saying Blessing and Honour and Glory and Power be unto him that sitteth on the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever no Interpreter shews this to have been done after Christ's taking of the Book more than before From whence it is plain to me saith he that they go upon a wrong Hypothesis For if there had been any such things done on Earth no doubt some footsteps of it would have been found in History These few things as he calls them being thought by him pressing and weighty I am concerned to answer that the truth of my Exposition may not seem to be obscured thereby 1. To the first then I answer That this Proclamation was made only in this Dramatical Vision and is no more than a visionary Proclamation and brought in in this Dramatical manner to signifie the singular Prerogative of Christ given to him by his Father that he should have the ability of predicting and effecting such things as no Creature besides in the World had the like general Proclamation being made to find them out if there were any such And the Angel is said to be strong and his Voice loud that it might pierce as it were through the Universe to summon any one that would pretend to such a Prerogative as has been described 2. To the second I say There is neither any unlikeliness nor trifling in this Proclamation because it sets off the peculiarness of Christ's Prerogative in that it was given to him to open the sealed Book And it being not yet opened but being known in general to be a Book of Secrets as yet only in the Mind of God what unlikeliness or Indecorum is it that Proclamation be made who he is that shall be vouchsafed this power of opening the Book and distinctly knowing those Secrets which were only in the Mind of God before 3. To the third I answer as to the first That the Proclamation is only visionary and of what it is significative I have already said nor need again repeat 4. To the fourth I say it seems a kind of capricious Query as if it implied from that account of the Proclamation made that no man in Heaven on Earth or under the Earth was found able to open the Book that Christ was no where then else he would have been found able But as S. Paul says 1 Cor. 15.27 But when he saith all things are put under him it is manifest he is excepted which did put all things under him so say I whenas this Proclamation was made to remonstrate to the World that no man in Heaven nor Earth nor under the Earth was found able saving Christ himself to open the Book it is manifest he is to be excepted out of that Negative Catalogue as being the only Creature that was able 5. To the fifth Incogitancy I think suggested this Query to the Objector For it implies S. John wept after he understood that Christ had obtained the power of opening the sealed Book whenas his weeping was before He says so plainly himself v. 4. And I wept much because no man was found worthy to open and read the Book neither to look thereon Which is also a Dramatical passage on this Theatre intended to signifie nothing else but the great Needfulness and Desirableness of such a Book of Prophecies for the use of God's Church and their guidance in all the Tossings Changes and Revolutions in this transitory World Such a Book was so necessary and requisite that it would grieve any good Christian at the very heart who is solicitous for the Church to want such a Load-star or Cynosura 6. To the sixth I answer That these crowned Elders though they be prefigurative also of the Millennial Kings or Monarchs they are here some principal Angels of the spiritual Kingdom of the God of Israel in Heaven And why may not such an Angel be thought to be wiser than John and able to instruct him There is nothing incongruous or indecorous in this Dramatical passage and John was called up into Heaven to be instructed by his Betters This celestial Actor may well be conceived to know how the Scene would go though John in the mean time was as yet ignorant thereof 7. To the seventh Truly this is a very curious Question if it imply that one should declare who this crowned Elder was by Name It is sufficient to say it was one of the Elders that was next him and so most conveniently placed to instruct John and comfort him upon his weeping and so take that kue to carry on this Divine Scene from v. 4. to v. 8. till the slain Lamb had taken the Book out of the hand of him that sate on the Throne and had obtained power to open it By which no Event is prefigured that was to come to pass some Ages after John's receiving the Apocalypse but it is only signified in this pompous Dramatical way That this Book-Prophecy is the Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him and which he imparted to his Servant John So that the curiosity of naming the Party whom this Elder may prefigure vanisheth 8. To the eighth I say Those that are set so near the Throne of God are Members of his spiritual or Angelical Kingdom in Heaven but prefigurative withal of his Millennial Kingdom on Earth which is the main scope of his Providence over his Church that it shall at last come to pass that the Heavenly Jerusalem in Image and Resemblance shall descend from God on this Earth and his Tabernacle be with men And therefore the glory of the God of Israel is here so represented that it may also prefigure the State of the Church under the New Jerusalem as the other Introductory Visions have some glances or more general strokes at Prophetick Events in some passages And now for the new Song sung by the four Beasts and twenty four Elders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dignus es qui acciperes Thou wert worthy to receive the Book for so the Original is interpretable and to open the Seals thereof for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God and made us Kings and Priests to reign upon Earth This new Song is prefigurative of the Joy and Happiness of that State of the Church of which it is said Apoc. 21.5 Behold I make all things new which is the New Jerusalem state In which there will be such triumphant Praises sung unto the Lamb when it will be so evident he has carried his Church safe for whom he gave his Life and Blood through all the predicted conditions thereof and at last has placed them in that happy and glorious Millennial State by his faithful Conduct Wisdom and Power Which are included in the Faculty granted him by his Father of opening the Seals of the Book as I have noted elsewhere And whenas presently afterwards the whole Universe is made to ring with a loud Doxology from numerous Quires of Angels and of all Creatures in Heaven and Earth and under
the Earth and such as are in the Sea and all that are in them to him that sits upon the Throne and unto the Lamb to what times possibly can this belong but to the holy happy and glorious Millennial Reign of Christ in his Saints upon Earth The Song of the twenty four Elders and four Beasts prefigure the Joy of the Millennial Monarchs and People that of the Angels the Joy of the Angels in Heaven at this flourishing State of the Church on Earth and that of the rest of the Creatures the Conviction of all the World that the Lord Jesus was no less than he declared himself to be the Son of God and Saviour of the World to whom the Father had given all Power in Heaven and Earth of which this Millennial State of the Church is a most illustrious and glorious Effect filling all the World with wonder and amazement And this I hope may satisfie the eighth Query 9. Ninthly To the ninth Allegation I answer That the Doxology of the Angelical Quires does prefigure the Joy of Angels in Heaven for that blessed condition of the Church in the New Jerusalem state on Earth So that though this Vision which is a Representation of the glory of the God of Israel in his Spiritual or Angelical Kingdom in the Dramatical frame of things is so contrived that the four and twenty crowned Elders and four Beasts prefigure also the Monarchs and People of the Millennium yet there are left numerous Quires of Angels in counterdistinction to these to signifie Angels literally so called and the Song is to signifie their Joy at this State of the Church on Earth Nor has that strong Angel that makes the Proclamation any other sense than so that he was one of the Angelical Retinue of the God of Israel in Heaven Nor is that Rule of interpreting Angels of men in the Apocalypse universally true I am sure not in the Introductory Visions The word Angel occurs in several places of the Introductory Visions where it stands for an Angel literally so called not for a man to say nothing of other places So little force has this ninth Allegation 10. And lastly for the tenth which urges That if there had been any such universal Doxology to Him that sits on the Throne and to the Lamb after he had taken the Book that there would have been some traces or footsteps of it in History To this I answer That it is a marvellous groundless conceit and expectation that what is here Parabolically and Dramatically set down only to express that Joy and Happiness which would redound to the whole Creation from Christ's being invested with this Power of opening the seven-sealed Book that is to be enabled both to foretel and guide the affairs of his Church so as that the state thereof will be so glorious and prosperous at last here upon Earth that all the World will be convinced of his stupendious Foresight Wisdom and Power that therefore there shall be such an universal Te Deum sung to him throughout the whole Universe at once so that the Solemnity might be recorded in History This is not the meaning of the Prophetick Stile And besides if it were the time is not yet come when this is to be For such expressions as these can suit with no meaner State of the Church on the Earth than that of the Millennial Reign when the four and twenty Millennial Monarchs including both the Jewish and Gentile Sovereigns or Princes may seasonably sing this Song Thou hast redeemed us with thy blood and made us Kings and Priests and we shall reign upon Earth viz. in Christ's Millennial Empire But to expect Records of such a Doxology in History before the Doxology has been is a great Incongruity Wherefore I hope any indifferent eye may easily discern that notwithstanding all these ten Allegations my Exposition of this Vision comprized in the fourth and fifth Chapters of the Apocalypse is unexceptionably true CHAP. XXXV Three Objections from a considerate hand The first against our making the three Times and an Half the forty two months and twelve hundred and sixty days to be the same time The second against oun affirming the Euphratean Horsemen to have subdued the Eastern Roman Empire with Fire-Guns The last against our making the Aegyptian year to consist only of three hundred and sixty days in Arithmetica Apocalyptica but in Apocalypsis Apocalypseos of three hundred and sixty five with Answers to all three THE first Objection Every day in the forty two months signifying a year makes in the whole twelve hundred seventy seven years at least there being really in every year not three hundred and sixty but three hundred and sixty five days This seems to make the three Times and an Half or forty two months and twelve hundred and sixty days not to be the same Answ That the forty two months are Aegyptian Months and consist of just thirty days apiece is manifest in that thirty times forty two make just twelve hundred and sixty days And these days and those months are the time of the mourning of the Witnesses and of that which all along occasions their mourning viz. the outer Court being trodden down by the Gentiles which is a plain indication that the twelve hundred and sixty days are a note of no more nor less time than the forty two months and that therefore they must be Aegyptian Months And as it is plain that the months are Aegyptian so we must conceive that the years in the three Times and an Half are so many Aegyptian years and an half consisting of Aegyptian Months which therefore make each of them three hundred and sixty days See Rev. Chap. 12. v. 6 14. This is their solid Year consisting of so many months to which they add the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are called the Dies adjectitii which are five which here the Spirit of Prophecy takes no notice of but resolving the forty two Aegyptian months which is three solid Aegyptian Years and an half into just twelve hundred and sixty days shows that no more years than so are to be understood thereby And this not respecting at all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or five adjectitious days in this Compute of the Time of the Medial Visions all which synchronize one with another complies excellently well with that Truth which I have made out viz. That the eventual measure of the Medial Visions is not a Year which has been thought hitherto so to be but a Semi-time in respect of which seventeen years or more is not at all considerable So that there was no need of being so precise as to take the Dies adjectitii into the Reckoning and so to make the whole twelve hundred and seventy seven years at least as you would infer Wherefore though every day in the forty two months stands for a year yet these months being Aegyptian months and consisting of just thirty days apiece and there is the
Rising of the Witnesses For all the Vials are after their Rising And if any one will be so freakish as notwithstanding to pitch upon some one of the Vials to be a Prediction of the late Reformation I demand what Event before the Reformation is the fulfilling of that illustrious Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses for the Event that answers to it must be so notorious that it cannot be passed by in History It necessarily therefore follows that the aforesaid Reformation only can be the Event that answers to the Vision of the partial Fall of Babylon and Rising of the Witnesses and consequently be that which the Song of Moses and the Lamb gives thanks for Which was the thing to be demonstrated CHAP. XXIV Whether the Witnesses wear sackcloth for any time after their being risen Whether the Vial-Angels received their Vials before or after the Song of Moses and the Lamb sung by the Victors over the Beast What is the adequate Visum of the sixth Trumpet What the full meaning of the Lamb 's being found worthy to open the Seals of the Seven-sealed Book Whether a year in the Apocalypse any where signifies a Year of years Whether there be any mystical meaning in noting Prophetick Time sometimes by Days sometimes by Months IT is demonstrated in the foregoing Chapter with Evidence plainly Mathematical that the Reformation begun by Luther is the Rising of the Witnesses but there being some ingenious and diligent Studiers of the Apocalypse who though they are convinced that the abovesaid Reformation is the fulfilling of the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses yet think their wearing of sackcloth may be extended to a longer time I shall endeavour here to clear that Point And in order thereto we are first to consider that the wearing of sackcloth is not literally to be expounded but is only a Symbol of a mean and squalid condition and of a grieved and pensive heart which are things inconsistent with the Witnesses being risen from the death they were in viz. a Political Death whose Resurrection implies the contrary prosperity and respect according to their different degrees of Quality Wherefore the nature of the thing it self may teach us that the risen Witnesses in their being risen did ipso facto put off their sackcloth and were clad with garments of Joy Besides the Text does assure us thereof Chap. 11. v. 15 16 17. For what were those Acclamations in Heaven there and the four and twenty Elders Doxology but an intimation what a time of Joy and Triumph it would be on Earth upon the Rising of the Witnesses and could they themselves then be in such a squalid and forlorn condition as to wear sackcloth Again Chap. 15. the Song of Moses and the Lamb is said to be sung by them that had got the Victory over the Beast and over his Image and over his Mark and over the Number of his Name Which Victors over the Beast most assuredly are the very Witnesses against whom he warred this Song being Synchronal to the Acclamations in Heaven and Doxology of the Elders What then shall we think that these Triumphant Witnesses while they had the Harps of God in their hands and sung this joyful Epinikion to them wore sackcloth on their backs what can be more incongruous But I will yet add a third place Chap. 7. there is mention of the 144000 sealed ones which synchronize and indeed are the same with the 144000 Chap. 14. which are the Souldiers of the Lamb the Saints or Witnesses and who are warred against by the Beast during the time of the first six Trumpets For though in the Cortex of the Prophecy this Sealing seems to be done at once immediately before the first Trumpet sounds yet undoubtedly it is a continued thing all along the time of the first six Trumpets which is for about twelve hundred years for such a space the sealed Souldiers of the Lamb as conflicting with the Beast are conceived to continue but at the end of the sixth Trumpet the Victory is obtained Babylon falls viz. the tenth part thereof and the Witnesses rise and as I noted before sing the Song of Moses and the Lamb and as that is the sign of their Victory there so their being cloathed in white Robes and having Palms in their hands Chap. 7.9 denotes the same here And v. 14. in that they are said to be those that came out of great Tribulation it implies their fresh emergency out of the calamities they suffered under the entire Reign and Tyranny of the Beast After which Victory of the Saints or Witnesses you see they forthwith appear cloathed in white Robes which is a plain Argument they had put off their sackcloth which is the thing I aimed at Nor can the Argument be eluded by pretending that these here cloathed in white Robes with Palms in their hands are those mentioned Chap. 6. to whom white Robes are given viz. the Primitive Martyrs who obtain a blessed Resurrection at this time for suffering under the Dragon as those do at the beginning of the Millennium for suffering under the Beast the description also of their condition implying it to be their assumption into Heaven not a state on Earth For to this I answer besides the absurdity of making more Resurrections than two the correspondency of the 144000 sealed ones to the 144000 with the Lamb on Mount Sion shows plainly that instating of these Palm-bearing Victors in their white Robes into that State here described is not till after the sixth Trumpet at the Rising of the Witnesses There begins the joyful condition of the Palm-bearers and reaches to the end of all including the New Jerusalem-state and blessed Millennium Which New Jerusalem-state being so described as to be also a fit Type of the Church Triumphant in Heaven it is very congruous that this Vision also may be so framed as to be Typical of that state likewise though in the mean time it is a Prophecy of the state of the Church on Earth But that those in white Robes Chap. 6. v. 11. answers so handsomly to the Palm-bearing Victors in white Robes Chap. 7.9 this is but a pleasant Lemmatosynechia in the Cortex which occurs oft and which entraps many heedless Readers of the Apocalypse before they be aware Wherefore I think it is a plain case that these Palm-bearing Victors in white Robes are the same with the Victors over the Beast Chap. 15. and they with the Risen Witnesses Chap. 11. who being upon their Victory and fresh emergency out of great tribulation cloathed in white Robes did not continue any time after their Conquest cloathed in Sackcloth Something akin to this protracting the time of the Witnesses wearing sackcloth beyond their Rising is that opinion of some who although they acknowledge the Reformation to be the Rising of the Witnesses yet will not have the fulfilling of the Vision of their Rising completed therein but expect a further Rising of them signified as they
the thousand years were finished may be understood of the wicked's reviving Politically after the expiration of the Millennium and the rather because the sense of the place carries it for those that at the Millennium were heretofore dead either naturally or Politically and so Judgment proceeds upon them Apoc. 20.4 which the wicked were not in a Political sense and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they lived not again must refer to that Physical Resurrection we contend for Add to all this that if the first Resurrection were understood in a Political sense and meant in general as well of them that were beheaded as those that worshipped not the Beast and in no other sense than so there is no reason why S. John should use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at first and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And we might demand if that be the first Political Resurrection which is the second unless we will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And how it can be appropriated to this first Resurrection as a special Priviledge of the partakers thereof that the second Death shall have no power over them this by promise belonging to all true Believers though not Martyrs from the beginning of the Church to the end of the World But to obtain a glorified body before the second Death or the Lake of Fire be in being which by its own Nature exempts from the harm thereof or of any thing like it in being this is a peculiar Priviledge indeed And blessed and holy and peculiarly happy is he that has his share in such a first Resurrection as this for he is actually out of the reach of all harm that may come from the Lake of Fire the being within the reach of whose power is to be obnoxious to the second Death and according to the Apocalyptick Antithetical implications or intimations he is possessed already of everlasting life in a glorified body whenas others are but Candidates for the same I hope by this time you perceive how easie smooth and natural my Exposition of the first Resurrection in a Physical sense is and how intricate harsh and perplex the contrary way would be c. CHAP. XX. That the Description of the New Jerusalem is a Description of a state of the Church on Earth The high expressions therein but such as are used in the Prophets touching the people of the Jews The Plea of those that will have it merely a Description of the Church Triumphant in Heaven consisting of seven Arguments out of Alcazar An Answer to those seven Arguments A more moderate way betwixt them that hold the Description of the New Jerusalem the one to signifie merely such a state of the Church on Earth the other the state of the Church in Heaven viz. That though it be a Prophecy of an excellent state of the Church on Earth yet the Description of that state is an intended Type also of the state of the Church Triumphant in Heaven THERE is a wide difference betwixt some Interpreters touching the Description of the New Jerusalem Apoc. 21. some understanding it to be a Description of the State of the Church here on Earth others of the State in Heaven Amongst these latter is S. Augustine especially and after him Ribera Alcazar Pareus and others Amongst the former Justin Martyr Grotius Dr. Hammond Brightman with others And I must confess I am altogether of that Opinion that it is the Description of the State of the Church on Earth after the ruine of Antichrist and so have expounded it continuedly throughout in my Exposition of the Apocalypse and have carefully suggested Arguments all along from the Text it self that it is so to be expounded So that there wants nothing for any further confirmation thereof unless I should take notice how there are no expressions so high in this Description but what are in other places of the Prophets and generally understood by Interpreters of the State of the Church on Earth namely such expressions as these In that Prophetical Thanksgiving of Tobit Chap. 13. Jerusalem shall be built up with Sapphirs and Emeralds and precious Stones thy Walls and Towers with pure Gold And the streets of Jerusalem shall be paved with Beryl and Carbuncle and Stones of Ophir In the Prophecy of Isaiah Chap. 65. v. 17. Behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth and the former shall not be remembred nor come into mind But be you glad and rejoice for ever in what I create for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy See also Chap. 66.22 In the Prophecy of Ezekiel My Tabernacle also shall be with them yea I will be their God and they shall be my people Again Isa 25.8 The Lord will wipe away tears from all faces And 54.11 Oh thou afflicted tossed with Tempests and not comforted behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours and thy foundations with Sapphirs I will make thy windows of Agates and thy gates of Carbuncles and all thy borders of pleasant stones And Chap. 60.19 The Sun shall be no more thy light by day neither for brightness shall the Moon give light unto thee but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light and thy God thy glory Thy Sun shall no more go down neither shall thy Moon withdraw it self for the Lord shall be thine everlasting-light and the days of thy mourning shall be ended What more exalted expressions than these are there in the Apocalypse in the description of the New Jerusalem All which places notwithstanding are understood of a state of the Church on Earth And so the City which Ezekiel describes by which is understood the Church on Earth the twelve Gates the River Trees and Fruit they are all transcribed into the Description of this New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse So assured a thing is it that the Apocalyptick Description of the New Jerusalem does denote a state of the Church here on Earth Wherefore it were a more fit thing to bring into view the Plea of the other Party who are so confident that it is a description of the state of Heaven than to concern our selves in any further proofs that it is a state of the Church on Earth that we may give a right judgment of the matter Alcazar who is very stiff for this Opinion produces no fewer than seven Arguments for the same The first is the Authority of S. Augustine who bluntly says in his De Civitate Dei lib. 20. cap. 17. That it is mere impudence to assert otherwise because it is said Absterget Deus omnem lacrymam ab oculis eorum mors jam non erit neque luctus neque clamor sed nec ullus erit dolor And at the end of that Chapter he says That these things are so clearly spoken of the World to come and the Immortality and Eternity of the Saints that we must not pretend that any thing is manifest in Scripture if this place be obscure The second is taken
from the Order of the Apocalypse which having set down at the end of the preceding Chapter a description of the Day of Judgment and punishment of the Wicked it necessarily follows that in the next place should be set down a description of the everlasting glory and happiness of the Elect in Heaven The third is from that it is said Chap. 20. v. 11. That the Heaven and the Earth fled away from the face of him that sat upon the white Throne and there was found no place for them and this to have been in the last day of Judgment Wherefore the New Heaven and the New Earth mentioned in the beginning of the next Chapter forasmuch as the Universe cannot be without an Heaven and Earth must be the renewed Heaven and Earth after the Day of Judgment in which the glorified Saints enjoy themselves in their Heavenly state which is called the New Jerusalem The fourth is taken from Chap. 21.7 8. He that overcometh shall inherit all things but the fearful and unbelieving c. shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death Whence says he it is manifest that it is the Heavenly Bliss that is here promised to the Victor and that this Jerusalem therefore is a state in Heaven not on Earth Fifthly The side of the Square Area of Ezekiel's City by which the Church Militant is prefigured is but four thousand five hundred reeds or forty five furlongs but the side of the Square of the Area of the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse is extended unto twelve thousand furlongs which makes the Area of the New Jerusalem seventy one thousand and an hundred and eleven times bigger than the Area of Ezekiel's City and therefore Ezekiel's City being the Church Militant this New Jerusalem by reason of the vast difference in their capaciousnesses and S. John's City containing not the Elect of some one time but of all Ages must needs be the Church Triumphant Sixthly Those words I saw no Temple there imply That this description of the New Jerusalem is not of the Church Militant but Triumphant For the Church Militant is not without Temples Seventhly and lastly In that it is said There is no Night no Death no Pain no Curse That without are Dogs c. And that the Inhabitants of this City shall always enjoy the sight of the Face of God and the Lamb these are manifest indications that the state described is not of the Church Militant but Triumphant These are the notable Arguments of Alcazar which Pareus also applauds or approves as stiff in Alcazar's Opinion as himself But I shall answer them in order To the first therefore I say That the true understanding of the Apocalypse being by Divine Providence reserved for these latter times as it is manifestly intimated in Daniel Chap. 12.9 As it is no disparagement for the ancient Fathers not to be knowing in matters which the Wisdom of God thought fit to conceal from them so it is no rudeness or injury to their Authority that it is not admitted in cases wherein they are no competent Judges They had not the advantage we have who have so much of the Prophecies of the Apocalypse so clearly fulfilled before our eyes the fulfilling of Prophecies being the most certain Key for the opening of them It is not likely that S. Austin understood that the Whore of Babylon is the Apostatized Church that great City or Polity Antichristian and Idolatrous that was to be destroy'd by the pouring out of the Vials upon the destruction whereof one of the Vial-Angels showed this City or Polity the New Jerusalem to John as that Power or Polity that was to succeed in the others room in which the Servants of God that adhered to the pure Gospel nor would submit to the Roman Superstitions and Idolatries were cruelly persecuted tortured and murdered many hundred thousands of them which could not be without the tears of them that were concerned These things I say S. Austin being ignorant of we may well excuse him for his confident mistake who if he had known them would have easily discerned the Speech to have been figurative when it is said there shall be no more death nor crying nor sorrow nor pain and that God will wipe all tears from their eyes viz. that by a Synecdoche generis those kinds of death sorrow pain crying and tears are pointed at that were caused by that Antichristian Polity that so barbarously persecuted the Saints of God that in this New Jerusalem state they should be free from these Which is an easie and obvious sense thus understood And indeed the observing that the description of the New Jerusalem is in opposition to the Polity of Babylon which it succeeds is a special Key for the rightly opening the meaning of the Description all along as may be observed in my Exposition thereof To the second I answer 1. That the Object of the opened Book-Prophecy of which the Description of the New Jerusalem is part is not the state of the Church in Heaven but the state thereof on Earth And therefore though a description of the state of the Church in Heaven would follow here handsomly yet it being quite Heterogeneous to the nature of this Prophecy we may be sure it is not here described but a state on Earth in the Millennium and that therefore there is a going back into those times in this Description the placing of the Visions being no certain Argument of the order of time they belong to as all know that know any thing in the Apocalypse Again That there is an holy and happy state of the Church of Christ in his Millennial Reign on Earth is plain and that that State or Polity opposite to the Polity or City of Babylon is no where so fully described as the Whore of Babylon is Chap. 17. is as plain Wherefore what can be more likely than that this City the New Jerusalem is described as a Polity opposite to the City of Babylon which was drunk with the blood of the Saints and the blood of the Martyrs of Jesus from which barbarous Persecutions the Saints are secured in this New Jerusalem state Whence it is said There shall be no more death nor sorrow nor crying but that God will wipe all tears from their eyes c. Chap. 21.4 Thirdly Those many passages noted in my Exposition of this Description of the New Jerusalem which is needless here to repeat plainly demonstrate it to be a description of the state of the Church on Earth And lastly The Vial-Angel the last doubtless as being nearest to this time that shews John the Bride the Lamb's Wife in opposition to the bloody Whore of Babylon destroy'd by him under the seventh Vial how naturally does his showing John the City New Jerusalem upon his having destroy'd the City of Babylon imply that he shows him that Polity that is to succeed that of Babylon and that therefore this New
Jerusalem is here upon Earth To the third I say That that high expression of the Heaven and Earth flying away or vanishing from the face of him that sate upon the Throne and that there was found no place for them is only to set out the exceeding great Glory of him that sate upon the Throne that they could neither see Earth nor the Azure Sky their eyes being so filled and taken up with the great resplendency and brightness of that light But the real stress of the Argument if there be any in it is That there is a new Heaven and a new Earth after the Conflagration which accompanies the last Judgment mentioned in the beginning of the ensuing Chapter But from what has been faid to the second Argument it is apparent that it is a mere Lemmatosynechia that is the continuing together of the Visions in the outward Cortex of the Apocalypse as if that were the very order of time in the things they prefigure when it is quite otherwise in the true sense of the Visions This is one part of the artifice of Concealment affected by the Apocalypse of which there are many instances As that Chap. 4.1 where after the Vision of the seven Churches John is bid to come up that he might be shown what things must come to pass 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after these things Which Lemmatosynechia has so imposed upon some otherwise learned and of notable parts that they have joined the beginning of the sealed Book-Prophecy with the ending of the affairs of Laodicea That also seems to be a Lemmatosynechia Chap. 13.14 where the two-horned Beast is said to make an Image to the Beast that had the wound by the Sword and did live as if the ten-horned Beast in the immediately foregoing Vision were meant which is a glib correspondency in the Cortex when the inward sense is otherwise But there is not a more elegant Lemmatosynechia than that Chap. 11.9 where the three days and an half of the Witnesses being dead are immediately placed after the twelve hundred and sixty days of their mournful prophesying when yet the three days and an half are the same time or Synchronal to the twelve hundred and sixty days as I have elsewhere proved by impregnable Arguments I will only add one instance more Chap. 16. v. 18 19. where the City is said to be divided into three parts upon the Earthquake there mentioned whenas that Tripartition of the City was before but it is a very smooth and trim Lemmatosynechia in the Cortex And such a Lemmatosynechia is this in naming a New Heaven and a New Earth immediately after the Conflagration which is a wonderful smooth connexion in the Cortex when yet in truth this New Heaven and New Earth is a Political Heaven and Earth answering to that of Isaiah Chap. 65.17 and created in the beginning of the Millennium This is the promised New Heaven and New Earth mentioned by S. Peter alluding to that of Isaiah wherein dwelleth righteousness whenas the Polity of Babylon was full of persecution injustice and blood Wherefore Alcazar being not aware of this usual Artifice of Concealment intended in the Apocalypse which I call Lemmatosynechia has produced that for a strong Argument which the matter rightly understood has no strength in it at all To his fourth I answer That we are both agreed in this that the 7. and 8. verses of Chap. 21. respect the state of men to come after the Day of Judgment the Lake of fire and the Inheritance of Heaven For I declare in my Exposition That from the second verse to the ninth is a brief description of the affairs of the Church from the second Thunder to the last or to the end of the World to the last Reward of the Godly and Punishment of the Wicked But as after a brief mention of the destruction of Babylon Chap. 16. v. 19. there is a large description of her and her destruction in the two following Chapters 17. and 18. so here after a brief intimation of the emersion of the New Jerusalem into being there is a full and glorious Description thereof from the ninth verse of this 21. Chapter to the sixth of the next And I may here further add that as in the foregoing Chapter v. 9 10. the Conflagration is glanced at in the destruction of Gog and Magog by fire who besieged the holy City but the Judgment of the wicked and fiery Lake or Conflagration more fully prosecuted from v. 11. to the end of the Chapter So here after the brief mentioning of the state of the New Jerusalem in the five first verses it is more fully described from the ninth verse to the end of this Chapter and some part of the next So small force has this fourth Argument to infer that these descriptions of the New Jerusalem belong to the state of the Church in Heaven The fifth Argument makes a pretty show but it is grounded upon a gross mistake as if the twelve thousand furlongs were the side of the Square Area of the New Jerusalem whenas it is a solid Number whose Cubick root multiplied by four gives the same Perimeter in a manner that Ezekiel's four thousand five hundred multiplied into four do give that is eighteen thousand not Reeds but Cubits as both Gaspar Sanctius and Villalpandus conceive them to be both of them learned and industrious Commentators upon Ezekiel By which solid account the seeming force of this fifth Argument quite vanisheth See Mr. Potter's Interpretation of the Number 666. Chap. 5. And the Equality of Perimeters of the Square Area of Ezekiel's and S. John's Cities supposing the solid measure of S. John's City to be twelve thousand furlongs as the Text it self seems to intimate and he measured the City with a Reed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all twelve thousand furlongs and he presently thereupon adding the length breadth and height of it are equal implies they are solid furlongs this Equality I say added to the twelve Gates in each City twelve Tribes the River and the Trees and Fruit is a plain Argument that S. John's City and Ezekiel's are Figures of the same thing and Ezekiel's being of the State of the Church on Earth S. John's must be so also And now for his sixth Argument from I saw no Temple there It consists very well with the state of the Church in those best and most glorious times thereof in the Millennial Reign of Christ which the Cabbalists also call the Reign of the Spirit when God will find in abundance such Worshippers as he seeks for viz. such as shall worship him in Spirit and in Truth And this passage seems inserted on purpose to be a Key to the Jews that will then be converted how to understand Ezekiel's Prophecy of the same state of the Church by the City he describes and makes so much to do with the Temple and Rituals thereof they will by this Note understand that it is an Hylastick Parable
of which the Truth is to be followed and the shadow to fly away And lastly For what is alledged in the seventh Argument they are but such things as are already answered by my answering the first where I have explained in what sense there is said to be no death nor sorrow nor pain And it being said there is no curse that is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that respects the Papal Curses as is noted in my Exposition And that there is no Night is no more than is said by Esay of the state of the Church on Earth Thy Sun shall no more go down c. Chap. 60. And this state of the Church being so holy on Earth it is no wonder that such ill people as are called Dogs Sorcerers Whoremongers Idolaters c. are excluded from it and not admitted into their Communion And in that they are said to enjoy the sight of the face of God and of the Lamb what is this more than what S. Paul witnesses we are capable of in this life That God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness may shine in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ So that there being so many indications as I have observed in my Notes that the description of this New Jerusalem is a description of a state of the Church on Earth and the best Arguments alledged against it being really invalid it remains manifest that the state of the Church in the Millennial Reign of Christ on the Earth is predicted and described by this Description of the New Jerusalem But now after the pondering of the Plea of both Parties though I am very confident that the description of the New Jerusalem is a description of the Church on Earth in the Millennium yet I am on the other side as confident of what is not at all repugnant to this that this excellent Millennial state of the Church is a Type and so intended to be in its description of that more transcendently blessed and glorious state of the Church Triumphant in Heaven And the reasons that induce me to this belief in brief are these First It seems handsom and congruous that it being so universally acknowledged on all sides that the State and Oeconomy of the Jewish Church was a Type of the Christian Church which was to succeed it so the best state of the Christian Church Militant which is the Millennial state or rather the state of the New Jerusalem here described which the Heavenly state succeeds should be a Type of the succeeding Church Triumphant in Heaven Secondly There is a sufficient lively Description and sensible Representation of the state of the second Death which succeeds the general Judgment the Lake burning with brimstone and fire why therefore should there not be as lively or rather more lively description of the state of Eternal life to which the Godly are adjudged as well as the Wicked to the other state Thirdly therefore The Description of the New Jerusalem State or Polity for it is the Kingdom of Heaven immediately succeeding this Lake of fire in the very next Chapter under the very name of a new Heaven and a new Earth the same with the New Jerusalem and this after the Conflagration we are fairly invited thereby to conclude that the state of the New Jerusalem on Earth is so described that it is also a Type of the Triumphant Jerusalem in Heaven And thus far we will allow force in Alcazar's second and third Argument that they may fairly warrant in conjunction with other Considerations the description of the New Jerusalem on Earth to be a Type of the Church Triumphant in Heaven Fourthly This being a most Holy Book of Divine Visions and this of the New Jerusalem the last of the Visions what can be a more proper Vision than this that typifies also the glorious and blissful state of the Saints in Heaven to be the close of all and which not only this Book of the Apocalypse but the whole Bible aims at Fifthly and lastly It is observable and I have noted it in my Mystery of Godliness Book 7. Chap. 7. That in a Prophecy that may have a meaner fulfilling at the first and is really intended for that fulfilling yet by reason of the high actuation of the Spirit of the Prophet some expressions may come from him that much better fit the Antitype than the Type in which the Prophecy is first fulfilled This is so over and over again verified in the Prophecy Typical of our Saviour Christ that it is needless pains to name any And many such instances also are observable in the Typical Prophecies of Antichrist as that in the Prince of Type c. Now this being so observable in Predictions that are but Types of what there will be a fuller completion that there are strokes in them that properly belong not but only figuratively to the Type but to its Antitype there being this very case in the description of the New Jerusalem a Prophecy of the Millennial state of the Church on Earth that is to say there being such expressions therein that more naturally describe the state of Heaven as S. Augustine has well observed in the first Argument and Alcazar in the last the genuine Result of this Consideration is this That it is a Prophecy of such a State of the Church on Earth as is a lively Type withal of that transcendent Happiness the Saints will find in Heaven where there shall be not only no more death sorrow crying tears pain or torture from that bloody persecutive Polity of Babylon which are intimated by a Synecdoche Generis but absolutely and properly speaking without a Figure there shall be none of these things at all These are the Reasons that move me to think that though the description of the New Jerusalem be a Prophecy of the blessed Reign of Christ on Earth that yet it is withal a Type of the Joys and Glory of the Kingdom of Heaven wherewith the Saints are rewarded after the Conflagration CHAP. XXI The occasion of his more fully making out that grand Truth that the whole Apocalypse in a manner consists of three main Prophecies beginning with the Church and reaching to the end of the World viz. the Epistolar Prophecy Sealed Book Prophecy and Opened Book Prophecy with the three Introductory Visions prefixed thereto That the Epistolar Prophecy is such a Prophecy That the Sealed Book Prophecy is such And also the Opened Book Prophecy The Reference of the three Introductory Visions to the Title of the Book of the Apocalypse Introductory Visions to Prophecies in Isaiah Ezekiel and Daniel and that they are not properly Prophecies themselves The Meaning of the Introductory Vision of the Epistolar Prophecy The like Meaning of the Introductory Vision to the Prophecy of the Sealed Book The drift of the third Introductory Vision muchwhat the same with the two former and that the Angel there
would have it by this very Vision But the mistake of this Opinion I shall manifestly discover in the following Chapter The next thing I will consider here is this Whether the Vial-Angels received their Vials before or after the Song of Moses and the Lamb Chap. 15. That they received them after any one may be well assured that observes First That one continued Vision is divided sometimes into several Chapters As the Introductory Vision to the Sealed Book-Prophecy Chap. 4 and 5. as also that one Vision comprized in the 12.13 and 14. Chapters Which answers to that contained in the eleventh Secondly That in like manner the Vision of the Vial-Angels is contained in the 15. and 16. Chapters Thirdly That to so large a Vision the first verse of Chap. 15. And I saw another sign in Heaven great and wonderful seven Angels having the seven last Plagues c. is but the general Title thereof and the Vials are not so much as mentioned in this Title Fourthly That before he falls upon the Vision it self there is an Introduction thereto a kind of Dramatical Interlude which is not as in ordinary Plays merely for delight but for some weighty instruction else there can be no sense of clapping it immediately after the summary Title of this Vision What then can it be but to intimate that the Order of the Vials is to be after this Song of Moses and the Lamb. Wherefore it being said v. 5. After that that is after the singing of this Song I looked and behold c. viz. After this the seven Vial-Angels came out of the Temple having the seven Plagues but not yet said to have the Vials but immediately to receive them of one of the four Beasts and in the beginning of the next Chapter bid to pour them on the Earth If the sense of this express order of things be not that the Angels received their Vials after the Song of Moses and the Lamb we cannot be assured of the certain sense of any passage of the Apocalypse nor of the whole Bible no nor of any Writing whatsoever Insomuch that I have been amazed that it ever came into any mans mind to think otherwise A third thing is What the adequate Visum is of the sixth Trumpet i. e. what affairs in the World or Church are noted to fall out during the sounding of that Trumpet To which I answer That it is that which is set down Chap. 9. from v. 13. to the end of the Chapter Whereby is signified the Over-running of the Eastern Empire and the Church by the Turks with the possessing themselves of Constantinople and the general Impenitency of the Western Church and Empire notwithstanding this notorious Judgment of God upon the Eastern Which latter part is fully exprest v. 20 21. And the rest of the men that were not killed with these Plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship Daemons and Idols of Gold and Silver and Brass and Stone c. Neither repented they of their Murders nor of their Sorceries nor of their Fornication nor of their Thefts That this is the adequate object of the Vision of the sixth Trumpet I conceive is plain from hence First That immediately after this instead of the Angel of the sixth Trumpet that sounded steps in a mighty Angel to roar out the next Interval the last of the seven divided also into seven Thunders as the seventh Seal into seven Trumpets Secondly Because if this be not the precise Visum or Object of the Vision of the sixth Trumpet there will be no stop till you come to the 14. verse of Chap. 11. The second we is past c. Which is the most outragious wild thing to be conceived as can be the Vision of the Witnesses in sackcloth running up as high as the first Trumpet to say nothing of the measuring the Court of the Temple and Altar And thirdly and lastly which nicks the business methinks marvellously well The Rising of the Witnesses and Fall of the City is a Prophecy of a considerable Reformation that is of the Repentance of a considerable part of the Western Church and Empire or of their ceasing to be impenitent which was the latter part of the Visum of the sixth Trumpet Wherefore immediately upon this Rising of the Witnesses and Fall of the City that is upon the ceasing of that general Impenitency it being said the second Wo is past it is manifest that the Turks over-running the Eastern Empire and the general Impenitency of the Western thereupon was the adequate Visum of the sixth Trumpet And these three Points respect the foregoing Chapter There are three Points behind that have no such reference The first is what may be the full meaning of the Lamb 's being found worthy to open the Seals of the Seven-sealed Book For the fulness of this meaning being rightly understood we shall therewithal better discern how well the Doxologies of the four Beasts and twenty four Elders and after of those numerous Quires of Angels and indeed of the whole Creation in this Dramatical Theatre in Heaven are made to prefigure the Joy and Rejoycing which will be in the blessed Millennium on Earth when the Power given to the Lamb of opening the Seals shall have that glorious effect in introducing those times of the New Jerusalem which these Angelical Actors on an Heavenly Stage are made to prefigure in the sight and hearing of S. John after his being caught up into Heaven in his Divine Rapture mentioned Chap. 4. v. 2. Wherefore in brief I conceive that the Lamb 's receiving the Book and therewith a power of opening the Seals implies these two things The first is the representing to John by way of Prophetical Vision the state of the Church and of the World so far forth as the Church is concerned in the affairs thereof through a long Series of time to the end of all even to the very Conflagration That this is one meaning of this power of opening the Seals is plain from Chap. 6. v. 1 3 5 7 9 12. and Chap. 8.1 in which seven places the Lamb is said orderly to open the Seals one after another and upon the opening each Seal a Prophetick Vision follows Whence it is manifest that his Power of opening the seven Seals is the Power of imparting this whole Book of Visions to his Servant John For at the Opening of the seventh Seal all the whole Book of the Prophetick Visions was opened as is to be understood from the frame of the Book above described But now forasmuch as the truly opening of the Seals would not be absolutely put into the hand of Christ unless he had also Power given from him that sits on the Throne to guide the affairs of this sublunary World so as that he might bring to pass by permission or impulsion and positive motion the things that are prefigured For the Effect brought to pass both argues the truth and
mentioned even in the fifth Vial. And when so horrible a War was raised against the Evangelical Party here in England in Eighty eight and that by the great Providence of God they were so defeated this is referrible to the third Vial. And if in the midst of the sedulous Attacks of the Antichristian Party some mighty Potentate in Christendom should by God's Providence be raised up in their behalf the hearts of Kings being in the hand of God this were referrible to the fourth Vial. But according to the Apocalyptick Stile this is to be accounted neither any part of the forty two months War nor of the Rising of the Witnesses It is something tedious to insist on things so plain 6. In your sixth Paragraph you lay great stress upon that Passage Apoc. 17.17 touching the ten Kings that God has put into their hearts to fulfil his Will and to agree and give their Kingdom to the Beast until the words of God shall be fulfilled which words of God you understand of Daniel's Prophecy of the little Horn having the Saints given into his hands until a Time and Times and dividing of a Time And of those other words of Daniel where he says I beheld and the same Horn made War with the Saints and prevailed against them until the Ancient of days came and Judgment was given to the Saints of the most High and the time came that the Saints possessed the Kingdom Dan. 7.21 22. and then you skip from v. 22. to v. 27. adding And what Kingdom that is he tells in the following words but they follow a great way off The Kingdom and Dominion and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole Heaven And you say you suppose I will not say this Kingdom is so given and possessed yet and if not how can you say the little Horns making War with the Saints and prevailing against them for a time and times and half a time is expired I pray you Sir think seriously on this Answ Well I have thought seriously on it and find what you lay such great stress on has no strength in it at all I easily admit those words of Apoc. 17.17 may allude to these passages of Daniel But there is nothing here that infers that the forty two months War of the Beast with the Saints extends any further than the partial Fall of the great City and the then commensurate Rising of the Witnesses Which Time I call the prosperous Reign and War of the Beast which are the Time and Times and half a Time here mentioned in Daniel and in which Fall the last Semi-time current he made War and prevailed against the Saints as Daniel also has foretold And this was till the Ancient of Days came and Judgment was given to the Saints of the most High v. 22. which is further explained v. 26. which you wisely skipped over But the Judgment shall sit and they shall take away his viz. the little Horn's Dominion not all of it at once as it was not at the Fall of the tenth part of the City and commensurate Rising of the Witnesses but leisurely by degrees Which Apocalyptick Vision therefore is an excellent Commentary on this Text of Daniel God has adjudged the Cause to the Evangelical Party by this partial Fall of Babylon and the then Rising of the Witnesses This taking away part of the little Horn's Dominion is a Pledge of the having it consumed and destroyed even to the end But this destruction and consumption is not the issue of the forty two months War wherein the Beast prevailed for such a time against the Saints but at last he was partially vanquished but it is the result of the Effusion of the Vials so that things that lay so close wrapt up in Daniel are thus distinctly and explicitely set out in the Apocalypse and the Explication found to be the easie and natural sense of Daniel Do not wink wilfully against Truth and you will easily discern it See my Exposition of Daniel's second Vision on this place v. 26. And though this is so easily answered yet you are earnest with me again at the close of your Letter to observe that the Time Times and half a Time reach as far as till the Ancient of Days shall come and till the Judgment shall be given to the Saints c. Which thing I grant you viz. That the Time and Times and half a Time of the Horns prevailing War against the Saints did reach so far till the Ancient of Days gave him so notorious a check and counterbuff in the partial Fall of the City and the then Rising of the Witnesses This was the final issue of the forty two months once prosperous War of the little Horn or Beast against the Saints Which Time and Times and half a Time is no where mentioned in the Vision of Daniel Chap. 7. but in v. 25. then comes that in the 26. verse which is evidently to be expounded as I have above expounded it That upon the Judgment being set his Dominion in part was taken away in the partial Fall of the great City to which the Time and Times and half a Time do reach and comprize in the last Semi-time This is the issue of the three days and an half 's War or seven Semi-times War of the little Horn or the Beast with the Saints But the consuming and destroying his Dominion to the end that is the work of the seven Vials which being done then it follows v. 27. And the Kingdom and Dominion and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole Heaven shall be given to the Saints of the most High For then is the descent of the New Jerusalem in opposition to the great City of Babylon now quite abolished and after comes in the blessed Millennial Reign of Christ upon Earth which is the greatness of his Kingdom under the whole Heaven All which glorious Providences you would crumple up within the three Times and an half whenas it is demonstrated in Mr. Mede that the three Times and an half reach but to the Exit of the sixth Trumpet which you acknowledge the seven Vials to follow Consider seriously these things But to proceed to the seventh Paragraph 7. Here I only briefly advertise you that the first appearance of the Rising of the Witnesses falling some eighteen years short of the last Semi-time according to your Epocha or not reaching it by eighteen years that this is a greater Argument against the truth of your Epocha than against my Hypothesis that a Semi-time is the only Authentick Vnite in the Eventual Computation of the Medial Visions For according to your Epocha the Rising of the Witnesses will not begin after the seventh Semi-time current but before it which is expresly against the Text After three days and an half which absurdity cannot be salved but by making the entire Resurrection of the Witnesses the adequate Object of the Prediction and so it will reach about seventy years at least
into the last Semi-time or Hexamenon that is into the third month thereof Though this is but a defectuous scambling thing in comparison of what falls out according to the true Epocha I have pitched upon But that your Epocha is false I have in my former demonstrated it being not pitched in the beginning of the Apostasie and of the War of the Beast with the Witnesses And in the mean time you see plainly even according to your own Epocha that the seventh Semi-time is not superfluous and that the reckoning not by Years but by Semi-times is necessary 8. And now eighthly Whereas you say you hope the more the time of the End of the Churches affliction from her Enemies draws near the more God will stir up here and there some to look more diligently into those Divine Prophecies which tell us how long and no longer it shall last and to enlighten his people that they better understand them for the encouragement and consolation of his Church I do not question but this may be a pleasing and pious hope in you But if this respect any of the Numbers of the Medial Visions and the true Epocha of the two thousand and three hundred Evening-Mornings in Daniel taken in a Typical sense defers the cleansing of the Sanctuary till about four hundred years hence I must ingenuously confess I think your hope is groundless for any one to tell to a year or thereabout from any of the Medial Numbers when the affliction of the Church shall cease And my Reasons are these First That computing from the true Epocha as I have proved it the Medial Numbers twelve hundred and sixty days or forty two months expired above thirty years ago Secondly The number of three days and an half or three times and an half Synchronal to the twelve hundred and sixty days or forty two months are assigned to indicate only the time of the ending of the prevailing War of the Beast or little Horn against the Witnesses by a partial Fall of Babylon and a commensurate Rising then of the Witnesses Which I have demonstrated as clearly as any thing is demonstrated in Euclide Wherefore the Medial Numbers cannot possibly tell us nor any one from them how long and no longer the Churches Afflictions shall last Thirdly It is better and more expedient for the Church not to know so precisely for a year or thereabout how long and no longer her afflictions shall last lest upon a lazy confidence that God will then be as good as his word and deliver them they neglect the fitting themselves for that deliverance and the prosperity thence ensuing Which fitting themselves consists in an hearty Holiness of life by virtue of real Regeneration in an inviolable Loyalty to their Prince in prudent Conversation and sincere Benignity to all men Fourthly This predicting how long and no longer to a year or thereabout the afflictions of the Church should last is a Priviledge that was not granted to the Primitive Christians themselves who yet lay under more grievous Persecutions than the Mercy of God is like to permit his Church to suffer during the space of the pouring out of the Vials that is yet to come And yet they had no more precise notice how long and no longer than the order of the six Visions under the first six Seals could indicate to them And such an indication have we and every whit as certain from the Order of the seven Vials And when the true Christianity shall more generally appear in the Reformed Churches accompanied with a most faithful and fast Loyalty to their Sovereigns and ready and chearful obedience to all lawful Commands for Peace Order and Safety in Church and State this will be an indication of the near approach of the pouring out of the fourth Vial on the Sun and of the greatest Potentates in Christendom their inclining to reform and to shake off the servile Yoke of Antichrist and all the Idolatrous Trumperies thereunto belonging and of ordering things so that a great deadness and darkness will seize upon the Seat of the Beast and prove the pouring forth of the fifth Vial. And the sixth is manifestly touching the Conversion of the Jewâ—â— And when the lovely Philadelphian Spirit shall more universally break forth and shine in all the Enjoyers of or Well-willers to the Reformation then let them look up and lift up their Heads for that more consummate Redemption and vast enlargement of the true Church draweth nigh and will be atchieved in the Battel of that great Day of God Almighty under the auspicuous Conduct of that mighty Heros on the white Horse out of whose mouth goeth a sharp Sword and whose Title is the Word of God which is sharper than any two-edged Sword and this is to fall out under the seventh Vial. And after this is the descent of the New Jerusalem or Creation of the New Heaven and New Earth wherein Righteousness shall dwell upon the dissolution of the former Constitution of Things whether Pagan Infidel or Antichristian Polities Wherefore then seeing as the Apostle speaks that all those things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness not only looking for but hasting on as the Original has it the coming of the day of God even of that great day of God Almighty in the Battel above-mentioned But if this Day was fixt to a certain year or thereabout how could we be said to either hasten it or slacken it But there is no such fixt time set that we be not tempted to wanton security and laziness but reminded of our duty may hasten as much as in us lies that great day we expect and desire by perfecting Holiness in the fear of God if we be sincere and not Hypocrites But this thing I have touched upon already In the mean time it appears we have at least as certain indications of the Time of the Churches deliverance as the Primitive Christians had before us in which we are to acquiesce with humility and thankfulness and improve them to our best advantage to confirm our Faith and support our Courage And therefore fifthly and lastly There being so visible and palpable an order of Revolutions of the Affairs of the World under the Series of the Vials whereby the nearer and nearer approach of the consummate deliverance of the Church of Christ and enlargements of his Kingdom may plainly be discerned it seems altogether needless that the Numbers of the Medial Visions should signifie any thing more than the terminating the forty two months prosperous War of the Beast in his unprosperous counterbuff by Divine Providence in the partial Fall of the great City and commensurate Rising of the Witnesses in the last Semi-time current according to what I contend for and have so manifestly demonstrated 9. And now in the last place to answer to what occurs in what I will call your ninth and last Paragraph where you say You cannot but
New Jerusalem with Answers thereto THE first Objection upon Apocalypsis Apocalypseos pag. 4. To be Kings and Priests unto God signifies as much as a Sacerdotal Kingdom as Exod. 9.6 a Kingdom because of the reigning Estate Sacerdotal because of their Priestly Employ and in some places as Apoc. 20.6 because of the unstainedness of their condition as to Externals Now it is acknowledged that there is a Kingdom designed here on Earth for Christ and Christianity and there are a great many places that seem to promise all his faithful Adherents at least his faithful suffering Adherents of all times a share in the glory and felicity of that Kingdom-Estate as if the Martyrs of the Primitive Times and of all Times should have a Recompence for their Sufferings in the New Jerusalem-state of things as Apoc. Chap. 2. v. 26. where you acknowledge that the Ruling the Nations and the Morning-Star are matters Political If these be confined to the successive Intervals of the Church the Sardian and Philadelphian Times suppose what will they signifie in the literal Interpretation And pag. 23. of Apoc. Apocalypseos it is said the bright Morning-Star belongs to the Philadelphian Interval which is at a great distance from the Thyatirian how shall the Martyrs and Confessors in the Thyatirian Interval have any share in the happy Philadelphian state of things Or what will such a promised felicity signifie to their encouragement wherein not they but their Successors only of following times are to have an interest It is needless to mention many other places that appertain to this matter But I could never untye this knot of difficulties in the Apocalypse that is I could never conceive it possible that Christian Sufferers of all Times and Ages should partake of the Jerusalem-state of things nor how the Apocalypse can be interpreted so as not to assert it Which is the more probable because the Kingdom-state which is designed for Christ is a kind of Heavenly Kingdom-state upon Earth Answ The New Jerusalem-state is nothing else but the Triumph of the truly Apostolick Church emerging into Universal Power above their Enemies into undisturbed Peace and an Heavenly Holiness of Conversation here upon Earth Which at last she will obtain and it is an encouragement to the present suffering Martyrs that the cause they suffer for will at last appear so glorious and triumphant here on Earth while they in the mean time are better rewarded in Heaven and it were a bidding them to their loss to have them exchange their Heavenly felicity for this Earthly though gloriously flourishing condition And lastly look but on the Apostolick Church according as the Prophetick Stile represents it as one continued Body from the beginning to the end and all these promises to the Pergamenian and Thyatirian Sufferers are made good to them as being still the same Body of the Church in their Successors Nor is this Heaventy Kingdom of Christ upon Earth otherwise to be understood Heavenly than that the Spirit and Conversation of Christians in the New Jerusalem-state will be truly Holy and Heavenly So that I see no difficulty at all in this Point if we rightly conceive the matter And it will further ease the Reader 's mind if he consider what I have writ Chap. 20. That though the New Jerusalem be a Prophecy of an excellent State of the Church on Earth yet the description of that State is an intended Type also of the State of the Church Triumphant in Heaven Object 2. Upon pag. 22 23. To have power over the Nations seems to signifie That he shall be of Power over Nations or of Regal Dignity in that Kingdom-estate upon Earth which is designed for Christ by his Father Chap. 2.27 And the promise of the Morning-Star confirms such an Interpretation For it is the Star of Empire and the white Raiment promised Chap. 3.5 is an Ensign of Regal Dignity Answ The ingenious Objector seems to mistake in the propriety of the Prophetick Stile which as in the Symbol of a Woman a Man or Beast does not intimate one single Individual but a Body of men and their succession so by the single person He is not meant this or that single Man but the whole successive Body of men that are Overcomers which according to the Prophetick Stile are signified by this single person He Those that stand out through Faith and Patience to the last in those Countries where the Pagano-Christians domineered over them these with their Princes and Rulers will have the Dominion over the Pagano-Christians and will become the beginning or commencement of the great Empire of Christ So far as the Father of our Lord Christ has enlarged his Kingdom in the Sardian Succession so far these Overcomers partake thereof with him And this Sardian State of the Kingdom of Christ is the promised Morning-Star but the Jerusalem state the bright Morning-Star And lastly Though white Raiment may be a Regal Ensign yet it is most safely interpreted of prosperous Success and may answer to that in the next Epistle v. 8. Behold I have set before thee an opened door c. Object 3. Upon pag. 31 c. It is observable touching the Church of Philadelphia that there are many passages that represent her in a state of Tryal She is said to have a little strength and to have kept the word of Christ's Patience she is exhorted to hold fast that which she hath that she lose not the Crown for which she was conflicting she is exhorted to overcome and encouraged to behave her self heroically Now Sir how will this agree with the New Jerusalem-state of the Church Besides it is promised to the Philadelphians as a thing to come Chap. 3.12 But it is more observable that it is promised to the Philadelphians that their Christian Champions shall be Citizens of the New Jerusalem and that Christ will write upon them his new Name which I believe you rightly interpret King of Kings c. This therefore seems to countenance what I said before That all Christ's suffering Adherents shall have a share of the New Jerusalem-felicity here on Earth and have preferments in that Kingdom-Estate Which may seem to be further countenanced from the promise to Laodicea Chap. 3.21 That they shall sit with Christ on his Throne Answ This Objection is grounded on a mistake as if the Philadelphian Interval and New Jerusalem-state did synchronize Whenas the Philadelphian Interval begins sooner and ends sooner than the New Jerusalem-state Wherefore those Exhortations belong to that part of the Philadelphian Interval that goes before the Jerusalem-state Whence their emerging at last into that state is promised to them as a thing to come Now as for their Christian Champions c. as if it were understood of some select Persons this difficulty is grounded upon the old mistake viz. That He signifies a particular person whenas in the Prophetick sense and stile it here signifies the whole Body of the faithful Philadelphians predicting that that
sort of men by their Faith Patience and powerful preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom will at last have so glorious and victorious success that they with their Successours shall bring in the New Jerusalem-state or Millennial Empire of Christ so that all that is predicted of the New Jerusalem shall be fulfilled in them here on Earth while all Christ's suffering Adherents in the mean that are dead enjoy themselves in Heaven As for the Promise to the Laodicean Overcomers it is not the promise of an Earthly Throne but an Heavenly as to be Assistents of Christ coming to judge the People as the Word signifies in the Close of this Interval of the Laodicean Church which Interval may be so denominated as for other reasons so haply by way of Allusion to Ptolemy's Laodicea combusta as I have more than once noted the Conflagration closing this Interval Object 4. Notwithstanding the great Learning which you have employ'd Sir in the Exposition of the seven Churches it seems a somewhat lubricous business But the rest of your Exposition is matter of much greater Certainty But it is no disparagement for any man that is thus assured of the truth and meaning of the Apocalypse as to the main purport of it to acknowledge there is great difficulty in interpreting several particular passages Touching the New Jerusalem I cannot but observe that there are a great many passages in the Apocalypse which seem to argue the time will come when God and the Son of God will hold his Estate and Court here upon Earth Which how strange soever it may seem is not so strange as that the Son of God should be crucified here upon Earth And if this Hypothesis might be thought solid and well grounded all the passages of this Book aforementioned and many more would be sufficiently clear and the description of the New Jerusalem in the two last Chapters would be easily intelligible which I think cannot be well understood without it These places Rev. 21. v. 3 4 5 6 12 13 15. and Chap. 22. v. 3 4 5 6 14 15. sound this way at such a rate that they almost force me whether I will or no to believe some such thing But how far and in what manner these things may be true may be troublesom to conceive Answ This business would not seem so lubricous to the learned Objector if his Reason and Phancy was but once well inured to that Figure of the Prophetick Stile which we call Henopoeia which takes not place only in a Man Woman or Beast made the Symbols of some Society or Body Politick But the Pronoun He which so often occurs in these Epistles to the Churches has also in it this Figure and signifies not a single Person but such a Body or Society of men so or so behaving themselves together with their Successours This successive Body by a Prophetick Henopoeia is represented as one single Person by the Pronoun He He that overcometh This once admitted all difficulties vanish as to the seven Churches And if the Objector did but observe how full of Hylasmus's and Israelismus's the Apocalyptick Stile is he would easily be reconciled to such a sense of these places of the twenty first and twenty second of the Apocalypse as the Expositor has given of them though they bear so hard upon his Phancy for the present as to drive him to expect a personal Reign of Christ upon Earth Consider also here what we intimated above That the Description of the New Jerusalem is so drawn as to be a Type also of the Church Triumphant in Heaven But to proceed We averr moreover That Christ's Personal Reign here on Earth would be infinitely more strange than his Suffering here because the Reasons of this latter are so palpable But I see no reason at all for a Personal Reign of Christ upon Earth whenas the Spirit of Christ within us in that measure and efficacy it will be in those days will serve all intents and purposes that his Personal Reign can be supposed to serve to And this reigning by his Spirit is a greater perfection in his Church than if he should guide them by his personal Presence and Voice here on Earth Inward Regeneration by the operation of the Spirit into the living Image of Christ is a greater Priviledge I say than to be guided by the external Person and Voice of Christ amongst us sounding in our ears As if the thing could be it were better for an Horse to be turned into a perfect man than to be rid by the bravest Heros that is And lastly That Opinion touching all the suffering Adherents to Christ that they should become Citizens of this New Jerusalem on Earth which is conjoined with the Opinion of Christ's personal Reign is not agreeable to Reason in that it brings down the persecuted Saints great Reward in Heaven which Christ promiseth Matt. 5.12 to a lesser reward here on Earth CHAP. XXXIX Two Objections more out of the same Letter The first touching the Palm-bearing Company whether they synchronize with the New Jerusalem The other touching the Intricateness and Obscurity of the Vision of the two Witnesses With Answers to both Objections THE first Objection is upon pag. 67. Mr. Mede's Arguments saith he for the Synchronism of the Palm-bearing Company with the New Jerusalem seems not firm If they were and we could be assured that the Palm-bearing Company were personally Citizens of the New Jerusalem it would argue that the New Jerusalem-state is designed to be premiant to the suffering Christians And indeed it seems to be the main scope of the Apocalypse to predict that Divine state of things But however the Palm-bearing Company are plainly the Triumphant Army of Martyrs and are of great affinity with those Rev. 20.4 saving only that the latter are the Martyrs under Antichrist the former seem to be the Martyrs under Paganism And since these Martyrs are described as personally rewarded with their white Robes c. it would be strange for us to think they are rewarded by Proxy in the prosperity of others in the Jerusalem-state Besides that it is too early of the Apocalypse to have a formal Vision of the New Jerusalem state Answ That the Palm-bearing Company synchronizes in part with the New Jerusalem besides what Mr. Mede alledges the Methodicalness of the Apocalypse may assure us For the prefixing of the 144000 sealed ones with the Residue of that Vision in that Chapter before the seven Trumpets is according to exquisite Method the seven Trumpets being a more distinct and particular Representation of the affairs of the same Time Nor does it follow from the Palm-bearing Company 's being Citizens of the New Jerusalem that those individual Martyrs that suffered either under Paganism or Antichrist that they live in the New Jerusalem here on Earth but by a Prophetick Henopoeia the whole successive Body of the pure Apostolick suffering Church under the Persecution of Antichrist being understood when this one
Evening-Mornings So that this third Collateral Line as it is framed does but unjustly enjoy the fruit of the violence done to the seventieth week which is a sore blemish derived not only upon it but the residue of the Collateral Lines The weighing also of the purity of the Church two hundred and two years before it could be justly pronounced light upon the Balance and rejectaneous has something of harshness in it Wherefore we see there is no solid Reason to leave Mr. Mede's way of computing the space of the pure State of the Church from the proportion of the outer Court to the inner and betake our selves to this though otherwise witty yet lubricous and groundless device of the Balance Seventhly therefore I conceive That the Epocha of the Apostasie of the Church or Reign of the Beast which is the beginning of this fourth Collateral Line is not rightly fixed the grounds thereof thus failing There is some forty four years difference betwixt it and the true Epocha collected by the true Method of the proportion of the outer Court to the inner according to which this fourth Collateral Line or twelve hundred and sixty days expired above thirty years ago Eighthly This fifth Collateral Line thirty which added to the former twelve hundred and sixty days makes Daniel's twelve hundred and ninety days this also is already expired without any such seven Ministerial Voices of the seven unsealed Thunders that any one could discern Which seven Voices of the Thunders are connex with the Thunders themselves And that the Thunders occupy the space of the whole seventh Trumpet I have irrefutably demonstrated in more places than one See the Answer to S. E. the Remarker on Apoc. Chap. 10. Wherefore the Voices of the Thunders being stretched from the beginning to the end of the seventh Trumpet how can they be compressed into the space of 30 years Besides that Calend. pag. 68 69. the seven Ministerial Voices there pitched upon cannot belong to the Collateral Line of thirty after the twelve hundred and sixty For that Song of the 144000 is the description of the Evangelici all along the six Trumpets The Angel Preacher of the Everlasting Gospel respects the fifth and sixth Wo-Trumpets so that his Voice cannot be the second as being not come to the seventh Trumpet And the Voice that declares the Fall of Babylon that it is fallen is also before the seventh Trumpet as being coincident with the Rising of the Witnesses But the Author of the Calendar makes his Collateral Line of thirty years commence with the beginning of the seventh Trumpet and to end before the pouring out of the Vials But the four next Voices as he would have them do plainly fall into the time of the Vials as is sufficiently proved in the Answer to the Remarker on the Apology So that this Conceit of the seven Ministerial Voices antecedent to the seven Vials is as I conceive quite out of doors And now ninthly and lastly His sixth and last Collateral Line which added to Daniel's 1290 days makes his 1335 days which expire with the 2300 Evening-Mornings this last Collateral Line of forty five days especially if the Reign of the Beast were reckoned from the right Epocha seems too short a time for the seven Vials to discharge themselves in For then all those great things which the Vials portend would be accomplished within these forty years or thereabout which to cooler and calmer Spirits must seem a thing incredible His Interpretation of the four last Vials pag. 70 71. is correspondent enough to Mr. Mede and for ought I know credibly true But the three first Vials which he conceives yet to come their fulfilling has been manifestly already Nor is the first Vial a Representation of the loathsomness of the marked Slaves of the Beast but of their dementative Anger and Rage of this those angry Boils are a Symbol so obvious that scarce any Interpreters miss of it and it plainly answers to And the Nations were angry Chap. 11.18 Which passage as is demonstrated in the Answer to the Remarker on the Apology respects the times of the Vials And for the second Vial it is not the Innavigableness of the blood of a dead man for so much blood as to sail upon is a monstrous Phancy hugely out of the way but it is the dead fishes there that are intimated wherein the stress of the Symbol lies And Artemidorus tells us that dead fishes in the Sea signifie disappointment of hope which came to pass to the Pontifician Fishermen after the full settlement of the Reformation in the Kingdoms cut quite off from the Pope and grown as cold as the Cruor of a dead man to her Idolatries and Superstitions And lastly for the third Vial that he interprets Rivers of Aquaeducts of Doctrine rather than of Emissary Agents from the Roman See no man will see Reason who considers what I have wrote in my Alphabet of Iconisms in the Iconism River But however the fulfilling of these three first Vials has been already since the Rising of the Witnesses in the Reformation whenas the Author of the Calendar phansies them yet to come which is no slight evidence against his Hypothesis But now besides all these Allegations against his six Collateral Lines the sixing of the Epocha of his principal Line the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings in the year when Daniel received that Vision viz. in the third year of Belshazzar as if because no more than three years is mentioned of Belshazzar in Scripture he was slain in that very year and then Babylon taken that so the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings might commence from the taking Literal Babylon to the utter destruction of the Mystical Babylon and from Cyrus his Grant for the building the Temple of the Literal Jerusalem to the appearing of the Mystical or New Jerusalem or its descending from Heaven upon the Earth I say his fixing the Epocha thus has no ground from the Text of the Prophecy Dan. 8.13 14. How long shall be the Vision concerning the daily Sacrifice It is answered Vnto two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings then shall the Sanctuary be cleansed Here the Author of the Calendar glosses thus The Vision and not so much the things contained in it is dated hereby the Vision of the Sacrifice taken away shall be two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings not the taking away the Sacrifice c. but the Vision shall extend to two thousand three hundred Prophetick days pag. 12. And to the same sense again pag. 80. he saith It is not said How long shall be the time of the taking away the daily Sacrifice but how long the Vision This Gloss is the main ground of his Epocha of the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings which he fixes from hence in the third year of Belshazzar phansying that the year of the Fall of the Literal Babylon But by Vision most certainly is understood not the Prophetical Exhibition of the things
foretold made to Daniel but the Object of the Vision the things foretold and that not when they would begin but when once begun how long they would hold from some certain Epocha viz. the time of their beginning But as for the mere Visionary Exhibition it was so far from reaching to the 2300 days whether vulgar or prophetical that it is not likely to have taken up one single hour And besides the Object of the Vision which is the taking away the daily Sacrifice c. not commencing before Antiochus his time as the Type or Antichrist's time as the Antitype it is impossible the Epocha of the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings should be placed so high as the Fall of Babylon by Cyrus Nor is the time of the Visionary Exhibition inquired into but the time of the taking away the daily Sacrifice the transgression that makes desolate and the giving the Sanctuary and the Host to be trodden under foot Unto this question of the time of these things it is answered Vnto 2300 days then shall the Sanctuary be cleansed So plain is it that the Epocha of the 2300 Evening-Mornings cannot be fixt higher than from the violation of the Temple by Antiochus Though there may be a pretence indeed in the Typical sense of placing it lower viz. in the beginning of the Reign of Antichrist the mystical Antiochus which according to my Epocha of his Reign is the year 393. And therefore if you add the 2300 days Prophetical to 392 years it will be the year of our Lord 2692. before the Sanctuary be cleansed a thousand and odd years hence But if you take the Author 's Epocha it will be above forty years more So improbable is it that the beginning of the Reign of Antichrist of whom Antiochus was a Type should be the Epocha of the 2300 Evening-Mornings Wherefore if they be Typical as well as Antiochus as the Term of the 2300 days literal from the first violation of the Temple shows when the Sanctuary should be cleansed from Antiochus his Pollutions so the end of 2300 Prophetical days from the same Epocha shows when the Church of Christ will be quite purged from the Pollutions of Antichrist And according to this middle or moderate placing of the Epocha it will be about four hundred and fifty years till the universal cleansing of the Church from Antichristian Pollutions till which there being so ample a space of time from the Rising of the Witnesses or commencement of the seventh Trumpet it is a plain indication how much the Author of the Calendar is out in allotting but forty five years to the Effusion of the seven Vials And as it is thus demonstrable by Reason that the Epocha of the 2300 Evening-Mornings is to be fixt in the Pollution of the Temple by Antiochus in the Typical sense of them So is it expresly declared Dan. 12.11 that there likewise is to be fixt the Epocha of the 1290 days and the 1335 days So that this quaint and wittily contrived frame of the six Collateral Lines so artificially adjusted to the Principal Line of the 2300 Evening-Mornings is every way utterly broken in pieces as also any hopes from hence that the Papacy and Turkish Tyranny will be brought so low about twelve years hence that the Witnesses every where will put off their Sack-cloth and cloath themselves with the garments of gladness Or that the New Jerusalem will appear upon Earth about eighty eight years hence Not the least glimmerings of hope shine forth from these Evening-Mornings of any such thing This I freely declare as one not interessed in any Party any further than they are in the Truth and it is not the Church of England as the Church of England but as she has the Truth on her side and is the most eminent and noble Specimen of the Accomplishment of the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses in the whole Reformation and that it is the adequate fulfilling of the Prophecy I have with irrefutable Evidence demonstrated elsewhere so that it is needless to say any thing thereof in this place that makes me adhere to so excellently well constituted a Church CHAP. XLVI Some few strictures more upon several passages of the Calendar of Prophetick Time As touching the four Beasts and twenty four Elders The meaning of the Doxologie of the twenty four Elders alone Apoc. 11.18 and of the Inversion of the Doxological Service and that they both argue the twenty four crowned Elders to be Kings or Monarchs Whether the Interval of Smyrna is to be restrained to the ten years of Diocletian 's Persecution His mistake in making part of the sixth Seal a whole seventh Seal Whether the Paganish Barbarians are the floud cast out of the mouth of the Red Dragon His dating the taking away the Daily Sacrifice from the first moment of the Apostasie That the roaring of the Lyon Apoc. Chap. 10. ceased not of a sudden The ground of his making Thyatira Sardis and Philadelphia run their course together to the New Jerusalem confuted The incongruity of the Position it self The difficulties the Calendarist incumbers himself with in his way of treating on the Vision of the Churches The true way of solving those difficulties WE shall add some few more strictures upon several passages of the fore-mentioned Calendar As upon pag. 38. That the ingenious Author mislikes our English Translation's rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the four Beasts which bears an ill sense in all other places of the Apocalypse as answering to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not to be found fault withal Mr. Mede in his Answer to a Friend calls them instead of the four Beasts the four Wights a word which our English Translators I suppose did not adventure on it being worn out of use otherwise it would exactly answer to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it signifying so much as a living Creature But the deserting of Mr. Mede's Interpretation of these four Beasts or living Creatures and making them a Representation of the Apostles as some shallow Interpreters make them the four Evangelists posted at the four Angles of the Throne as an universal Ministry diffusing the Gospel into all parts of the World and the pure Israelitish Ministry to be Typed by the twenty four Elders this is a slip of his in no wise commendable For first it is against the Genius of the Prophetick Stile to understand by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any other than a Body Politick not one single or some few persons This is a general Rule from which there is no Exception saving that of the Lamb which signifies the Person of Christ though it may be with a Connotation of his Church his Body And then secondly it seems wondrous harsh to interpret the four Wights of the Christian Church and the twenty four Elders of the Jewish whenas without all question as Mr. Mede has unexceptionably made it out that Vision is a Representation or has
the Wolf and the Lamb shall feed together is to be understood literally with Answers thereto Six Particulars in order to or compliance with the making the War of the Heros on the white Horse Apoc. 19. Literal only or Carnal With an Answer to the said Particulars IN my Exposition of the Epistle to the Church in Pergamus I interpret the Nicolaitans to be a people that sat loose enough as to the Romish Church but were also unchast and loose of their bodies And that there were such within the Pergamenian Interval which reaches from An. Dom. 324. to An. Dom. 1242. is apparent from History This the Reverend and Learned Dean of Paul's Dr. Stillingfleet has made good to our hands in the Fanaticism of the Roman Church where he tells us that this Nicolaitan Doctrine which afterward proved the very Doctrine of Henry Nicolas the Father of the Family of Love did obtain amongst them at the beginning of the thirteenth Century viz. That every Person of the Holy Trinity had his successive Time of Ruling the World That the Law of the Father continued till Christ's Coming the Law of the Son till their Time and then the Time of the Holy Ghost was to begin In which the use of Sacraments was to cease and all external Administrations c. And they so highly extolled Love that what would have been a sin without it they thought to be none with it as Fornication Adultery c. This is the Primitive Nicolaitism which was again renew'd by H. N. aliàs Henry Nicolas from whence our modern Familists spring as also at first the Quakers who still cast away the Sacraments and make nothing of external Administrations This business is related in Nauclerus and that before An. Dom. 1190. so fully is it within the Pergamenian Interval It may not be amiss to set down his words concerning the latter part of their description Charitatis etiam virtutem sic ampliabant ut id quod aliàs peccatum esset si fieret in Charitate jam illud non esset peccatum unde stupra adulteria caeteras corporis voluptates nomine Charitatis perpetrabant mulieribusque cum quibus peccabant simplicibus quos decipiebant impunitatem promittebant Deum tantummodo bonum justum praedicantes This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Christ says he hates and abhors Apoc. 2.15 And it is a surprizing hit that Henry Nicolas should be so eminent a Reviver of this Nicolaitan Doctrine But I have said enough already to confirm our Exposition of that passage of the Apocalypse I will pass hence to Chap. 8. v. 7 8 c. where the third Part mentioned at least half a score times I interpret to be a Symbol of the Roman Empire and there is very good reason for it from what occurs Chap. 12.4 where the great red Dragon with seven Heads and ten Horns which most certainly denotes the Roman Empire according to all Interpreters is said to have drawn down with his Tail the third part of the Stars of Heaven and to have cast them to the Earth that is to have brought the third part of the Kingdoms of the World under his subjection Which passage is an intended Key to that in the eighth Chapter as the seventeenth Chapter is chiefly to the eleventh and thirteenth In the ninth Chapter v. 8. where the Locusts are said to have hair as the hair of Women I as Mr. Mede before me interpret of the Saracens which are Arabians of whom Pliny writes Nat. Hist lib. 6. cap. 28. N. 30. Arabes mitrati degunt aut intonso crine And the Vision describes the Locusts as having faces of humane shape but that they wear their hair as Women as do the Arabians as being Mitrati that is having Womens Head-tire on For so Mitra signifies Pilea virorum sunt Mitrae foeminarum It was the Head-cover also of the Lydians and Phrygians but accounted less manly Whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a reproachful Title given to the soft and effeminate though the Arabians were not reputed such See Martinius Mr. Mede cites rather the sense than the words of Pliny But whether we read or aut it is plain these Arabians ordered their hair as women which therefore is a fit Character of the Saracens in these Locusts In the eighteenth Chapter v. 23. I content my self in noting that the voice of Bridegroom and Bride being no more heard in Babylon signifies that there shall be no more propagating of their Pseudo-Catholick Religion the end of Marriage being Propagation And this is a true sense and unexceptionable But it might have been fuller if we had noted also that there may be an allusion to that usurped Title of the Pope who calls himself Sponsus Ecclesiae For then the proselyting of Nations and Countries to the Papal Religion and Jurisdiction would look ever like a new Marriage But the Joy of such Marriages will cease after the final Fall of Babylon which is described in this eighteenth Chapter of the Apocalypse See Gabriel Powel in his De Antichristo l. 1. c. 14. In Chapter 22. v. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And there shall be no more curse This I expound of the furious Papal Anathema's or Excommunications to depose Kings and Princes and to involve the Christian World in blood which I do not doubt but is the proper Prophetical meaning of the place and not the Curse of God for Sin which was Diseases Death Briars Thorns the labour and sweat of Tillage and the like That Curse we shall never be delivered from till we come to Heaven And those that phansie such things here on Earth in the New Jerusalem state as in this passage so in all other passages that sound so high they are to remember that the proper fulfilling of them is to be in Heaven though in a figurative sense they will be fulfilled here and that the description of the New Jerusalem on Earth is so framed as to be also Typical of the State of the Church in Heaven as I have more fully declared in Chapter 20. of these Paralipomena But forasmuch as besides this mistake in S. E. I find a sober and judicious Writer W. A. in his Treatise of the State of the Church in the latter Ages of the World to incline to the Opinion that there will be even a Change of Nature in the Time of the New Jerusalem-state of the Church I will a while here divert into what he says Chap. 10. and produce the most material Reasons he hath for the proving that in those days there will be a Change of the World Natural as well as the World Moral as he phraseth it Those places of Scripture that seem to promise plenty of things and increase of People I conceive imply no such Radical Change in the World Natural For merely from the Moral Temperance of men in those Times there will be length of Days and the Propagation of a
sound Off-spring this with Peacefulness will cause Populousness And for Plenty which depends upon the Clouds and timely and seasonable Showres they have ever been and will be at the Command of the invisible Powers in the Air. So that that will be no insititious Change in the Natural World but the effects of free Actions in those invisible Agents But that indeed of Isaiah Chap. 65.20 if not fitly interpreted may seem to argue a Change of things more than what depends upon what is Free and Moral For after God had promised he would create a new Heaven and a new Earth v. 17. he adds a little afterwards That there shall be no more thence an Infant of days nor an Old man that has not filled his days For the Child shall dye an hundred years old but the Sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed Here the Child dying an hundred years old to the heedless may import that they shall be more longaevous then than the Patriarchs before the Floud an Hundred being to a Thousand as Seven the Age of a Child to Seventy which would imply a strange Change in the Natural World indeed But to give W. A. his due he has pitched upon the most likely sense of this Verse viz. That there shall no Child ordinarily dye by any untimely death nor an Old man that has not lived so long as in the course of Nature he might well reach That the space from Childhood to old Age shall ordinarily be an hundred years c. But I deny that this argues any more than what depends upon a Divine Morality or real Regeneration in their Parents who will transmit a sound and wholesom constitution to their Posterity Which if any one of them do not improve to the like Vertue and Piety and yet by the Benefit of their Constitution live an hundred years content mainly with the things of the Animal life such a Sinner as this notwithstanding his Longaevity is accursed both because he for the present deprives himself of the enjoyments of the Divine life and must expect also but a bad Reception when he dyes into the other State The next Text of moment which he urges is Rom. 8.21 The Creature it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God Which he would have to argue that there will be a Change of the World Natural in the blessed Millennium as well as in the World Moral he supposing that Creature there signifies the whole sublunary Creation at least And the Apostle v. 22. says For we know that the whole Creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now Where the whole Creation is the same with the Creature it self not Christians quatenus Christians but the very Creature or Creature it self groaneth and is in pain But then it is to be understood as Dr. Hammond also will have it of the whole Humane Creature which he makes out rationally and judiciously And what Creatures but humane or Men can expect to be delivered into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God This therefore does not respect the Jerusalem-state of the Church here on Earth but the State of the Resurrection For then only will this deliverance from the bondage of Corruption be and the attainment of the freedom of the Sons of God which is the Title of the Angels For then in our incorruptible glorified bodies we shall become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal to the Angels And this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is mentioned v. 23. which we groan after and wait for viz. the redemption of our bodies that they may be glorified and made Angelical such as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have the Angels or Sons of God as is declared in the Answer to S. E. Something like this Text is that alledged out of the Acts Chap. 3.21 where S. Peter speaking of our blessed Saviour saith Whom the Heaven must receive until the Times of Restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy Prophets since the world began W. A. to give him his due manages this Text ingeniously enough to his present purpose upon supposition that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were to be rendred as our English Translation renders it Restitution implying thereby Restauration or Renovation But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a completed Circuit or Period properly relating to Astronomical Revolutions It signifies also the effecting of a thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore signifies either the Periodical Times that is to say the Times brought to a Period or the Times of effecting of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of his holy Prophets Which easie sense implies no such Change in the World Natural in the Millennium as our Author would deduce therefrom And this is not my sense only on the Text but Grotius his also or something in him near akin to it As for that Isai 66.22 For as the Heavens and Earth which I will make shall remain before me saith the Lord so shall your seed and your name remain This Heaven and Earth as that Chap. 65.17 is a Political Heaven and Earth that Divine Polity which will constitute the New Jerusalem-state of the Church in which the Jews or Israelites will have a portion as long as that Polity stands which is to the end of all But I have made so much haste that I have omitted a prime Text alledged by this ingenious Author Isai Chap. 65. The Wolf and the Lamb shall feed together and the Lion shall eat straw like the Bullock and dust shall be the Serpents meat they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain saith the Lord. And a fuller description to the same purpose there is Chap. 11. which he produces to prove that there will be a Change in the World Natural in the Millennium as well as in the Moral World he urging the literal sense of these places for these three Reasons following First Because the Wolf and Lamb the Lion and Bullock are supposed to retain their Original proper Natures still For if not then the Wolf would become a Lamb and the Lion a Bullock and then in the mystical sense which he opposes it would only be that the Lamb and the Lamb would feed together and the Bullock eat straw like other Bullocks The second Reason is That we cannot well imagine for what other purpose that saying The Lion shall eat straw like an Ox should be added but only to give some account how those Creatures shall live and how they shall be fed when they shall cease to prey upon other living Creatures Which implies that the sense is literal The third is Because it is further added That dust shall be the Serpent's meat which further confirms the foregoing Reason as if the Prophet did persist in instructing us how these Creatures when their noxious properties are taken away shall feed and sustain themselves Nor
the guidance of the Spirit and whether that Voice Rev. 16.17 from the Throne It is done and the same Voice Rev. 21.6 do not answer to Time should be no longer c. Rev. 10.6 Answ The true sense out of the Original of that latter Clause of Rev. Chap. 10. v. 6. and of the following Verse is this That there shall be no longer time saving in the days of the voice of the seventh Angel when he shall sound c. This is made good in my Notes upon my Exposition of that Chapter and still further confirmed by the Answer to the Remarker on the place So that no man of any competency of Judgment can possibly deny the truth of that Exposition Wherefore if Time signifie the Political Order and Government of the World we are assured by the Oath of the Angel that such Government will continue all along the sounding of the seventh Trumpet which reaches to the end of the World For his swearing there will be no longer time saving what the seventh Trumpet comprizeth implies that Time which S. E. would have signifie Political Government will continue all that Trumpet long But now for the Voice It is done in those places mentioned how it can answer to this place let any man of sense consider unless it be such an impertinent Answer as is perstringed in that Proverb Which the way to London A poke full of Plums The mentioned Voice It is done though Time here signified Political Order and Government were nothing to the confirming that Notion For Rev. 16.17 it signifies nothing but assurance of success to the Ministers of Christ's Kingdom under the seventh Vial. And Rev. 21.6 the assurance of the truth of the Prediction of the glorious appearance of the New Jerusalem on Earth That the thing is as sure as if it were done already and therefore he presently adds I am Alpha and Omega c. as intimating his ability certainly to effect it Query 2. Whether the Plagues inflicted by the Witnesses were not inflicted during their 1260 days prophesying Chap. 11.6 and therefore the same with the six first Plagues there being no other actually inflicted Plagues prefigured but they This is taken out of the Answer to the Remarks pag. 119. Answ This is made a Query because the above-mentioned Letter pretends Allegations against the truth of the Affirmative thereof As that most of the first six Plagues were expired before the Witnesses began to prophesie and that also those Plagues belong to the Sealed Book-Prophecy which the prophesying of the Witnesses does not and are inflicted by barbarous Nations c. To which I answer That the prophesying of the Witnesses and the six first Plagues or Trumpets are Synchronal according to Mr. Mede and the Truth it self and therefore none of the Plagues could expire before the Witnesses began to prophesie And although the prophesying Witnesses belong not to the Sealed Book-Prophecy yet being Synchronal to the first six Trumpets of the Sealed Book-Prophecy they are so to the first six Plagues and therefore falling in to the same time bid fair for proving the Inflicters of the said Plagues and those six to be the Plagues the Witnesses are said to inflict during the 1260 days of their prophesying in which they must inflict them or never For the Scene of the Witnesses goes off at the close of the sixth Trumpet Nor do these first six Plagues being executed by the barbarous Nations hinder but that they may be inflicted by the Witnesses in that way they inflict any Plagues which if positively is only by denouncing them as Jeremy is said to do the things he denounces Jer. 1.10 The Objector also seems not to distinguish betwixt the Witnesses prophesying it self and the Plagues attending their prophesying nor betwixt their Power of inflicting Plagues and their actually inflicting them The thing therefore I say is this That there is no other positively and actually inflicted Plagues prefigured but those contained under the first six Trumpets to the close of the sixth whereof the Fall of the City and Rising of the Witnesses is referrible Upon which it is said the second Wo is past Chap. 11.14 And the Fall of the City or Conversion of so considerable a part of the Western Empire to the pure Gospel is referrible to the effect of the fire proceeding out of the Witnesses mouths Chap. 11.5 according to my Interpretation Query 3. Whether the opening the Temple Rev. 11.19 is just before the first Vial but the time of the seeing the Ark there not till the sixth Vial whenas yet the opening the Temple was for the immediate shewing the Ark and the sight thereof the first thing related upon the opening the Temple Answ Whoever reads considerately and unprejudicedly the 23. Chapter of these Paralipomena cannot but be fully assured that what follows the Doxologie of the Elders Rev. 11. and the joyful Annunciation of the Fall of Babylon Rev. 14. falls into the times of the Vials and is a more broken and defectuous Representation of them Wherefore whereas after the Song of Moses and the Lamb Rev. 15. which answers to the Doxologie of the Elders and joyful Annunciation of the Fall of Babylon the Opening of the Temple there v. 5. is in order to the going forth of the Vial-Angels and there being no pouring forth of the Vials but by the Vial-Angels nor they doing their work before they come out of the opened Temple it is plain that the Temple was open or stood open before the first Vial Rev. 11. though the mention of its standing open is not before the sixth Vial the opening of the Temple being not simply for the shewing the Ark but for the going forth of the Vial-Angels But the Temple standing all this time open the Ark is not said to be seen till some time after it denoting the time of the Calling of the Jews with whom God has made an everlasting Covenant as this Ark is the Ark of the Covenant Nor is it said that John saw this Ark but it is said indefinitely to be seen the eyes of all at that time being to be cast upon that Holy Covenant which God made to Abraham and his Seed for ever expecting that God himself will have an eye to it then and make good his glorious Promises to that long exercised and afflicted people Nor is the sight of the Ark the first thing related upon the opening the Temple but though the Temple stood open before yet it is not mentioned till now the more to set off the richness of this discovery of God's Mercy towards the Jews which the Apocalypse every where sets such an excessive value upon as if this were such a weighty Arcanum or Mystery as S. Paul also calls it that it were worth the opening the Temple though it were but for the discovery of that Mystery alone Query 4. Whether what happens in the allotted times of the Trumpet-Angels and Vial-Angels may be attributed to the Angel to whom
〈◊〉 has no such mystical meaning of it self is readily acknowledged For it signifies a finite determinate time v. 2. of this Chapter in which Satan is bound and let loose afterwards which time is there called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and presently after v. 3. the said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there having the force of a Pronoun demonstrative as if one should say Till those thousand years were fulfilled And so those thousand years are all along referred to by this demonstrative Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As in the close of v. 4. They lived and reigned with Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those thousand years when Satan was bound And v. 5. But the rest lived not again till 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those thousand years were finished Thus constantly you have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 relating to the years Satan was bound till you come to v. 6. that describes the condition of them that partake of the first Resurrection on whom the second Death hath no power and there it is said that they shall reign with Christ not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those thousand years Satan was bound but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thousand years Symbolically understood which is a fit Symbol of steady and immutable Eternity For to what end is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 omitted in this place if it did not intimate some such Mystery of which it both is very significant and the Reign of these with Christ being not confined to those thousand years but stretching out to Eternity the thing it self requires that signification But then immediately after the case being altered v. 7. and returning to the thousand years numerically taken not Symbolically there he has it again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that it is the circumstances that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is placed in v. 6. that assures us that it has such a Symbolical meaning This therefore is no trifling Observation But he must be very dull and sleepy or thick-sighted that does not clearly discern the difference Query 8. Whether All Nations shall come and worship before thee Rev. 15.4 be to be understood of Nations to be converted to the Christian Faith or of foreign Nations unconverted doing Homage to the New Jerusalem answering to their coming up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles Zach. 14. Answ This Song of Moses and the Lamb being sung upon the Rising of the Witnesses or Christ's partial or speciminal taking again possession of his Kingdom out of the hands of Antichrist it is most natural to conceive that All Nations shall come and worship before thee relates to that more full and universal enlargement of Christ's Kingdom which will be effected by the effusion of the Vials before which this Song is prefixed And under the seventh when all the Kings of the Earth are gathered together under the Dragon Beast and false Prophet to fight against the Lord and against his Anointed and are all routed and vanquished what can this import less than what is here predicted in this Song All Nations shall come and worship before thee that is be obedient Subjects of the Kingdom of Christ And as for the celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles who can be thought to do that but the Jews or Gentiles proselyted to their Religion and therefore who can they be but the converted Nations that shall do Homage to Christ in his New Jerusalem Kingdom Query 9. Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Comedendo comedes Gen. 2.16 be an Injunction or full Commission to Adam to eat or such an Invitation to eat of every Tree of the Garden that if he will eat he may and if he will not he may chuse forasmuch as it is said Thou mayst freely eat which implies a liberty Answ The Text no question but has a mystical as well as a literal sense In the literal sense Comedendo comedes intimates a full Commission to eat of every Tree of the Garden saving the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And whereas our English Translation has it Thou mayst eat freely nothing else is meant thereby but this full Commission to eat freely and plentifully of all the Trees of the Garden saving that one excepted But now in the Moral sense Comedendo comedes seems to be a Command as the Text has it And God commanded the Man saying Eating thou shalt eat viz. of every Tree saving that one that is that he should nourish his Soul with all sorts of Vertues none excepted for Virtutes sunt connexae which make up the fulness of the Paradise of God Query 10. Whether Tyre Isa 23.15 typifie Rome the former state of Tyre not answering to the former state of Rome nor the middle to the middle but the former state of Tyre is made to answer to all the three states of Rome Answ This is a gross mistake in the Objector For in that Prophecy of Isaiah there are three distinct Times supposed the first of her Harlotry the second of her being forgotten for the space of one King and so the ceasing of her Harlotry with the Kings of the Earth and then of her Harlotry again and of committing Fornication with all the Kingdoms of the World upon the face of the Earth And now in perfect Analogy to this as is answered to the Remarker Rome was Idolatrous before it was Christian and turned Idolatrous again when it became Pagano-Christian and Whoredom is the true Symbol of Idolatry known to all Wherefore the Harlot though she was silent a while in the time of the pure Christian Caesars which were the seventh King as Tyre's silence is for seventy years yet when that time expired she might sing again like an Harlot Nor does this at all hinder but that this Vision is Typical of Rome Antichristian this stroke touching the return of Pagan Harlotry setting out more exquisitely the Pagano-Christianity of their Idolatry that they Paganize again and again play the Harlot by a new mode of Idolatry which yet is the living Image of the Idolatry of old Paganism What Analogy can be more exquisite and complete Query 11. Whether there can be any assurance that the Vision of Tyre Ezek. 28. is Typical of Rome forasmuch as if the expressions be such that they are incompetent to Tyre and the Prince thereof from whence yet it is inferred they must respect Rome the Vision cannot belong to Tyre and consequently Tyre can be no Type of Rome but if the expressions be competible to Tyre there is no ground to stretch them any further than so Answ The Horns of this Dilemma are very weak both of them For the first supposeth what is apparently false that a Prophecy of double completion may not have such strokes in it that may more properly relate to the second completion than the first As in thâ—â— of a Virgin bearing a Son And though some expressions may be elevated above the condition of the Prince of Tyre and less properly be spoke