about thirty years of age or after a manner and in such a way of reckoning as the Scripture ordinarily useth accounting the very first day of a year as that year 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One day of the year is reputed that year Tal. Bab. Resh hashavah fol. 2. 2. Iohn baptized half a year before Iesus came to be baptized of him for he was half a year younger then Iohn Luk. 1.26 and as Christ was baptized and entred his Ministry just when he was beginning to enter upon his thirtieth year so Iohn had begun his Ministry at the same age and both according to the Law Numb 4. 3. Christ was baptized in September at what time of the year he had been born For the phrase of Luke mentioned before doth plainly confirm that his baptism was close to that time of the year that had been the time of his birth 4. For the synchronizing therefore of the year of Christ with the year of Tiberius we must lay Tiberius his fifteenth collaterall in Annal accounting with Christs nine and twentieth whether you reckon Tiberius his year from the very time of the year that he began to reign which was the 20th of August and then in September when Christ was baptized his sixteenth year was begun and Christs thirtieth or whether you reckon according to the common accounting of the Roman Fasti from Iunuary to Ianuary and then though Christ indeed spent three moneths of his thirtieth year in Tiberius his fifteenth so accounted yet he spent three times three moneths of it in his sixteenth The fifteenth year of Tiberius then and the nine and twentieth of our Saviour was the great year of the beginning of the Gospel in the preaching and baptizing of Iohn who began this work about Passeover time or in the moneth Abib otherwise called Nisan The time of the year that Abraham had received the Promise Isaac was born Israel was redeemed out of Egypt and the Tabernacle was erected in the wildernesse The Jews speak more then they are aware of when they say that As in Nisan there had been redemption so in Nisan there should be redemption Tal. Bab. ubi supr fol. 11. The Gospel began and Christ died in that moneth Now whereas it may seem strange that upon Iohns beginning to baptize he introducing so strange a practise and doctrine among them yet the people should flock to him in so great multitudes as the Evangelists shew they did and receive his baptisme with so much readinesse besides that generall satisfaction that may be given to this from the consideration of Gods speciall hand and work providing entertainment for his Gospel now setting forth these four things also may be pertinently observed 1. This was the time that the Nation expected that the Messia should appear See Luk. 19.11 Gabriels seventy in Dan. 9. had so plainly and exactly pointed to this very time that not only the pious and the studious among the Nation could not but observe it but it had even raised an expectation through a great part of the world of some great Potencie to arise among the Jewish Nation about these times which should subdue and be Ruler of all the world Percrebuerat oriente toto vetus constans opinio esse in fatis ut eo tempore Iudaea profecti rerum potirentur Sueton. in Vesp. cap. 4. An old and a constant opinion had grown through the whole East that some coming out of the East should be Master of all Nay so evident was the time and truth in Daniel that the Ierusalem Gomarists that could be well content to deny that Messias was already come as the rest of their Nation do yet they cannot but confesse it in Beracoth fol. 1. col 1. in this story Our Doctors say the Name of King Messias is David R. Ioshua ben Levi saith His Name is The branch Zech. 3.8 R. Iudah the son of R. Ibhu saith his Name is Menahem the Comforter And this helps to prove that which R. Iudah saith namely this example of a certain Iew who as he was polwing his Ox lowed A certain Arabian passing by and observing his Ox low said O Iew O Iew loose thine Oxen and lay by this plow for behold your Sanctuary is destroyed The Ox lowed a second time He saith to him again O Iew O Iew yoke thine Oxen and tie on thy plow for behold King Messias is born He saith to him What is his Name the other answered Menahem the Comforter And what is his Fathers Name He answered Hezekiah the strong God He saith to him Whence is he He answered From the royall Palace of Bethlehem Iudáh He went and sold his Oxen and sold his plow and gears and went about from City to City selling swadling clothes for babes When he came to that City all the women bought of him but the Mother of Menahem bought not He heard the voice of the women saying O Mother of Menaham thou Mother of Menahem Bring some things sold here to thy childe She answered Now I pray that all Israels enemies may be hanged for on the day that he was born the house of the Sanctuary was destroyed He saith to her We hope as it is destroyed at his feet so it will be built at his feet She saith to him I have no money And why saith he doth he suffer for that If thou have no money now I will come again after two dayes and receive it After the dayes he came to the City and saith to her How does the Childe She answered him Since the time that thou sawest me there came windes and storms and took him out of my hands A cleer confession of Christs being already come and of the poverty of his Mother 2. They expected a great change of things when Messias should come That Promise in the Prophet of new Heavens and a new earth to be created raised this expectation Hence have they this saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The holy blessed God will renew the world for a thousand years Aruch in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iohn speaks their own language when he speaks of reigning with Christ a thousand years Rev. 20.4 which is no more to be understood of the time yet to come then Messias is yet to be expected as not come Hereupon they call the dayes of the Messias 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A new Creation as 2 Cor. 5.17 In Midris Tillin fol. 4. col 3. R. Houne speaketh of three ages and the last that he mentioneth is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the age of the Messias And when that comes saith he the holy blessed God saith Now it lies upon me to Create a new Creation They likewise call at that time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the world to come because of the change of things that they expected then as if a new world were created Tanchum fol. 77. col 3. In the world to come I will send my messenger speedily and he shall prepare the way before me
Iudaea who beleeved Christs prediction to get into the mountains and to shift for themselves for now begins the tribulation beyond parallel such as was not since the beginning of the world nor ever must again Matth. 24.21 It is commonly asserted that the Christians fled to Pella a City beyond Iordan Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. 3. cap. 5. which how to reconcile with Iosephus who saith Pella was one of the Cities that the Jews destroyed in avengement of the slaughter of the 20000 in Caesarea De Bell. lib. 2. cap. 33. let the Learned finde About these times therefore we may well conceive to have been the writing of THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER And that the rather from what he speaks in Chap 1. v. 14. I know that I must shortly put off this tabernacle as our Lord Iesus Christ hath shewed me In which words his thoughts reflect upon what Christ had spoken to Iohn and him about their ends Iohn 21. where he not only gave intimation to Peter that he should be Martyred ver 18. but that he should be so before his coming in Judgement against Ierusalem which Iohn must live to see but he must not ver 22. He therefore in Babylon understanding how affairs went in Iudaea and with the Jewish Nation all thereabout and reading therein from the words of his Master Matth. 24. that the desolation was drawing on apace concludes that his time was not long and therefore improves the time he hath remaining the best he can not only in teaching those amongst whom he was but by writing this Epistle instructeth those that were remote and at distance from him in which he doth more especially give them caution against false teachers and characters the terrour of the judgement coming and exhorts to vigilancy and holinesse The first character that he gives of the false teachers is that they bring in damnable Heresies denying the Lord that bought them Chap. 2.1 which he speaketh from Deut. 32. from whence also he useth other expressions ver 6. Is not he thy Father that hath bought thee not meaning that these wretches were redeemed by Christ yet became such wretches as some would interpret it but by buying is meant his buying out of Egypt this people for a peculiar people which these wretches boasted and stood upon yet by their introducing and practising the prophane principles they did of fornication and communicating with Idols they denied the true God which bought that people for his peculiar He cals them spots ver 13. from Deut. 32.5 and parallels them with the old world Sodom Balaam nay the very fallen Angels He sets forth the destruction of that cursed Nation and their City in those terms that Christ had done Matth. 24. and that the Scripture doth elsewhere Deut. 32.22 23 24. Ier. 4.23 namely as the destruction of the whole world The heavens passing away the elements melting and the earth burnt up c. And accordingly he speaks of a new heaven and a new earth from Isa. 65.17 a new state of the Church under the Gospel among the Gentiles when this old world of the Jews state should be dissolved He citeth Pauls Epistle to the Hebrews and giveth an honourable testimony to that and to the rest of his Epistles but acknowledgeth that in some places they are hard to be understood and were misconstrued by some unlearned and unstable ones to their own ruine yet neither doth he nor Paul who was yet alive and well knew of this wresting of his Epistles clear or amend those difficulties but let them alone as they were for the holy Ghost hath so penned Scripture as to set men to study And here is the last that we hear in Scripture of this great Apostle Peter His Martyrdom he apprehends to be near and it was to be before Ierusalem was destroyed which was not now full four years to come We may well conceive him to have been put to death by the Jews in Babylonia where he now was a madnesse having come upon that Nation in all parts and a singular raging against the Gospel the devil bestirring himself in them now he knew their time was so short THE EPISTLE OF IVDE As the second Epistle of Peter and this of Iude are very near akin in style matter and subject so it is fairly conjecturable in them that they were not farre removed in time speaking both of wicked ones and wickednesse at the same height and ripenesse They are one to another as the Prophesie of Obadiah and Ierem. 49.14 c. speaking the same thing using the same manner of arguing and oftentimes almost the same words It may be Iude stands up in his brother Iames his charge among the Circumcision of Iudaea and directs his Epistle to all those that were sanctified and preserved in those Apostatizing times as his brother had done to all the twelve Tribes in generall In citing the story of Michael the Archangel contending with the devil about the body of Moses ver 9. he doth but the same that Paul doth in naming Iannes and Iambres namely alledge a story which was current and owned among the Nation though there were no such thing in Scripture and so he argueth with them from their own Authors and concessions It is harsh to strain Zech. 3.1 2. to speak such a story when neither the name Michael is mentioned nor any thing like the body of Moses or akin to it But among the Talmudicks there seems to be something like the relicks of such a matter viz. of Michael and the Angel of death disputing or discoursing about fetching away the soul of Moses His alledging the Prophesie of Enoch is an arguing of the very like nature as citing and referring to some known and common tradition that they had among them to this purpose The Book Sepher Iesher an Hebrew Writer speaketh of Enoch after such a tenour And in both these he useth their own testimonies against themselves as if he should thus have spoken at large These men speak evil of dignities whereas they have and own a story for current that even Michael the Archangel did not speak evil of the devil when he was striving with him about the body of Moses c. And whereas they shew and own a Prophesie of Enoch of God coming in judgement c. why these are the very men to whom such a matter is to be applied c. It is no strange thing in the New Testament for Christ and the Apostles to deal and argue with the Jews upon their own concessions THE THREE EPISTLES OF IOHN Among all the Apostolick Epistles there is none about whose time of writing we are so farre to seek as we are about these And it is neither satisfactory to remove their place nor is it satisfactory to take their time according to their place or to conceive them to be written after the Epistles of Peter because they are placed after them Any conjecture that is to be had of them may best be
the looking into it but the wise men bound it Id. in Jam. tobh fol. 60. col 1. R. Iochanan went from Tsipporis to Tiberias he saith Why brought ye to me this Elder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For what I loose he bindeth and what I binde he looseth Maym. in Hhamets umatsah per. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Scribes have bound leaven that is they have prohibited it Tanchum fol. 1. col 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They have upon necessity loosed salvation on the Sabbath that is they have permitted it or taught that it was lawfull Thousands of instances of this nature might be produced by all which it is clear that the Jews use of the phrase was of their Doctors or learned mens teaching what was lawfull and permitted and what unlawfull and prohibited Hence is that definition of such mens office and work in Tosaphta ad Iebamoth per. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A wise man that Iudgeth Iudgement maketh unclean and maketh clean bindeth and looseth that is teacheth what is clean and unclean what is permitted and prohibited And Maymony in Sanhedr per. 4. giving the relation of their ordaining of Elders and to what severall imployments they were ordained saith thus A wise man that is fit to teach all the Law the Consistory had power to ordain him To Iudge but not to teach Bound and loose or power to teach Bound and loose but not to judge in pecuniary matters or power to both these but not to judge in matters of mulct c. So that the Ordination of one to that Function which was more properly Ministeriall or to teach the people their duty as what was lawfull what not what they were to do and what not to do was to such a purpose or in such a tenour as this Take thou power to binde and loose or to teach what is bound and loose for they use both the expressions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By this vulgar and onely sense of this phrase in the nation the meaning of Christ using it thus to his Disciples is easily understood namely that he first doth instate them in a Ministeriall capacity to teach what bound and loose what to be done and what not and this as Ministers and thus all Ministers successively to the end of the world But as they were Apostles of that singular and unparalleled order as the like never in the Church again he gives them power to binde and loose in a degree above all Ministers that were to follow namely that whereas some part of Moses Law was now to stand in practise and some to be laid aside some things under the Law prohibited were now to be permitted and some things then permitted to be now prohibited he promiseth the Apostles such assistance of his Spirit and giveth them such power that what they allowed to stand in practise should stand and what to fall should fall what they bound in earth should be bound in heaven c. SECTION LIII MATTH Chap. XVII from the beginning to Ver. 24. MARK Chap. IX from Ver. 2. to Ver. 33. LUKE IX from V. 28. to Ver. 46. CHRIST transfigured A devil cast out of a childe MATTHEW and Mark link this story to the preceding with this link After six daies c. which Luke hath uttered About an eight daies after which is but the same in sense Six daies compleat came between the day that Christ had spoken the words before and the day of his Transfiguration So that the day of his Transfiguration was the eight day from the day when Christ said There are some standing here that shall not taste of death till they have seen the Kingdom of God come with power This story oâ— Christs Transfiguâ—acion relateth to that prediction concerning the great Prophet Deut. 18.18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren like unto thee c. And it shall come to passe that whosoever will not hearken to my words which he shall speak in my name I will require it of him A Prophet that is a succession of Prophets till the great Prophet should come who should seal Vision and Prophesie Christ had been sealed for the great Priest at his Baptisme when entring into his Ministry at the same age that the Priests entered into their Office he is attested from heaven This is my wellbeloved Son in whom I am well pleased He is sealed for the great Prophet here by the like attestation from heaven with the same words This is my wellbeloved Son in whom I am well pleased but withall it is added Hear him answerable to those words Whosoever will not hearken c. Deut. 18.19 Moses the first Prophet had all his Oracles out of a Cloud and the Cloud of Glory that lead Israel in the Wildernesse departed at his death think of that when you see a cloud here overshadowing and a Divine Oracle given out of it at the sealing of the Prophet greater then he Moses was the first Prophet of the Jews and Elias the first Prophet of the Gentiles and they both now appear to attend their Master Christ and the three Disciples were in this mount of his Transfiguration all night for Luke saith It came to passe the next day when they were come down c. ver 37. Compare Christ transfigured and his face shining with the shining of Moses his face and so compare that first Prophet and this great Prophet again together The Disciples that had authority and power given them over all devils Luke 9.1 are not able here to cast one out and their Master sheweth a double reason why namely because of their unbelief and because that kinde went not out but by Fasting and Prayer Now that their unbelief should be any more then it had been before for they had cast out devils before this Matth. 6.13 it might seem strange but that here were some concurrents towards that more then they had met with before now and that we may observe especially in these two things 1. There were divers diseases which in their own nature were but naturall diseases which yet the Jews did commonly repute as seizure and possessing by the devil especially those that distempered the minde or did in more speciall manner convulse the body and according to this common language and conception of the Nation the language of the Gospel doth speak exceeding frequently Examples of this kinde of Dialect among the Jews we might produce divers as that in Maym. in Gerushin per. 2. A man which is troubled with an evil spirit and saith when the sicknesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 begins upon him Write a bill of Divorcement to my wife he saith as good as nothing because he is not compos sui And so likewise a drunken man when he comes neer the drunkennesse of Lot c. He calls this evil spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a sicknesse and by it he means Lunacy or Distractednesse that had
other evidence which see explained Chap. 17.18 And by her power and sentence our Lord was crucified and for a quarrell of hers being accused and condemned by Pilate as a traytour to the Roman power for saying he was a King This is the rather mentioned now there is speech of Romes last bloodinesse against Christs Witnesses that it might be shewed that it persevered the same to his that it had been to him and that to the last and that these Witnesses drunk but of the same cup that their Master had drunk before them She is called spiritually 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jews speak Sodom and Egypt Sodom for filthinesse and Egypt for Idolatry and mercilesnesse Never did place under heaven wallow in fleshly filthinesse and particularly in the Sodomitick bestiality as Rome did about those times that Iohn wrote and how little it hath been mended under the Papacy there are Records plain enough that speak to her shame He that reades Martiall and Iuvenal to name no more may stand and wonder that men should become such beasts and it had been better that those Books had been for ever smothered in obscurity then that they should have come to light were it not only for this that they and others of the like stamp do give that place her due character and help us the better to understand her description It is observable what Paul saith Rom. 1.21 22 23 24. that because the Heathen had brutish conceptions concerning God abasing him he gave them over to brutish abasing their own bodies by bestiality or indeed by what was above bestiall And so he shews plainly that Gods giving up men to such filthinesse especially Sodomy was a direct plague for their Idolatrous conceptions of God and their Idolatry And to this purpose it may be observed that when the Holy Ghost hath given the story of the worlds becoming Heathenish at Babel for and by Idolatry Gen. 11. he is not long before he brings in mention of this sin among the Heathen and fearfull vengeance upon it Gen. 19. Apply this matter to the case of Rome and it may be of good information The casting their dead bodies in the streets speaks the higher spite and detestation against them and in this particular they are described different from their Master And as they had prophesied three years and an half so they lay unburied three daies and an half till there was no apparent possibility of their recovery But they revive and go to heaven and a tenth part of the City fals by an Earthquake and seven thousand perish but the rest of that part of the City that fell who perished not gave glory to God Nine parts of the City left standing still whose ruine is working still from henceforward by the Gospel that these Witnesses had set on foot which brings in the Kingdomes to become the Kingdomes of Christ c. REVEL CHAP. XII AS Daniel Chap. 2. giveth a generall view of the times from his own daies to the coming of Christ in the mention of the four Monarchies in the four parts of Nebuchadnezzers Visionary Image which should runne their date and decay and come to nothing before his coming and then in Chap. 7. handles the very same thing again in another kinde of scheme and something plainer And then in Chap. 8. 10. 11. 12. doth explain at large and more particularly some of the most materiall things that he had touched in those generals So doth our Apocalyptick here and forward He hath hitherto given a generall survey of the times from his own daies to the end and now he goes over some of the chief heads again with explanation And first he begins with the birth of Christ and the Christian Church and the machination of the devil to destroy both The Church of the Jews bringeth forth her chief childe and the devil seeketh to destroy him He is pictured 1. A great red Dragon Old Pharaoh who sought to devour new born Israel is much of the like character Isa. 27.7 Psal. 74.13 c. 2. With seven heads So many had the persecuting Monarchies Dan. 7. the Lion one the Bear one the Leopard four and the fourth beast one 3. And ten horns Parallel to the Syrogrecian persecutors Dan. 7.7 c. 4. With his tayl he drew and cast down the third part of the starres As the Tyrant Antiochus had done Dan. 8.10 So that by these allusive descriptions phrases of old stories fetched to expresse new is shewed the acting of the devil now by his mischievous and tyrannicall instruments with as much bitternesse and bloody-mindednesse as he had done in those The womans fleeing into the wildernesse alludes to Israels getting away into the wildernesse from the Dragon Pharaoh Exod. 14. c. And her nourishing there a thousand two hundred and sixty daies speaks Christs preservation of that Church in the bitterest danger and daies like the daies of Antiochus This Vision aims at the great opposition and oppression the Church and Gospel underwent from the first rising of it to the ruine of Ierusalem and their preservation in all that extremity The battel betwixt Michael and the Dragon is of the same aim and time with the former but it speaks thus much further that the Church is not only preserved but the Dragon conquered and cast to the earth Heaven all along in this Book is the Church the earth therefore may be properly understood of the world and here more especially of that part of worldly ones the unbeleeving Jews and that the rather because the Gentiles here are called the wildernesse as they be also in severall other places in Scripture The devil therefore is cast out of the Church by the power of Michael the Lord Christ that he cannot nestle there and he goes into the rest of the Nation that did not beleeve much like the tenour of that parable Matth. 12.43 44 45. The Woman hath Eagles wings alluding to Exod. 19.4 and gets into the wildernesse the persecuted Church and Gospel gets among the Gentiles The devil casts venom as a flood after the Woman-Church and the earth swallows it up the unbeleeving Jews do as it were drink up all the poyson of the devil and together with raging against the Church they grow inraged one against another and against the Romans till they become their own destroyers And indeed though it were a most bitter time with the Church while she was among the combustions that that Nation had within it self yet their raging one against another the more is increased in their particular quarrels the more it avenged her quarrell and turned their edge from off her upon themselves The devil seeing this betakes himself to fight against the Womans seed the Church of the Gentiles and the Treatise of that begins in the next Chapter REVEL CHAP. XIII When Rome hath slain Christ and destroyed Ierusalem Satan gives up his Power and Throne to it and that deservedly as to one
phrase used by the Jews Onkelos renders Deut. 33.6 thus Let Reuben live and not die the second death And Ionathan Isa. 65.6 thus Behold it is written before me I will not grant them long life but I will pay them vengeance for their sins and deliver their carcases to the second death And ver 15. The Lord will slay them with the second death Observe in the Prophet that these verses speak of the ruine and rejection of the Jews now a cursed people and given up to the second death and in Chapter 66. ver 29 30 31. is told how the Lord would send and gather the Gentiles to be his people and would make them his Priests and Levites And then see how fitly this verse answers those In stead of these cursed people these are blessed and holy and might not see the second death and Christ makes them Priests to himself and his Father In this passage of Iohn scorn is put again upon the Jews wild interpretation of the resurrection in Ezekiel They take it litterally think some dead were really raised out of their graves came into the Land of Israel begat children and died a second time Nay they stick not to tell who these men were and who were their children Talm. Babyl in Sanhedr ubi supra After the thousand years are expired Satan is let loose again and fals to his old trade of the deceiving the Nations again ver 8. Zohar fol. 72. col 286. hath this saying It is a tradition that in the day when judgement is upon the world and the holy blessed God sits upon the Throne of judgement then it is found that Satan that deceives high and low he is found destroying the world and taking away souls When the Papacy began then Heathenism came over the world again and Satan as loose and deceiving as ever then Idolatry blindnesse deluding oracularities and miracles as fresh and plenteous as before from the rising of the Gospel among the Gentiles these had been beating down and Satan fettered and imprisoned deeper and deeper every day and though his agent Rome bestird it self hard to hold up his Kingdom by the horrid persecutions it raised yet still â—he Gospel prevailed and laid all flat But when the Papacy came then he was loose again and his cheatings prevailed and the world became again no better then Heathen And if you should take the thousand years fixedly and literally and begin to count either from the beginning of the Gospel in the preaching of Iohn or of Peter to Cornelius the first inlet to the Gentiles or of Paul and Barnabas their being sent among them the expiring of them will be in the very depth of Popery especially begin them from the fall of Ierusalem where the date of the Gentiles more peculiarly begins and they will end upon the times of Pope Hildebrand when if the devil were not let loose when was he He cals the enemies of the Church especially Antichrist Gog and Magog the title of the Syrogrecian Monarchy the great persecutor Ezek. 38. 39. Pliny mentions a place in Caelosyria that retained the name Magog lib. 5. cap. 23. So that Iohn from old stories and copies of great troubles transcribeth new using known terms from Scripture and from the Jews language and notions that he might the better be understood So that this Chapter containeth a brief of all the times from the rising of the Gospel among the Gentiles to the end of the world under these two summes first the beating down of Idolatry and Heathenism in the earth till the world was become Christian and then the Papacy arising doth Heathenize it again The destruction of which is set down ver 9. by fire from heaven in allusion to Sodom or to 2 King 1.10 12. and it is set close to the end of the world the Devil and the Beast Rome imperiall and the false Prophet Rome Papall are cast into fire and brimstone ver 10. where Iohn speaks so as to shew his method which we have spoken of The devill was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the Beast and the false Prophet are He had given the story of the beast and false Prophet the devils agents and what became of them Chap. 19. v. 20. And now the story of the devill himself for it was not possible to handle these two stories but apart and now he brings the confusion of all the three together and the confusion of all with them that bare their mark and whose names were not written in the Book of life REVEL CHAP. XXI THe Ierusalem from above described The phrase is used by Paul Gal. 4.26 and it is used often by the Jews Zohar fol. 120. col 478. Rabbi Aba saith Luz is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ierusalem which is above which the holy blessed God gives for a possession where blessings are given by his hand in a pure Land but to an impure Land no blessings to be at all Compare Rev. 21.27 22.15 Midras Till in Psal. 122. Ierusalem is built as a City that is compact together R. Iochanan saith The holy blessed God said I will not go into Ierusalem that is above untill I have gone into Ierusalem that is below c. Ezekiels Ierusalem as we observed was of a double signification namely as promising the rebuilding of the City after the Captivity and foretelling of the spirituall Ierusalem the Church under the Gospel and that most especially At that Iohn taketh at here and that is the Ierusalem that he describeth And from Isa. 65.17 18. joyneth the creating new heavens and a new earth and so stateth the time of building this new Ierusalem namely at the coming in of the Gospel when all things are made new 2 Cor. 5.17 A new people new Ordinances new Oeconomy and the old world of Israel dissolved Though the description of this new City be placed last in the Book yet the building of it was contemporary with the first things mentioned in it about the calling of the Gentiles When God pitched his Tabernacle amongst them as he had done in the midst of Israel Levit. 26.11 12. That Tabernacle is pitched in the fourth and fifth Chapters of this Book And now all tears wiped away and no more sorrow death nor pain ver 4. which if taken litterally could referre to nothing but the happy estate in heaven of which the glory of this Ierusalem may indeed be a figure but here as the other things are it is to be taken mystically or spiritually to mean the taking away the curse of the Law and the sting of death and sinne c. No condemnation to be to those that are in Christ Iesus The passages in describing the City are all in the Prophets phrase Ezekiel and Isaiah as compare these The Bride the Lambs wife ver 9. Sing O barren Heathen that didst not bear c. Thy Maker is thine Husband thy Redeemer c. Isa. 54.1 5. Ver. 10. He carried me away in the