and I will give you the Crown of Life That is to say Stand out till the consummation of the Ten Persecutions wherewith ye will be tried and ye shall have the Crown of Life I will crown you with the Imperial Crown which shall prove a Crown of Life unto you Christianity shall become at length the Religion of the Empire which will save you for the future from the deadly Persecutions of the red Dragon You shall be no longer subject to the Cruelty of Roman Paganism for the profession of your Religion This therefore will be a Crown of Life unto you This is according to that Apoc. 21. 4. And there shall be no more death that is there shall be no more Persecution and killing for Conscience sake Which was the sad case of this Smyrnian Church under the Pagan Cruelty in an eminent manner Wherefore when they had wone their Freedome it was a Crown of Life to them by the Law of Contraries That this is the genuine sense will farther appear from what follows 6. He that hath an ear to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches This being an usual Epiphonema to Parables plainly intimates that what hitherto has been said is a parabolicall Prophecy And the nature of a Prophecy is to foretell such things as are to be transacted here on earth And therefore where the Promise is not Divine or concerning the state after this life the Epiphonema follows as is very conspicuous in the Promise to the Church of Thyatira which is the first example of the Epiphonema coming last of all which is a sign that the whole Epistle there is Propheticall Verse 26. And he that overcometh and keepeth my words unto the end to him will I give power over the Nations c. Which therefore concerns the stage of this Earth And therefore this Promise here of the Crown of Life before the Epiphonema I would interpret of a Reward in this life on this earth according as I have expounded the passage But now that which follows this Epiphonema is a Promise of another sort viz. He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death for it is the securing of a blessed Immortality after this life and seems farther to correspond with that passage in the Apocalypse Ch. 20. v. 6. Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first Resurrection on such the second death hath no power Wherefore though not according to the inference of rigid Syllogism yet according to those nice and delicate hints in Propheticall Intimations I would conclude that the promise of their Portion in the first Resurrection is here proposed to those afflicted Smyrnians which was the proper Portion of Martyrs and Confessours according to the opinion of the Primitive Church as Mr. Mede has learnedly and judiciously observed Which granted does hugely corroborate this Application of the Epistle to the Church in Smyrna to this Intervall which contains the times of all the Sufferings in a manner of the primitive Martyrs The promise of a blessed Immortality had been very proper and accommodate to this Smyrnian state of the Church that were so frequently to lose their lives for profession of the Gospel but for it to be intimated to them that these shall have their portion in the first Resurrection which is proper to Martyrs as appears by the place above quoted is so characteristicall of this Intervall wherein all the primitive Martyrs suffered viz. in those Ten Persecutions that it does marvellously confirm the truth of the Exposition of this present Epistle in this Mysticall way we have gone And thus much of the Church in Smyrna that is in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the bitternesse of Oppression and Affliction as the Allusion to that Syriack word imports We proceed to the Church in Pergamus CHAP. V. The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Church in Pergamus 1. AND to the Angel of the Church in Pergamus write The Intervall of this Church is from the year of Christ 324 when Constantine utterly defeated the Army of Licinius not above thirty thousand of one hundred and thirty thousand escaping and so with his own Victories made the Church also triumphant out of her long and unsupportable Miseries raising her aloft from her sad Oppressions and Persecutions From this year I say to the year 1242 when the Pope's Legate Amelin made an end of the Albigensian War with Trancavel Bastard of the Earl of Beziers let this be the Intervall of the Church in Pergamus 2. Of the beginning of this Intervall there can be no doubt And for the termination of it there are these two Considerations to countenance it The first in that the latter of those numbers in the last of Daniel viz. the number 1335 does point to the beginning of the Affairs of the Waldenses and Albigenses who are both one Sect and from one Authour Waldo of Lyons an holy and good man whose Preaching and his own and his Followers Sufferings were about the term of that Number whose Epoche is the Prophanation of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes So considerable a passage of Providence is the appearing of the Waldenses in those times betwixt the year of Christ 1160 and 1170. For they were condemned for Hereticks by Pope Alexander in the Laterane Council in the year 1162 upon which you may be sure Persecutions would immediately follow And Mr. Mede with great judgement will have this latter Number in Daniel to point at these Times Nor does that expression of Daniel at all weaken his Opinion in that he saith Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days because it is said in the Apocalypse also Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord that is that die for the cause of our Lord Jesus And of the Church of Smyrna it is said I know thy tribulation and poverty but thou art rich The judgement of the Spirit of God and the judgement of carnal men are quite opposite in these things What they call Poverty the Spirit calls Riches what they Misery the Spirit Blessednesse Wherefore the Affairs of the Waldenses or Albigenses is a notable distinct and conspicuous joint of time even according to the judgement of the Spirit of Prophecy But then in the second place I terminate the Intervall of this Church in Pergamus not in the beginning but the conclusion of these Waldensian or Albigensian Affairs because they being all in a manner one and so plainly concluded in the year I have mentioned their Sufferings may the more punctually answer to the Sufferings of that one Martyr Antipas who is here said to be slain in Pergamus But the Concinnity of these things we shall better understand after we have descanted upon the name Pergamus 3. That by Pergamus is intimated a state of Exaltation or Sublimity I intimated before Sublimia omnia dicta Asiaticis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notat Hesychius Suidas
stage but if thou strivest so as to get the victory in the way I have instructed thee I will translate thee to that Heavenly Kingdome most naturally and properly so called where thou shalt sit down and drink of the fruit of the Vine in the Kingdome of my Father As I after I had overcome ascended up to Heaven into those glorious mansions and there sate down at the right hand of God so him that overcometh the Temptations and Incumbrances the Pleasures and Enticements of this lower world will I cause to sit down with me in the Heavenly places at the last Day Which Monition is the more seasonable by how much more near the approach of that great Day is For I shall come visibly to Judgement in the very next Thunder to the Siege of Gog and Magog when I will transform your vile bodies into the similitude of my glorious body that ye may be fit companions for me in Heaven for ever Behold I shew you a mystery Ye shall not all sleep yet ye shall all be changed that mortality may be swallowed up of life This is a great and stupendious Promise but thou art to consider that it is spoken by him that is the Amen the true and faithfull witnesse and the beginning of the Creation of God and therefore both will and can carry on all his design to the very end Amen 13. He that hath an ear to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches From the Epiphonema coming here last as in all these four last Epistles one may haply raise this Objection as if this sense of the Promise immediately preceding it were not Politicall or Propheticall enough but merely Theologicall the Promise being to be performed in the other world and therefore not the proper object of Prophecy which concerns the affairs of the stage of this Earth And that this therefore is against our professed Rule But I answer that though the Promise of obtaining Heaven after this life upon the death of the body be merely a Theogicall Promise and of a thing more spiritual and invisible and not to be seen upon the face of this Earth yet this promise of obtaining Heaven at the Resurrection and general Day of Judgement it being the day of that great and visible Assizes wherein the Souls of the Saints shall appear in glorify'd bodies may well be ranged in the same order with the rest of the Promises immediately preceding the Epiphonemata of each Epistle and to be accomplished visibly in this life For the sense of the Promise in brief is this That as Christ after his Sufferings his Death and Passion ascended visibly into Heaven for Heaven is said to be the throne of God in the Scripture and so Heaven became also Christ's throne so those of Laodicea who upon the Mortification of their Lusts should attain to the state of life in the New birth should ascend visibly into Christ's throne that is into Heaven in the open view of them that should be left here on the Earth and in the inferiour Regions of the Air sentenced to that everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels This is a plain and obvious sense of this Promise and such as the placing of the Epiphonema requires and is in my judgement no mean Ratification of the true and Literal sense of that Article of our Faith touching the visible Resurrection and Glorification of our bodies and their ascension into the Heavenly Regions against such as would whiffle away all these Truths by resolving them into a mere moral Allegorie Thus consonant every way are the Interpretations of these Epistles both to themselves and to the Apostolick Truth CHAP. X. A Recapitulation of the main Evidences of the truth of this Mysticall or Propheticall Exposition of the Seven Epistles to the Seven Churches of Asia by way of Solution of Difficulties touching the said Epistles and their Circumstances otherwise hardly or not at all to be solved 1. AS in natural Hypotheses those are accounted truest that solve the Phaenomena of Nature the most naturally and easily and especially if such as are no otherwise solvible then upon the proposed Hypothesis so that meaning of Scripture I mean especially of any considerable portion thereof ought to be esteemed truest that can solve the most Difficulties that may be raised concerning the same or the Contexts precedent or subsequent thereto and if all still the more certain and if unsolvible otherwise there is still the more assurance of undeniable Demonstration Now how near this Mysticall or Propheticall Exposition of these Epistles approches to the clearnesse of this case I will leave to the Reader to judge after he has considered the Solutions of the Questions easily raised out of the Epistles themselves or the precedent Chapter and not easily answered nor at all satisfactorily at least most of them but upon the Hypothesis we have gone 2. As first If a man enquire why the Spirit of Prophecy after he has so expresly given notice that this Book of the Apocalypse is to shew unto his servants things that are to come and called it plainly a Book of Prophecies should start so unexpectedly from the Title and intended subject as to write no lesse then seven Epistles to certain Churches that have nothing considerable of Prophecy in them before he deliver any Prophecies properly so called but onely Promises and Comminations and that he should doe this with as great Pomp and as high a Preamble as he does when he begins so famous Prophecies as those of the seven Seals and the opened Book But according to our Hypothesis the Answer is easie viz. That though these seven Epistles to the seven Churches of Asia have a Literal sense yet they are also a Parable or Prophecy and of as high concern for both matter and extent of time they reaching from the beginning of the Church to the end of the world as the Prophecy of the Seals and opened Book and that they are ushered in with this great Pomp on purpose to give us notice thereof Secondly A man would be prone to enquire why the Spirit dictates Letters unto the Churches in Asia and not rather to the Churches in Europe Asia and Africk For certainly the Church had disspred it self into all these Quarters of the world by that time As if the Spirit of Truth were a respecter of persons For these are not the Letters of John but of the Holy Ghost But our Answer is ready at hand That for the significancy of the word Asia to comport also with the significancy of the names of the Seven Churches Asia alone was pitched upon But according to the Propheticall sense the true Catholick Church is writ unto under such distinct Conditions as she was to vary into unto the end of the world So that there is no Partiality nor Acception of Persons in this Thirdly If a man demand touching the order or precedency of these Seven
whose Intervall is from the tenth of Nero or Anno Christi 63. till Anno Christi 324. when Constantine the Great a zealous Professour of Christianity had subdued the most potent enemies of it and himself For then the Church was raised out of the dust or rather out of the mire and bloud that she was troden down into by the Ten cruel Persecutions and began to be the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Church in sublimity and exaltation according to the signification of that word But in this Intervall of their Afflictions and Martyrdome she was the Church in Smyrna Now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are all one and signifie Myrrh which whether you respect the Plant it self which grows in sandy dry and uncultivated places and is it self rough and thorny with sharp pricking leaves or else the gumme of the Tree which is biting and bitter to the taste and has its very name from thence in the Syriack 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quia amara as Martinius notes it is very significative of this Intervall of the Church that succeeds wherein those horrible Pagan Persecutions raised against the Christians are comprehended So that Smyrna signifies the bitter Affliction and Persecution of the Church as that Lamp named Wormwood does the sad Calamity of the Western Caesareate 2. To which you may add that Smyrna that is to say Myrrh was a main Ingredient in the embalming of the bodies of the dead which again reflects upon the many Funerals or rather Deaths and Martyrdoms of the Members of the Church which would be caused by the Persecutions of those times Besides that as Myrrh keeps the body from Corruption it may be a Symbol of the eternizing of the memory of the Martyrs to all Posterities Not to take notice of their conserving of their very Bodies themselves which they call Reliques though this Allusion can be no countenance to the abuses in those things And lastly this Allusion to Myrrh is still the more emphaticall in that the body of our Saviour that faithfull Witness as he styles himself after his martyrdome on the Cross is said to be embalmed with Myrrh John 19. 3. These things saith the First and the Last who was dead and is alive The Titles that Christ adorns himself with when he speaks to the Church of Ephesus are He that holds the seven Stars in his right hand and who walketh in the midst of the seven golden Candlesticks namely through all the Successions of them like that Promise Behold I am with you to the end of the World intimating thereby the presence of his Spirit through which he would in all Difficulties sustain the Bishops and Pastours of his Church Which general signification seems well enough proportioned or fitted to the Condition of the Church of Ephesus he expresly requiring of them no more then Zeal and Courage in the general But now he speaks to the Church in Smyrna and there enters a more bloudy Scene and terrible he seems to encourage them with higher and more palpable and particular Animations in the very entrance of his discourse These things saith the First and the Last the same that began the War for this Kingdome we strive for and will be the last in the field to assist my friends and discomfit mine enemies as well as I was the first And be not afraid of dying for the Truth for though I was crucify'd my self yet behold I am now alive And I tell you it for a pledge unto you of the same Happinesse if you lay down your lives as the Times will shortly require it for me and for my Gospel This is very particular and apposite to the Condition of the Church in this Smyrnian Intervall wherein there were to be so many and so bloudy Persecutions 4. I know thy works and tribulation and poverty that is to say I know the great Affliction and misery thou art oppressed withall being destitute of all the Comforts of this present life and in danger of death every moment Which is a right Smyrnian Condition indeed according to the Title of the Church in Smyrna But thou art rich namely with those spiritual Graces of Meeknesse of Patience of Christian Courage and Fortitude and of sincere and invincible Love of the Lord Jesus even to the death it self And I know the Blasphemy of them that say they are Jews and are not but are the Synagogue of Satan That is I take notice of the reproach that those men cast upon Christianity who call themselves Christians and yet make nothing of dissembling and denying the Faith upon the arising of any Persecutions for my Name 's sake as if a Christian could be such a vile false and abject Hypocrite This is to blaspheme them that are called by my Name The right Christian is the true Jew whose heart is circumcised and therefore he will not lie with his tongue and whose Faith is so strong in me and hopes so firm of a better life that he can if the cause of my Gospel so require willingly part with this for the Love of me and for the Interest of my Kingdome These are the true Members of my Church who are for suffering the other the Synagogue of Satan as I told Peter when he would have disswaded me from undergoing the death of the Cross Get thee behind me Satan for thou savourest not the things of God That the Jews signifie the Christian Church there is nothing more frequent in the Apocalyptick style then that And this mention of these false Christians in opposition to these Smyrnian Sufferers does plainly insinuate that sense which I have given 5. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer Do not imitate the base Cowardise of this Synagogue of Satan these Hypocrites and Dissemblers After that sharp reprehension of Flinchers from the Faith he returns to encourage and corroborate the Church in Smyrna Behold the Devil shall cast some of you into prison that ye may be tried and ye shall have tribulation ten days The red Dragon that old Serpent in his fight with Michael for the things of that Vision are co-incident with this Smyrnian Intervall of the Church I say the Pagans incensed by the old Serpent will cast several of you into prison that your Faith may be tried and God may receive the glory of your Fortitude and Constancy This you shall have for ten days that is till the time of consummation that Victory and Redemption be wrought for you or that you die Or rather thus You shall have tribulation for ten days There will be ten Seasons of bloudy Persecutions which you must run through those ten Persecutions so famous in Church-History and so frequent in the mouths of all men Which consideration among others does not a little ratifie this our Exposition of the Church of Smyrna and consequently gives strength to the whole Hypothesis of the seven successive Intervalls Be ye faithfull unto death
the fit and easie congruity of the names of the Seven Churches and of the Events of the seven Intervalls denoted by them to the Prefigurations in the Visions there can be no doubt but that by Balaam mentioned in the Epistle to the Church in Pergamus wherein Antipas that is the Opposers of the Pope are murthered the Papal Hierarchy is understood as it is also by the Prophetesse Jezebel in the Epistle to the Church in Thyatira who was also a Murtheresse of the Prophets of God and both of them expresly Patrons of Idolatry as is manifest in the very Text. Nor is it at all wonderfull that Balaam and Jezebel the one a man the other a woman should signifie the same thing For the false Prophet and the Whore of Babylon in the following Visions of the Apocalypse signifie both one and the same thing viz. The Hierarchy of Rome from the Pope to the rest of their Ecclesiastick Body 4. And what I have said of the Vision of those Seven Churches the same I say of all those Expositions of the thirteenth and seventeenth Chapters of the Apocalypse and that of the little Horn in Daniel namely The words of the Prophecies being so naturally applicable to the Affairs of that Church besides the demonstration of Synchronism that the weight of those two foregoing Conclusions being added thereto there cannot be the least doubt or scruple left but that those Interpretations are true and that the Church of Rome is that Body of Antichrist that Mother of Fornications and Abominations of the Earth that is of multifarious Modes of grosse Idolatries or that scarlet Whore on the seven Hills that is also drunk with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus 5. And that therefore in the fourth place in the Church of Rome the Poison exceeding the Antidote there can be no reason that Salvation should be hoped for there It is a sad and lamentable Truth but being a Truth and of such huge moment it is by no means to be concealed What God may doe in his more hidden ways of Providence he alone knows And therefore we cannot say that every Idolatrous Heathen must perish eternally But to speak no farther then we have commission and according to the easy tenour of the Holy Scriptures we must pronounce though with great sadnesse of heart that we have no warrant therefrom to think or declare any of the Popish Religion so long as they continue so to be in the state of Salvation and especially since that voice of the Angel which sounded in the Intervall of Thyatira saying expresly Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins and receive not of her plagues and the Apostle in his first Epistle to the Corinthians Be not deceived neither Fornicatours nor Idolaters nor Adulterers c. shall inherit the Kingdome of God And those of the Church of Rome are bound to continue Idolaters as long as they live or else to renounce their Church and therefore they are bound to be damned by adhering to the Roman Church unless they could live in it for ever For he that dies in such a capital sin as Idolatry without Repentance nay in a blinde obstinate perseverance in it how can he escape eternal Damnation 6. But though we had kept our selves to the Apocalypse the thing is clear in that Book alone ch 22. ver 14 15. where all Idolaters are expresly excluded from the Tree of Life Blessed are they that doe his Commandments and one of them though expunged by Rome is Thou shalt not worship any graven Image that they may have right to the tree of life c. For without are dogs and Sorcerers and Whoremongers and Murtherers and Idolaters and whoso loveth and maketh a Lie All these are excluded the Heavenly Jerusalem and from eating the Tree of Life Of which who eateth not is most assuredly detain'd in eternall death As it is written in the foregoing Chapter that Murtherers and Whoremongers and Sorcerers and Idolaters and all Liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second Death What sentence can be more expresse then this 7. But besides this Divine sentence against them they are also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are self-condemned or at least give sentence against themselves while they so freely pronounce that no Idolaters are to be saved which they frequently doe to save their own Church from the reproach of Idolatry For because some Protestants have declared for the Possibility of Salvation in the Romish Church they farther improve the favour to the quitting themselves of the guilt from others hopefull presages that by an hearty implicit Repentance of all their sins even of those that are the proper Crimes of that Church they may through God's mercy in Christ be delivered from the punishment This piece of Charity in some of our Party they turn to the fencing off all imputation of Idolatry from themselves arguing thus That no Idolaters can be saved But those in the Romish Church may be saved according to those Protestants opinion Therefore those in the Romish Church are no Idolaters But most assuredly while they thus abuse the Charity of some even by their own Proposition they must bring the sentence of Condemnation from all the rest upon their own heads as they have herein given it against themselves in saying that all Idolaters are damned or that no Idolater can be saved For it is demonstrated as clear as the Noon-light in this present Discourse that the Church of Rome are Idolaters 8. And in that of those of our Church that say they may be saved upon a sincere and hearty implicit Repentance of all their sins wherein they include the Idolatries and all other Miscarriages which they know not themselves guilty of by reason of the blinde Mis-instructions of their Church no more is given them by this then thus viz. That they are saved by disowning of and dismembring themselves from the Roman Church as much as it is in their power so to doe and by bitterly repenting them that they were ever of that Church as such and by being so minded that if they did know what a corrupt Church it is they would forthwith separate from it So that in effect those of the Roman Church that some of ours conceit may be saved are no otherwise saved if at all then by an implicit renouncing Communion with it which in Foro Divino must goe for an actual and formal Separation from it In which Position if there were any Truth it will reach the honest-minded Pagans as well but it can shelter neither unless in such Circumstances that they had not the opportunity to learn the Truth which since the Reformation and especially this last Age by the mercy of God is abundantly revealed to the world So that all men especially those that live in Protestant Nations or Kingdoms are without all