inauspiciously to make cunning Traficking properly Whoredom Let him produce any Lexicographer that will tell us that Traficking signifies Whoring in any approved Authour sacred or profane and a farther answer shall be framed In the mean time to one that will say any thing it is fit to answer nothing Cunning Traficking may be akin to thieving but how it is to simple Whoring I see not Secondly The seventy years Tyre is forgotten and lyes in Ruines cannot be understood of the seventy years of the Babylonish Kingdom For then Tyre should be taken in the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar's reign whenas it was not taken by him till the 4136 year of the Iulian Period which is about 30 years from the beginning of the Babylonian Kingdom as you may see in Petavius his De Doctrina Temporum Thirdly What a vain conceit it is to make the Christian Caesars part of the sixth Head of the Beast I have shewn upon his foregoing Remarks To make them part of the sixth Head is to make them Idolatrous which is a perfect contradiction to the Vision which makes eight Kings but onely seven Heads of the Beast and all of them Idolatrous Wherefore one of these eight Kings must not be Idolatrous which were the Primitive Christian Caesars who were the seventh King of the eight Fourthly Rome was Idolatrous before it was Christian and turned Idolatrous again when it became Paganochristian and Whoredom is the true Symbol of Idolatry known to all wherefore the Harlot though she was silent awhile in the time of the pure Christian Caesars which were the seventh King yet when that time expired she might sing again like a Harlot Nor does this at all hinder but that this Vision is Typical of Rome-Antichristian this stroke setting out more exquisitely the Paganochristianism of their Idolatry that they Paganize again and again play the Harlot by a new Mode of Idolatry which yet is the lively Image of the Idolatry of old Paganism Fifthly As for Pharaoh his being threatened with the death of the uncircumcised we being taught out of the Apocalypse that by Aegypt is understood the Pontifician Hierarchy he must be of a slow sense that does not discern that Prophecy of Ezekiel chap. 32. v. 19. to concern the Papal Hierarchy which pretending to be Holy Church in a special manner and that this Papal Polity is that Kingdom of Christ that shall abide for ever which is the privilege onely of the Millennial Empire of Christ the Prophet upbraids that confidence to this Roman Pharaoh as if he were more holy and pure than other worldly Potentates and therefore says expresly Whom dost thou pass in Beauty Go down and be thou laid with the uncircumcised Thou shalt perish as well as other Heathen or Pagan Polities If there were not some such weighty sense as this under it it is incredible that Pharaoh's lying down in Death with the uncircumcised should be so often repeated in this Prophecy He is reckoned amongst that long list of uncircumcised Potentates whose Empires failed and so must his though he thinks himself in such a special manner a circumcised one and to be that Christian Kingdom which shall never fail Sixthly That the Prince of Tyre is described as adorned with the High Priest's Vestments is evident from hence in that of all the nine pretious stones which are named there is not one of them but what is in the High Priest's Breast-plate but to have named all twelve had been too bare for the nature of a Prophecy of this kind and too sorry a conceit it would be to fansie the Breast-plate without the other cloathing And his naming a little after the anointed Cherub shews that the Prophet's fancy was carried into the Temple into the Sanctum Sanctorum and to the High Priest who alone had power to enter thereinto Seventhly And as to his being said to be in Eden the Garden of God that ill sutes with the City of Tyre built on a hard steril Rock whenas Italy the seat of the Sacerdotal Prince chiefly aimed at is by Geographers and Historians acknowledged to be the very Paradise of Europe Nor does the Remarker mend himself by making the Prince of Tyre the tallest Cedar in the garden of God by referring to Ezek. 31. For that example of the King of Assyria is brought in onely to set out the high Sovereignty and Magnificency of Pharaoh who is a Type of Antichrist that exalteth himself above all that is called God or is worshipped It is a Parable taken up against him And therefore v. 18. it is said Thou shalt lye in the midst of the uncircumcised for all thy pretended Holiness with them that be slain with the sword This is Pharaoh and all his multitude saith the Lord God The whole Parable of the King of Assyria is understood of Pharaoh and consequently of the Papal Hierarchy and it does lively set out the business but it would take up too much room to give an account of it here Eighthly There must be a strange thick callosity on the perceptive faculty of that man that can discern no more by those expressions The anointed Cherub The Holy Mountain of God The walking up and down in the midst of the stones of fire viz. cloathed with the Vestments of Aaron as was above noted than the signification of forsooth an Angelical state as if the Angels in Heaven were anointed Cherubs whenas it plainly refers to the Cherubim in the Sanctum Sanctorum which were anointed and consecrated of an high and mighty Merchant with a company of his cunning Traders and Trafickers if not blew-apron men grown rich and wealthy by their worldly craft and subtilty nothing less than the most holy things in the Temple of God must set out the greasie glory of these fat Burgomasters and their worldly splendour and prosperity arising from their over-reaching arts in Trafick and the thence issuing sordid gain What a homely course conceit is this Ninthly As for the name Sanctuary being applied to Moab the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is in both places is of a general signification and signifies any consecrated place whether it be to the God of Israel the true God or otherwise But that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here respects the true God and alludes to the Sanctuary of the God of Israel and therefore denotes some high and mighty Priest principally not a worldly though princely Merchant the anointed Cherub the holy Mountain of God and the Vestments of Aaron a little before mentioned do naturally indicate and that the fancy of the Prophet had not withdrawn it self from the Temple at Ierusalem The allusion to whose most holy things to conceive to be merely to set out the worldly prosperity of a City of subtile cheating Merchants as also to conceive that the comparing of the Wisedom of the Prince of Tyre with that of Daniel and making the Tyrian Prince prefer his own before it doth denote onely his cunning in Trading and not some
this must needs beget a many frigid and dilute notions and interpretations Such as these are that follow The measuring of the Inner Court signifies its preserving from the toils the Outer is oppressed with which he offers as an argument that they synchronize But the natural and obvious sense and onely sense of measuring a thing is to try if it have its just dimensions discoverable by the measure Thou son of man shew the house to the house of Israel that they may be ashamed of their Iniquities and let them measure the pattern And suppose measuring signified preserving yet it follows not that they of the Inner Court and they of the Outer synchronize but that such an Interval of the Church which answers to the Inner Court shall be preserved from such Apostasies as that succession of the Church which answers to the Outer Court shall fall into And a like groundless conceit it is that the Worshippers in the Temple and in the Thysiasterion should be the two Witnesses as if the two Witnesses were not sufficiently described under that very Title in the Residue of the Vision and moreover by an allusion to Zorobabel and Ieshuah but must be typified also the secular Magistratical Witness by those in the Temple the Sacerdotal by those in the Thysiasterion Which is the most evanid and uncouth conceit that any man of wit and parts could pitch upon But the former must signifie so because there was the Law in the Ark on which the Divine Presence was seated in the Mercy-seat as on a Throne of Judgment to be consulted with But I answer therefore the Worshippers there were in the quality of Subjects rather than Magistrates Besides he that sits here in the Throne sits there not to judge Causes but to utter Oracles which is the office rather of a Priest or Prophet than of a Judge as Aaron's Breast-plate was called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this Sanctum Sanctorum where the Divine Presence is seated in Hebrew is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Seventy usually render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Aquila and Symmachus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Buxtorf also Oraculum What 's this to civil Magistracy And though the Law was in the Ark yet this Law concerns Sacerdotal matters as much if not more than Civil and Aaron's Rod that budded was there also To all which you may add that the Temple altogether relates to Sacerdotal matters and Religion To the high Priest alone it was permitted to go into the Sanctum Sanctorum In the Sanctum was the Incense-Altar which was once a year sprinkled with the bloud of the Sacrifice by the high Priest And the golden Candlesticks were also there which denote the light of the World as the Altar of Incense the requisiteness of Prayers which two duties of Preaching and Praying the Priest's lips shall preserve knowledge are the notorious duties of the Priesthood Thus it was with the Temple but for the Thysiasterion not the Priests alone were there but upon the occasion of offering their oblations and sacrifices which the sons of Aaron assisted in the people had frequent recourse thither Let us consider what Oecumenius and Elias Cretensis tells us in Cornelius à lapide upon Exod. 27.21 There were three Tabernacles say they the first the outmost closed on the sides with Curtains and open above which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sanctum seculare or Mundanum because it was common to all In this stood the brazen Altar for Holocausts sub dio This therefore is the Thysiasterion The second Tabernacle was the Sanctum quod erat quasi Templum Sacerdotum hoc undique clausum erat nexum Sancto Sanctorum In hoc erat Candelabrum c. And the last Tabernacle was the Sanctum Sanctorum soli Pontifici patens c. Add unto these the Autority of S. Chrysostome and Theophylact to which also Erasmus subscribes Out of this I think it is abundantly manifest what a groundless conceit this is to make those in the Temple the Secular and Magistratical witness and those in the Thysiasterion the Sacerdotal when both the Temple and Thysiasterion belong to the Priests though the people had also access to the Thysiasterion but are unfit to represent those that are in the ruling or judicial office And therefore it is plain that those in the Temple and Thysiasterion signifie but one sort of men or one succession of the Church that are symmetral indeed as answering to the measure they were measured with but one part less holy than another as the Holiness of the Sanctum Sanctorum Sanctum and Thysiasterion differs in degrees For the Church in her Holiness lessened by degrees till at last she fell into her gross Apostasie Vers. 2. The Court without the Temple being left out and not measured is explained by the Holy City being troden under foot c. Which shews that the coming down of the New Ierusalem from Heaven is the Restauration of the outward Court that God may be worshipped there as in the inward Court which during the time of the other being left out continued in such a state as to need no restauration and consequently they synchronize Ans. That City viz. the Church which was holy before the Apostasie and therefore compared to the Inner Court being troden down by the Gentiles after the Apostasie came in is compared to the Outer But the Outer Court is here explained by the Holy City because in Moses's time there was no other Outer Court than the Camp of Israel or the holy people of the Iews who were gathered in the Outer Court when the Temple was built to serve God as Mr. Mede has rightly noted And therefore the coming down of the New Ierusalem from Heaven is the Restauration of the Outer Court that is of the Apostated Church to the Primitive Purity of the Inner before the Apostasie But what argument of the state of the Inner and Outer Court sychronizing can there be gathered from hence Vers. 7. The ordinary Translation viz. And when the Witnesses shall have finished their Testimony is true And the Beast overcoming them is not onely Politically meant in keeping them out of power but also in silencing them from Prophesying And for this it is that the dwellers on Earth do so rejoice over them because the Witnesses had tormented them viz. by their prophesying Now they prophesied 1260 days so that the victory over them for which there 's such joy being after their prophesying viz. for their being silenced it must be after the 1260 days Nor can they be supposed to prophesie the three days and an half they are said to lye dead though they may when they are onely Politically slain viz. kept out of power Ans. The ordinary Translation is true so far as it respects the sense of the Letter or Cortex But when they shall be a finishing their testimony is also a true and natural sense
Civis so such an unregenerate man would be a good Christian Monarch not at all Antichristian A man would think that the Remarker were a Republican or Antimonarchical man by such wild passages as these But what follows may clear him from that suspicion For he likens the Autority that those Spiritual Kings and Priests will have in the Millennial State over those they govern to that Rule and sway which the Nobility Gentry and Clergy have over the Commonalty c. Which if it relates to the English Constitution he must needs understand of the Time out of Parliament because Convocations Councils and Parliaments are of a Political nature which he will not allow of in the Millennium From whence it is manifest that the Rule of those Spiritual Kings and Priests in the Millennium over them they govern is merely precarious and they may chuse whether they will obey them or no. And so this deep mystery of the Remarker touching the Millennial State is resolved at last into mere Anarchy Though I will be so charitable as to hope he will allow Monarchy to be the best Government till that time which is far enough off that the Millennial Anarchy comes in This is an extravagant dream arising out of a dry and over-thoughtfull Melancholy thus to fansie the Millennial State here on Earth to be Aziluthical or like Ovid's golden Age when there was neither Law nor Magistrate whenas I have above noted that even the unfallen Angels and that before the lapse of any were in a state Briathical or Political in the Heavenly Regions And lastly as for the Joy and Doxology he concludes with no intelligent good man but would be more thankfull to Divine Providence for such a tight and well-knit Polity in the Millennial Kingdom of Christ as I have described than such a lax and lazy Anarchy as is described by the Remarker Vers. 24. The Kings of the Earth bringing their glory to it does not signifie their becoming Converts but their doing honour to it by Acts of bounty c. as foreign Princes did sometimes honour to the Temple of Ierusalem by Sacrifices and Presents though they became not Converts Ans. That the Kings of the Earth bringing their glory to it does signifie their becoming Converts plainly appears from the precedent part of the verse for there is but the repeating according to an usual scheme in Scripture the same thing again in different words the Conversion of Nations implying the Conversion of their Kings and the Conversion of Kings the Conversion of the Nations they rule over And the Nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which answers exquisitely to that passage Act. 2.47 The Lord added every day to the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 new Converts such as should be saved And Esay also to which this place of the Apocalypse alludes chap. 60.2 plainly confirms this sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Nations shall come to thy light and Kings to the brightness of thy Rising Lift up thine eyes round about and see all they gather themselves together they come to thee thy sons shall come from far and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side Then thou shalt see and flow together and thy heart shall fear and be enlarged because the abundance of the Sea shall be converted unto thee the forces of the Nations shall come unto thee What can signifie the Conversion of Kings and Nations more fully than this Chap. 22. Vers. 1. THis pure River of Water of life is the waters of life which every one that is a-thirst is called to drink of freely and its issuing out of the Throne does signifie that the executing of righteousness by the Throne of God dwelling among them is accompanied with the full communion of his Spirit So that the Throne of God is not here to be applied to those that are in Autority more than the whole City in which the Throne of God is and that communion with him by his Spirit is a blessing attending the Throne of God being therein viz. It 's that River the streams whereof make glad the City of God Psal. 46. Ans. The Expositor has given so easie apposite and natural a sense of this and the following verse that were it not for the pertinacious continuance of the Remarker in his Aziluthick dream he would never go about to substitute any other in lieu of it and say The Throne of God is not here to be applied to those that are in Autority more than the whole City As if the Throne of God which doubtless signifies the Sovereign Throne as Apoc. 12.5 were equally erected in every private Citizen What can be more gross than this This is like that arrogance in Core Dathan and Abiram Numb 16. who said to Moses and Aaron Ye take too much upon you seeing all the Congregation are holy every one of them and the Lord is among them As the Remarker says The Throne of God is in the whole City If every Citizen then be a Sovereign Magistrate where are the People to obey Wherefore it is a mere Aziluthick dream and a substituting Anarchy for an holy and righteous Polity and perfectly repugnant to the very Text. And therefore that v. 17. of him that is athirst his drinking the waters of life freely is rather to be interpreted Politically by this River issuing from the Throne of God that they that sincerely desire it may admit themselves into a Church and Polity where pure Doctrine and impartial Iustice is to be had and where there are none that do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor sell Justice for money and bribes Which yet does not exclude that more general sense of the communion of God's Spirit in all the Citizens of the new Ierusalem Vers. 2. Tree of life may be another Symbol to signifie the same thing with the Waters of life And thus did the Tree of life signifie in Paradise viz. That Dispensation of life to be revealed by the Prince of life who brought life and immortality to light And therefore Adam was not disposed to eat of the Tree of life being not forbidden though he was so forward to eat of the Tree that was forbid which after he had done he was expelled Paradise lest he should then take of the Tree of life whereby is signified that enterance into life is not to be gained by following our own inventions in searching after the knowledge of good and evil But if this Tree of life be taken as it is here to signifie Men it must not be to signifie Grandees onely but all Citizens viz. all Plants of Righteousness nourished by the Waters of life The leaves healing the Nations does not mean those that were become Subjects to Christ's Kingdom and Discipline but neighbouring Nations whose Kings brought their honour and glory to the new Ierusalem And that light of Instruction they borrowed from the glorious lustre of it in the light
also evidence the Church to be then as we have said in a Militant State The first of those promises viz. to make the overcomer a Pillar in the Temple of God seems to signifie that he shall be of great Rule and Autority For the Worshippers in the Temple do chiefly respect the Mosaical or ruling judicial office as we shew ch 11.1 The next promise viz. He shall go no more out c. does plainly signifie a Militant State which he that overcometh is promised a cessation and rest from The three following promises are all much to the same purpose signifying the great manifestation of the glory of God in such as overcome whereby it shall be visible to all to whom they belong c. Ans. Here again the Remarker forgetting that we are upon the Prophetical sense of these Epistles writhes his fancy into a Moral or Spiritual interpretation though I will not take notice from what kind of spirit this may be Most undoubtedly the prophetical sense of this eighth verse is Political and denotes the uncontrollable success of the Church of Philadelphia But to wrest it to a Moral or Spiritual sense as it is a Prophecy is to doe violence to the scope of the Holy Ghost therein This little force or army as it is indeed little compared with the other great appearance at the battel of the great Day of God Almighty are no other than those that follow the noble Heros on the white Horse Apoc. ch 19. and the Boanerges's thundring over the great City divided into three parts So that the commencement of this Philadelphian Interval is in the seventh Vial but reaches to the fourth Thunder Which consideration silences all the pretended Reasonings of the Remarker against the Philadelphian Intervals comprehending the Millennial Reign of Christ. For the entire State of the Philadelphian Church is comprised in that Interval according to our Hypothesis and according to Truth as shall appear I say therefore briefly that I acknowledge the Philadelphian Church in part of her Interval to be Militant that is to the expiration of the seventh Vial or first Thunder But under the second Thunder according to promise she obtains the Title of the City of God which is the new Ierusalem which cometh down out of Heaven from God just as it is described Apoc. 21.11 What can be more plain and express Philadelphia therefore must be this new Ierusalem as sure as Christ will keep faith in his promises So that the Philadelphian Interval reaches so far as the second Thunder inclusively But that it reacheth through the Millennium also may appear to the unprejudiced from what follows And I will write upon him my new Name where Grotius expresly upon this very passage says Hoc novum nomen Christi est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This new name of Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords Which therefore must undoubtedly respect his Millennial Empire which yet is given to this Philadelphian Church in whom he shall thus reign And Grotius again Apoc. 19.16 Hoc est nomen illud novum says he quod innui cap. 3.12 Verè novum si non jus spectes sed juris eventum For though he had always a right yet then at last he was in full possession when his Millennial Empire was erected which was a new thing and not before and he but newly actual King of Kings and Lord of Lords But besides this keeping still to the prophetical sense which is undoubtedly Political That first promise Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the Temple of my God and he shall go no more out implies plainly the perpetuity of the Philadelphian Church to the Worlds end though otherwise modify'd and differently denominated in the Laodicean Interval Here Him that overcomes respects the whole body of the Philadelphian Church and therefore the Philadelphian Church shall reach to the Worlds end though it afterward vary in modification and denomination namely after the expiration of the Millennium He must wilfully wink and perversely shut his eyes that sees not this truth clearly already And the Remarker seems to doe so in so violently wresting the signification of a Pillar in the Temple of God which so naturally signifies stability and permanency to the signifying great Rule and Autority upon a dark private notion of his own ch 11.1 which we will examine when we come to it as if he were wiser than Christ and knew his meaning better than himself For he plainly expounds this Pillar of stability and permanency in saying And he shall go no more out So stable and permanent shall this Philadelphian State be as a Pillar in a Temple whose removal would hazard the whole Edifice And this terrestrial Scene shall fail so soon as this Philadelphian Church shall cease to be This passage he thus mis-interprets and those other that are so close and home to the business he shuffles off with this general account That they manifest the glory of God in them that overcome But they manifest such a glory as belongs to the new Ierusalem and the Millennial Empire of Christ if we can assure our selves of the sense of any passage from the easie plain and natural signification of words and expressions And now as I was going to say let us add to all this That as the Ephesine Interval represents the truly Catholick and Apostolick Church as something declining in her zeal and fervour and threatned therefore with Persecution And as the Smyrnean Interval represents her in her Persecution under the Pagan Jurisdiction but quitting her self couragiously and victoriously upon promised success that their sufferings would win the Imperial Crown at last and the Roman Empire turn Christian As the Pergamenian Interval represents the same Church exalted out of her Pagan Persecutions but upon the degeneracy of the Church into Superstition Idolatry and Cruelty suffering again under a Paganochristian Jurisdiction And as the next Interval viz. Thyatirian represents the said Catholick and Apostolick Church suffering under the same Paganochristian Jurisdiction but quitting themselves nobly supported by the promise that these sufferers under Pergamus and Thyatira shall have the rule and possession of whole Nations at the next turn of things and Respit from their Persecutions and Martyrdoms viz. in the Sardian Interval In which there is no complaint of eating things sacrificed unto Idols as in the Pergamenian and Thyatirian Intervals nor any Intimations of Martyrdom for not complying therewith but onely a complaint of that Imperfection of state and signal remisness from what they were at first when newly come out of their sufferings Which Sardian Interval therefore does plainly represent the state of the Catholick Church emerged out of the gross corruptions and barbarous persecutions of the Roman Church though themselves yet are not so good as they should be although there be in it some few Names some few excellent Persons that are as it were the seed of a better state of the true Church to
come c. Now therefore say I as these five Intervals represent the state of the truly Catholick and Apostolick Church so plainly amply and lively so does the Philadelphian Interval the succeeding state thereof where is not onely no Idolatry to be tempted to nor any Martyrdom for refusing to comply therewith but also no spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing but it is entirely holy and without blemish This is the description of the sixth Interval or Succession of States in the Church Catholick and Apostolick And therefore I demand here of any man that has any spark of judgment and sagacity left in him what time this can be but such that includes in it the Ierusalem State and blessed Millennial Empire of Christ which cannot be more pure perfect and glorious than this State of the Philadelphian Church Which is a Prophetical description of some state of the Church as is acknowledged on both hands and which is to succeed the Sardian and also that there will be a blessed Millennium on Earth Wherefore this consideration alone might assure us of this truth But when there is farther added That on him that overcomes that is on the Philadelphian Church I will write the name of the City of my God which is new Ierusalem which cometh down out of Heaven from my God c. Can it be any thing but affected stupour or some strange invincible prejudice a Prophetical sense being allow'd that any one should doubt but that the times of the New Ierusalem and Millennial Empire of Christ are included in the Philadelphian Interval which was the thing to be demonstrated Vers. 20 21. Christ's coming in to sup with them that open to his knocking does signifie his receiving them to his Marriage-supper And his granting to them that overcome to sit down on his Throne signifies their reigning with him in the Millennium And these being two promises to the same purpose to be fulfilled in the Millennial State and being made to the victorious in the Laodicean Church does manifest the same to be in a militant state precedent to the Millennium Nor is the degeneracy of the Laodicean Church competent to the Millennial state of which there 's no account that there should be any such change in it nor is it imaginable how it should it being established in that glorious state of righteousness as is described and having all occasion of evil removed by the Devil 's being bound and all things being made new And though he be to be loosed again yet it is not to deceive or work any change in those that belong to the new Ierusalem but to seduce the Nations about it who through his deceit are to be stirred up in enmity against it though before they brought their glory into it and walkt in the light of it Ans. To pervert the genuine sense of this Prophecy here the Remarker interprets that Politically that he should interpret Mystically or Spiritually as he has in other places interpreted that Spiritually which should have been expounded Politically So sinuous and serpentine a thing is beloved falshood From v. 15. to v. 20. The declension of the Philadelphian state after the Millennium in their remisness in pursuing spiritual gifts and graces and breathing after the living image of Christ in themselves and in their propagating of his Kingdom is prefigured or predescribed the Church being depressed then into a new denomination of Laodicean and they sharply rebuked and terribly threatned if they do not repent of these immoralities or Dispiritualities if I may so speak And thus continuedly in the same Moral sense he still farther upbraids them that though he by the searching rebukes of his spirit knocks at the door of their Consciences to awaken them out of their remisness and litherly formalness yet they are insensible of his call being satisfied to celebrate the Lord's Supper without idolatry still indeed as it was in the Popish Mass but also without any breathing after the fruits thereof our living union with Christ and spiritual Communion with him and yet he tells them for their comfort as well as reproves them that if they will open to him through constant obedience to his dictates that they shall fully enjoy his communion and be in a truly living union of Spirit with him which is the true meaning and scope of the Lord's Supper and which will recover them again into that wholsome state the Philadelphians stuck to universally in the former Interval That this is thus Spiritually or Morally to be understood and not Politically as the Marriage Supper of the Lamb is Apoc. 19.7 8 9. is farther manifest in that it is said If any one hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me viz. at his home they will sup together there which therefore is no invitation of the party abroad to sup Wherefore what a fond thing is this to apply Christ's coming into our hearts and Souls and entertaining there spiritual Communion with us such as is signified by the Communion of the Lord's Supper unto that Political sense of things the Jews adjoining themselves to the Church of Christ and acknowledging him their Messias their Head and Husband in the above cited place This is enormously to strain and pervert the sense of Scripture As is also that conceit of interpreting to sit down on his throne of their reigning with him in the Millennium For being there is no mention here of such conflicts and persecutions and martyrdoms in this Laodicean state to which an earthly deliverance and victory and an earthly crown and dominion was promised in the Smyrnean Pergamenian and Thyatirian Intervals nor any mention of the word of Patience c. the throne that is here promised must be of another nature that is a place or seat in Heaven as universally it is interpreted by Expositors And being the conflict the Laodiceans are here exhorted to is the subduing their carnal minds and affections and through mortification to be renewed unto the Heavenly image of Christ by the spirit of life in the new birth which is the true and onely method of attaining to this Heavenly Throne or Crown of glory it is very unnatural to understand it of any other Throne than that But they being roused thus up by the exhortation of Christ to shake off that dulness and torpor of spirit and dead formality and carnality and to be enlivened again into a quick sense of their duty by virtue of their Regeneration into his living image that of St. Paul to the Ephesians ch 2. will be fulfilled in them When we were dead in our sins he hath quickened us together with Christ and hath raised us up together and made us sit there is the promised Throne together in Heavenly places in Christ Iesus And that it is an Heavenly seat or Throne that passage in the promise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does naturally insinuate according to that in
brought to ruine the haunting of Devils and unclean Birds being the very character of such ruined places and alluded to here Nor are the people of God warned to come out of her ruines but that voice out of Heaven to God's people to come out of her was uttered before the Rising of the Witnesses and this Angel's strenuous proclaiming the fall of Babylon This warning I say precedes both the partial and final overthrow of that great City But the description of her desolation and ruines from their being haunted with Devils and unclean Birds respects especially her final overthrow Nor are the people of God bid to come out of her Ruines as I noted before but to come out of Babylon both before her partial and consummate fall Here therefore is an Hysterology in the Cortex But the description of so complete an overthrow of Babylon does plainly shew us and assure us that the bidding to go out of her is before her fall And therefore this voice from Heaven commanding God's people to come out of her answers to the voice of the first of the three Angels ch 14. flying in the midst of Heaven and exhorting men to fear God and to worship Him that is the Creator of all things that is to say to cease from Idolatry The voice from Heaven here is coincident with the latter part of the time of the voice of the first Angel from the midst of Heaven Examples of such Hysterologies in the Cortex are so frequent that I need not name any Vers. 3. There 's no need of taking Merchants of the Earth in any other than the literal sense But then it 's not to be applied solely to the City of Rome but to all other Cities under her Jurisdiction which being of the same Political body are comprehended under the name of Babylon and by imitation of her delicacies and splendour became in like manner enrichers of her Merchants Ans. It is not likely the Spirit of Prophecy would spin out so long a Threnodia if it was onely the howling of some secular Merchants that their worldly Traffick failed them What 's this to the Church and Religion which the Opened-book-prophecy has always an eye to And what a sapless thing is the literal sense of this lamentation in comparison of the Parabolical And what Jurisdiction has Rome as a secular trading City over other trading Cities of the Empire The new Ierusalem to which Babylon is directly opposed does not signifie a material City but a State or Polity therefore undoubtedly Babylon signifies so too And lastly this City of Babylon is said to deceive all Nations by her Sorcery and to be guilty of the bloud of Prophets and Saints c. Are secular Merchants such profound Magicians or so concerned to suck the bloud of Saints and Prophets This therefore is an overmuch homespun and secular conceit in the Remarker to fansie the Parabolical sense needless of this lamentation Vers. 17. As we said v. 3. Merchants needed not be taken in any other than the literal sense so consequently Sea will not need here to be taken in any other sense though in the Prophetick style it hath another sense Ans. That both Merchants and Sea should be taken in a Parabolical sense in this prolix Threnodia I have declared sufficient reason I hope upon v. 3. Chap. 19. Vers. 4. THE Doxology supposed to end here is continued in the three following Verses and the four first Verses seem to respect onely those who are called to the Marriage-supper or appertain to the new Ierusalem and the following three verses the joining all others with them in the Doxology who are concerned in that great Revolution and blessed Renovation of the World when the earnest expectation of the Creature which waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God shall be answered and thereby the Creature it self that had been so long subject to vanity shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God Rom. 8.19 20 21. and there 's no going back till verse the eleventh Ans. The four first verses do plainly contain a Doxology or the praising of God for his just judgments upon Babylon as is plain from v. 2. where he is said to have judged the great Whore This is the occasion and object that this Doxology is conversant about And the occasion and object of the following Doxology in the three next verses is the Marriage of the Lamb as is plain v. 7. Let us be glad and give honour to him for the Marriage of the Lamb is come c. Wherefore they having distinct occasions and objects it is sufficient Reason they should be look't upon as distinct Doxologies and that the former should not be conceived to be continued three verses farther than it is Whence it follows the Marriage of the Lamb or Conversion of the Jews synchronizing with the sixth Vial as the Battel of the Rider of the white Horse with the seventh that the going back must be before vers 11. viz. at vers 5. Vers. 12. The Crowns here signifie not the Kings of the East submitting themselves to the Rider of the white Horse For those are Believers who are to reign with Christ but wear no such Crowns as are here signified For the Crowns here are of those Kings that war with the Lamb but he shall overcome and so he wears the Crowns which he had won Ans. If there were an accession of many Kings to the Kingdom of Christ whether they yielded voluntarily or by force there was an accession of so many Crowns ipso facto and their Conviction by the power of the Gospel is the best kind of vanquishing in the Kingdom of Christ and his Militia Vers. 14. The Armies being cloathed in white linen does well accord with understanding the war literally For this cloathing does onely signifie that it 's an holy war being under the conduct of him who in righteousness doth make war Ans. White linen may signifie holiness but by no means a carnal war If that had been meant it would have been said they were cloathed in white armour bright and shining Which would aptly have signified both holiness and war too Vers. 15. Nor does the sword issuing out of his mouth wherewith he smites the Nations shew it to be no carnal or literal warfare but signifies the sharp but righteous sentence of judgment which he does first pronounce against his enemies and then does the war execute the same And also signifies farther that spiritual slaughter or powerfull conviction of the Remnant v. 21. Thou shalt rule them with a rod of Iron and break them c. does plainly signifie the absolute subjection he shall bring his obstinate enemies into as the admonition in the following verses thereto in Psal. 2. does shew To which does answer in Psal. 110.2 God shall send the rod of thy strength out of Sion rule thou in the midst of thine enemies But contrition of heart
be imagined Nor needs there be any other Laws than the known Laws of God already to restrain wickedness when there 's that spirit in Rulers as to see them duly executed By this binding therefore of Satan may be signified an Infernal confinement of him from that going to and fro and walking up and down on the Earth Iob 1. which Peter calls going about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour So that he is to be deprived of his power of working mischief by deceiving people and to be bound in chains under darkness Jud. 6. Ans. The neglect of executing the Laws may well be a loosening of Satan For the neglect of execution is the next door to the abrogation of Laws which will make them to be look't upon as obsolete and not binding And this is a thing easily to be imagined when the Philadelphian State was a degenerating into the Laodicean That there needs no Laws but the Bible is a mere presumption How mis-interpretable the Bible is to say nothing of the largeness of it is too notoriously known Wherefore a clear Abridgement out of it with a sense agreed by a truly holy and truly infallible Oecumenical Council as I may so call it upon the Abolition of the Babylonian Polity will be of great use for the settlement and expedition of all affairs But to leave things in a scattered way to the spirit of Rulers is instead of erecting an holy City or Polity to leave all things to the disorder and confusion of an Enthusiastick Anarchy This therefore is the Political sense of the binding of Satan But for that Physical sense as I may so call it of infernal confinement in the Dungeon of the Rephaim if it were admitted it does not at all clash with this other Nor will I stick to admit it upon condition that the Remarker will also admit that which is very consentaneous thereto viz. That about that time the Devil is sentenced to Hell the Martyrs be also sentenced to Heaven in glorified bodies by virtue of their Privilege in the first Resurrection Vers. 2. If the seventh Trumpet be branched into seven Thunders to reach to the end of the World the space of one Thunder must be a large time to be spent in making Laws to establish a new Polity whenas the Millennial State will be no Politick but a Spiritual Government and the multitude of Laws is the chief grievance of most Governments And that will be a time of so great light both by reason of Humane knowledge and much more of Divine through the illumination of God's Spirit dwelling among them that surely it 's not imaginable what need there will be of farther Laws for bridling wickedness than what God hath already given Nor can more extensive Laws to that purpose be conceived were there but a due spirit ruling to see them executed which will not then be wanting All other Laws will be the light of the Sun and the Moon which they will have no need of having the glory of God and the Lamb to be their light And as the Millennial State will need no such preparation for its settlement as this second Thunder is supposed to be so it will not have any such declension by degenerating as is imagined in the fourth Thunder the Devil 's loosing being not to make any change in it but onely to stir up the foreign Nations against it but will be one simple glorious State arising upon the destruction of the Beast and false Prophet and the removing of the Deceiver out of the way whereby the Law of God will have its free course and his servants will be in full power to prosecute the execution thereof By their righteous administration whereof they will shine forth like the Sun in their Father's Kingdom Ans. What is said in the beginning of this Remark supposes the Intervals of the seven Thunders to be equal whenas they are very unequal as the Intervals of the successions of the seven Churches and of the seven Heads of the Beast are And whereas he says that the Millennial State will be no Politick Government it is a plain contradiction to the language of the Apocalypse which by City understands Polity so that as the City Babylon is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which the City Ierusalem is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or opposite City so there must be a Ierusalem-Polity opposite to the Polity of Babylon Nor can there be any Polity understood without Order and Laws Nor is multitude of Laws any grievance of Government if they be no more than do really serve for the security of the Government the purity of God's worship and the real good of the people And in the Millennial Empire of Christ there will be no other Laws than such nor any more than will serve those ends and to bring things to that accuracy will require longer time for discussing and sifting things than a greater number of Laws would But to say that the Millennial State will not be Political but Spiritual is to make an opposition betwixt those things which may very friendly agree For a Political State may be also Spiritual as this Millennial State will be the Laws being dictated in that great Oecumenical inspired Council by the Spirit of God himself and the Rulers in their respective places by virtue of their regenerate state and the Spirit of God richly abiding in them heartily relishing these Laws and vigorously pursuing the execution of them If this be not a Spiritual State though Political what can be a Spiritual State or Government What may seem to be wanting is I fear nothing but an unaccountable Huff a Blast or Humour nothing of the Spirit of God And as for the abundance of Humane Knowledge and Divine Illumination in those times as if that took away the use of Laws I say Laws are not for the just but unjust it is a Chain to bind the Devil and all that truckle under him For to think that in the Millennium there will be none where the Saints live but mere Saints is a rash conceit There will be several odd fellows lurking in the Ruines both of the Dragon's Kingdom and of Babylon What follows is magnificent enough but empty and I have answered it already upon the foregoing Remark And the latter part of this Remark does onely declare not prove there will be no declension in the Philadelphian State whenas I have proved there will by making good my Interpretation of the Epistle to the Church of Laodicea as also of the former Epistle against the Exceptions of the Remarker And it is a wonderfull groundless conceit to think that God would let loose Satan again out of his prison to disturb the affairs of his Church and change the condition thereof if they had not first changed their own condition and merited this Judgment And lastly touching the Deceiver removed out of the way I ask what Deceiver caused the Angels to fall before whose
the Church of Smyrna He that overcomes shall not be hurt by the second Death from the comparing of which two places together the Ancients rightly inferred the Rising of the Martyrs at the first Resurrection that it was their privilege So that as some of the passages in Daniel and the Apocalypse are as it were Tallies kept by parties one with another to give a just account of the sense so the same are some passages of the Apocalypse one to another of which I might give many more examples but I hold it needless Nor does the Martyrs reigning in Heaven that thousand years of the Millennium clash with their reigning there for ever afterwards But from the beginning of the Millennium to everlasting is their reign and Omne majus continet in se minus so that it is true that they reigned in Heaven while the Saints which worshipped not the Beast with their successours reigned in the Millennium on Earth viz. they reigned a thousand years while the Martyrs reigned in Heaven the same time But in this place it was impertinent and too motiminous nor sutable to the accustomed brevity and succinctness of the Apocalyptick style to tell they yet farther reigned to all eternity that being to be signified afterwards Nor is it any violation of Scripture to make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sixth verse signifie symbolically when in the fourth and fifth it does not the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being in the fourth and fifth verses Which therefore points at the determinate thousand years of the Millennium But it is lest out in the sixth verse and as it seems on purpose to lead us to that symbolical meaning touching those that partake of the first Resurrection and which was proper to them in conterdistinction to those Confessors who worshipped not the Image of the Beast and who with their successors onely reigned that thousand years of the Millennium Which farther argues that the first Resurrection is Physical and into an Heavenly glorified body So coherent is the discourse and agreeable with the symbolical sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in v. 6. But to make the Privilege of the Martyrs in the first Resurrection to be that they reign during the Millennium as the Powers of the Air the Devil and his Angels did among the worldly powers till he was bound this though it may seem a witty conceit yet it is not true For then they have but the office of ministring Angels which is not to reign but to minister For I hope they will not doe as the Devils did receive religious worship from us mortals And if these Martyrs have no bodies how is it a Resurrection and if onely Aerial bodies so have other souls as well as they And if you say they onely minister for the good of the Saints in this Airy Region what hinders but other souls that are not Martyrs may have the same office so that this is no Privilege of the Martyrs nor the right State of the first Resurrection Wherefore the safest and most natural sense of the first Resurrection is not to crop or mutilate it but to let it be full and of the same kind with the general Resurrection of the just Vers. 8. There was no increase of wickedness by relaxation of discipline For these Nations that gather themselves against the Saints are foreign Nations that were never subject to their discipline but during the Devil's being bound did live peaceably by them and haply did so rejoice in the light of the New Ierusalem as to fulfill those sayings The Nations that are saved shall walk in the light thereof and The leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the Nations but were now so deceived by Satan's being loosed as to combine against the beloved City as the Neighbouring-nations used to confederate against Ierusalem Ans. That there was no increase of wickedness by relaxation of discipline is a thing said not proved though I have proved above to the contrary Nor is there any sufficient intimation in the Vision that they were foreign Nations that environ'd the Holy City that is the Holy Polity but people of a foreign spirit and aliens from the faith and genius of those that are of the true Houshold of God though they lived amongst the Nations that were converted to the true Apostolick Christianity And the Kingdom of Christ having become so large at that time when Apoc. ch 11.15 ch 15.4 all the Kingdoms of the World as it is written were become the Kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ it is hard to conceive it should be otherwise and also by relaxation of discipline that even those that were subject to their discipline should not so corrupt as to make part of the Army of Gog and Magog And what Nations can be thought to walk in the light of the new Ierusalem but those that are converted to the Christian Faith For by faith we are saved as the Apostle tells us And those Nations that are healed are the same that are saved also no other at all need be implied And whether you count Gog and Magog neighbouring or foreign Nations it is but childish and Idiotical to take it so far in the literal sense and against the genius of the Apocalyptick style that they must signifie either neighbouring or foreign Nations in a Geographical meaning but in a Mystical Dissimilitude of spirit and profession answering to distance of place and those that have the same profession but not the same spirit really and the same saith are Borderers rather than Natives And such are those that bear the name of the Christianity then established I mean in the Millennium but covertly favour the Dragon and the Beast And these are Gog which signifies Tectum But those that are open Draconists or Bestians these are Magog which signifies Absque Tecto as the Lexicon Sanctum will have it But this is a greater curiosity than needs It is sufficient in the mean time to observe that as the very people Gog and Magog that were the ancient Enemies of the Jews are not here understood so no people of a foreign Nation out of the bounds and precincts of the New-Ierusalem Jurisdiction or Kingdom of Christ are necessarily signified thereby though I do not deny but by Magog may be also understood whatever foreign forces are accumulated to those that are within the Dominions of the new Ierusalem Vers. 9. Those in the Ierusalem state being called the Camp of the Saints and the beloved City does shew they are in no such a degenerate state as the Epistle to the Laodiceans describes and so is one reason more to those many given ch 3. that the two last of the seven Epistles do not concern the Millennial State And it 's a great straining of the Text to serve the contrary conceit to make those Titles be given the new Ierusalem because there were many Saints there and the rest so as to purity of external Worship
For if those many were the greater number then the Laodicean state would not be applicable thereto if the less then the Titles of the Camp of the Saints and beloved City would not agree therewith and the purity of their external worship in all will not mend the matter unless Hypocrisie may entitle one to Saintship Ans. That the Church of Philadelphia though degenerated into a Laodicean state may be called in these straits the Camp of the Saints and the beloved City appears out of ch 11. The City is there called holy though trampled down and polluted by the Gentiles Nor is it any straining of the Text to make them called the Camp of the Saints because there were many Saints there though not all such whenas the greater part according to several degrees of Saintship might be Saints and these less degrees of Saintship an effect of the degeneracy and that the external worship in all was still pure and incorrupt and they that used it did it out of judgment and conscience being sincerely pleased in that they thought God was pleased with it this adds a farther weight to make the City both holy and beloved especially in comparison of the rabble of their enemies And therefore it was not Hypocrisie but a solid ground that entitled this Camp to Saintship And if we should suppose the most degenerate part to have listed themselves in the Army of Gog and Magog as it is exceeding probable the Holy City seeming in such imminent danger this is manifestly consistent with the Camp being called the Camp of Saints and the City the beloved City and likewise with the degeneracy of those times I mean the Laodicean degeneracy at once those degenerate persons being now drained out of the Holy City into the Army of Gog and Magog and so the City lest fit to retain the Title of holy and beloved still without any scruple or exception Vers. 13. Death and Hell are here made one to be the Species of the other viz. The first to signifie those dead by diseases and the other the whole Region of Mortality But surely it will be a better account of the Text to suppose this to be a like distribution of the damned into two parts as the twenty four Elders and the four Beasts is of the Saints viz. into the Governours and governed and that Hell signifies those children of wrath who have been Rulers in the World under the Powers of darkness and Death those that died in their sins in their private condition but were not publick Instruments of evil as to others And that this distinction of them is made by reason of the different state or degrees of punishment that befalls them after this life according to that saying The Lord soon pardoneth the mean but the mighty shall be mightily tormented This sense will well agree with v. 14. viz. Death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire but so will not the other sense For not all that dye of diseases much less shall the whole Region of Mortality be cast into the lake of fire c. Ans. Death and Hell are not here made the one the species of the other but rather the one a part of the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is translated Hell signifies the dark invisible Receptacle of the deceased and Hell has its name from an Anglosaxon word that signifies to cover 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore which is here rendred Hell is the common or universal Receptacle of all the deceased The Sea gave up the dead that were in it and Death and Hell delivered up the dead that were in them There was begun an Enumeration of the Receptacles of the deceased or by a Prosopopoeia of the Keepers of these Deposita viz. the deceased The Sea is one Those places that take in the bodies of those that dye of diseases another but to be short he abruptly names that common Receptacle or Keeper of all the deceased 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is translated Hell This is the plain meaning of the Text. But the Remarker's two parts are out of doors because if Death and Hell make two parts Sea will come in for the third and so spoil the conceit which otherwise had no harm in it For whereas he most of all applauds his exposition as so well agreeing with v. 14. Death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire if he take in Sea too to cast into the lake of fire it will make strange work But the Interpretation of v. 14. by the Expositor does not suppose Death there to signifie either all that dye of diseases or none but those that dye of diseases but to signifie Death it self and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hell to signifie this Region of Mortality wherein he reigns as you may see in his Exposition where the sense is sufficiently clear and smooth Chap. 21. Vers. 1. SEA does not signifie here the unquiet multitude of the wicked but as it does in the second Trumpet and the second Vial viz. The over-spreading of worldly Dominion that does overflow and overwhelm men with power as the Sea overflows the Earth Ans. The nature of the Sea is to be tossing unquiet and moving which therefore very well sets off the disposition of the Mobile vulgus especially the wicked part of them that are easily ruffled into seditions and rebellions But when this new Heaven and new Earth that is this New-Ierusalem-Polity is settled there will be no such thing as the appearance of a fluctuating Sea or of a Sea by invasion breaking in upon the Land but all will be in settled peace and quietness as the Expositor has explained this passage But to interpret Sea and Waters not of multitudes of people but of worldly Dominions the ruling Part is quite out of the road of the Prophetick style But the worldly Powers and worldly Dominions hugely fill the Remarker's fancy Vers. 2. The New Ierusalem coming down from Heaven is not a Polity to be settled on Earth by Councils but it is God's taking up his abode among men to rule and govern them by his truth and life dwelling in them whereby they shall walk in the light of life and so not need the constitutions of Councils Ans. The New Ierusalem come down from Heaven is the new Heaven and the new Earth and a new Heaven and a new Earth in the Prophetick style is a New Polity See the Alphabet of Iconisms in Heaven and Earth And besides in that it is the City Ierusalem in opposition to the City Babylon it must be a Polity antistoechal to a Polity City signifying a Polity in the Prophetick style And a Council and Laws will be requisite yea necessary in the Millennium for there will be Draconists and Bestians though under the Hatches mingled within the Dominions of the Kingdom of Christ. And it is a childish conceit to think that through so vast a Dominion as the Millennial will be there will be none but
whereof the Nations which are saved shall walk is signified by the leaves of the tree of life healing the Nations In like manner did other Nations borrow light from the Iudaical Worship and the Heathen Priests and Philosophers did rectifie their Theology by the Christian doctrine And though this healing of the Nations by the leaves will be much more verified in the people subject to the Dominion of the New Ierusalem than in those neighbouring Nations yet that verifying of it is signified by the description given of his righteous Dominion who is to judge the World in Righteousness and minister Judgment to the people with Equity Ans. The Tree of life the Remarker here will have to signifie the same thing that the pure River of water of life What a tautological Bungle is this and slurring this distinct Political description of the state of the New Ierusalem as if in all that is said nothing is understood but onely in general that the Citizens of this City are in the Dispensation of life But this is the effect as I said of his Aziluthick Dream These trees therefore that signifie Grandees in the Ierusalem Polity whether Ecclesiastick or Civil are such as answer to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Magnates of the Polity of Babylon who were Merchants and did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sold Justice for money being earthly-minded and as to the life of God trees quite dead and withered As for the Tree of life in Paradise it was the sincere union of our wills with the will of God and the Tree of knowledge of good and evil is the following our own will and the not keeping in that former union But what this is to the explication of the present Text I see not Trees here according to the Prophetick style signifie Men and that Grandees If they had been the Commonalty of the City or all the Citizens Grass and Flags growing by the River sides had better represented them than Trees That not neighbouring Nations but converted Nations become parts of the Kingdom of Christ are understood by Nations I have above sufficiently proved And it is a strange Paradox that those Nations that are capable of healing were not capable of being converted to such a frame of Polity and Religion which so palpably tended to both the present and future Happiness as well of Prince as People and was intended by Providence for the common Religion of Mankind whenas the Iewish was onely Topical And therefore the ancient Philosophers borrowing of the Jews without turning to their Religion signifies nothing here Vers. 3. There shall be no more curse signifies not Papal Curse but the curse of God for sin and therefore it follows But the Throne of God and the Lamb shall be therein and his servants shall serve him viz. By the Throne of God and the Lamb being therein they shall be established in righteousness and holiness whereby his servants shall serve him c. Ans. If the curse of God for sin is taken away in the Mellennium then there will be no more neither diseases nor death no Briars nor Thorns nor labour of tillage c. This is another Aziluthical whimsie or dream of a golden Age in which Ovid makes the Earth to bring forth all manner of fruit yea Corn it self without plow or tillage Mox etiam fruges tellus inarata ferebat Nec renovatus ager gravidis canebat aristis But it is a childish conceit to think that in the Millennium external Nature will be changed though men will then have more healthfull bodies by reason of their Regeneration into true Holiness and Righteousness The judgment of R. Moses Aegyptius is far more sober and sound touching the state of things in the reign of the Messias than the Remarker's who writes thus Non ascendat saith he in cor tuum c. Let not such a fond conceit arise in thy mind as if in the days of the Messias any thing would vary from the usual custome of this natural World or any thing be innovated in the work of the six days Creation But the course of Nature will then be no otherwise than now it is See Munster on Esay ch 11. whose expressions touching the times of the Messiah v. 6 7 8. that Wolves Lions Bears and Leopards will then lose their salvageness gave some Jews occasion to deny that the Times of the Messiah are yet because these Beasts still retain their old nature Which shews the danger of extravagant interpretations of Prophecy To set the sense of things upon such a strange rack and incredible that they that shall believe it will be hindred from acknowledging Prophecies to be fulfilled when yet really they are And therefore as ch 21.4 where it is said And there shall be no more death the meaning is not that the Citizens of the New Ierusalem shall never dye but there shall be no such death as in the Polity of Babylon no more bloudy massacrings of the faithfull witnesses of Christ so likewise here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And there shall be no more curse is to be understood not that the curse of sin shall be taken from external Nature but such curses as were most notorious in the Polity of Babylon those Papal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or excommunicatory Denunciations that often did set all Christendom on fire and embroiled it in bloudy and destructive Wars The true Key of rightly explaining the State of the New Ierusalem is the interpreting things in way of opposition to the State of Babylon and the condition of the faithfull servants of Christ under it Which is worthy of any intelligent person's observation And what follows in this verse exquisitely well agrees with this exposition But the Throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it The Pope before had usurped the Throne of God from whence be thundered and lightened so with his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Excommunicatory curses to the disturbance of all Christendom but now this Throne of God is taken from the Vsurper and become the Throne of the Lamb to the peace and refreshment of the Vniversal Church of Christ. Such is the State of his Millennial Empire AN ANSWER To Several REMARKS UPON Dr. Henry More HIS EXPOSITION OF THE VISIONS of DANIEL Written By. S. E. MENNONITE And Published in English by The ANSWERER Together with his ANSWERS thereunto LONDON Printed by M. F. for Walter Kettilby 1684. REMARKS UPON THE EXPOSITION OF THE VISIONS of DANIEL Vision 1. Vers. 33. THIS Image being to represent the four great Kingdoms that were to arise successively on the Earth and which is said to be terrible in the same sense as the four Beasts in the next Vision are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or wild Beasts it 's very incongruous to understand any part of it of any other than secular power So that the feet being part of Clay and part of Iron cannot signifie the Roman Empire its becoming partly Ecclesiastical and
such a Typical Creature be it Man or Brute is in the Prophetick Representation set out at once And History onely can discover how often or in what part the Type is verified I will give but one example for many The Woman Apoc. 17. sitting upon the Scarlet-coloured Beast Iohn says he saw her drunk with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Iesus Vidit eam ore rabido saith Grotius despumante evomente sanguinem ut ebrii solent But this was not the constant pickle she was in and unintermitted though it was seen and represented all at once to Iohn But whether you understand it of Rome-Pagan with Grotius there was not one-continued Persecution under the Pagan Emperours but ten distinct ones as they are reckoned Nor under Paganochristian Rome has this glut of bloud been one continued Persecution but Massacres at Intervals repeated as also other Murtherings But this being thus at several times drunk with the bloud of the innocent is set out at once as if it were but one fit of Drunkenness or as if she were always drunk neither of which is true But the Henopoetick Type implies neither of those but is onely a notable mark at large and Prefiguration that at some times she would most barbarously persecute the Saints of God and Martyrs of Jesus This is all that this Henopoetick Type signifies And therefore it is great unskilfulness in the Remarker that he will have the plucking of the Eagle-wings of the Lion to be done onely once that is when he is destroy'd as they pluck Capon 's wings not before their heads be writhen off But by what has been said these wings of the Lion may well be said to be pluck't when any thing happened which might humble him weaken him and discourage him which certainly that sad Providence upon Nebuchadnezzar did and could not but be a great Obstacle to the affairs of his Kingdom The Retardation of which Affairs also happened again and was notorious under Evelmerodac when by the Rebellion of Cyrus Media was rent from the Babylonian Empire And then again in Belshazzar whose knees knocked together for fear at the hand-writing on the Wall c. All these by virtue of a Prophetick Henopoeia are referrible to that one passage of the Prophecy I beheld till the wings thereof were pluck't like as to the following words And was made stand on the feet as a man and a man's heart was given unto it both the restoring of Nebuchadnezzar and the Humanity of Darius Medus which the Expositor has noted are referrible also And being the Text of the Prophecy places this reducing of the Eagle-wing'd Lion upon the plucking of his wings to a more humane Temper it is evident that the erect stature and the man's heart these Symbols of humanity is not the continued character of the Babylonian Kingdom as the Remarker would have it but intermittent and occasional And lastly that Darius Medus succeeded Belshazzar in the Empire the Remarker may be satisfied out of Thomas Lydiat Emendat Temp. Anno M. 3469. He that considers what has already been said will easily discern all the other strained conceits in this Remark to break apieces of themselves and therefore I will not mis-spend time in needlesly answering such slight matters Vers. 5. Grotius his conceit of Iudaeae nihil nocuit was not worth borrowing of him though it 's fansied here to be so abundantly reasonable and as to those decrees alledged to make it good there may be also contrary Decrees by which the building of the Temple was so many years obstructed instanced in to disprove it But the plain easie sense of the Beast raising it self on one side is That whereas the Beast signifies the same Kingdom that chap. 8. is described by a two-horned Ram having one Horn higher than the other the highest whereof came up last the Rise of the Beast here on one side signifies that it had its Rise from the first Horn viz. the Kingdom of the Medes though the other Horn the Persian Kingdom did over-top the first to obtain the dignity of the Empire Ans. Upon mis-information from envious neighbours the building of the Temple was some years retarded But this is to be attributed to the ill will of those neighbours of the Iews not of the Persian Monarchs And it was through their favour alone that both Temple City and Walls of Ierusalem were built at last So friendly were those Monarchs to the Iews So that what was borrowed from Grotius was worth the borrowing but it is but what others have said before and the Iews particularly as you may see in Cornelius à lapide But this pretty unexpected conceit of the Remarker seems utterly impossible as being plainly unnatural For in what posture could the Bear stand to shew one side to be higher than the other as the Horns of the Ram are said to be What did he stand on his two legs on the right side with his left legs lift up into the air that that side might be higher than the other Wherefore if he raised himself at all it was on his hinder feet in a rampant posture and his thus raising of himself was on one side 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is in unam partem and as Vatablus would have it in Babylonios but as Grotius and the Expositor in Gentes at large in counterdistinction to the Iews But the Original also seems to refuse the Remarker's sense who says It had its rise from the first Horn or He raised himself from the first Horn to obtain the second also and become Medo-persian Emperour and so possess both sides at once This sense naturally requires it should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The reaching out from the expressed Terminus à quo taking hold on the Terminus ad quem which is not so tight the other way Vers. 6. That the four wings of this Beast do assuredly note the Celerity of Alexander's Conquest is an assured mistake And the distinguishing the signification of the four wings as they are wings from as they are four is to separate what the Vision has united and what is inseparable For four wings cannot be considered but as four wings c. But they as well as the four heads denote the Division of Alexander's Kingdom and do signifie as the wings of the first Beast did the haughty aspiring of the Kings of those succeeding Kingdoms and the exalted state of their Kingdoms Ans. How confident either Ignorance or Heedlesness makes the Remarker This Leopard with four wings of a fowl upon his back is one and the same Beast from the beginning to the end according to the nature of these Henopoetick Types and so what events or actions sute with the symbolical parts of the Creature are to be referred to those Symbols Wings therefore being the Symbol of swiftness the swiftness of Alexander's Victories is notified by them as the Eagle-wings of
the Spirit of Prophecy that came upon them 10. Whereas the four Beasts are upon the Throne and the twenty four Elders surround it sitting on their seats in their Kingly and Princely Habits signifying the Heavenly station they are exalted to by the Spirit of God being a Principle of life dwelling in them from which new nature they become as active spirits to doe what the others have no power unto but by the adventitious acting of the Spirit of God upon them 11. The living Creatures appearing like burning Coals and Lamps may signifie the burning zeal or spirit of Elias they are acted by in distinction from the pure serene Christian spirit of faith working by love which answers to the still small voice which afected the Prophet more than the precedent strong Wind and Earthquake and Fire Hence though our Saviour calls Iohn the Baptist a burning and shining light yet he says He that is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he 12. That the Temple-Vision designs to set forth such a perfect legal state of righteousness and the Spiritual communion attending the same as aforesaid seems concludible First from Chap. 43.10 11. where the Prophet is commanded to shew the house of Israel the pattern of the house that they may be ashamed which if they be he is to shew them all the form and Laws and Ordinances of it that they may keep and doe them So that all the Laws and Ordinances given by the Prophet after the manner of Levitical Law are of the same import and to be taken in the same sense with those delivered by it which they had before broken 13. Secondly from the Oblation of the holy portion being 25000 Reeds square and the City being 5000 and the Sanctuary 500 square which all are symbolical Numbers of a natural or fleshly state So that as the Number of the Beast 666 the root of which is 25 sets forth a complete carnal politick state according to humane natural Wisedom so here seems to be signified the perfection of a people in a natural state by being solely under the conduct and government of divine Laws and the righteous Judgments of God agreeable to that state 14. Thirdly from the 18000 measures which is the compass of the City being the Perimeter of the Cube of 12000 furlongs which is the Cubical measure of the New Ierusalem as appears by Mr. Potter whereby seems to be signified that the one represents the state of a people under the Rule of Divine Laws and the righteous Judgments of God according to an external legal state so long as they can perfectly conform thereunto And the other such a solid state of righteousness or inward Dispensation of life as does inable men to a perfect walking with God by fulfilling all his righteous Judgments But as our Saviour hath taught us first to cleanse the inside of the Cup that the outside may be clean also so it 's onely by the inward Dispensation of the latter whereby we become able to fulfill the righteousness designed by the former So that the waters out of the Sanctuary becoming a River and the Trees growing on the banks thereof with what else in this Vision agrees with that of the New Ierusalem signifies what would have been fulfilled in the Israelites in that state if they could have been ashamed of all their iniquities and kept all the Laws Forms and Ordinances then given and what will be fulfilled in that righteous state wherein all the Statutes and Judgments of God shall be duly performed 15. As to the difference of the Mosaical Laws and the Laws of Ezekiel's Temple the Reason thereof is That the one delivers to them what was required of them that they should doe the other what they ought to doe to live up to the height of that Dispensation whereby to become partakers of the Blessings thence signified But enough of Conjectures about things so obscure and mysterious Ans. The Remarker according to that competent share of confidence Nature has endued him with thinks it may be safely concluded that the living Creatures and Wheels are not Angelical But does he think it so safe a thing to conclude of his own private opinion against the sense to say nothing of the consent of Christian Interpreters of the whole School of the Iewish Rabbins who as they call their Natural Philosophy Bereshith so their more abstruse Theology touching God and Angels they call Mercavah which is this very Vision of Ezekiel and signifies Currus a Chariot And that the Chariot of God is Angelical is plain from that in Psal. 68.17 The Chariots of God are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels and the Lord is among them as in Sinai in the holy place In which Sinai Moses also saw this glory of the Lord Exod. 24. And chap. 25.18 he is commanded to make two golden Cherubims in imitation of this Cherubick Chariot which Ezekiel afterwards saw which were to be placed upon the Ark where was to be the Throne of God in the Temple And Psal. 18. he rode upon a Cherub and did fly c. Where Grotius thinks that of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rechub currus was writ not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cherub But it tends all to one the Cherubims being his Chariot And what follows He came flying on the wings of the wind the word there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a Spirit as well as a Wind and so the whole sense may be he rid on his Chariot viz. his Angelical Chariot and was carried swiftly on the wings of his ministring Spirits that readily execute his word And Psal. 99. He sitteth between the Cherubims c. And these living Creatures in this Vision of Ezekiel ch 10. are at least ten times called Cherubims And are not Cherubims Angels And the same may be said of the Seraphins Esay 6. which is a like Representation of the Divine Majesty are they not Angels But the Remarker alledges Reasons why the living Creatures in Ezekiel's Vision are not Angels First because these four living Creatures agree in number and name with the four Beasts Revel 4. and therefore they signifying a successive body of men Ezekiel's four living Creatures must signifie a body of men also Secondly they all four have the likeness of a man and a man's hand under every wing and therefore they must be men that are signified thereby Thirdly they have Calves-feet which signifies the laboriousness of men under the Sun Fourthly and lastly A spirit is said to be in them and in the Wheels Wherefore Angels cannot be signified by either Angels being called Spirits and not described by any Spirit abiding in them But in answer to this I say First that this Vision is an Ideal Symbolum or Symbolical Idea of the glorious Majesty and Empire of the God of Israel over the whole Angelical World divided into four parts the Cabbalists give names to them Azeluthick Briathick Ietzirathick and Asiathick he
there had wanted an Animal to typifie Reason unless you made Man the Type of both and put the Eagle quite out of office Thus crude and broken is the Remarker's conceit in this matter Again There are good Scriptural-phrases produced about the two flying wings of the Seraphins which he will have the same with the third pair of wings of the Beasts but the Application is methinks much of the Hooks For the two flying wings of the Seraphins Esay 6. signifie the readiness and expediteness of their Ministry enjoyn'd by God to the service of his Church whenas he referrs it to the exalting of ones self from a Worldly and Earthly to a Heavenly state Thirdly That seems a precarious groundless conceit or rather false That the Tree of Life was not set in Paradise for Adam to eat of but to play at Chop-cherry with him and to mock him whenas the Text says The Lord commanded the Man saying Of every tree of the Garden thou shalt eat and I hope the Tree of life was one of them The Original is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou hast plenary commission if not command to eat of all saving the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil Which had been a mere mocking of Adam if he had no power of eating of the Tree of Life And now fourthly this being a fundamental mistake of the Remarker in the case of Adam the like discovers it self in his conceit touching the Iews and the two Visions of Ezekiel that of the four living Creatures and that other of the Temple God gave no impossible Commands to the Iews But those exquisite descriptions of things touching the Temple by a long and operose Hylasmus and Israelismus set not out what the Iews should have been if they had kept these Ordinances exquisitely but what the Church of Christ would be of which the Iews were a Type in process of time That this is the sense of that Vision the Apocalypse that borrows so many things from it and uses such frequent Allusions to the Temple does sufficiently indicate Nor is there any other sense of the Vision of the four living Creatures as touching the Iews who were not upon condition of legal performances to arrive to that Angelical State that the Christian Church with them will arrive to at last But the Divino-political sense of that Vision which yet is most properly applied to it as repeated in the Apocalypse which relates to the Camp of the Iews a figure of the State of the Christian Church to come is that the Church of God at last will answer the Pattern of the Angelical Kingdom and God's Will will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Fifthly The Name of the City The Lord is there is the very Indication of the state of the New Ierusalem which is a demonstration it was never intended for the Iews under their Legal Dispensation upon any terms Sixthly Ezekiel is not here sent to Prophesie the Ruine of the City and Temple they both having been destroyed fourteen years before But they being destroyed he in this Hylastick and Israelistick way prophesies of the state of the New Ierusalem which the Apocalypse also describes Seventhly therefore The Iews their making a golden Calf and craving a King whatever other inconveniences it may cause to them it could not make them forfeit that which was never intended them in that state Eighthly If the Beasts be the Governed and the four and twenty Elders the Governours how come the Beasts to be upon the Throne and the twenty four Elders onely about it Ninthly The Wheels and living Creatures being not moved but as acted by the spirit does not signifie an Earthly state in them but the most Divine and Heavenly viz. an Vnselfwilledness in them That they have no Self excursions of mind or will but that the Spirit of life from the eternal mind is the perpetual principle of their motion and rest Tenthly That the four Beasts are not upon the Throne I have shew'd upon that place of the Apocalypse and that he contradicts himself in saying so I observed even now in the eighth Note Eleventhly The burning Coals which are Prunae do not signifie the Spirit of Elias in Men but the Seraphick Spirit in Angels as Seraphin from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has its denomination viz. from burning And the Seraphin are counted of the higher sort of Angels And as for Lamps they are in the description of the scene of the New Ierusalem Apoc. 4. Now for the Temple I say Twelfthly That the whole Vision of the Temple concerns the Christian Church and therefore that command to the Prophet chap. 43.10 11. respects especially the Thyatirian and Sardian Interval thereof that they may repent of all their sins and corruptions and so make what haste they can toward that excellent State of the Church which is prefigured by the Vision of the Temple Thirteenthly As for the Numbers 25000 5000 and 500 Ezek. chap. 45. and 666 in the Apocalypse nothing more can be signified by the former viz. those in Ezekiel than that the New Ierusalem will gratifie even the external man also and his outward senses which the Quinary number does denote namely that even the outward State of the Church then will be rich and glorious according to what is likewise prophesied of in the Apocalypse that the Kings of the Earth shall bring their honour and glory into it And it is the encouraging Prediction of Christ himself Seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all worldly good things shall be added thereto Which will most amply be fulfilled in the Millennial Empire of Christ which is that eminent Kingdom of God upon Earth And for that other Number 666 it is not set down to signifie the most complete carnal politick State but to be a certain character of the Pontifician Hierarchy the two-horned Beast who are discovered to have affected the number 25 which is the root of 666. That is the main drift of that Number though deluding their followers with pleasing Objects of sense may haply be aimed at thereby also Fourteenthly The 18000 measures which is the compass of Ezekiel's City agreeing with the Perimeter of the New Ierusalem whose Solid or Cubick measure is 12000 furlongs in the Apocalypse the true and usefull meaning of that is to assure us that Ezekiel's Vision of the Temple is a Prophecy of the State of the Church which is set out by S. Iohn in his description of the New Ierusalem that men may make no vagaries into any other fancies as the Remarker has done here And the Wisedom and Providence of God is admirable herein Besides if that Externality or Superficiality were aimed at which the Remarker would have signified the measure of the Superficies of the Cube not the Perimeter would have been set down and made use of Fifteenthly The difference of the Mosaical Laws and those of Ezekiel's Temple the greater exactness of these above the other is