue that there will be a Change of the World Natural in the blessed Millennium as well as in the World Moral he supposing that Creature there signifies the whole sublunary Creation at least And the Apostle v. 22. says For we know that the whole Creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now Where the whole Creation is the same with the Creature it self not Christians quatenus Christians but the very Creature or Creature it self groaneth and is in pain But then it is to be understood as Dr. Hammond also will have it of the whole Humane Creature which he makes out rationally and judiciously And what Creatures but humane or Men can expect to be delivered into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God This therefore does not respect the Jerusalem-state of the Church here on Earth but the State of the Resurrection For then only will this deliverance from the bondage of Corruption be and the attainment of the freedom of the Sons of God which is the Title of the Angels For then in our incorruptible glorified bodies we shall become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal to the Angels And this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is mentioned v. 23. which we groan after and wait for viz. the redemption of our bodies that they may be glorified and made Angelical such as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have the Angels or Sons of God as is declared in the Answer to S. E. Something like this Text is that alledged out of the Acts Chap. 3.21 where S. Peter speaking of our blessed Saviour saith Whom the Heaven must receive until the Times of Restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy Prophets since the world began W. A. to give him his due manages this Text ingeniously enough to his present purpose upon supposition that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were to be rendred as our English Translation renders it Restitution implying thereby Restauration or Renovation But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a completed Circuit or Period properly relating to Astronomical Revolutions It signifies also the effecting of a thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore signifies either the Periodical Times that is to say the Times brought to a Period or the Times of effecting of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of his holy Prophets Which easie sense implies no such Change in the World Natural in the Millennium as our Author would deduce therefrom And this is not my sense only on the Text but Grotius his also or something in him near akin to it As for that Isai 66.22 For as the Heavens and Earth which I will make shall remain before me saith the Lord so shall your seed and your name remain This Heaven and Earth as that Chap. 65.17 is a Political Heaven and Earth that Divine Polity which will constitute the New Jerusalem-state of the Church in which the Jews or Israelites will have a portion as long as that Polity stands which is to the end of all But I have made so much haste that I have omitted a prime Text alledged by this ingenious Author Isai Chap. 65. The Wolf and the Lamb shall feed together and the Lion shall eat straw like the Bullock and dust shall be the Serpents meat they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain saith the Lord. And a fuller description to the same purpose there is Chap. 11. which he produces to prove that there will be a Change in the World Natural in the Millennium as well as in the Moral World he urging the literal sense of these places for these three Reasons following First Because the Wolf and Lamb the Lion and Bullock are supposed to retain their Original proper Natures still For if not then the Wolf would become a Lamb and the Lion a Bullock and then in the mystical sense which he opposes it would only be that the Lamb and the Lamb would feed together and the Bullock eat straw like other Bullocks The second Reason is That we cannot well imagine for what other purpose that saying The Lion shall eat straw like an Ox should be added but only to give some account how those Creatures shall live and how they shall be fed when they shall cease to prey upon other living Creatures Which implies that the sense is literal The third is Because it is further added That dust shall be the Serpent's meat which further confirms the foregoing Reason as if the Prophet did persist in instructing us how these Creatures when their noxious properties are taken away shall feed and sustain themselves Nor
Jerusalem is here upon Earth To the third I say That that high expression of the Heaven and Earth flying away or vanishing from the face of him that sate upon the Throne and that there was found no place for them is only to set out the exceeding great Glory of him that sate upon the Throne that they could neither see Earth nor the Azure Sky their eyes being so filled and taken up with the great resplendency and brightness of that light But the real stress of the Argument if there be any in it is That there is a new Heaven and a new Earth after the Conflagration which accompanies the last Judgment mentioned in the beginning of the ensuing Chapter But from what has been faid to the second Argument it is apparent that it is a mere Lemmatosynechia that is the continuing together of the Visions in the outward Cortex of the Apocalypse as if that were the very order of time in the things they prefigure when it is quite otherwise in the true sense of the Visions This is one part of the artifice of Concealment affected by the Apocalypse of which there are many instances As that Chap. 4.1 where after the Vision of the seven Churches John is bid to come up that he might be shown what things must come to pass 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after these things Which Lemmatosynechia has so imposed upon some otherwise learned and of notable parts that they have joined the beginning of the sealed Book-Prophecy with the ending of the affairs of Laodicea That also seems to be a Lemmatosynechia Chap. 13.14 where the two-horned Beast is said to make an Image to the Beast that had the wound by the Sword and did live as if the ten-horned Beast in the immediately foregoing Vision were meant which is a glib correspondency in the Cortex when the inward sense is otherwise But there is not a more elegant Lemmatosynechia than that Chap. 11.9 where the three days and an half of the Witnesses being dead are immediately placed after the twelve hundred and sixty days of their mournful prophesying when yet the three days and an half are the same time or Synchronal to the twelve hundred and sixty days as I have elsewhere proved by impregnable Arguments I will only add one instance more Chap. 16. v. 18 19. where the City is said to be divided into three parts upon the Earthquake there mentioned whenas that Tripartition of the City was before but it is a very smooth and trim Lemmatosynechia in the Cortex And such a Lemmatosynechia is this in naming a New Heaven and a New Earth immediately after the Conflagration which is a wonderful smooth connexion in the Cortex when yet in truth this New Heaven and New Earth is a Political Heaven and Earth answering to that of Isaiah Chap. 65.17 and created in the beginning of the Millennium This is the promised New Heaven and New Earth mentioned by S. Peter alluding to that of Isaiah wherein dwelleth righteousness whenas the Polity of Babylon was full of persecution injustice and blood Wherefore Alcazar being not aware of this usual Artifice of Concealment intended in the Apocalypse which I call Lemmatosynechia has produced that for a strong Argument which the matter rightly understood has no strength in it at all To his fourth I answer That we are both agreed in this that the 7. and 8. verses of Chap. 21. respect the state of men to come after the Day of Judgment the Lake of fire and the Inheritance of Heaven For I declare in my Exposition That from the second verse to the ninth is a brief description of the affairs of the Church from the second Thunder to the last or to the end of the World to the last Reward of the Godly and Punishment of the Wicked But as after a brief mention of the destruction of Babylon Chap. 16. v. 19. there is a large description of her and her destruction in the two following Chapters 17. and 18. so here after a brief intimation of the emersion of the New Jerusalem into being there is a full and glorious Description thereof from the ninth verse of this 21. Chapter to the sixth of the next And I may here further add that as in the foregoing Chapter v. 9 10. the Conflagration is glanced at in the destruction of Gog and Magog by fire who besieged the holy City but the Judgment of the wicked and fiery Lake or Conflagration more fully prosecuted from v. 11. to the end of the Chapter So here after the brief mentioning of the state of the New Jerusalem in the five first verses it is more fully described from the ninth verse to the end of this Chapter and some part of the next So small force has this fourth Argument to infer that these descriptions of the New Jerusalem belong to the state of the Church in Heaven The fifth Argument makes a pretty show but it is grounded upon a gross mistake as if the twelve thousand furlongs were the side of the Square Area of the New Jerusalem whenas it is a solid Number whose Cubick root multiplied by four gives the same Perimeter in a manner that Ezekiel's four thousand five hundred multiplied into four do give that is eighteen thousand not Reeds but Cubits as both Gaspar Sanctius and Villalpandus conceive them to be both of them learned and industrious Commentators upon Ezekiel By which solid account the seeming force of this fifth Argument quite vanisheth See Mr. Potter's Interpretation of the Number 666. Chap. 5. And the Equality of Perimeters of the Square Area of Ezekiel's and S. John's Cities supposing the solid measure of S. John's City to be twelve thousand furlongs as the Text it self seems to intimate and he measured the City with a Reed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all twelve thousand furlongs and he presently thereupon adding the length breadth and height of it are equal implies they are solid furlongs this Equality I say added to the twelve Gates in each City twelve Tribes the River and the Trees and Fruit is a plain Argument that S. John's City and Ezekiel's are Figures of the same thing and Ezekiel's being of the State of the Church on Earth S. John's must be so also And now for his sixth Argument from I saw no Temple there It consists very well with the state of the Church in those best and most glorious times thereof in the Millennial Reign of Christ which the Cabbalists also call the Reign of the Spirit when God will find in abundance such Worshippers as he seeks for viz. such as shall worship him in Spirit and in Truth And this passage seems inserted on purpose to be a Key to the Jews that will then be converted how to understand Ezekiel's Prophecy of the same state of the Church by the City he describes and makes so much to do with the Temple and Rituals thereof they will by this Note understand that it is an Hylastick Parable
sort of men by their Faith Patience and powerful preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom will at last have so glorious and victorious success that they with their Successours shall bring in the New Jerusalem-state or Millennial Empire of Christ so that all that is predicted of the New Jerusalem shall be fulfilled in them here on Earth while all Christ's suffering Adherents in the mean that are dead enjoy themselves in Heaven As for the Promise to the Laodicean Overcomers it is not the promise of an Earthly Throne but an Heavenly as to be Assistents of Christ coming to judge the People as the Word signifies in the Close of this Interval of the Laodicean Church which Interval may be so denominated as for other reasons so haply by way of Allusion to Ptolemy's Laodicea combusta as I have more than once noted the Conflagration closing this Interval Object 4. Notwithstanding the great Learning which you have employ'd Sir in the Exposition of the seven Churches it seems a somewhat lubricous business But the rest of your Exposition is matter of much greater Certainty But it is no disparagement for any man that is thus assured of the truth and meaning of the Apocalypse as to the main purport of it to acknowledge there is great difficulty in interpreting several particular passages Touching the New Jerusalem I cannot but observe that there are a great many passages in the Apocalypse which seem to argue the time will come when God and the Son of God will hold his Estate and Court here upon Earth Which how strange soever it may seem is not so strange as that the Son of God should be crucified here upon Earth And if this Hypothesis might be thought solid and well grounded all the passages of this Book aforementioned and many more would be sufficiently clear and the description of the New Jerusalem in the two last Chapters would be easily intelligible which I think cannot be well understood without it These places Rev. 21. v. 3 4 5 6 12 13 15. and Chap. 22. v. 3 4 5 6 14 15. sound this way at such a rate that they almost force me whether I will or no to believe some such thing But how far and in what manner these things may be true may be troublesom to conceive Answ This business would not seem so lubricous to the learned Objector if his Reason and Phancy was but once well inured to that Figure of the Prophetick Stile which we call Henopoeia which takes not place only in a Man Woman or Beast made the Symbols of some Society or Body Politick But the Pronoun He which so often occurs in these Epistles to the Churches has also in it this Figure and signifies not a single Person but such a Body or Society of men so or so behaving themselves together with their Successours This successive Body by a Prophetick Henopoeia is represented as one single Person by the Pronoun He He that overcometh This once admitted all difficulties vanish as to the seven Churches And if the Objector did but observe how full of Hylasmus's and Israelismus's the Apocalyptick Stile is he would easily be reconciled to such a sense of these places of the twenty first and twenty second of the Apocalypse as the Expositor has given of them though they bear so hard upon his Phancy for the present as to drive him to expect a personal Reign of Christ upon Earth Consider also here what we intimated above That the Description of the New Jerusalem is so drawn as to be a Type also of the Church Triumphant in Heaven But to proceed We averr moreover That Christ's Personal Reign here on Earth would be infinitely more strange than his Suffering here because the Reasons of this latter are so palpable But I see no reason at all for a Personal Reign of Christ upon Earth whenas the Spirit of Christ within us in that measure and efficacy it will be in those days will serve all intents and purposes that his Personal Reign can be supposed to serve to And this reigning by his Spirit is a greater perfection in his Church than if he should guide them by his personal Presence and Voice here on Earth Inward Regeneration by the operation of the Spirit into the living Image of Christ is a greater Priviledge I say than to be guided by the external Person and Voice of Christ amongst us sounding in our ears As if the thing could be it were better for an Horse to be turned into a perfect man than to be rid by the bravest Heros that is And lastly That Opinion touching all the suffering Adherents to Christ that they should become Citizens of this New Jerusalem on Earth which is conjoined with the Opinion of Christ's personal Reign is not agreeable to Reason in that it brings down the persecuted Saints great Reward in Heaven which Christ promiseth Matt. 5.12 to a lesser reward here on Earth CHAP. XXXIX Two Objections more out of the same Letter The first touching the Palm-bearing Company whether they synchronize with the New Jerusalem The other touching the Intricateness and Obscurity of the Vision of the two Witnesses With Answers to both Objections THE first Objection is upon pag. 67. Mr. Mede's Arguments saith he for the Synchronism of the Palm-bearing Company with the New Jerusalem seems not firm If they were and we could be assured that the Palm-bearing Company were personally Citizens of the New Jerusalem it would argue that the New Jerusalem-state is designed to be premiant to the suffering Christians And indeed it seems to be the main scope of the Apocalypse to predict that Divine state of things But however the Palm-bearing Company are plainly the Triumphant Army of Martyrs and are of great affinity with those Rev. 20.4 saving only that the latter are the Martyrs under Antichrist the former seem to be the Martyrs under Paganism And since these Martyrs are described as personally rewarded with their white Robes c. it would be strange for us to think they are rewarded by Proxy in the prosperity of others in the Jerusalem-state Besides that it is too early of the Apocalypse to have a formal Vision of the New Jerusalem state Answ That the Palm-bearing Company synchronizes in part with the New Jerusalem besides what Mr. Mede alledges the Methodicalness of the Apocalypse may assure us For the prefixing of the 144000 sealed ones with the Residue of that Vision in that Chapter before the seven Trumpets is according to exquisite Method the seven Trumpets being a more distinct and particular Representation of the affairs of the same Time Nor does it follow from the Palm-bearing Company 's being Citizens of the New Jerusalem that those individual Martyrs that suffered either under Paganism or Antichrist that they live in the New Jerusalem here on Earth but by a Prophetick Henopoeia the whole successive Body of the pure Apostolick suffering Church under the Persecution of Antichrist being understood when this one
succeeding Body emerges out of their Persecutions into a Victory over the Beast c. then they become the Turba palmifera and that gradually First in the Sardian Interval after more gloriously and copiously in the Philadelphian which is coincident with the New Jerusalem Nor need they be thought those that suffered under Antichrist or the Dragon to be in the prosperity of the New Jerusalem state rewarded by a Proxy which is wittily expressed they according to the Genius of the Apocalyptick Stile being looked upon as the same individual Body Politick still as it is manifest in the Rising of the two Witnesses And lastly It is not too early of the Apocalypse to have the Jerusalem-state glanced at in a Vision Synchronal to the seven Trumpets which reach to the last Judgment and therefore include in them the Time of the New Jerusalem the ligher glances at which partake of the nature of that fuller description Chap. 21. and therefore are also Typical of the Martyrs Triumphant State in Heaven Consider our twentieth Chapter again of this Treatise Object 2. Upon pag. 102. The Vision of the two Witnesses hath always seemed to me one of the obscurest parts of the Book-Prophecy And he that reads what you have written on that Subject with due consideration will be apt to think it is scarce possible to employ more Wit than you have done to void the difficulties of it There are several things in the business of this Prophecy that seem to me of rational Conception 1 It is rational to think that the Apocalypse speaks stilo Judaico as all men observe quòd saepissimè 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 That these two Witnesses are two Judaical Prophetick Reformers Reforming Powers Movers and Mourners for Reformation mystically understood 3 That the Spirit of Prophecy speaks of them and characterizes them stilo Judaico as the two Olive-trees two Candlesticks of Elias-like zeal and terrour and Elias-like and Mosaick Wonder-working Power 4 That the cause of their mourning is the desolation of Jerusalem the holy City being trodden under foot 5 They are bipartite or of a twofold nature and quality and therefore represented by two Witnesses 6 It is rational to think that the Beast the ten-horned Beast the secular Power should kill them about the commencement of his Reign to rid the World of such troublesom Fellows But then the following Particulars seem to be as rational 1 The Text sets down things as they were represented 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and leaveth us to spell out the things signified corresponding to the Visional Representations or Iconisms and though the Rind and Pulp must not be confounded yet they must be connex correspondent and go hand in hand Wherefore 2 it should seem that the Witnesses prophesying upon their death quite ceaseth for mortui nihil agunt 3 That upon this account the Nations rejoice and send gifts because they are rid of them and their Testimony 4 That therefore they had been tormented by them and their Testimony for a long time before they were rid of them by their Death And 5 That the Beast himself was provoked and enraged by their long continued Testimony before he sets upon them to slaughter them And 6 That during the time of their Prophecy they could not be dead in the sense of the Prophecy because during that time they were as Olive-trees and Candlesticks standing before God and had and exercised all their Wonder-working Power mentioned Ch. 11.5 6. And 7 That their death in the Prophecy is represented as an effect and consequent of their prophetick Testimony so long continued to the Prejudice of the World These Sir are the best Objections that I can make against your Method of interpreting this Prophecy which surely is desirable it should be true But I cannot make all ends meet which possibly you may do But I intreat you consider Sir How it is possible that the Witnesses should be as dead Carcasses and yet be in Action all the while For if they be but Politically dead they must by the Text be as Politically dead If I could solve such Objections the Rising of the Witnesses sounds so like the Reformation that it would go down with me without chewing but I have tryed several Methods of reconciling things but none of them will do Answ The six first Particulars represent truly enough the Cortical meaning of the Prophecy But as to the latter part of the first of the following seven Particulars where it is required that the Rind and the Pulp though they be not to be confounded yet that they be connex correspondent and go hand in hand what the ingenious Objector would have by connex and going hand in hand I do not so well know but that there is a parallel correspondency I not only allow but assert And I say that their Political Death that is to say their Inability of reforming things amiss in the Church and Religion this PITH runs parallel with the RIND viz. with their lying three days and an half as dead Carcasses in the street of the City And those three days and an half viz. three times and an half the RIND again run parallel with the years the PITH that they are in this Death Political And what more exact Correspondency can be required But while they are thus dead as to Political power it does not at all imply that they are so to power Spiritual and Prophetical which they may exercise though at their peril and so in Individuals be naturally killed also though the Prophetick body or succession continue upon occasions prophesying and thereupon persecuted or suffering Martyrdom c. from whence appears the invalidity of the second Particular For though the Witnesses be politically dead yet they are not so to spiritual Power and Prophecy And mortui nihil agunt reaches no further than to what they are dead to Otherwise the Souls of men departed would be asleep who though they be dead to the things of this life yet they are alive to the things of the other And as for the third fourth and fifth Particulars their invalidity will be discovered if we consider the Prophetick Stile how Henopoetick it is representing frequently repeated Acts as it were but one single Act whereby notwithstanding there is understood as well succession of Acts as succession of Persons under one single Beast and these two single Witnesses Wherefore the Inhabiters of the Earth sending gifts to each other upon the slaughter of the Witnesses is the RIND in this part of the Vision but the PVLP is a successive or repeated rejoicing of the earthly minded Church and enjoying the World in keeping down these Witnesses the true Evangelici and outing them of all Political Power in Church or State and sometimes of their Lives and Fortunes and in the mean time sharing the World amongst themselves and rejoicing therein Wherefore the third Particular has no force against our Exposition of the Vision if we consider the nature of a
yet it abated it so far as that the Woman was safe from being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thereby Nay it was in a manner all drunk up by the Earth the Clayish Earth or Ecclesiastick Councils by that time Theodosius came to be Emperour which was a little before the Woman entred into the Wilderness And the Church had such Anchorage in this first Council of Nice that such Arianism Erat quando non erat as was properly condemned by that Council could never hold up its head again But the eternal Generation of the Son was acknowledged begotten of the Father before all Worlds as the Nicene Creed has it and Arius expressing himself more compliantly with this Creed was re-admitted into the Church by the favour of Constantine who you may be sure would never have re-admitted him unless he had come to some such tolerable compliance And the whole Controversie after that seems only to have been Whether the Son should be deemed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to his Father which being difficult to decide there were those that would have the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being too hard for the people nor mentioned in Scripture to be left out of the Creed giving that deference to the Nicene decision as not to pronounce it false but over-curious So that there was no peril of the Churches drowning in this Floud when the Nicene Council was so nearly observed even by those that seemed to oppose it And for the Homoüsians and Homoeüsians there wanted nothing but a dextrous Critick to shew how both their terms are consistent one with another if you will but exclude Sabellianism out of the account For making the Father and the Son two real Hypostases though indiscerpible or indivisible one from another they are not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it may aim at a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one and the same Individuous Substance but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of like substance because according to Aristotle himself there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Similitude betwixt Substances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Identity of Quality whether Essential or Accidental is a sure ground of Similitude And the Son being the eternal Image of his Father how can they but be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless you run into Sabellianism and will have nothing to do with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Substance and acknowledge a Trinity only of words qualifications or second Notions So that we see what a manifest Influence the Council of Nice had to keep the Woman from being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perishing in the Draconick floud And that not only from the benefit of this one Council which was purely Orthodox but even from those Councils which were with a general and promiscuous appellation called Arian though not such Arians as were first condemned by the Nicene Council So that though these Arian Councils were less Orthodox than they should be yet one part of the Christian Populacy adhering to them and the other part to the Orthodox Councils the Woman was so well buoyed up by the help of these Councils as young Swimmers are with Bladdders or Bulrushes that she was safe from sinking again into Paganism or giving religious Worship to any but who was really Creator of the Heavens and of the Earth Jer. 10.11 though that was the malicious project of the Dragon in spuing out that floud of Heterodoxy and Contention viz to extinguish Christianity and make men turn Pagans Thus therefore was the Woman helped by that first Oecumenical and other Councils But how Julian's Death can be so properly said to be an help to her in this case I must confess I see not For most certainly the floud out of the Dragons mouth signifies Heresie or Heterodoxy and Contention The natural Remedy to which evil are well regulated Councils that the minds of the Vulgar who are neither studied Theologers nor Philosophers may be setled and quieted by the grave authoritative decision of their Superiours in things hugely expedient and necessary in Religion and Divine Worship and such was the knowledge of the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the Godhead Father Son and Holy Ghost Which Faith was assured to the Christian people by these Ecclesiastick Councils and Paganism kept out at arms length and the Christian Religion secured But as for the death of Julian in the Persian War how little service it did may appear in that within a year or two after Valens coming to the Imperial Crown proved an hot Persecutor of the Orthodox Object 3. Upon pag. 143. a The Text of the dead dying in the Lord seems to refer to such times when Martyrdom was most frequent b And p. 146. though Christ's Harvest may signifie the Conversion of Nations and People yet the Angels Vintage seems rather to signifie execution of Judgments because that is the usual Employ of Angels but those things I cannot so well judge of till I have better studied the whole Apocalypse One thing Sir I will a little discourse of which concerns the latter part thereof It is an Antichristian Polity that is to be destroy'd pretendedly or after a sort Religious Now it concerns us to consider after what manner such religious Polities are destroy'd according to the usual Method of Providence The Judaical Polity was very like the Roman c Now their religious Polity was destroy'd by the destruction of their Temple City Priesthood and the like Wherefore Interpreters have applied that Prophecy Gen. 49.10 of the Scepter 's departing from Judah to the destruction of the Jewish State by the destruction of their City and Temple d Cardinal Perron considers the City-Church of Rome as Central to the whole diffusive Church of Rome e It seems by the language of the Apocalypse that Providence designs the destruction of that Material City of Rome and its inhabiting Sacerdotal Polity both together and not one alone f Which if it were destroy'd there could be no such thing in rerum natura as a Church of Rome or Roman Communion no more than the Jewish Ecclesiastick State could exist when their City and Sacerdotal inhabiting Polity was destroy'd g In Rev. 17. v. ult it is the City of Rome that is spoken of for that City then reigned over the Kings of the Earth After the mention of this City immediately follows that Cry Rev. 18.2 Babylon the great is fallen and that other monitory Voice v. 4. Come out of her my people c. After which follows a large and pompous description of her destruction h These things bear hard Sir towards that sense of the Prophecy that the ruine of that Material City is intended as well as of the Sacerdotal Polity that inhabits it You see Sir I have done what I can to deserve the name of a Literalist but in a great Mundane Polity that is to be destroy'd and Cardinal Pallavicino pleads that such it ought to be Answ a The Text of the dead
foretold made to Daniel but the Object of the Vision the things foretold and that not when they would begin but when once begun how long they would hold from some certain Epocha viz. the time of their beginning But as for the mere Visionary Exhibition it was so far from reaching to the 2300 days whether vulgar or prophetical that it is not likely to have taken up one single hour And besides the Object of the Vision which is the taking away the daily Sacrifice c. not commencing before Antiochus his time as the Type or Antichrist's time as the Antitype it is impossible the Epocha of the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings should be placed so high as the Fall of Babylon by Cyrus Nor is the time of the Visionary Exhibition inquired into but the time of the taking away the daily Sacrifice the transgression that makes desolate and the giving the Sanctuary and the Host to be trodden under foot Unto this question of the time of these things it is answered Vnto 2300 days then shall the Sanctuary be cleansed So plain is it that the Epocha of the 2300 Evening-Mornings cannot be fixt higher than from the violation of the Temple by Antiochus Though there may be a pretence indeed in the Typical sense of placing it lower viz. in the beginning of the Reign of Antichrist the mystical Antiochus which according to my Epocha of his Reign is the year 393. And therefore if you add the 2300 days Prophetical to 392 years it will be the year of our Lord 2692. before the Sanctuary be cleansed a thousand and odd years hence But if you take the Author 's Epocha it will be above forty years more So improbable is it that the beginning of the Reign of Antichrist of whom Antiochus was a Type should be the Epocha of the 2300 Evening-Mornings Wherefore if they be Typical as well as Antiochus as the Term of the 2300 days literal from the first violation of the Temple shows when the Sanctuary should be cleansed from Antiochus his Pollutions so the end of 2300 Prophetical days from the same Epocha shows when the Church of Christ will be quite purged from the Pollutions of Antichrist And according to this middle or moderate placing of the Epocha it will be about four hundred and fifty years till the universal cleansing of the Church from Antichristian Pollutions till which there being so ample a space of time from the Rising of the Witnesses or commencement of the seventh Trumpet it is a plain indication how much the Author of the Calendar is out in allotting but forty five years to the Effusion of the seven Vials And as it is thus demonstrable by Reason that the Epocha of the 2300 Evening-Mornings is to be fixt in the Pollution of the Temple by Antiochus in the Typical sense of them So is it expresly declared Dan. 12.11 that there likewise is to be fixt the Epocha of the 1290 days and the 1335 days So that this quaint and wittily contrived frame of the six Collateral Lines so artificially adjusted to the Principal Line of the 2300 Evening-Mornings is every way utterly broken in pieces as also any hopes from hence that the Papacy and Turkish Tyranny will be brought so low about twelve years hence that the Witnesses every where will put off their Sack-cloth and cloath themselves with the garments of gladness Or that the New Jerusalem will appear upon Earth about eighty eight years hence Not the least glimmerings of hope shine forth from these Evening-Mornings of any such thing This I freely declare as one not interessed in any Party any further than they are in the Truth and it is not the Church of England as the Church of England but as she has the Truth on her side and is the most eminent and noble Specimen of the Accomplishment of the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses in the whole Reformation and that it is the adequate fulfilling of the Prophecy I have with irrefutable Evidence demonstrated elsewhere so that it is needless to say any thing thereof in this place that makes me adhere to so excellently well constituted a Church CHAP. XLVI Some few strictures more upon several passages of the Calendar of Prophetick Time As touching the four Beasts and twenty four Elders The meaning of the Doxologie of the twenty four Elders alone Apoc. 11.18 and of the Inversion of the Doxological Service and that they both argue the twenty four crowned Elders to be Kings or Monarchs Whether the Interval of Smyrna is to be restrained to the ten years of Diocletian 's Persecution His mistake in making part of the sixth Seal a whole seventh Seal Whether the Paganish Barbarians are the floud cast out of the mouth of the Red Dragon His dating the taking away the Daily Sacrifice from the first moment of the Apostasie That the roaring of the Lyon Apoc. Chap. 10. ceased not of a sudden The ground of his making Thyatira Sardis and Philadelphia run their course together to the New Jerusalem confuted The incongruity of the Position it self The difficulties the Calendarist incumbers himself with in his way of treating on the Vision of the Churches The true way of solving those difficulties WE shall add some few more strictures upon several passages of the fore-mentioned Calendar As upon pag. 38. That the ingenious Author mislikes our English Translation's rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the four Beasts which bears an ill sense in all other places of the Apocalypse as answering to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not to be found fault withal Mr. Mede in his Answer to a Friend calls them instead of the four Beasts the four Wights a word which our English Translators I suppose did not adventure on it being worn out of use otherwise it would exactly answer to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it signifying so much as a living Creature But the deserting of Mr. Mede's Interpretation of these four Beasts or living Creatures and making them a Representation of the Apostles as some shallow Interpreters make them the four Evangelists posted at the four Angles of the Throne as an universal Ministry diffusing the Gospel into all parts of the World and the pure Israelitish Ministry to be Typed by the twenty four Elders this is a slip of his in no wise commendable For first it is against the Genius of the Prophetick Stile to understand by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any other than a Body Politick not one single or some few persons This is a general Rule from which there is no Exception saving that of the Lamb which signifies the Person of Christ though it may be with a Connotation of his Church his Body And then secondly it seems wondrous harsh to interpret the four Wights of the Christian Church and the twenty four Elders of the Jewish whenas without all question as Mr. Mede has unexceptionably made it out that Vision is a Representation or has
Sardis and Philadelphia on this side and that side of Synchronous Thyatira But if the New Jerusalem Church should be thrust in here to stop that great gap betwixt Thyatira and Laodicea there would yet be but six Successions and instead of seven there would be eight Churches as I noted above So hugely incongruous is this present Position And though he has show'd a pretty inventive Wit in his managing his Interpretation of the Intervals of the Churches yet he seems to sit somewhat uneasily in the matter raising such scruples and objections as none but my Hypothesis viz. That it is the Apostolick Church that Christ directs his Epistles to can free us from Which Apostolick Churches are Ephesus Smyrna Sardis Philadelphia Laodicea all five sui juris having no Apostatized Church over them But Pergamus and Thyatira is the Apostolick Church the former in the greatest part of its Succession having the Apostatized Church over them the latter in its whole Succession But I cannot insist on these things I will only lightly touch upon them pag. 59. I say then that Sardis is more severely reprehended than Pergamus and Thyatira because they were the better sort of people who could notwithstanding their being under the Jurisdiction of the Apostatized Church keep themselves unpolluted therefrom and remain Apostolick whenas in Sardis though they be all in the external Apostolick or free from the Apostasie yet the World being got into the Church it is no wonder they are so faulty and so sharply rebuked And for that other difficulty that Philadelphia a much inferiour Church in appearance should be so far honoured above Sardis I say that Philadelphia is not inferiour no not so much as in appearance when it does appear at all which is not till the seventh Vial under the Conduct of that illustrious Heros on the white Horse who has a Sword coming out of his mouth This is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apoc. 3.8 rendred in our English a little strength but signifies a little Army but of great strength through the Conduct of that Divine Heros Apoc. 19.14 whom these Troops follow on white Horses cloathed in fine Linen white and clean true Israelites in whom there is no guile and five of whom shall chase an hundred and an hundred shall put ten thousand to flight Levit. 26.8 But this Church of Philadelphia is so far from being inferiour to Sardis that it is absolutely the best and most glorious Church that ever will be on Earth the only unspotted and also unpersecuted Church according to the description thereof of all the seven And there being no more than seven Successions and the Church under the New Jerusalem-state being still the Church it is demonstratively evident that that New Jerusalem Church is part and the better part by far of the Succession of Philadelphia This is thus plain in reason but it being said also to Philadelphia Chap. 3. to this victorious Army of that Divine Heros On him that overcometh I will write the Name of the City of my God New Jerusalem which cometh down out of Heaven from my God it cannot be blindness so much as wilfulness if any when he has considered it can still deny that the Time of the New Jerusalem is comprized in or at least incident into the Philadelphian Succession And pag. 60. That Smyrna should be commended above Sardis there is the like reason as in the first Case and besides their sore sufferings deserved Christ's Encomiums as well as the Crown of life And pag. 61. That scruple why Thyatira should be charged with the fault of suffering the false Prophetess Jezebel when she knew not how to help it is easily taken away according to my Interpretation who make it a Prediction that this is the Interval wherein the Apostolical Church would have the opportunity to cast out Jezebel and therefore they are blamed that it is not yet done But this Charge is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 small businesses it being no great fault that they knew not that the opportunity was so near and a great virtue in them in that in the mean time they would rather suffer than defile themselves with Papal Pollutions And as for Christ's Title in his Epistle to the Church of Sardis pag. 63. He that has the seven Spirits of God and the seven Stars Here in his right hand is omitted by a mere Apocalyptical Ellipsis and for no diminution to this newly begun Succession of his restored Church But the seven Spirits and seven Stars do fully imply as serious a purpose of the Restauration of his Church as he had in the first propagation thereof This Sardis therefore being as it were the Ephesus of the Restauration it is no wonder that Christ resumes his Title which he uses in his Epistle to Ephesus and that to the full if not more in the seven Spirits his designs of Providence being more great and glorious in his Restauration of his Church than they proved after about three hundred and sixty years since the first propagation the Church degenerating apace into the Kingdom of Antichrist till this Sardian Epocha of the Restauration which State though less perfect than it should be yet it is to pass into the Philadelphian state and to rise into a blessed Millennial Empire of Christ as the other degenerated into the Kingdom of Antichrist So little of diminution is there in the matter And being this Sardian Epocha is the solemn beginning of the Restauration of the Church why should Thyatira a Succession antecedent thereto be made to run parallel to that of Sardis Or Philadelphia which in the Prophecy plainly succeeds Sardis be drawn back to run parallel also thereto But I have out-run my design already and have touched upon more things than I intended I will now pass to what I am most of all concerned in the ingenious Author's Postscript or Additional View CHAP. XLVII Strictures on the Calendarist 's Postscript which consists of Objections against his Calendar with his Answers thereto The Reply to his Answer to the fourth Objection His Answer to the fifth Objection and to the first Argument from Villalpandus his Measures of the Inner and Outer Court of the Temple with the Reply thereto His Answer to the second Argument with the Reply His Answer to the seventh and main Objection with the Reply thereto Three Objections raised against his own Answer to the main Objection with his Answers which are replied unto The scope of the Author's diligence in exhibiting a true and faithful Interpretation of the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses and his Confidence that the ingenious Calendarist will easily be convinced by what has been writ that his Calendar stands but upon infirm grounds THough I be more concerned to consider what is in the Postscript of the Calendar than the Calendar it self that Postscript containing Objections which the witty Inventor of the Calendar has raised against it out of my Writings and framed Answers thereto
a reference thereto of the Camp of Israel So that the four Wights are as well Israelitish as the twenty four Elders And the twenty four Elders wearing Crowns and the four Wights not so plainly indicates that the one are the Rulers of the other and therefore are but one congenerous Polity And the Reasons which he produces to the contrary are but slight For the four Beasts or Wights are no more employ'd in the services of the New Testament time than the twenty four Elders For whatever any of them are said to do respects the New Testament time And for their being made to say Come and see at the opening the four first Seals we are to consider that the three latter of those Seals respect rather the Empire than the Church And it is not as an Israelitish Elder that he informs John of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah's prevailing to open the Seals but as a crowned Prince it becoming such a Personage to instruct John touching the Almighty's deriving Power to Christ both to foretel and so to administer the Affairs in the World as to cause his own Predictions to be true But now for the Doxology of the twenty four Elders alone Chap. 11.16 without any of the four Beasts it is not intended to signifie the Christian Church not to be universally pure but confinedly to these Elders But it marvellously ratifies my sense of things that these crowned Elders signifie Kings or Monarchs and that therefore the Doxology of the Elders is here mentioned and that of the Beasts left out to denote the gladsom sense of those Kings and Princes that had cast off the Tyranny of Antichrist or Papal yoke in the Reformation at the Rising of the Witnesses The People was to be yet subject to their Kings or Princes but these Kings themselves to be no longer subject to the Pope but to be absolute Sovereigns in their own Dominions And this is the occasion of their peculiar Doxology which if the Beasts had not been left out would not have been discerned And that one of the four Beasts within the same Confines of Time delivers the Vials that is rather an Argument that the Beasts are pure as well as the Elders and that Purity is not confined to them And 't is much if the Beasts were not pure that they should give the Vials to Angels in pure and white Linen pag. 69. And as for the Inversion of this Doxological service Apoc. 4.9 and Chap. 5.8 where the Beasts begin first compared with Apoc. 19.4 where the four and twenty Elders are named first these things further confirm my Notion of the four and twenty crowned Elders that they are Kings or Monarchs For the usual custom being that the Doxology from the Beasts as the Praecentors should begin the Clergie being part of the People in Counterdistinction to their King or Monarch though otherwise highly venerable in their Archbishops Bishops c. this Doxology Chap. 19.4 which succeeds that copious description of the utter destruction of Babylon that Papal Polity that so Tyrannized over Kings how naturally does the four and twenty Elders being placed first in this Doxology though together with the Beast or People denote both that those four and twenty Elders are the Monarchs of those Times and that they have a more peculiar gratification in this destruction of Babylon though the people also are greatly gratified thereby and therefore both join in a Doxological Thanksgiving for her destruction But in the first place the four and twenty crowned Elders In pag. 45. he places the beginning of the Interval of the Church of Smyrna in the beginning of the ten years Persecution by Diocletian Because it is said to her that she should have the Tribulation of ten days that is of ten Prophetical Days or years Which I will allow to be alluded to also though that Persecution was not full ten years But Day not signifying only a Prophetical Day or Year but also any particular Season or Time those ten Days signifie chiefly all the ten Persecutions so famous in History of which this of Diocletian is but one But there were other swingeing ones before though that the greatest And Spondanus does justly call that first of Nero's raising a most direful Persecution and therefore the fittest Epocha for the Church of Smyrna that Interval having its Name from the Bitterness of Persecutions And as elsewhere so especially in this Prophecy of the Churches Allusion to Names as the Author himself somewhere freely confesses is of no small moment in Prophetical Interpretations In pag. 47. the last Seal he makes the space reserved for the rallying of Heathenism and its Forces that it may be finally destroy'd by Theodosius the Great in the overthrow of Eugenius and Argobastes and of the Paganish Forces under them But this which he would have the last or seventh Seal no doubt is part of the sixth which describes a Victory over all the Pagan Forces brought forth in defence of their Idols that none of them could withstand the wrath of the Lamb and this was the Fate of Eugenius and Argobastes as well as of others who were both subdued by Theodosius the Great An. Dom. 393. or thereabout even upon the Epocha of the seven Trumpets So that as the whole space of the Church from the beginning to the end of all is comprehended under the seven Seals so the space from the beginning of the seventh Seal to the end of all may be comprehended under the seven Trumpets This is the natural disposure of the Apocalyptick Time as Mr. Mede has solidly made it out And the half-hours silence at the time of Incense is no delay to the Prophetick Time of the sounding of the seven Trumpets which brings on the Vengeance on the blood-guilty Empire but is only a Type of the Efficacy of the Prayers of the Church unto God to do them right that had suffered and to execute Justice on his own Enemies which the Thunderings Lightnings and Earthquake Chap. 8. there mentioned signifie In pag. 49. he makes as if at the very same time that the Woman had got into the Wilderness the Dragon cast the floud of the Paganish Barbarians as it were out of his mouth to have swallowed up the True Church but that the Earthly Church drunk up the floud by proselyting those Barbarians to its Pseudochristianity when the Ten Kings gave their strength and Power and Kingdom to the Beast But first a floud of Contention and Dissension according to Scripture-phrase is more suitably conceived to come out of the mouth of the Dragon than vast Armies of men Secondly The floud is spued out to carry her away in her flight toward the Wilderness before she could get thither and by that means to re-establish pure Paganism again in the Empire as it seems to me from Chap. 12.15 Which design of his was frustrated by Daniel's Earth or Clay by the Oecumenical Council of Ecclesiasticks at Nice c. as
I have above declared Chap. 40. And thirdly and lastly How the Earthly Church helped the Apostolick Church the Woman by proselyting the Barbarians to a Pagano-Christianity I see not For from hence was the Man of Sin more strongly armed to fight against the Witnesses and bring upon the Evangelical Church all that Misery and Calamity that either History records or Prophecy did prefigure In pag. 50. he asserts that from the first moment of the Time and Times and half a Time the daily Sacrifice is to be dated as taken away But if this be true how can we handsomly come off from making this the Epocha also of the 2300 Evening-Mornings Typically or Mystically understood And so the Sanctuary the Christian Church will not be cleansed from all Antichristian Pollutions till more than a thousand years hence as was noted before In pag. 57. here he says That Apoc. 10. the roaring of the Lion ceased of a sudden and the Thunders were sealed up I suppose he means of a sudden I only take notice that this is said without any the least intimation from the Text. But the roaring of the Lion supplying the place of the sounding of the seventh Trumpet this Roaring must be understood to reach from the sixth Trumpet to the end of all And the seventh Trumpet comprehending the seven Thunders as the seventh Seal the seven Trumpets these seven Thunders must reach to the end of all So that neither the ceasing of the roaring of the Lion nor sealing up the Thunders could be of a sudden In pag. 58 59. he here affirms That the three first Churches run out their just Intervals and then cease from their being any longer Prophetick Types but the three last Thyatira Sardis and Philadelphia run their course together to the New Jerusalem and he supposes none of these three to begin before the last Semi-time at the end whereof they pass into the New Jerusalem And that the seventh of the seven Churches Laodicea comes not into play till after the thousand years Ligation of Satan or blessed Millennium pag. 77. This to me seems a marvellous Invention but his chief pretence to this surprizing Innovation is this pag. 59. The three first says he have their Promises so general that they do not imply a Conjunction betwixt their time and the New Jerusalem The three last have in their promises such Clauses as do necessarily suppose their Contact as I may so speak with that Jerusalem But to this his main or rather only Reason so far as I can discover I briefly answer That the Promises neither to Thyatira nor to Sardis imply any Contact with the New Jerusalem Not Thyatira for the promise to the Victor is only this That he shall have power over the Nations He does not say over all Nations And this was performed in the Rising of the Witnesses at the Reformation when the Popish Power in those Principalities and Kingdoms that were reformed was broken apieces like a Potters vessel To such a measure is Power given to the Victor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Christ Where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an Adverb of Proportion and is as much as if he should have said So far as I have received of my Father Which he explains by adding And I will give him the Morning-Star not the bright Morning-Star as Christ is called in reference to his Empire in the Millennium or New Jerusalem-state So that the very Promise implies rather a great distance from the Jerusalem-state than a Contact with it And for the promise to the few Names in Sardis viz. to the Victor there it is only that he shall be cloathed in white raiment which signifies their prosperous success and that their Name shall not be blotted out of the Book of life that is that their Seed shall continue for ever Christ will so effectually recommend them to his Father and to the Ministry of his Holy Angels But he does not say that the state of these few while such shall be contiguous to the New Jerusalem-state which is the full and ample Millennial Empire of Christ but there being but a few such Names in Sardis it is an Evidence rather that Sardis cannot be contiguous to the state of the New Jerusalem and therefore there must be a larger increase of these few Names under the next Interval before they can be contiguous to the New Jerusalem And therefore as for the third of these three Philadelphia I will allow more to the ingenious Calendarist than he requires viz. that Philadelphia in the forepart thereof is not only contiguous to the New Jerusalem but continuous thereto a due increase of these few Sardian Names emerging into the Appearance of Philadelphia and such a door of success being opened to Philadelphia that at last she emerges into the New Jerusalem-state that state being nothing else but the fulness of the Philadelphian This is so plain in the Promise to the Philadelphian Victor that I wonder that any one can wink so hard as not to see it whether he will or no. Note only here by the bye That if the Jerusalem-state of the Church be not part of the Philadelphian it must be a Church by it self and so there will be eight Churches not seven only which is contrary to the Vision See what the Answerer says to S. E. his Remarks on this place and it must be full satisfaction Thus invalid is the Calendarist's ground for making Thyatira Sardis and Philadelphia all three of them contiguous to the commencement of the New Jerusalem But now let us briefly consider the Incongruity of the Position it self For indeed it seems to me to clash with one of the first Principles of rightly interpreting the Apocalypse viz. the right meaning of the Septenary or Number Seven into which when any thing is divided it denotes that all those parts are there and no more nor fewer Wherefore we are necessarily to understand the succession of the Church in this Prophetick Vision thereof being cast into seven parts that these are adequately the parts of this Succession from the beginning of the Church to the end of all and that all the Succession must be contained in these and no more than these Whence it is plain that these seven Churches are to succeed one another in one Line from the beginning of the Church to the end because it is a Line of Succession But the Calendarist contrary to this making Sardis and Philadelphia Synchronal to Thyatira makes but five Successions in one Line instead of seven viz. Ephesus Smyrna Pergamus Thyatira and Laodicea leaving a gap betwixt Thyatira and Laodicea of no less than a thousand years Which besides the dry Logical Repugnancy in it looks as desormedly as if in a row of teeth in some Animal two viz. the fifth and sixth were struck out and yet to make it still more unsightly two gobber teeth were set in one on this side the other on the inner side of the fourth answering to
my Throne and judge the Apostate Angels at the last Day Nor them alone but as Co-assessors with Christ on this Laodicean Throne they shall judge all the guilty people gathered before the Throne of Christ at the Day of Judgment And is not this then manifestly a promise of what is not only visible but also Political and withal clear that there was all the reason in the World that this promise should be as it is placed before the Epiphonema and not after it And this I think is a full and satisfactory Answer to this sixth Argument that from the placing of the promise of a Throne to the Laodicean Victor before the Epiphonema would infer that it is an Earthly Throne because the placing thereof thus implies it visible and Political whenas this Heavenly Throne is manifestly so likewise And that it is an Heavenly Throne and not an Earthly as we have plainly shown this sixth Argument to prove nothing to the contrary so there are many Arguments for it and such as no man unbiassed with prejudice but will thereby be readily assured of the truth thereof As 1 The general consent of Expositors 2 The state of the Laodiceans who are described under no such circumstances as the Smyrnean Pergamenian Thyatirian and Philadelphian Churches who living under other Polities were subject to Martyrdoms Persecutions and great Hardships and therefore those and the few Names in Sardis having for this very cause an Earthly Political promise made to them there being no such ground for them of Laodicea to have so as being in a contrary condition in peace plenty and ease insomuch that they themselves conceive they have need of nothing this is a plain indication that no such earthly Political promise is made to them they enjoying it already 3 All those Moral or Spiritual Exhortations and Increpations which tend to the fitting them for Heaven and which show them that only true and necessary way thither these are another intimation that the promise to the Laodicean Victor is that of an Heavenly Throne not an earthly which they enjoy'd already wanting nothing But the great solicitude of Christ seems here to be to fit them for that state Whence he says after all these sharp reproofs As many as I love I rebuke and chasten be zealous therefore and repent Behold I stand at the door and knock c. This is all an urgency for the preparing themselves for that Heavenly Throne the Day of Doom being so near at hand 4 And lastly The very words of the promise imply it is an Heavenly Throne as the Method he so earnestly commends to them tends thereto To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my Throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his Throne i. e. As Christ when he had overcome the sharpness of Death was advanced to the right hand of God in Heaven by the gift of his Father so he having thus opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all true Believers he that overcomes in that Moral sense shall have an Heavenly Throne of Christ's giving all judgment as it is said being committed to the Son And it is very harsh that Christ's Throne after his overcoming should be Heavenly and the Laodicean Victors Earthly and not of the same kind though of a less degree This is certainly the genuine sense of the promise of this Throne to any one that is not blinded or biassed with some strange prejudice And this would have been the sense if the promise had been placed after the Epiphonema and not at all repugnant with our Hypothesis that the Laodicean Interval is the last Interval reaching to the end of the World which is sufficiently proved from other Arguments But the promise being placed before the Epiphonema it is not only not repugnant to but confirms our Hypothesis that Laodicea is that Interval that takes in the last Judgment when in a visible manner all people are to be judged as the word implies The judgment and rewards shall be visible in the sight of all the World So fittingly do all things fall in with the truth of our Hypothesis But I may seem to have dwelt too long upon my Answer to this sixth Argument We proceed to the seventh and last 7. To this seventh and last therefore I say That unless we suffer our Phancy to stick to the mere Cortex of the figurative Letter which puts Throne for a Kingdom here and the power of Judicature which is the real and genuine sense this Argument will appear to have small strength in it For then supposing what I take to be true that it is the promise of an Heavenly Kingdom to sit with Christ in his Throne is to partake of Christ's Kingdom given to him by his Father when he had overcome the sharpness of Death which Kingdom is plainly Heavenly he being thereupon exalted to the right hand of God in Heaven from whence he is to come visibly at the last Day to judge the quick and the dead For the Father judgeth no man but has committed all judgment to the Son as I noted above And therefore Matt. 25. he saith to the sheep on his right hand Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom c. Which Kingdom is so large that Myriads may partake thereof without sitting in Christ's lap as the Objector's Argument insinuates Christ to sit in his Father's lap and so all that partake of this Heavenly Kingdom to be as high in Heaven as God the Father and his Son Christ are whenas they are not of equal Sovereignty though the Throne were supposed Earthly So that this Sophistry would exclude the Victor from having any Throne at all But that one and the same Throne in this gross sense is not meant appears from the expression of the same thing or one part or Specimen thereof the power of Judicature Matt. 19. where Christ tells his Apostles that at the Resurrection they shall sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel viz. at that time when all Nations shall be gathered together before Christ's Throne of Glory Matt. 25. and yet all these thirteen Thrones are but one Throne in the abovesaid signification of Throne that is the power of Judicature Which in a measure as it is there promised to the Apostles so here to the Laodicean Victor whose Priviledge it will be to judge also the Apostate Angels at the last Day as the Apostle tells us 1 Cor. 6.2 And I little question but that this Priviledge is included in a particular manner in this promise of an Heavenly Throne to the Laodicean Victor the placing the promise before the Epiphonema intimating it to be visible which cannot be but at the last Day From whence as from other Arguments it is plain that the Laodicean Interval is the last time of the Church upon Earth else why should such a promise be made to the Laodicean Victor rather than to any
other Victor in the seven Churches And now I hope by this time it is plain that though there be a pretty speciousness of Wit and quickness of Invention in the seven Arguments of the ingenious Objector yet there is no real strength in any of them to prove that the Intervals of the seven Churches do not reach to the End of the World I will only add from the same ingenious Hand what is objected against our Interpretation of Apoc. 4. v. 6. in the Notes In the midst of the Throne and round about the Throne c. and briefly answer thereto and then conclude We suppose the Perimeter of the Throne to be square Let the square Area be divided into four equal Squares by two Lines cutting themselves ad angulos rectos in the Center of the said large square Area on which the Throne stands and let each Line at both ends be produced something beyond the Perimeter of this Area Now according to the order of the Narration of the Text as well as the order of the Camp of Israel let these twenty four crowned Elders six on a side three on one fide of the decussant Line and three on the other side on each side of the Perimeter be so equidistantly placed that every six Elders will take up a whole side thus plainly environing the whole Perimeter of the Throne and so properly to be said to be round about it This answers to what is declared Chap. 4.4 And round about the Throne were four and twenty Seats c. But now let us conceive the four Beasts which in the Vision are but single Beasts placed on those produced decussant Lines which divide each side of the Perimeter in the midst a little more removed from the Perimeter than the Seats of the Elders Here it cannot be said so roundly because there is but a single Beast on each side of the Perimeter of the Throne that they were round about it in the same sense the Elders are said to be But they standing on these Lines that divide each side of the Perimeter of the Throne in the midst they are said to be in the midst of the Throne and round about the Throne In the Midst for the reason abovesaid and round about it because every side of the Perimeter has a Beast just against the midst thereof This is the clear and liquid reason why Mr. Mede interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it signifying no more than that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they were in the midst of each side of the Perimeter round about no side excepted But this Explication says the ingenious Objector is encumbred with these two difficulties One is that by this account the Elders will be in the midst of the Throne too whose place is only said to have been round about the Throne The other is that it will not be easily granted that any thing can be said to be in the midst of the circumference of any figure which is neither in it nor within it But to the first I answer That none of the equidistant Seats of the Elders can be said to be in the midst of the Perimeter of the Throne in that exact sense that the Beasts may be said so to be And besides they so perfectly surrounding the Throne there was no occasion touching them to use any such expression of being in the midst of any thing And to the second I briefly answer That as the Elders are easily conceived to sit round about the exteriour Perimeter of the Throne so the four Beasts to stand at the midst of each side of the said Perimeter For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 need signifie no more than so The Prepositions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie not only In but Propter or Prope as our learned Objector cannot but know very well And thus I hope this something perplexing passage of the Apocalypse is fully cleared and the right of Precedency in the crowned Elders before the four Beasts the Body of the People justly retrieved and confirmed CHAP. L. A brief Method of demonstrating how there may be three and no more than three real Hypostases or Persons in the One Divine Substance or Essence FOR the more clearly proceeding in this Argument we are first to define the Terms thereof viz. what is meant by Hypostasis or Person what by the Divine Substance or Essence what by being One. As touching the first we are to observe That Individuum Suppositum Hypostasis or Persona taken in the Abstract are mere Logical Notions applicable the first to any singular Being whether Substance or Accident The second to any complete Substance at least The third viz. Hypostasis or Persona to any intelligent Essence or Substance And therefore where these Logical Notions are applied there is some singular Thing Accident Substance or intelligent Substance to which they are applied or else they remain no more than mere Logical Notions such as they were before the Application Now for the Divine Essence or Substance Whatever Substance exists eternally necessarily and independently of the Will of another and is infinitely wise good and powerful and from whom the whole Creation does exist and by whom it does continue and subsist this is assuredly an Essence or Substance truly Divine and such as deserves all Religious Worship and Adoration from the whole Creation that are capable of rendring it And now thirdly and lastly for the Vnity of the Divine Essence or Substance Whatever Substance whether Divine or not Divine is Ens unum per se non per aliud is as much one Substance as to Substance as any Substance can be For such a Substance has no composition at all of integrant parts and can no more be discerped and dissevered one part from another than a mere Physical or Metaphysical Monad if there be any such but is one inseparably and indivisibly And such an Vnity or Oneness as this we affirm to be in that Singular Divine Essence or Substance of whom the whole Creation of things visible and invisible doth depend We proceed from the Definition of Terms to the proposing of some few Axioms such as no unprejudiced Understanding will easily deny The first That there is but one God and that the same is a Substance or Essence infinitely or most absolutely perfect The second That this Oneness of the Deity and absolute Perfection thereof does forbid The former that any Multiplicity should be admitted that did not consist with or were not in order to the discovery of the most absolute Perfection in the Deity The latter forbids that any Multiplicity be rejected that makes for that absolute and consummate Perfection in the Deity provided that it does consist with that Vnity of the Divine Substance or Essence described in the third Definition The third That God cannot be infinitely or absolutely perfect without the perception of himself and that Joy and