now the Church was indeed out of view by the Apostasie introduc'd by the Gentiles the Beasts people under the other Beast so that the False Church hid the True as in a wilderness The Gentiles crowded the True worshippers into a clos'd Temple The Daily was taken away The witnesses were in Sackcloth where then could the True Church be seen All was scatter'd no Body of a Church appear'd but the Antichristian to this state things grew more and more under the Regnancy of the Beast till the Woman was fled from the Serpent himself All this is then to be accounted to the Beast serving the True Church by Gods overruling Hand so far as that it was out of the Dragons reach who was deceived thinking to strike the True but the False lay bleeding In the mean time Satan however in his Serpentine and draconick Nature jealous of any thing of Christ even in his own Kingdom first persecutes the Empire by the Barbarians where He knew the woman very lately was by her bringing forth the Manly Birth He struck at it by way of distinction in his own Aym but finding He could not reach it by the rude strokes of the Barbarians but the Eagles wings had convey'd it away and finding that those Barbarous Nations setled by degrees into the Antichristian Christianity and so help'd it forward into the wilderness He then resolved to be sure of it attempted to swallow it by the Mahometan Flood But This neither distinguishing it nor succeeding because the Bestian Earth drunk up the Flood not only receiving it upon it self but maintaining the name Doctrine Profession and Church state of Christianity so far as is necessary absolutely to Antichristianisme and its Kingdom so drunk up the Flood by setting it self against the blasphemous monstrous Mahometan Imposture and with a deadly hate because Mahometanism is no less against Antichristianity than Christianity so the Serpent disappointed is wroth and as so necessitated determines now to sift for his Ends by Draconism refin'd into Beastianism Heathenism guilded with Christianity but pointed and edg'd with Antichristianisme which is a compound of the Dragon and the Beast And because this Antichristian state allowed such a thing as a Christian Church tho but it self only He can make war only with the womans seed And to the purpose and as we say with a Vengeance He makes War with the womans seed who keep the Commandments God and hold as witnesses the Martyry of Jesus that is by the Beast whose History immediately follows cap. 13. and to whom the Dragon deputed his power and seat even Great Authority which Delegation the other Beast that spake as a Dragon viz. the False Prophecy received and managed for him the Grand Beast until He came to his Image and Number and so the Dragon and the Beast continue together till the Beast is taken and cast into the Lake and the Dragon and all his Draconism bound Chain'd and Seal'd up by the Kingdom of Christ appearing Rev. c. 19. c. 20. v. 1. And this is the True History of Draconism as entred into Bestianism by which it plainly appears the scattering of the Power of the Holy People or the state of the Woman in the Wilderness is wholly owing to the Beast and his Bestianism whose are Time Times Half Time and that the Dragon and his Persecution were wholly defeated by the Bestian Apostacy conveying the Church from the Serpent till He wrought by the Beast and made over his Power to Him in revenge upon the Womans Seed it self being still safe Now how admirable is all this according to the Symbols the Beast still in all appearance and semblance secures Christ on the Throne while it supplants his true Kingdom and Power for how could Antichrist's Kingdom stand if Christ were not in Title upon the Throne But how could it stand if Christ did indeed reign No it presently falls then or rather vanisheth away Again the Wings of the Apostatiz'd Empire while they convey the true Church out of all ordinary Visibility yet secure it in the Name and Notion of a Church the Beast's Earth thus helps it for a Christian Church is his Claim and Title to his Kingdom but it must be hidden for a true Christian Church visible destroys his Kingdom Thus all things even to Astonishment at the divine Prophetick Wisdom have a Harmony in Truth greater than that of the Spheres in Imagination Mahometans and Pagan Infidels by subverting Christianity necessarily overthrow Antichrist's Kingdom also it is in indispensable need of Christianity so far as a Pretence goes but the Brightness and native Glory consumes it while Christianity under a false mask supports it true Christianity scorches it to nothing as will be seen at the Vial pour'd into the Sun true Christianity and the Church therefore must be hidden and in the Wilderness and its Seed persecuted as if not of the Church that false Christianity and the false Church may reign in its Absence under its Name and Appearance Thus while the Dragon persecutes in his Aim and Intention the Christian Church the Apostacy pretending it self the Vniversal Church conveys the true Church into a Wilderness and so befriends the Notion of a Church while it conveys it out of sight the Dragon by the Beast makes War with the Seed and scatters them that they could not possibly be found in the Body of a Church not but that the Church was truly visible in the single Witnesses however anathematiz'd but it could not be reach'd in a Body even by the Serpent himself for it was not in a Body and yet the Notion of a Church was dear to the Antichristians for They and the Beast usurp'd it At this Time therefore according to this Prophecy it could be no Argument against the Church Where was it or It was not visible in a Body for it was not to be visible in a Body but in the Suffering scatter'd Seed So that it was hid from the very Serpent And yet even to the end of the 1260 Days there is a Mahometan Draconism levelling at Christ Christianity and the true Church but falling almost wholly upon the false Church and the Antichristian King and his Subjects who is therefore always principally concern'd to drink up this Flood and so helps the true Church by his Earth There is nothing at the present I can think necessary to add to this Explication of the Apocalyptical Dragon but that the whole Vision Rev. 12. to v. 13. is presented as in Heaven so that the Assumption of the manly Birth the Joy upon the Dragon 's casting down upon the Kingdom of our God being come c. is given as in Heaven and is reserved also in Heaven till the glorious Appearance of Christ and there is no more but such an imperfect cognisance of those great Things upon Earth as was given by the Christian short Empire to be expected till that glorious Kingdom of Christ at the end of the Beast's Reign which may
come But now the next Vision of the Four Beasts gives us in Prophetick Cypher the very measure of the Beast's Duration as that Beast is symboll'd by the little Horn viz. Time Times and half a Time But because this does not assure us when those Days begin nor consequently where they end the Vision we are now entring upon will teach us that And it hath a threefold Aspect upon Time to this end 1. It continues the principal Line of Time from Creation which because there will not be Scripture History to maintain it and also because and especially because the Times of the Gentiles in whose History Scripture little concerns it self are drawn by it without lesser Periods but as the Accounts of the Churches Case in relation to them after requires it they are given in one entire Line or Sum 2300 Days beginning contiguously from Ezekiel's 430 Days and continuously also to so many Days for Years uniting with the former parcel-lines and with the 430 as the last given Line and so one whole Line from the Creation is constituted by uniting these several Parcels by a divine Certainty 2. It determines the particular Time from the beginning of the Persian Monarchy at literal Babylon fallen to mystical Babylon falling as also at literal Jerusalem restor'd to new Jerusalem appearing for Antichrist broken intends the former and the Sanctuary cleans'd the latter 3. It is a measure of the length of particular Lines given after this from Time to Time as they are given in Scripture that as it self is distinguish'd into several Periods by them so it is a Boundary to them when to begin and end that together they may be symmetral to this whole Line neither longer nor shorter and therein be justly proportion'd to one another even till this Line call'd most emphatically by our Lord the Times of the Gentiles Luc. 21. 24. be fulfill'd That the Vision then and the Line of Time it carries away be rightly understood these things are necessary to be premised 1. That the principal thing in these Visions of Daniel except that single Vision next in order to that we are upon that centers in Messiah's Coming and Death is the glorious Kingdom of Christ and of his Saints having the Dominion throughout the Earth and the Destruction of that peculiar Enemy of his Kingdom who is justly call'd Antichrist immediately preceeding his Kingdom and before which it could not appear Upon the Account of this Kingdom of Christ having its way made by the Destruction of Antichrist there are so many Representations of the other Monarchies of which else we may conceive the Holy Spirit had no more touch'd their Prophecy than it does their History which it never does but in relation to the Church or to set out God's Government Universal over the World and his Judgment on sinful Nations We find therefore in these Visions of the Monarchies Antichrist next to the Kingdom of Christ is the greatest Subject and more Words laid out upon him than upon all the rest so it is in Nebuchadnezzar's Dream The Feet and Toes Dan. 2. v. 34. 41. c. take up a greater Proportion of the Dream and Exposition than all the rest and then the Kingdom of Christ flows out upon the Image broken in the Feet So in the Vision of the four Beasts the fourth Beast and in that the little Horn imploys the greatest part of the whole Vision in its Description and Judgment and the Kingdom of Christ then breaks out upon it so proportionably in this Vision He then that would understand it must be arm'd with this Rule as preparatory 2. It must be worthy our Advertency that the Antichristian State in these Prophecies and in the Revelation is rank'd with Heathenism and Gentilism and treated with much less regard than even Idolatrous Israel or Judah God not taking any notice of them as his People but as mere Gentiles so that I do not remember any Parallelism of them with the People of Israel even in their Apostacy but altogether with those that were Aliens as Balaam Jezebel the Daughter of Elth Baal King of the Sydonians with Sodom Egypt and most notoriously Babylon and so is represented by the Gentiles treading the outward Court And thus the Corruptions of Divine Worship among the Jews were express'd by entertaining the manners of the Gentiles defiling themselves with them falling in love with them bringing them into the Sanctuary The Beast united with the heathen idolatrous Monarchy coming into the Seat of the Dragon is the grand Apocalyptick Figure for Antichrist and nothing of Christ allow'd him except to the other Beast having borns as a Lamb while he spake as a Dragon nor of the Jews to the Antichristian Rev. 13. 11. Gentiles but that in the Beginning of the Apostacy within the prophetical Church of Smyrna Rev. 2. 9. They said They were Jews but were not but lyed and were the Synagogue of Sathan nor any thing of Jerusalem to the Seat of Antichrist except one only allusion to the City where Our Lord was crucified where a Heathen Power presided in Revel 11. 8. his Condemnation and that a Roman too to signifie its extream Hate to the True Christ It s deep dye in Blood and its irrecoverable Destruction for which Jerusalem was so infamous and for which the Roman Church like the Jewish Church was broken off from the true Olive and all consider'd as a Church in Conjunction with it as the Apostle had foretold Rom. 11. 6. make the Allusion On the other side The True Christianity and Worship of it are symboliz'd by the pure Jewish Worship The Temple its Measures Ordinances as they stood in Israels best Estate are the Ichnography of the Perfect Pure Christian Church But the drawing men from True Christianity to Antichristianism the Persecution of Men for it the last Deliverance from Anti-Christianism and its Persecutions are continually given out in Parallellismes betwixt the same Things heretofore between the Jews and the Gentiles and unite with the Jews great Deliverance and the New Jerusalem at last These two things are most necessary to be premonish'd for the true Interpretation of this Vision and other Visions also as we shall see as we pass along to preserve all clear and free from Confusion And upon this Premonition I say this Vision beginning with the Persian Reign goes on through the Grecian and so passes through the whole Roman Monarchy first and last and describes a Line running parallel with the whole Times of the Gentiles after the Babylonish Empire at the end of which Ezekiels 430 Days ended as hath been made to appear And they being the last Joynt of the Line from Creation this Line of 230 Days joyns with it and continues the whole Acts. 3. 21. Line from Creation to the Restitution of all Things Upon this Premonition I say further That Antiochus as the most Infamous Heathen Prince for treading down the holy and pure Jewish Worship from
that so in the Mouth of not only two or three but many Witnesses every word might be establish'd yet it appertains to the Glory of the New Testament the Gospel and Kingdom of the Mediator there should be so great and stupendious a Prophecy peculiar to it as that of the Revelation wherein God and Jesus Christ are for ever to be ador'd and had in reverence of all that approach the Profession of Christianity I say It must be of necessity agreeable to the Excellency of the New Testament there should be besides many Incidental Prophecies so divinely majestick a Prophecy as this of the Apocalyps such a Temple of Prophecies whose Symbols should be so high and lofty its Light more clear and full its Lines of Time in what it pleas'd to give more evident and certain the Doctrines intermingled more spiritual the Promises more heavenly and explain'd the Threats more dreadful and more open that in every thing there may be a Becomingness of All to the Old Testament unveil'd fulfill'd and excell'd in the New And accordingly we shall find all these to the very height taken care of and adjusted we shall see this all along the Iconisms and Figures of Things in the Churches in the several Visions in the Doctrines in the solemn mentions of the Lamb of his Blood so often memorializ'd as an Antidote against the Poison of Antichrist as also the Ministeries of Angels and their most peremptory Abhorrence of all Worship offer'd to them It s only numbred Line of Time till the 1000 Years is so often repeated and ascertain'd that it does in all things illustriously shew it self to be that grand Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to shew to his Servants to the transcendent Honour of the Son by whom he thus spake last of all Who is the Heir of all things especially of the World to Heb. 1. 1. come of which this Prophecy speaks So that to ravish this from the Search and Enquiry of his Church or by Imputations of immodest Presumption to bar from it the utmost Endeavours of his Servants to compare so great a Prophecy and its Events is to take from them one of the principal Props of Christian Faith and Obedience and to devest the New Testament of so high a Glory as this sure Word of Prophecy to which we ought to take heed as to a Light that shineth in the obscure and even squalid Ayr of the Apostasie till the Bright Morning-Star appear and therefore notwithstanding all Prejudices the Apostacy hath rais'd against Researches into it Blessed is he that Readeth and they who hear the Words of this Prophecy That which this Prophecy reveals is the glorious Restitution of all things in the Kingdom of Christ and his Reign with his Saints the Destruction and Consumption of all the wicked so as to be no more as they have been in God's Creation and Earth Psal 104. 35. The Sense in which it reveals is not only Prophetical Doctrinal and Verbal but Real and Eventual and that immediately from the very Beginning of it All the Visions in their own Order each in their Season come quickly or shortly to pass that is begin to come to pass and so go on to their End according to the Types wherein they are imprinted This Revelation begins justly at the Resurrection of Christ conjoyn'd as in one entire Act and Time with his Ascension when all power in Heaven and Earth was given to him at the Lord's Day dedicated by himself to the Glory of his Rising and the Publication of his Anointing by the coming down of Act. 1. c. 2. the Holy Spirit Then could he say Behold I was dead am alive and live for evermore Then he was brought near to the Ancient of Days and receiv'd the Assurance of his Kingdom Then had he Right to be the Prince of the Kings of the Earth though he was pleas'd to stay and to joyn Patience to and with his Kingdom And this was as in the middle Rev. 1. 9. of the Five hundred sixty second Ev. Mor. from Cyrus and in the middle of the last of the seventieth of the seventy Weeks and at the Time the Roman Empire was come to Maturity in the AUTONOMY of Augustus and Tiberius in the Time of which the first Right of his Kingdom began and e're that Empire in its last State ends it shall be set up in Glory For though the Apocalytical Prophecy was not actually given to the Apostle John till some years after yet as Prophecy calls the future so that which is past to the present Time and represents in an entire Frame both together a Priviledge as to that which is past necessarily allowed to History and to a prophetick Frame much more when it hath occasion for it The Period of the Revelation till the thousand years is most evidently those two Apocalyptical Pillars bearing the two answering Inscriptions IT IS DONE IT IS DONE Apoc. 16. 17. c. 22. 6. from whence the Kingdom begins So that this Book of the Revelation is justly to be styl'd the Book of the Kingdom of Christ in its several Offers of Appearance and rending the very Clouds to shew it self in the Acts 1. 7. Dan. 12. 7. Justice of its Claim and yet retiring it self till the very moments appointed by the Father and sworn by himself In which Regards this Prophecy is call'd A Book both in Daniel and here in the Apocalyps on all occasions So that the thousand Years are properly within this Book as the Book of the Kingdom There is also beyond the thousand Years a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a little Space as it were the Revel 20. Hour of the thousand-years-day of the Lord or of the Son of Man in which the natural Apostacy of Humane Nature shews it self in the lukewarm Laodicean Church and in Gog and Magog as at a blush but the whole of any State either 1 Cor. 15. of Church or Nation below immediately is swallow'd up in Flames and Death and Hell with their whole Propriety shut up within themselves and the Kingdom resign'd to God ALL in ALL. The Passage or Conveyance of this Apocalyptical Time is through the seven Churches comprehending the whole Time within themselves as also Symbols proper to the Prophecy as peculiar to the Christian Church and then the whole Time begins again and runs in seven Seals seven Trumpets seven Voices as unseal'd Thunders seven Vials as so many Conduits Tubes or Pipes of the whole Prophecy under the Conduct and Government of the Lamb with seven eyes and the guiding Operations of the seven Lamps the seven Spirits of God that is of the Divine Spirit in its sevenfold Operations And in all I understand the sabbatical Number deriv'd from the first Sabbath and terminating in the last great Sabbatism of Christ's Kingdom continued with the Sabbatism of Eternity Thus the Prophecy is divided into two Systemes or Complexes of Visions The Systeme of the
seven Churches that is proper and particular to the Church wherein the Churches as Symbols sustain the whole Prophecy which is worthy the Spirituality and Clearness of a New Testament Prophecy so to Order and of great Grace Elegancy and Condecency to God's great Regard to his Church The Second is that which embraces the whole State of the Church but propp'd and supported with such Imperial Events as most nearly related to the Church adorn'd with such Symbols such Notes of Time such Events as agree to those Times whereby History both Common and Ecclesiastick may be adjusted to and concerted with both and the Truth of the Prophecy and its true Interpretation justisted before and by all the World And this is that Systeme or Complex of Prophecies that first by the Seals runs through the Roman Empire till the sixth Seal Pagan and Christian in the sixth and seventh Seals in those things wherein the Kingdom and Church of Christ are most interessed until the Empire was blasted in the first Trumpet and true publick Worship also by the 1260 Days of the Daily taken away entring The Imperial City was thrown like a Mountain into the Sea in the second and in the third Trumpet when the Roman Empire expiring in the West was surrogated or new founded in the Beast succeeding in his forty two Months and so the Prophecy goes on in the other Trumpets till it comes to the Kingdom of Christ in the seventh Trumpet in its just Succession to the last State of the Roman fourth Monarchy according to all Prophecy And this till the thousand Years runs through the Voices of Preparation into the Vials and the Vials prepare to the thousand Years glorious Reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then this is the only true proper Division of this Prophecy into its two Systemes of the Churches and then rise the Seals Trumpets Voices Vials in another Systeme supporting all things relating to the Church by Imperial Motions Mutations and Times And in the latter Systeme all these Tubes of Time are each Sett of them and each of each Sett so united one to another that they can neither be disjoyn'd from their immediate sequence one upon another nor mov'd out of their order so that the Trumpets follow the Seals the Voices the Trumpets the Vials the Voices and each Seal Trumpet Voice and Vial follows immediately upon its foregoing Seal Trumpet Voice and Vial and every seventh comprehends the following Sevens the seventh Seal the seven Trumpets the seventh Trumpet the seven Voices the seventh Voice the seven Vials and each precedent Seventh hath some grasp on all the following Sevens So the seventh Seal comprehends the Trumpets the Voices the Vials the seventh Trumpet the Voices and Vials the seventh Voice the seven Vials so admirably is this Prophecy united and interwoven And to other Division than this of the second Systeme of Prophecies I can by no means subscribe as of the Prophecy divided into the sealed and open Book-prophecy or the Prophecy of the Empire first and then of the Church For that remarkable part of the sealed Book-prophecy viz. the palm-bearing Company by peculiar Right pertains to the open Book or that must be so if there were such an open Book-prophecy and much of the open Book-prophecy allowing such a one must needs pertain to the sealed but indeed there is no such Thing as an open Book-prophecy in that place where it is said to be open'd for the Book was no sooner open'd but it was eaten and so absconded assoon as open'd till open'd by the Voices c. 14. as shall be farther clear'd nor is there any Prophecy of the second Systeme but pertains properly to the Church as within first the Pagan then the Christian then the Bestian State of the one Roman Empire and lastly of the Vniversal Empire and Kingdom of Christ. Now in this Order apocalyptical Both Visions and Times in the first Systeme run through the six Churches In the second through those four Sets of prophetical Tubes Seals c. 6. c. 7. c. 8. to v. of Trumpets c. 8. v. 8. to the end of c. 11. of Voices c. 14. of the Vials c. 15. c. 16. and so laying these Chapters together the order is most exact except that in c. 7. There is an Anticipation of the Triumph of the New Jerusalem from v. 9. to the end In c. 11. there is a Collection of the whole State of the Apostasie during the six Trumpets into one Body together as it consists of the Sufferings of the Witnesses and the Tyranny of the Bestian Apostasie excepting some close Intimations in the very Composure of the Symbolisms of those Trumpets for the great Reasons hereafter to be given that refer to the same Apostacy and begin at the first Trumpet And then in the twelfth and thirteenth Chapters the extravasated Account of the Dragon watching the Woman and her manly Birth the Dragon cast down and the manly Birth caught up is to be reduc'd within its most proper Channel viz. the fifth and sixth Seals And this prepares for the right understanding of the Beast mention'd ch 11. as deriv'd from the Dragon c. 13. arriving his Number 666 which belongs to the six first Trumpets and it is there fitly set to prepare for the Vision of the Lambs Number c. 14. And as to the Chapters 17. 18. and 19. they are most evidently the Progress of the History of the seventh Vial and the full Relation of its Effects To prepare for which an extraordinary Description of the Woman or Great City reigning over the Kings of the Earth opposite to the Woman in the Wilderness is prefix'd and on her occasion a more perfect Portraicture of the Beast and of his ten Horns or Kings is given in preparation to the Judgment executed on all c. 19. And then the Milennial State being drawn up c. 20. it is carried on to the end of Apocalyptical Time as it reaches into the complemental State of Eternity which the Prophecy briefly absolves and then returns upon its more proper Subject or the 1000 Years of the New Jerusalem c. 21. c. 22. Now this Order began with the Preface to the Churches Vision of the first Systeme c. 1. and then the Preface of the second Systeme and lastly a Postscript returning especially c. 4. c. 5. c. 22. 16. to the Vials as given by the first Angel of the Vials This Order is I say the whole entire natural Order of this Apocalyptical Prophecy which is contriv'd indeed suitable to the Secrecy and Mysticness of the Prophecy so as often symbolically to declare when these Prophecies would have the clearest and most efficacious Discoveries in the Church viz. after the Half Time when the Thunders had utter'd their Voices and the Book open was shewn in the hand of Christ. That was the just Season for the Discovery of the Apostacy in the suffering of the Witnesses and the Tenthly Fall of the City and then after the seventh Trumpet
we would understand them of natural Angels as few or none do But the meaning is The seven Churches contain a very great Mystery throughout the Vision of the Churches Even as upon the forehead of the Woman Rev. 17. 5. was a Title written Mystery Babylon the Great c. that is Understand that whole Inscription in a mystical Sense or to carry the Mystery of the Apostate Church in all Successions so Understand the seven Churches carrying the Mystery of the Christian Church throughout And it is observable the word Mystery is expresly applyed to the True and False Church As it is said here The Mystery of the seven Churches and their Stars or Angels So there I will tell thee the Mystery of the Woman and of the Beast the Fallen Star with the Key of the bottomless Pit that carries her And proportionably this whole Prophecy of the Kingdom draws down into it self the Great Mystery of that Kingdom spoken of by all the Prophets since the World began viz. THE TRUE CHURCH IN GLORY The particularizing upon the Churches the so Apocalyptick Argu. 2 number Seven assures us It will bear its proportion to all the other Sevens And seeing there are no sevens to introduce them nor to receive them and carry them on They must themselves by their own Time Sevens and Symbols embrace the whole Apocalyptical Time and its Sevens For the Book of it is the Book of the Kingdom the Kingdom is the Mystery of God The Churches are the true Kingdoms when they come to their Glory and so a Mystery The Apostate Church is a Mock Kingdom the Kingdom of Antichrist foisted into the place of Christs Kingdom and so a Mystery but a Mystery of Iniquity The Kingdom of Christ and his universal Monarchy is an Empire in a Church of which He is the Head The last State of the Roman Monarchy is an Imperialism by vertue of an Ecclesiastical Image made to it which is a false Christship that is an Empire in an Apostate Church of which Antichrist is the Head How fitly therefore are these Things displayed in the Symbolisms of Churches It is certain There hath been a Christian Church in all Argu. 3 Ages from the Resurrection of Christ to this Day and shall be to the New Jerusalem and to the End of the World This is grounded upon those two Places Matt. 16. 18. Vpon this Rock will I build my Church and the Gates of Hell either of Hell as it signifies the Grave Mortality and Death or the Powers of Darkness shall not prevail against it and Matt. 28. ult Lo I am with you always unto the end of the World Nor is this controverted among any Christians From hence it follows we cannot be Time-bound or straitned in space of Time to place these Successions in For there must necessarily be a Succession of this Christian Church in several Ages and States and so must continue till the End which must as necessarily run a long Apocalyptical Time and so give a bottom to found such Symbols upon if it pleas'd as we suppose it did the Prophetick Spirit to give them As there must necessarily have been a Variety of States of Arg. 4 this one Church so the first of them must needs have been settled and founded in Doctrine Worship Rules of Life Order and Discipline by immediate Inspiration divine Authority and Institution through the Ministry of the Apostles This is most evident from that Book of Scripture written to that purpose The Acts of the Apostles as also from all the Apostolical Epistles From hence it follows the Apostolical Church in its Apostolical State was first in order whether therefore we will allow it to be symbollically represented or not in that first Church of Ephesus it is certain that Labour and Patience twice repeated that trying them which said they were Apostles and were not and finding them Lyars importing the exact consigning all Apostolical Truths and Rules into an authentick Canon of Scripture does most admirably represent that truly Primitive Apostolical State Besides the daily or every days Miscarriages from this excellent Arg. 5 State by Heresies Errors and bad Practises to which degenerate and deeply corrupted Humane Nature is so subject and of which Apostolical Writings take so continual notice there was foretold an eminent visible and notorious Apostacy fix'd and settled upon its own Base out of which Antichrist was to come and so very fit to be taken notice of in this Book of the Kingdom Now this Apostacy was declar'd expresly by the Apostle Paul to be at work in a mystery of Iniquity and the Spirit saith expresly that in the latter Times which latter Times as we have before affirm'd were then begun though every day more and more latter Some that is not a few but a certain sort of men that should make a Body or Species of Men should depart from the Faith If then it had begun so 1 Tim. 4. 1. Written to Timothy as then at Ephesus early in some Lineaments of it although not in that of Nicolaitanism and that it daily proceeded and grew much higher after the Apostles Departure or Death ravening Wolves and Men teaching perverse things arising from Christians themselves Act. 20. 28. c. remonstrated also to this very Church of Ephesus Their leaving their first Love the removing this Candlestick out of the Superiority and Excellency of Primo-geniture and conferring it on Smyrna in the Crown of Life and Philadelphia in the Scepter of the New Jerusalem are most lively Symbols to such a purpose though yet the Overcomers of this protoplast Church are assur'd to eat of the Tree of Life in the midst of the Paradise of God This Apostacy being to become so grand an Apostacy it Arg. 6 must needs proceed and work on by degrees so as that some Church and its Bishop deriving it self from the Apostles should very elderly vere towards a Synagogue of Satan and there should be such an Assumption by it and Deference of Advantages to it by many in the whole Christian Church tending towards and preparing for such an Apostacy that it gain'd Pretensions undesign'd yet to it particularly to intitle it self to such a blooming Antichristian Power as was foretold to come out of the Apostacy for if it could not derive high from Antiquity it could not rise to that Grandeur of Apostacy under the Profession of Christianity And yet in the mean time the Vniversal publick Christian Church may not only remain pure but be first in deep Sufferings for Christ and so fill up the Number of Martyrs dying under the Pagan Draconick Empire but also receive the Crown of Life and of the Glory of the New Jerusalem in a Figure by the Empire becoming Christian as it did in Constantine Now what Type of such a State of the Church could be more express in all this than the Church of Smyrna For whether it was so design'd by the Spirit or not it is certain in
Reason such an Apostasie Apostate Church and falling Star must have a Foundation in Antiquity even while the Church was pure and in Sufferings and that very Church and its Bishop bore a part in it and yet was every day more and more under the Aspect of that Caution given to it Rom. 11. 17 18 c. and cspecially when it was crown'd in Constantine The Apostasie must come to be such a high enthron'd Apostacy Arg. 7 and so obscuring over-shadowing covering the true Church under its self that the very Apostatiz'd Synagogue usurp'd the Title of the true Church and yet because God owns the true Church only he speaks only to that as having under it in his Account the false Church and as bearing in the Type of the false Church polluted with Idolatry spiritual Fornication horrible Corruption of Manners while indeed the true Church is oppress'd and its Members martyred and slain as Antipapal Witnesses by the false Church and the Antipas true Church carries the Name of the enthron'd false Church the high and lofty Pergamus and therefore the Things that would be great if the Church were directly guilty of them are call'd small things and the threatning diverts from that true Church and falls on the false Church only I will come to thee and slay THEM with the Sword of my Mouth and as a Church partly abhorring the Pollutions of the false Church partly excommunicated and anathematiz'd hath the Promise of hidden Manna in the former case and of the white Stone of Absolution as to the latter Now I appeal to all Protestants Whether this was not truly the State of Things in the depth of the Apostasie And I appeal to all judicious Considerers of the Epistle to the Church of Pergamus Whether such a State could be given in more expressive and significant Shades It is then most evident There must be a Time wherein the Mystery of Iniquity began to work seeing it did begin gradually and that Beginning must be within the Apostolical Times for the Apostle declares it so to begin besides from this Neighbourhood it derives a Pretence of Authority tho' indeed there can be from thence no Authority gain'd to Antichristianism seeing the Scripture and not Neighbourhood to the Apostles Time is our Rule and seeing any Authority no higher deriv'd is stain'd and blemish'd by that Apostolical Declaration yet a Face a Countenance of Authority will be thence deriv'd to deceive and delude with It is also most evident The Progress of it must afterwards grow so high to be a Synagogue of Sathan and after to be a Throne of Sathan so that from hence may arise the Symbols of Ephesus Smyrna Pergamus After the Time that Antichristianism did thus prevail seeing Argu. 8 it was not to be perpetual and everlasting however long and that the Ruine of it is first to be gradual and then at last sudden there must be some preparatory Wrestles and Struggles for the Eluctation and Recovery of the true Church after this Oppression and being muffled up under the Name of a false Church call'd Catholick and Vniversal and HOLY MOTHER CHURCH at the same Time yet in regard of the remaining Power of Antichristianism united with the Powers of the Kings of the Earth the state of the true Church must needs be still cover'd under the Appearance of such a false Vniversal Church over and above it and so must in that regard bear in Type the Name of that apostate Daughter Thyatyra while in the mean time its Charity Jezebel Daughter of Ethbaal c. Faith Patience Service Works against that false Church grow continually greater and greater to the very last and its disownings of the Depths of Sathan and not accepting them for Deeps of Religion are very evident and eminent to its Praise The suffering Jezebel therefore or the false Church regnant over it because it cannot help it are small things against it because but Types for yet it is accounted so perfect as to be commanded only to hold its own and no other Burden of Command impos'd on it but to hold fast what it had already whereas to suffer Jezebel had it not been over-power'd had been a very heinous thing Now so much therefore of this True Church as did so eluctate and force its way out of the False was while it was forcing its way under one Notion or Denomination and when it had forc'd its way under another and while it in any parts and portions of it continues in the midst and within the Bowels of Kingdoms and States still keeping up and submitting themselves to the Power of Antichrist It may still retain its name Thyatyra and although the Time or interval it properly measures when the whole True Church was compris'd in it may be past yet it may continue in Being in no higher State then of Thyatyra till the appearance of the Morning Star and the fall of the Tenth of the Great City Now it is most evident there have been such earnest Motions of the True Church from under the Tyranny of Antichristianism There still continue such in Antichristian States and Kingdoms according to their Power I demand therefore what more agreeable and expressive Lineaments hereof could be given then in the Church of Thyatyra first espying and as under Affliction looking for the first dawns of Light and after advanc'd to Rule the Nations c. in the New Jerusalem After the Emersion and actual manumission of several parts of the True Church from Antichristianism and a settlement Argu. 9 in Recess and Separation from it some Churches through the Favour of Princes States and their Laws entred into a Condition of outward Splendor and Glory Riches Power and Authority of which the Sardius Stone may be a fit emblem But this outward Elevation not so becoming nor agreeable to the Patience of Christs Kingdom such a Church may be too much taken up about Rites and Jurisdictions and such extern Decencies and not press forward upon Things that remain in an order and sequence to the Kingdom of Christ and so fall under severe Censures This Church represents Churches which are yet accepted by Christ as True Churches they have on their own proper Title Names though but few that have not defiled their Garments And these few though best are not yet made the Church but the whole though in a sleepy and defiled State are the Church that has the few Names that had not defiled their Garments contrariwise in Pergamus and Thyatyra the false Church that calls it self the universal is not the Church but the Few suppress'd overcome Witnesses are yet the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the whole Earth which is a most remarkable Difference shewing Sardis a True Church Now since the Reformation it is known by general Observation There are such Churches that are in a State and Splendor Sardian but let the Application of the Characters remain till he comes that says He will Come
at an Hour this Splendid secure Symbolical Church thinks not of except the few undefiled Names and they of it that overcome who have Promises of greater Glory with Christ then this outward but this Church in its own Name hath the Honour to make a Line of Time from the Reformation to this Day and shall till that sudden coming of Christ upon it when such a State will be at an End There have been Societies of Christians that since the Reformation Arg. 10 have subsisted only upon the Principles of brotherly Love whose Door hath been attempted to be shut upon them as not allowed Churches of Christ or not in such a way of Worship who have had little outward strength who have yet kept the word of Christ and not denyed his Name in a strict adherence to his word only who have Enemies even of the Reformed who are relaps'd down to the same Pitch the Apostacy was at when styl'd the Synagogue of Sathan in the Church of Smyrna not receiving indeed the Beasts Number of 666. but too far link'd with the Corruptions of Antiquity after the Empire becoming Christian soon Antichristianis'd who though for the present at least seem irreconcileable with the Apostacy advanc'd to its Number yet have great Indignation against Philadelphia and its Members These shall at the Kingdom of Christ appearing come and worship at this Churches Feet and be forc'd to acknowledge Christ lov'd it whose Crown of Honour it is that it hath kept the Word of Christ's patience embrac'd the Purity of Christianity in a low and mean State and therefore the Glory the Kingdom the New Jerusalem shall crown it when the Hour of Temptation comes upon all the rest of the Earth and detects the Vanity of their Religion even of their false or defiled Christianity and the Church-state of those who have not overcome the Impurities of them who call'd themselves Churches Christians Reform'd and were not so but did lye This Church is not yet come to its proper space upon the Line of Time nor can do till the Witnesses rise out of their Sackcloth and the Kingdom of Christ be proclaim'd at the seventh Trumpet And how excellent a Type of all this is the Church Philadelphia There shall be a most perfect happy and glorious State Arg. 11 of the Church before the Resignation of the Kingdom to God and the Father during the thousand years the very first Recidivations from which shall be spew'd out of Christ's Mouth and the whole of Church-States drawn up into Eternity of which Loadicea is a clear Emblem viz. of the Recidivation and spewing out in that last State Now from All this it is most evident The Church of Ephesus may have place from the first preaching the Gospel till the cruel Persecution of Dioclesian into which last and most cruel One All the Christian Blood shed from the Resurrection sunk down as the Blood from Abel to Zacharias upon the Generation of the Jews in the Time of our Saviour and was requir'd of it therefore here Smyrna began to compleat the Churches Sufferings in being faithful unto Death and receiv'd the Crown of Life in the Symbol of Constantine's Christian Empire and so down to Theodosius the Great all which Time the Church continued pure although it began to be check'd by a Synagogue of Sathan Thus these two Churches contemporiz'd with the Seals Pergamus and Thyatyra ran along with the six first Trumpets under the Apostasie and Bestian Tyranny till in the latter part of the sixth Trumpet Thyatyra eluctated into the Reformation then several of the reform'd Churches settled into the Sardian state and draw the Line of Time with the last 180 of the 1260 Years in Conjunction with Thyatyra still existent tho' not intitled any longer to bear this Line and with Philadelphia not yet come to bear the Line of Time which last shall bear the last 75 Years from the Witnesses Rising and the Kingdom of Christ proclaim'd till the New Jerusalem and its thousand Years settle upon it and that new Cube of Time begin at the End of which the Laodicean Church no sooner begins but ends and an Amen is set to all Time by Eternity receiving it All which makes apparent There is no Inconsistency but a high Condecency in these seven representative Churches bearing a Line of Time contemporary with all Apocalyptical Time which ought to be shewn Hereby we see The Excellency of the Christian Church Remark and of our Union with it and Freedom from Schism depends not upon the Greatness the Antiquity the Primitiveness of Churches but upon the Divine Apostolickness of the Doctrine Worship Rules of Holy Life truly Christian Discipline wherein we unite with them The overcoming that evil of leaving the first Love that Christ had against the very first Church of Ephesus not made diminutive as in Pergamus and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 small or few things Thyatyra was more as to the Excellency of true Christianity than being of that Church The not mingling with the Synagogue of Sathan in the Church of Smyrna gave the Inculpableness and Honour to it and its Members The not being of the Apostate Church when it call'd its self Catholick in Pergamus and Thyatyra but keeping to the Truth of the Gospel constituted the true Church when the Proselites and Disciples of that Apostacy were the Proselites and Disciples of Balaam and the Children of Jezebel The few undefiled Names and Overcomers in Sardis tho' a Reform'd Church were of greater Estimation with Christ than the whole Church besides some of whose rigid Zealots of its Splendour and Power Uniformity of Rites it is to be fear'd made the Synagogue of Sathan and Philadelphia tho' of little outward Power or Splendour yet holding fast the Word of Christ and not denying his Name and keeping the Word of Christ's Patience is preferr'd much before it and honour'd with the New Jerusalem from which Blessed State Laodicea abating and growing cool All Church-states in this World are so distasted by Christ that He spews them out of his Mouth and receives only the Overcomers to his Throne and his whole Church into Eternity SECT X. Of the Third Line of Time in the Grand Line of 2300 Even Morn or of the Seven Seals from the Resurrection shewing it extends to a space of 400 Years Apoc. Cap. 4. cap. 5. cap. 6. cap. 7. cap. 8. I Have now finish'd the first Real and General Line of Time that runs from Stem to Stern from the Beginning to the End of Apocalyptical Time I come now to the second giving of the same Lines which is not uniform and entire as the former of the Churches but made up not only of various Parts as that was of seven Churches but of various Representations of each part as Seals Trumpets Voices and Vials and each of these comprehends its following Order viz. the Seals the Trumpets the Voices the Vials under the Seventh of each former as hath been already clear'd
by which they are all kept in a close successional Connexion one with another and the seventh Seal hath its Hold upon the whole even to the last Day of Judgment when the whole Book of the Kingdom is resign'd back into the Hand of God out of whose Hand it was received by Christ seal'd 1 Cor. 15. 24. c. I am therefore now and in the first place to speak of the first part of this second giving of the Line of Time and that as in the Seals before it came to the Trumpets 1. And because there is one general Preface to this whole Repetition of the Line of Time I shall first consider how adequate it is to the whole Line and to the great Administrations of it in a brief or summary Survey of it For to assure us The Preface was to the whole Apocalyptical Book or Time adorn'd with new Figures and Sculptures John heard the first Voice that spake to him and it was as it were of a Trumpet saying to him I will shew thee Things that must be hereafter Rev. 4. v. 1 2. and immediately he was the second time in the Spirit where the Distinction of things hereafter from the things that are as Rev. 1. 19. was made only as the Types of the Churches had a real Existence at that Time as Types in the then begun Christian Church but the following were deriv'd from things to come And after this there was no more any such Voice of a Trumpet speaking to John no more being in the Spirit except a being carried in the Spirit into the Wilderness to see the Apostate Church and then to a Mountain to behold the Holy City The Voice speaking again c. 10. v. 8. evidently relates to the first Voice in that chap. saying seal and write not v. 4. and then take the Book and eat c. and c. 1. 10. c. 4. 1 2. not to these Trumpet-Voices 2. At this second Apocalyptical Volume we have the great Theatre of the Throne and the whole Grandeur of it and adorn'd every way suitable to the Doctrine of the Gospel and as it were in the first Apostolical Church settled first in God as the Doctrine of the One God made known in the Father the Son and the Spirit is the Foundation of Christianity For the Father the Word and the Spirit bear Record of it in Heaven and these three are one in that Record as they are in themselves ONE 3. About this Throne at each Angle or at each of the four Points of it are four Living Creatures so I choose to translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not Beasts properly and distinguishingly in this Prophecy call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and these four Living Creatures represent the Apostolical Church of the New Testament as in four Ternaries or Threes of the twelve Apostles in perpetual Action and therein as it were encircling the twenty four Elders of the pure Israelitish Church The Elders are upon Seats round about the Throne and with Crowns on their Heads as being of old a Kingdom of Priests and they are in this Prophecy introduc'd in Service to the Kingdom of Christ that shall be at the New Jerusalem together with and as by the Apostolick Church who shall be Kings and Priests together with them represented by these four and twenty Elders Heads of the priestly Courses who are first plac'd as leading the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his Kingdom by Prophecy but yet in the very first Action the Order is revers'd and the living Creatures are first in giving Glory First there is the particular Song to the Divine Nature on the Throne as the absolute Creator and Lord of all ending in this For thy Pleasure all things are and were created and so are absolutely under his Dominion and Dispose before whom they cast their Crowns 4. The grand Symbol of the whole Apocalyptical Time and its Events and of the supreme Conduct and Government till they issue into the Kingdom of Christ is the seal'd Book in the Hand of Him that sat on the Throne seal d with the seven Seals which Seals have under them the whole Course of preparatory Events to this Kingdom and the Kingdom it self till it be resign'd back to God Thus Daniel saw Prophecy and Vision seal'd up Dan. 9. and the Book seal'd Chap. 12. 5. There is Proclamation made by the loud Voice of a strong Angel for the finding out a worthy Person to open the Book and loose its Seals And none in Heaven or Earth was found worthy to open the Seals or so much as look thereon All which is certainly as Divine a Symbol to set out the supream and sole Excellency of the Lord Jesus Christ as far above all Principalities and Powers and every Name in Heaven or Earth as could be found out and surpassing all Understanding or Invention finite and is in surprize of any Admissions of Angels or Saints into any parts of his Mediatory Office the very least so much as an Ability to look thereon as also to foreclose that grand Antichristian Assumption of the man of Sin for his very Supremacy is hereby plainly declar'd to be Antichristianism who undertakes not only to look upon this Book but to open the Seals and herein he shews himself in the Temple of God as God 6. The much weeping of John that none was found worthy to open the Book does most exactly and critically point to the time of the Death of Christ or his lying in the Grave when there seem'd a Despair upon all the Creation in that dark Interval and a suspension of the Consolation of Israel and when all the Apostles had given up as it were the hopes of it of which the Apostle John was here a Symbol and represented all the Apostles 7. The same Article of Time is farther assur'd and confirm'd by the one of the Elders as a Representative of the whole Israelitish Church who lead to Christ Thus Christ open'd the Scriptures of the Old Testament especially of Daniel That Christ was thus to suffer and to enter into his Glory viz. of sitting first at the Right-hand of God till his Foes should be made his Footstool He sate down on his Fathers Throne in his Father's Kingdom He shall have a Throne and Kingdom properly his own 8. Christ hereupon exactly as in the Time according to the History of the Gospel appears as on the sudden and unexpectedly in the midst of the Throne of the Elders and the living Creatures a Lamb as it had been newly slain and now risen and ascended and so the Epoch of the Apocalyptical Time is most strictly defin'd and fully assur'd And at this Point of Time he receives the Book which is the very same with sitting on God's Right-hand till his Foes shall be made his Footstool for when the Book is unseal'd and the thousand Years begin Then there is a putting down all Rule and Authority At the End of the thousand Year and the Day of
final Judgment over the Book is quite unseal'd in Death the last Enemy overcome and then the Book the Symbol of the Kingdom is resign'd with the Kingdom it self into the Hand of the Father 9. Hereupon the State of the Christian Church in its Apostolical Purity with the Order of the Living Creatures first and then drawing that of the Elders along with it in a Song of Redemption in Praise of the Lamb with a Prophecy of his Kingdom in which his Servants and Saints shall reign above the Earth or over it as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies in several Places of the New Testament joyn'd with a Genitive Case particularly Matt. 25. 21. 23. I will make thee Ruler over many things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 10. To sum up all The State of the Church in the thousand Years Kingdom of Christ is given in a second Song of Praise wherein all things bow in the Name of Christ as Lord and that not ceremonially but in real Subjection Phil. 2. 10. Things in Heaven and in Earth and under the Earth and that to the Glory of the Father For the four Living Creatures having said Amen to this high Celebration of Christ the four and twenty Elders as having by the Apostolical Church receiv'd an explicate Knowledge of Christ to shew The New Testament did not at all derogate from the Old The four and twenty Elders after they had fallen down with the four Living Creatures and joyn'd in a Song of Praise to the Lamb now as making up the Concent worship him that liveth for ever and ever and conclude that which the four Living Creatures or the Apostolical Ministry began and herein shew the Resignation of the Kingdom of God at last that he may be All in All Rev. 4. 10. compar'd with Rev. 5. 8. 14. For as all began in God that made all things so here it ends in him The sealed Book being now in the Hands of Christ and all due Acknowledgments made to him that sits on the Throne and to the Lamb immediately follows the opening of the Seals and therein the Course of Time flows out and so flows on of which we are now to take a particular and strict Account only I would desire every Person that sets his Mind and Thoughts to view this so august Inthronization of God and of the Lamb That he would ponder within himself Whether the desolating either the Jews or the Heathen Empire can be Events great enough for so stupendious a Pre-Representation or any thing less than the Glorious Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ could answer to it And now that we may establish the Line of Time according to these Seals and the Time of their opening there are three Things to be consider'd 1. What it is that is the principal Jewel and Treasure that lies under these Seals and so to be set free by the unloosing them 2. What is the principal and supream Visum or Thing to be seen in every Seal and the opening of it and how it serves the disclosing that Jewel 3. What is the true method of fixing the certain Time that the whole Course of the Seals took up and how it is to be measur'd and fix'd If we can now determine and settle aright upon the Resolution of each of these Particulars we shall be able to understand this first Sett of Apocalyptical Visions and to have ample satisfaction concerning them and have great Light into the following Visions also 1. As to the First then That great Treasure and Jewel of Truth that is inclos'd within these Seals and so also as we shall see that the Trumpets ultimately sounded unto is the Glorious Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ Every Event and the Stage of Time it was to pass over is as a Seal or Stop upon this Kingdom till it opens into Glory and the opening of every Seal was an Advance towards it and although when the seven Seals were open'd there appeared a greater and more prodigious Cause of Delay viz. the Antichristian Kingdom yet every Trumpet was as an Alarm of War to the subduing that Mock-Kingdom that rose in Despight and Opposition to the Kingdom of Christ And because all things were so set and placed in their Season and Order that no one thing could come to pass before that which was set before it had had its free Egress and Event therefore every of these Events and the opening of the Seals to let them out though they did not in the Issue open to the true Appearance of that Kingdom yet because they did as it were what they could and there was a Remove of so many Prohibents or Obstacles to that Kingdom and Time so advanc'd from Point to Point that by the opening every Seal the Kingdom of Christ might be nearer to its Appearance therefore they are justly understood and expounded to be Seals unloos'd and opening to the Kingdom of Christ Now besides those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or IT IS DONE IT IS DONE at the End of the Apocalyptical Time and all its Events whither they one and all run together besides this there is this absolute Assurance That the Kingdom of Christ was under the Seals The Kingdom made so magnificent a show of it self at the sixth Seal that had not the Servants of God been seal'd in their Fore-heads that they should not then appear with him in Glory the Kingdom had even then appear'd for in Constantine's Christian Empire to the End of the Reign or at the Victory of Theodosius the Great over Heathenism of which he endeavour'd the utter Extirpation that Kingdom so far came out of its Retirement that there was a solemn and loud Doxology in Heaven that the Kingdom of God and the Power of Christ were come and yet at the very same time the Woman is recorded as fled into the Wilderness Rev. 12. 10. 2. The first Particular then being resolved with so much Evidence and Assurance we may with the greatest Clearness resolve concerning the second or the principal Visum of every Seal open'd for it must be some State of the Kingdom of Christ defin'd by the joyning together the Voices that summoned to the Sight and Observation so far as these Voices continued and then when they ceased the State of the Kingdom of Christ must be considered by the Visa themselves as under the Cessation of those Voices and by any sort of Voices we can find equivalent to them And in this Method and no other that I can understand we may justly and truly comprehend the Intention and Signification of the Seals For if all the Seals carry on the Kingdom of Christ by so many Degrees and Steps of Advance as I have in some measure I hope made evident they do By undeniable Proof then it must needs be That every Seal hath some State of that Kingdom protuberant or swelling out in its Appearance upon that opening and that the Voice that says Come and see calls to observe it and
as to the State of the Church all along these Seals past There was a plain Appearance of it in the Apostolick Voices till just the Entrance of the fourth Seal From that Time these Voices ceas'd which had so far as supported by the Characters of Imperial History declar'd to us the Times and States of the Church as before drawn out in the Labour and Patience and Sufferings of the Ephesine Church while those Apostolical Voices lasted although there was such a Leaven of the Apostacy hid in it that it was charg'd to have left its first Love one great Instance of which was in Victor's Excommunication of the Asian Churches upon the score of the unwritten Ceremony of keeping Easter at all much more unwritten as to Criticism of Time which made that so great Fewd The Fifth Seal so plainly opens in the Sufferings of the Seal 5 Christian Martyrs as to assure us This Prophecy as also other Scripture-prophecies and Notes of Time are for the sake of the Church and not of Heathen Empires and States yet by the Course of the Seals we may easily know at what hour of the Empire it was as by referring to the peculiar foregoing Church-prophecy we know under what Symbol of the Church it lies and from both That it was the last and cruel ten Years Persecution or ten Days Tribulation begun by Dioclesian while the Christian Church was under that peculiar Symbol of the Church of Smyrna That it was about the Time of Dioclesian the Current of the former Seals and the immediately following Desolation of Heathenism under Constantine assure us That it was under the Symbol of the Church of Smyrna its peculiar Character of Sufferings and ten Days Tribulation make out as also in that there was no longer any Apostolical Voice but the Voice of Souls that were gone out of martyr'd Bodies it signifies the Synagogue of Sathan near an height and from that very occasion of the Tombs Relicks Memories and Veneration of Martyrs and Trust in their Negotiation out of the Body for those they left behind in it growing much higher However God graciously accepts this Suffering Church and lays no Imputation upon it but only on the Sathanick Synagogue He seems to have more respect to the Souls Complaint than to the Survivers of that Church He appoints them white Robes but as unconcern'd in Mediations for any in this World they are commanded to rest and there is on their Instance a Signification of a new Roll of Martyrs under Antichrist when the whole Number of those of the first Resurrection should be compleat over whom the second Death should have no Power This Seal then is the very Joynt betwixt the Kingdom of Paganism falling but not yet fallen and that short Appearance of Christ's Kingdom in the Christian Empire till Theodosius the Great The Army of Martyrs had not yet overcome by the Word of the Testimony which they held The Kingdom of Christ was not yet celebrated with that Doxology chap. 12. But there was nothing came between this Cry of the Souls and that Kingdom although speedily surpris'd by Antichristianism into which Pagan Demonolatry was first transplanted on this very occasion of Martyrs Sufferings compleated within this Seal especially And thus we have the State of the Kingdom of Christ in the Church within this Seal assur'd by one of the most famous Monuments of Ecclesiastick History The sixth Seal is that great Seal opened by which the Heathen Seal 6 State of the Roman Empire was demolish'd and which carries most abundant Instruction of this whole Time of the Seals and also of the Kingdom of Christ in his Church during that Time 1. That Heathen Idolatry that had seated it self as in the Heavens and from thence reach'd down it self into the Earth and in the Deep is as by an Earthquake remov'd from below and as by a Tempest above is dismounted and deposed from thence so that here Sathan as the Dragon was cast down from Heaven as by Lightning according to the Vision chap. 12. 2. The Emperours or Kings of the Earth and all its great Men lay'd aside their Greatness even to their Imperial Purple and Diadems as particularly Dioclesian the Arch-Persecutor and Maximian with him mov'd not so much by any thing as by a divine Terror by the Fear of him that sate on the Throne and of the Lamb. And this is given as a lively Type of Christ's glorious Appearance in the Destruction of his Enemies Who will be able to stand in that Day of his Wrath What Mountains Dens or Caves will then open to receive affrighted men 3. From hence it plainly appears What was to be open'd by Christ's opening of these Seals even no other than the glorious visible Kingdom of Christ and not his spiritual Kingdom only As an eminent Assurance of which He declar'd himself in the preaching of the Gospel and a Crown was given to him as an Acknowledgment of his Right though to obtain it he was to go out conquering and to conquer Here then in this Christian Empire beginning at the sixth Seal and so going on in the seventh Seal to Theodostus's Victory over all the Remains of Heathenism after Julian in the Senate Magistracy and People of Rome gather'd to a Head in Eugenius and Argobastes This Kingdom appear'd as in an Emblem and earnest of it self and so it is celebrated chap. 12. with Praise and Triumph as in Heaven though even there surpris'd 4. Here the State of Christ's Kingdom in the Church is solemnly declar'd and also as in the Christian Empire In the Church to shew the high towring Synagogue of Sathan There is no Voice of the Church but of an Angel crying to the four Angels not to hurt c. a certain Indication of bad Symptoms appearing at this in it self happy Change 2. There was a pure Church and Kingdom of Christ yet publick and visible but upon the Retreat for it was just now retiring and about to be seal'd that is under that over-growing Synagogue 3. This Kingdom of Christ in his Church was to have abating the general Unhappiness of fallen sinful Man a more quiet and illustrious State than heretofore viz. in a Christian Empire for till the whole Time of sealing the Servants of God was past the four Angels that had the four first Trumpets were commanded to hold the Wind that no such Hurt could be done upon the Empire as was after to be done when they sounded This was Smyrna's Crown So that tho' God had determin'd the Period of the Blood-guilty Roman Western Empire as Imperial yet it was kept off till it became Pagan-Antichristian a new Paganism Then God gave it in Wrath after a Time an Antichristian King its former Imperial King being taken away in Wrath first 5. The precise Time of Sealing that is of covering all the True visible Glory of Christianity in the Christian Empire is hereby set viz. until the First Trumpet For till all was sealed no
Wind could stir when therefore the first blasting Trumpet sounded all true Christian Glory was cover'd shut and seal'd and Apostate Christianity alone in any splendid publick Appearance could be hurt 6. At this very joynt of Time upon the Christian Empire is grafted a Pre-Appearance of the Glory of the New Jerusalem in the innumerable Palm-bearing Company 7. That Glorious Kingdom is notwithstanding the sixth Seal open'd apparently stay'd and estopped in sealing the 144000 of Gods Servants that the Glory of Christ in them could not appear For the Glory of a King is in the Multitude of his People the sealing therefore this square Israelitish Apostolical Number is the sealing and estoppage of the Kingdom it self The seventh Seal is the last Portion of this sealed Time and it keeps its hold on all future Time till the Book and Kingdom are resign'd In which the Visum or Thing seen was the seven Angels that stood before God to whom were given seven Trumpets and these Angels preparing themselves to sound till they just began to sound make up the Representation of this Seal The State of Christs Kingdom is to be understood 1. By the Silence as Characteristick a Note as any of the former Voices For in the structure of this Divine Prophecy the symbols are not only drawn and taken from the Events but He that both manages the Events by his supream Power and erects the Schemes upon them hath design'd provided and contriv'd so much of Event and Symbol one for another that it is a great Symbol that there is no more of such or such Event That while it looks as if it were a Reason why the Symbol goes no further because the Event goes no further It is even yet a Symbol through the admirableness of this Mystick Prophecy that just then and there where the Event ceases the Cessation of the Event comes in the place where that Cessation may create a Symbol And this could be no way thus modelled but by so supream an Authour who is not only the Artificer of the Symbols but the Opifex the absolute Operator of the Events themselves The Reason why the living Creatures spoke no more after the Fourth Seal was not only because there were but Four living Creatures but also because the Pure Apostolical Ministry there ceas'd The Reason why the Souls cryed under the Altar was not only because the Martyrdomes under the Pagan Empire were then compleated That all of that Roll might joyn in that appeal to God but because that was the most Pure and Excellent Voice the Church had then left to speak to God in the Voice of Martyrs Blood that when they were dead yet spoke for after this the Church spoke no more so as to be heard till after the Apostacy nor did the four living Creatures or twenty four Elders appear any more after this Seal till then c. 11. 20. And this Cry was tim'd just before that amazing change in the World that Constantines Conversion produc'd The Reason why an Angels Voice remarqu'd the sixth Seal except only as that so wonderful Event of the Desolation of Heathenism spoke it self was because the Kingdom of Christ was greater in the sealing of so many of his Servants to be hidden under the Antichristian Kingdom then that very Conversion of Constantine which as it let out the Kingdom of Christ so far as in an Emblem let out the Apostacy and Antichristian Kingdom also by accident that just then the 144000 were seal'd and the Woman took her Flight into the Wilderness Lastly the Reason why Silence and Prayers without any audible Voice solemnize this Seal is because the pure Service was reducing to the silent private Prayers of the measured Temple Altar and its Worshipers and the publick Tammith Daily or continual Pure Worship was about to be taken away by the Gentiles Intrusion into the outward Court Chap. 11. 1. Compar'd with Chap. 8. 1. Yet at this Time the Worship was both publick and pure in Gods Account and the Prayers of all Saints came up as Incense before him and the Prosecution the Kingdom opened in all the Seals had made against Heathenism was completed in Theodosius's Famous Victory against it imported in the scatter'd Altar-Incens'd Fire of his and all Christians memorializ'd Prayer in the midst of the Battel with Eugenius upon which followed Voices Thunderings Lightnings and an Earthquake the usual Symbols in this Prophecy of all the Acquists and Prevalencies of Christs Kingdom So the State of the Empire was during this Time a State of Respite Quiet Peace or Victoriousness and Greatness under the Favour of the Precept given to the four Angels that held the four Winds which Precept was yet in full Force and Vertue But all this was but for an Half-hour an imperfect decurtated Time seiz'd and surpriz'd from its Perfection as the Beast's Times have been and much more shall be yet within the Half time The Purity of Worship was surpris'd by the Apostacy the Kingdom of Christ by the Antichristian Kingdom being immediately in Preparation The Glory and Peace of the Empire no sooner vindicated from Paganism but merg'd in Antichristianism and so pursued by Vengeance that punish'd the former in the latter and so also made way by a high mysterious Counsel of Justice for the Antichristian King while it destroy'd the Antichristianiz'd Empire Now the just Time of the whole Course of the Seals opened from the last half Week I estimate at 400 Years For the Decency of the Type of sealed Time it is indeed given in no numeral Account Even as the seven Thunders seal'd are ever after conceal'd and under the Name and explicite Series of seven Thunders never open'd and yet as we shall see produc'd in the seven Voices So this sealed Time and of this seventh Seal ending may be understood 1. By comparing that great opening of the Kingdom of Christ at the first Seal in the Apostolical Preaching and the magnificent Appearance of it in the sixth Seal in Constantine's Conversion and except that short Nubecle that little Cloud of Julian's Apostasie all along the Christian Empire to Theodosius's Death Parallels to each of which nothing appears throughout the Time either in Common or Ecclesiastick History wherein the Christian Church is concerned as shewing Christ's Kingdom 2. By comparing all along the 2300 Ev. and Mor. the 75 of the Word going forth the 490 of the Weeks the 1260 of the Witnesses and its concurrent Numbers and the 75 of the Voices and Vials we have and shall farther find the sealed Time determin'd to 400 Years and ending at 437 when the Trumpets began to sound which ought to be shewn 3. By the Signature of the half Time of the Churches Purity and of the Western Roman Empires Duration before the Vacancy at which Vacancy it enter'd in the New and last In Augustulus form viz. the Bestian we may compute the Sealed Time This I account given by the Voice in the midst of the
be deriv'd into it and so make the much greater River and having made their way as so united some Leagues the Old River its Name and Memory are swallow'd up in the New so are the Gentiles forty two months merg'd in the Forty two months of the Beast and both coextend the Twelve hundred sixty days and no more SECT II. Of the two Communities and their two-fold state described within this Line of Time viz. The Church of Christ and its Sufferings the Kingdom of the Beast and its Tyranny shewing also there must be Season or intimate Time within Time at large I Have thus far settled the General Sciagraphy or Land-Scaph of this Prophetical Line of Time and shall now endeavour to make a farther penetration into the understanding of it and its several Characters by enquiry into its signification its extent in every one of these Characters and the Balance of every one of them each with the other and that not by an over-critical restraint of the following Disscourse to every Head but in such a communication of the Extent the balance of the Characters one with another that the most perfect knowledge of the whole may arise from them together as they most naturally fall one into the other It is then to be known in the Second General There are two states of Things and two kinds of Personages Second General and in successive Communities and Incorporations each of them are to be found both which appertain to this Line of Time and the Characters of Time are distinctly suited to each viz. to the tyranny of that King the Scripture-Prophecy calls the Beast and his Gentiles and to the Sufferings of the true Church and Servants of God under that Tyranny The whole mass of Time is therefore divided into the Time of the Night under the Conduct of the Moon the Governess as hath been said of the Night and into the Time of the Day and the Light under the Government of the Sun the Prince of the Day And this is agreeable to that long Line of Time Dan. 8. 14. viz. The twenty three hundred Evening-Morning for so they are expressed in the Hebrew that while the twenty three hundred notes by such a number the length of the space the Evening-Morning is all but one Evening and one Morning and so it is call'd The Vision of the Evening and of the Morning verse 26. As then it is called the Vision of the Evening and the Morning so the Evening is but One and the Morning but One. As they are 2300 Evening-Morning ver 14. it is signified the lesser portions of Time are taken out of that great Number Again As they are One Evening and One Morning it speaks the Time One continued Evening with a bright Morning at the end of it As they are twenty three hundred Evening-Morning it signifies so many Nights and Days or natural Nycthemers or prophetical Years in which the Children of darkness take the Evenings or Night under the Moon and the Children of Light have the Mornings or Dayes for their portion under the Sun of Righteousness with which the Church is cloath'd and hath the Moon even when it seems most to have the Ascendent under its Feet but their Morning or Day does not appear in its Brightness till All night's past and the bright Morning-Star shall appear The whole Mass of Time I say then or the Time Times Half Time is distributed into twelve hundred sixty dayes twice nam'd but can be but one and the same Twelve hundred and sixty and twice forty two months which taken as Lunar Time and single cannot be equal to Twelve hundred sixty dayes or so much Solar Time and taken double exceeds it and therefore must as hath been said and shall be prov'd coalesce and knit one into another as a due Point and so may be Two forty two Months and this as proper to the Children of the Night must be peculiar to the Beasts Tyranny and the Days distinct to the Children of Light and their Holy Martyry or Testimony though under Sufferings and Death it self The first of these or the Tyranny of the Beast is expressed by changing Laws and Times and wearing out the Saints of the most High by accomplishing to scatter the power of the Holy People by the Gentiles treading the Court and the Holy City under foot whereby the Tammith viz. the daily or continual Publick Service of God is taken away by making War with the Witnesses and Saints the Womans Seed and overcoming and killing them as may be seen by a compare of Dan. c. 7. c. 8. c. 11. c. 12. and Apocal. c. 11. c. 12. c. 13. The second State of Things or the Sufferings of the Church and Servants of God is expressed by the Witnesses and Servants of God worn out given into the Hand of the little Horn or Beast for he is call'd both Dan. 7. v. 8. 12. 25. compar'd lying dead cast down stamped upon scattered the Witnesses in Sackcloth and the Woman in the Wilderness so as to be hid from the Face of the Serpent All which appears in the places fore-cited Now that we may see how these States and so the Characters of Time are Implex'd and Enfolded one within the other First the Time Times Half Time are the common Womb and Continent of the whole Time And this Character is therefore given first Dan. 7. 25. And that it might be the more observable it is given again the second time Dan. 12. 7. And then to give a farther notice to it it is given a third time in the Revelation Apoc. 12. 14. But because the just space and duration of time times semi time cannot be concluded certainly by themselves they are slid into twelve hundred sixty dayes lying as I have said in the Bosome of twelve hundred ninety dayes as the just size and exact standard of the whole Time so that in its utmost Extent It and all its Characters must be equal and they can neither exceed nor fall short of Twelve hundred sixty Prophetical Days or Years that is neither the Time Times Semi or Half Time nor the three Dayes and a half which are but other words as we shall see for the Three Times and a Half Nor the twice Forty two Months can be either longer or shorter than the Twelve hundred sixty Years because therefore Fourty two Months of Lunar Time as they ought to be interpreted as hath been shewn are not equal to twelve hundred sixty Days or Years and that twice Forty two Months will much more exceed therefore the Forty two Months twice given must be two Forty two Months which by the Characters we shall be guided to we shall find at an exact Point coalescing or uniting into One as hath been already said And because Time Times Semi Time are both as long and as broad as the twelve hundred and sixty dayes and yet have a more pregnant Intimate part viz. the Season within the Time in
Conversions to Christianity though so great as to be a very strong Argument of its Truth were small in comparison of what this shall be for the Mistery of Iniquity began early to work Ephesus the Type of the Apostolical Church left its first love as soon as the Apostles went off the World and notwithstanding all the sufferings of the Primitive Christians under the Type of Smyrna yet a Synagogue of Satan an authoritative Ecclesiastick Apostasie then overshaded it till in the times figur'd by Pergamus all was cover'd with the Throne of Sathan a Supremacy of Apostacy and so things went on and they are not yet recover'd in the Best Christian Churches but they shall be after the space of ten prophetical Days that is years to that degree that the Kingdoms of this World shall be proclaim'd to be the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ and so things shall go on amain to the Restitution of all things as God hath spoken by his Prophets since the World began the Lord will hasten all this in his own time and if it be wonderful in our Eyes should it be therefore wonderful in Gods The Witnesses shall then put off their Sack-cloth the everlasting Gospel shall be preached to every People and Language the Monarchy of Christ Jesus shall be an Vniversal Monarchy and the Tenfold Principality the ten Kings shall fall perfectly off from the Beast and the City that is born up on high by it that hath so long reign'd over the Nations and Kings of the Earth shall fall Stay then you Atheists and Despisers of all Religion and asswage the high Atheistical Humour see whether God hath not call'd the end and declar'd it from the beginning and declar'd all along the great things to come that you and all may know that he is God have so much Patience as to see what these ten years will produce at their end but if you will not be perswaded take your fill of Atheism and your farewel also for the very Air you breath in will be too bright and hot for Atheism to live any longer in Let us considering at what Door this fatal Apostasie Remark 2 enter'd even at a departure from the Apostolical twelve and so grew up to its number 666 let us I say fear the least remove in Doctrine Worship and Practice from the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles or from Christ the chief corner stone We need not so much mind combating Parties in Religion by names hateful or reproachful to them much less those little snatches at them by trifling Reflections upon them let us center our selves upon Truth it self in the word of God and grow in Grace and in the Knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and that will secure us from this Error of the Wicked and from falling from our own stedfastness this will cut off Offence from all but those who are resolved to take Offence this will preserve us in due regard to Authority if we dissent from it in matters of Religion and yet we shall preserve our Religion while we keep close to those Images of things Scripture hath given us and observe those notes of Time it hath fitted to them and suffer History which is every mans Priviledge to read to hear or to know even by the Law of Nature to declare what fell out and this we cannot be deny'd since God hath furnished us in all things and commands us to search his word and to hear and read the Words of his Prophesie and count the numbers he hath given with Wisdom and Vnderstanding and his Ministers are to expound to us and then we are to search and try whether those things are so or not and in all things receiv'd from the word of God we know and all know it is more reasonable to obey God than Men. These are two things in which the Happiness and Welfare of Man consists for this World and for that to come both which he hath made as certain and evident to us as the Light One and the First and Principal is true Religion fix'd in his Word with the present Consent of Natural Conscience and the Awes of that even whether we will or no. If we would but rest in the clear plain and undoubted Truths of it and not be hasty of removing from them till we have full Evidence from them to conduct us farther into Divine Knowledge without suffering our own Fancy to mislead us or our Credulity and sudden Belief of others to hurry us according to their Impositions The Second is Loyalty or Subjection to the Sovereign Power set over us by God and what that is we may easily know For the Sword of Justice is Supremely in the Hands of it and the Government of that World in which we live that the Disorders of Mankind may not swallow up it self depends upon it It carries before it a Terrour to evil works and a praise to them that do well Upon which account we must be subject not only for wrath but for Conscience sake And when this is in the Hand of a Prince whose Ancestors have been Princes throughout many Ages when the Succession is Clear and Lineal we can have no greater Assurance The Power that is is ordain'd of God And such blessed be God is the Case of our Nation that we can have no possible Scruple Now our Subjection is clear what it ought to be even in all things but our Religion whether Reveal'd or Natural for that is Gods and to be rendered to him onely All things else are Caesar's A Christian as a Christian can have no Scruple or Doubt in any thing else whatever it be This he can by no means submit It is to impeach Sovereignty in its highest Orb even as it is to obey a Subordinate Magistrate sent by the King against the King and his Supremacy But in all things else he needs as a Christian ask no Question for Conscience sake What men may as men as the Subjects of such Laws such Establishments as every Nation hath peculiar to it self insist upon I leave to those Laws I know as Christians the rendering our Lives our Estates if call'd for by God and the Edicts of Princes cannot hurt our Consciences but rendering our Religion to any but God and his Word will So these two things Religion and Loyalty can never clash can never interfere for to deny the surrender of our Religion can never hurt our Loyalty for to be Religious according to the Word of God onely and Natural Conscience guided by that is the highest Loyalty This is all the Loyalty Man can require to render All things else without Resistance and to Love Honour Pray for the Prince that requires all our Loss God will recompence in the Resurrection of the Just So a Christian hath no need to be Disloyal if he understand his Religion aright It is not our Loyalty to our Prince to be of our Prince's Religion though it be right
it is our Loyalty to God in the first place so it is not Disloyalty not to be of the Princes Religion if it be not according to the Word of God when we render All but our Religion He can require And this we need not fear to do because we cannot lose by it our Reward will be great from our Father who is in Heaven and as Christians we should be asham'd to deny it but in Religion even to the least Ceremony of it except determined by natural decency or order we have but one Father and Master God and Christ and here he hath neither Vicar nor Vice-gerent but his Spirit in his Word We should be content in this time of the Apostasie with a Remark 3 mean Condition upon the account of Religion not to seek Grandeur and Honour upon that Title If God casts it on us we should improve it to his Glory and the support of the Service and Servants of Christ it is the Beast and his Adherents that carry the Pomp and Greatness of this World in a Religious Equipage it is even a suspition upon what is high and stately and in Opulency by Christianity for Christs Witnesses are in Sack-cloch it is the Time of the Delay of his Kingdom and all his Servants are with him in the Patience of it they ought not to ravish Glory and surprise Dignity before the time but to stay for it till the appearance of Jesus Christ the 1260 Days of Mourning and of the Church in the Wilderness are not yet run out the Beast is yet in Power the Tenthliness of the City is not yet fallen the Kingdom of Christ is not yet proclaimed It is no wonder there is yet so great a Rent and Division Remark 4 in Christian Religion that any thing unreasonable or a frame of things most contrary to it bears up against all the urgencies of Scripture and Reason and will not be bafled nor ashamed but vouches high and pretends aloft so it should be that Prophesie may be fulfilled The Beast and his Adherents are obstinate to the last even when the Elevation of things against them shall be much higher then now when Evidences from Heaven shall be much more sensible they blaspheme and repent not Christianity from so long an Antiquity and the profession of it shields and defends their Pretensions and carries a shade over them even wherein they depart from it and most Apostatize this keeps up the Controversie and perpetuates the Dispute But within a Time a short Time it will be decided it will come to that publick Declaration of the Witnesses Ascention of their Song before the Throne the positive Denunciation If any man worship the Beast and his Image He shall drink of the wrath of God and c will put an end to all Dispute Revel 14. 9. In the mean time let not any pretence stagger us The man of sin ought to sit in the Temple of God his seat then must be founded in a profession of the true Religion his Antiquity signifies nothing for he ought to be a Beast of forty two months of years or above twelve hundred years standing His Pretences from any thing said or done before that 1260 how early soever if it be not found evident in Scripture is of no avail for the Mystery of Iniquity the Womb out of which He came was at work and in a Mystery so secret so cunning as not to be discern'd by many good men and all to bring him to what he was and is the Spirit of Antichrist was then in the World It is no wonder Princes continue so devoted to him and his City he calls a Church the words of God are not yet fulfilled concerning him but they shall consider and change their Minds when God puts it into their Hearts and therefore we ought earnestly to pray for them whatever their Perswasions are now that God would continue their Lives for they shall then be Instruments in his hand that change so near approaching shall be most orderly most regularly by Princes themselves induced by Evidences from Heaven of an extraordinary nature God will not be help'd herein but by his own Vicegerents whom he hath appointed whom he hath ordain'd no Sedition Rebellion may grow from hence It is to be quieted appeas'd and even rooted up by this Doctrine even as it is utterly condem'd by it for God will appear and Princes with him But yet on this nor on any other Account can there be a Reconciliation a Composition with this false state of Christianity there may be such Attempts for there will be a Synagogue of Satan rising a-new at the very approach of Christ's Kingdom before the end yet of the 1260 Days It appears as if there would be so for Philadelphia the best State of the Christian Church before the New Jerusalem and with which it united shall receive Acknowledgment from such a Synagogue that Christ hath lov'd it Revel 3. 9. But this Representation of Bestianism obstinate impenitent to the Last in the Body of it as it is the decisive Argument and beyond all Volumes of Dispute because it is divine perpendicular down-right swift and sudden in its Determination so it shews the impossibility of meeting half-way accepting Terms to any good Effect We know not what may be between this present Time though but a Remnant and the end of the 1260 Days There may be an Eye of the Witnesses kill'd and lying dead three days and a half a return of former Darkness in some parts at least I apprehend it not in this Nation yet God only knoweth it is not so far reveal'd so far as I have found but I hope not There may be a Synagogue of Satan a Project of Compounding this I more fear but let us obtain and maintain a full Victory over the Image the Mark the Name and the Number of the Name But it is certain it is but ten prophetical Days and the Witnesses shall not only every where rise but every where come out of their Sackcloath out of which the true Witnesses of God are no where yet come Then they shall for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it So many certain Notes Characters and Boundaries of Time as I have drawn together in the compute of this Line of Time with it self and that are given as Assistants to it though not immediately of the Essence and Body of it can be no more by chance than many Pictures exactly resembling several Persons pertaining to a Family and found in the Mansion of such a Family and at such Times when such Persons were known to be so appertaining to it can be by chance Forc'd they are not for things themselves conspire Fancyful and Arbitrary they are not for they cannot be chang'd or remov'd at Pleasure nor any like them made If then they are truly Scriptural and Divine How certainly shall they be fulfilled in their Season All counter-Appearances can signifie no more than the Israelites severer
still preserv'd on the other side that the Imperial Torch however Flaming yet falling into the Water would be soon quenched while a burning Mountain resisted the contrary Element so Rome liv'd but the Emperour dy'd Rome Burns as a Mountain in the Sea and though it turn'd the Waters into Blood yet it surviv'd to ride aloft upon a new Universality The Flaming Taper did hurt while it flam'd but falling into Water must needs be short-liv'd And it was to dye that another sort of Principality might succeed it upon which Romes Grandeur a City Reigning over the Kings of the Earth might have the Guaranty of Prophecy even as of Providence to secure it for a longer time than by all Computation it had made the Epoch of Vrbs Condita or it had been Built I am yet to state justly and more at large what the Dragon Enquiry 5 means and how his Persecution of the Woman can agree with the Explanation of the Trumpets seeing both must be at the beginning of the Line because then was the Woman's first flight into the Wilderness when the Dragon persecuted her from whence arise these two Doubts How can these Trumpets that are the Alarms of Divine Doubt 1 Judgment and Displeasure upon the Antichristianiz'd Empire as was before declared be the Dragons Persecution of the Woman When the Beast or his Gentiles have the whole Time Doubt 2 Times Half Time and so the 1260 of the Womans Wilderness-state under their Domination and Tyranny does not the Dragons Persecution of the Woman and then of the Seed contradict the Assertion of this Time to the Beast That these two Doubts may be substantially resolved and so as to clear the whole progress of this Time with Relation to the Beast we must understand aright concerning the Dragon for a mistake in that confounds the whole order of the Prophecy The Dragon then as it is presented Revel 12. 3. with Seven Heads and Ten Horns hath a double meaning One proper to it as the sixth or Imperial Head of the Roman Empire which headship is always accounted to the whole Roman Beast in this Prophecy But when the Christian Emperour arose That Head became wounded and by degrees the Power and Conduct of it Transmigrated from the sixth to the seventh Head and Eighth King as is to be shewn upon the Symbols of the Beast But in all this it is of great Influence to the right understanding of this Prophecy to be known there is a more abstract signification of Draconism or of the Dragon viz. the Old Serpent deceiving the Nations into the Worship of himself under the disguise of those many Idol Gods and Demons they sacrificed and did service to when therefore this Idolatry and Demonolatry was demolished by Constantine and the Christian Emperours and the only True God in Jesus Christ and his Kingdom acknowledg'd at the Head of the Roman Empire Satan that Old Serpent was cast down from Heaven and Christ the manly Birth caught up thither Satan therefore as an Intelligence within at the Head and Spring of all is to be understood in this Dragon Revel 12. 7. The Roman Cesars as having the Imperial Monarchick Government of so great a part of the World at the Birth of Christ so along in the first Times of Christianity lay indeed in the midst of Nations and People and watched all the effects of the Kingdom of Christ and were ready to devour the manly Birth that was to rule the Nations with a rod of Iron and who had right to do so at his Resurrection and all along since But at the Time this Cesarian Dragon was acted by that Satan that invisible Spiritual Dragon and his Angels who made War against Christ who carried the Cesarian Dragon in a perpetual Hostility to the Kingdom of Christ and also most devoted to Idolatry While therefore Devils were worshipped under those several Names of Jupiter Mars c. and an Idolatrous Power was at the Head of the Roman Power Satan is accounted in Heaven and the rather so because the Title of Satan is not reckon'd purely of Fraud and Usurpation but By Permission and not only so but even in regard of Justice and divine displeasure against the Apostacy of humane Nature as it were of Commission so that he was overcome and cast down by the Blood of the Lamb as the true meritorious Cause appeasing that Wrath satisfying that Justice expiating the World by the Word of his Testimony as the Grand instrumental Cause and by the Martyrdom of Christians who loved not their Lives unto Death as a subordinate dispose of God in honour to his Justice against the horrible degeneracy of Mankind From hence whatever Power acted by Sathan to an aspiring to a supreme Residency in the Fourth or Roman Monarchy in the days of which Christ's Kingdom was foretold to be set up and of all Right ought to have been so speaking as to the Duty and Obligation of all Mankind because of his Sovereign Resurrection after his Death and Sacrifice of himself for the Life of the World and that then the Roman Monarchy was the Monarchy of the Oecumene or habitable Earth in Symbol of Prophecy whatever Power therefore did not then acknowledge that Kingdom nor that Truth of Christianity any way either seated in or attempting that Monarchy is under a Character of Draconick the Notion of which came into especial date since that Resurrection of Christ and his Right thereby to an universal Monarchy at which Time the Roman Cesareate arisen to that universal Monarchy from the Time of the more publick Notices of the Right of Christ inspir'd by Sathan with a Draconick Subtilty and watchfulness waited to devour that princely Birth of which Pharaoh's Cruelty to Gods typical first-born lying as a Dragon in the Egyptian Nile was a Type and was therefore by the most notable signancy of the Symbol invested with the Draconick Title But when the Acknowledgment of Jesus as Christ and Lord was made by the Christian Roman Emperour Constantine and his Successors Christ was then in eminent Type caught up to the Throne of God never to be dethron'd as we see he is not to this day notwithstanding the Combat of the Dragon and his Angels by Julian Argobastes the Roman Senate and others with Michael and his Angels But for all this the Woman the Church was persecuted by the rolling of the barbarous Nations upon that Empire who were Enemies to the Profession of Christianity at the first and so to the Kingdom of Christ and their Invasion upon the Rights of the Empire as Christs and on the Roman Church as eminent in the Profession of Christianity and having produc'd the Christian Emperour was both as design'd by Satan and reputed by God a Draconick Persecution of the Woman even as after the Mahometan Flood which came out of the Dragon's mouth to have swallowed up Christianity and that Empire together as it were wherever it could be found was on the very
same Account a Persecution of the Dragon for the Mahometans were from their very original Adversaries to this Sovereignty of the Lord 's Anointed substituting an Imposture of Sovereignty and Prophetism in the place of it and all this within the universal Roman Monarchy the Propriety of Christ Their Deluge of Power and People impetuously overflowing with a false Religion is then most justly call'd a Flood out of Sathan's mouth acting as a Dragon according to the Notion of abstract Draconism and so raging and foaming with hostile Opposition to the Kingdom of Christ notwithstanding some seeming Acknowledgment of him in Mahometanism as a Prophet but truckling under that infamous false Prophet This then being the first Account of Draconism it is very easie to give Satisfaction to the first Doubt for the same things that are remonstrated as the Judgments of God as permitted and order'd by him in his holy Government of the World and Execution of Justice and Judgment upon Offenders are also most maliciously and hellishly negotiated by Satan as is most evident in the History of David's numbring the People that same misdoing of David is attributed to the displeasure of God and to Sathan as may be seen by comparing 2 Sam. 24. 1. and 1 Chron. 21. 1. yea in that different Case viz. the Transaction of our Lord's Sufferings Satan enter'd into Judas to embolden him to do what supreme Wisdom and Goodness had contriv'd to redeem lost Man It is therefore nothing strange the Holy Angels and Sathan met in these Trumpets each in their Place and Orb that while the Holy Angels sounded an Alarm to the Instruments of the divine Vengeance Sathan had his Contrivance to persecute the Woman both by the Barbarians and Mahometans But besides this Draconism of profess'd Enemies to Christianity there is the Draconism of the Beast or the Dragon living and being worshipped in the Beast or Antichristianism beginning by the other Beast who is afterwards call'd the false Prophet speaking as a Dragon which was the Synagogue of Sathan in the first growth and his Throne in the farther Growth when the Beast came to his Image and Number and the depths of Sathan or his Government in his ripest Age and thus the Dragon gave his Seat or Throne and great Authority to the Beast that is Sathan the Supreme Dragon in the idolatrous and bloody Cesareate now became Residentiary in the Beast and conveyed both the Hostility to the Kingdom of Christ the Idolatry and the Bloodiness into the Beast and by his Negotiation under divine Permission order'd the very Seat and Power of the Imperial Cesareate to the Beast as the Heir both of his Idolatry Enmity to Christ's Kingdom and persecutory Tyranny and for the sake of all these in all Revel 16. 13. which Regards it may well be esteem'd Draconism to the last And God in just Indignation brings upon this Serpentinism of this Beast a Counter-Serpentinism of Infidelism a Counter Draconism for serpens serpentem devorans fit Draco as before explain'd But yet the Draconism of the Beast is a diverse Draconism its Hostility to the Kingdom of Christ is not by down-right Force and Resistance of open War to the Name of Christianity but by way of Surprise out of his Hand and held as in his Right and to his Glory and yet in such real Opposition to him that he hath sworn His Kingdom shall not come till that be at the full end of Time Times and half Time Its Idolatry is an Idolatry as it were consecrating it self to the Honour of Christ and is therefore as in it self so in the prophetical Symbol full in all its heads of the Names of Blasphemy under this Head all the former Heads are flower'd and as it were powder'd with the Names of Blasphemy all former gross Idolatries and Demonolatries are dissembled under True Religion and Heathenism under Christianity or more truly True Religion and Christianity are Travestied and Burlesqu'd into Heathenism and Paganism and therefore it is not Simple-Idolatry but Blasphemy as we shall see But yet notwithstanding all this Sathan is but on Earth for the Beast holding the Kingdom as in the Right of Christ Christ thereby is still acknowledg'd to be on the Throne and in that the true God Holy Angels and Saints are thus blasphem'd by Antichristian Idolatries and that Sathan and wicked Spirits are abandon'd and detested in Profession generally though his Kingdom hath sometimes portentously broken out in Acknowledgments as it were to the Devil himself by some of the Antichristian Cheifs His Seat is not then as before as in a Heaven he therefore in a Rage dashes one part of his Kingdom against another the Barbarian against the Antichristian the Mahometan against the Bestian because he as a subtil Computator of his own Time knows It can be but short compar'd with above four thousand Years Reign before and that as in Heaven too in the Idolatry perform'd to Devils viz. Fallen Angels or Damned Souls And for so great a Pledge of the future Fall of Sathan is that Doxology and Song of Praise concerted in Heaven Rev. 12. 10. as also in Prevision of the full Glory of Christ's Kingdom decreed to him by God from the infinite value of his own Blood and as a Retribution for the Sufferings of his Servants maugre all Sathan's Accusations in which the Accuser himself was condemn'd and cast out and notwithstanding the succeeding Antichristianism And from all this arises a full Solution to the second Doubt and not only a Solution but an admirable Harmony and Consent of the whole Prophetical Symbolism For when Satan fell from Heaven in that desolation of Heathenism not only by the Christian Empire of Constantine but the perfect Victory over it by Theodosius When the Devil and his Angels after the War in Heaven were finally cast down A Victory obtained by the Incense offered with the Revel 8. 3. Prayers of all Saints as a Signal of the Church yet continuing pure in the publick Worship and that then was so great Expectation of the Glory of Christs Kingdom as that Doxology exprsses now mention'd Now is the Kingdom of our Rev. 12. 10. God come At this very Moment to shew that though God was pleas'd to account the Church pure to the very moment it could in his Righteous Judgment be so accounted yet I say to shew its Purity was at a very low Ebb and that it had long wan'd as also to shew that God had design'd to permit a very different state of Things to the Kingdom of Christ the very next news of the Church is that the two wings Western Eastern of the Great Roman Eagle had convey'd the Church the True Church into the wilderness that Rev. 12. 14. it could not be found This had been mention'd before assoon as ever the manly v. 6. Birth was caught up to the Throne of God but that was only in preparation and to match with the other Symbols But
it protected the Infancy or low beginning of that seventh Head as will be seen under the beginning of the forty two Months to which it hath led us From the whole then these two Things arise to our main Purpose 1. That this other Beast must be the whole prophetick Office of the VVestern and Eastern Roman Empire under its Superiors or Hierarchy so far as it was grown Apostatical Antichristian and Pseudo prophetick or into false Prophecy from the very beginning of the Apostacy at 437 to the end of it at 1697 and beyond that in what State soever it shall be till it is cast into the Lake with the Beast With this Exception before the Beasts coming to the Image and Number of it self this Beast hath the Regency and so the Type of a Beast after that it subsides into bare false Prophetism but such as is inseparable from the Beast and the Beast from it so that they rule together but the Supremacy is in the Beast and they fall and are cast into the Lake together 2. The Action of this other Beast till the forty two months is its shaping its own Bestianism both into the Body under it and its Superiority over its own Body It s speaking as a Dragon and governing the Gentiles who are call'd the Earth and them that dwell therein herein exercising the Power of the wounded Beast before him viz. the former Paganish Beast that with all its Heads and Populacy according to the prophetical Emblem liv'd in a wounded State for want of a Bestian Head or Prince from the Empire becoming Christian till the Antichristian King became its Head at the beginning of the forty two Months And this other Beast guided them rul'd and conducted them as paganishly affected to a new Antichristian Paganism in preparation for the seventh Head without whose Succession the Grand Beast had been extinct In all which by Head is meant Head in Power It may be objected against this whole State of Things Object That here is no view of that Arrian Heresie and Persecution which could not be untaken in the Notices of this Prophecy This Prophecy is not to be suppos'd to take notice of All Answer the disorders in the Profession of Christianity any more than of all the Governments or Changes of Government in the World It minds its own Pursuit runs in its own Channel which was the fourth Monarchy and in that the Antichristian Surprisal of the Kingdom of Christ after the Destruction of pure Paganism so that Paganism first under the Pagan Empire Antichristian Paganism punish'd with the Barbarian and Mahometan Inundations from which the True Church was hidden and its Seed persecuted under the Bestian Kingdom is the only Symmetral Even Proportionate Course of this Prophecy till the end of the 1260 Days I come now to the last Thing necessary before the Entry into the Beasts forty two Months that is to settle the State of the Witnesses as in its general view under the whole 1260 Days and more particularly in this Interval from the Apostacy beginning unto the Beasts forty two Months The Witnesses as hath been already declar'd are the Seed of the VVoman the True Church who keep the Commandments of God and hold the Testimony the VVitness the Martyry of Jesus These are in Sackcloth as the best of their State the whole 1260 Days but their Time is distinguish'd by three great Pairs of VVitnesses in the Old Testament whose History explains the varying Types of their Condition Joshua and Zerubbabel Elijah and Elisha Moses and Aaron The first is of Joshua and Zerubbabel who though in mournful Garments as Joshua and in union with him Zerubbabel is represented Zech. 3. 1. c. yet They were as two Olive Branches to the Church of the Jews which was at that Time the Candlestick standing before the God of the whole Earth And this is the first Representation of the VVitnesses for they are also the two Olive Trees and the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the Earth Revel 11. 6. compar'd with Zech. c. 4. And it comprises the certain Assurance and Expectation of the New Jerusalem and its glorious Sanctuary even as the typical Temple and its Jerusalem were so far settled by those two great personages But beyond that They had the Promises of the New Jerusalem State peculiarly made to them to Joshua Zech. 3. 7. places among the Angels standing by in that Vision as Attendants on Christ to Zerubbabel Haggai 2. 21. c. When that Overthrow of Kingdoms should be which could be no other than that at the seventh Vial. Zerubbabel shall be a Signet and to all God's People throughout the Prophecy of Zechar. the same Promises are confirmed and so to these two Witnesses The VVitnesses then at this Time by holy Doctrine pure VVorship unspotted Sanctity begin their Testimony and are truly Christian Prophets or Persons of a magistratical Character and Eminency or truly fit for such a Dignity and as the Sons of Oyl or anointed ones Zech. 4. ult They empty the golden Oyl into the two golden Candlesticks into the Souls of the Servants and People of God the Seed of the VVoman who from the beginning of the Apostacy to the end of it are Members and make up those two Churches Pergamus and Thyatyra which as I have shewn in its Place run parallel in Pergamus at the beginning and Thyatyra in the latter part with the whole Apostacy although the Church of Sardis first and Philadelphia at last do indeed undertake the Line drawn by the Churches through the whole Apocalypse before the Church of Thyatyra in its real Subsistence shall cease to bear that Type of the Christian Church it is appointed to sustain Now how admirably does this agree with the state of the true Christian Witnesses for some considerable space after the Apostacy beginning They did indeed put on Sackcloth in God's Account assoon as the Gentiles came into the holy ground with their unhallowed feet shod with Paganish Superstition But They at first and for some space of time rather emptied the golden Oyl out of themselves than were under Persecution and Sufferings They sent out the Holy Doctrine and chrystal Stream of Evangelical Truth The Worship of God they directed was transparent clear and pure without Paganish Mixtures and Ceremonies and the Conversation they preach'd and gave Example of was not foul ranck fetid but holy gracious pellucid of an excellent Odour and Fragrancy And although History is not just and sincere enough to give account hereof passing through the Feculencies of the beginning Apostacy and suffering under all its particular Injuries more than those of Time and obscur'd as under that cover'd State in which the Church now was yet we are not under a total want of such Monuments of the Witnesses Testimony But for the Corruptions they were to testifie against they are too notorious to be denied as such Beginnings of the Apostacy even at this very joynt of
convey us upon this Line this wonderful Line we have discoursed so long upon the Line of the 1260 Days with which the forty two Months of the Beast are now combin'd Prophecy will I say very speedily in the fifth Trumpet convey and set us upon a new Line of the Mahometan Hegira or Computation of Time so that we shall run upon it for the space of eight hundred and thirty Years together with the 1260 Days and with the Bestian Line comprehending in short the most Oecumenical and illustrious Points of History at that Time in the Universe viz. of the Bestian and the Mahometan Grassation or Invasion into the same kind of Universal Power and both upon the Account of Pseudo-Prophetism the due Observation of which will persuade us of the Divineness of this Prophecy and that we are upon the true Explication of it As it were then between the ending of the Time of the fourth and the beginning of the Time of the fifth Trumpet there was a loud Voice as of an Angels flying through the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that upper Region like the Voice of Thunder reaching down to the Earth and saying Woe Woe Woe to the Inhabiters of the Earth because of the Voices of the Angels that are yet to sound Now it were wonderful if merely by the chance of Imagination running such a Path so great and remarkable Configurations both of Prophecy and History should meet it so often just where it would choose and desire to be so met For at this very Time Gregory call'd the Great Bishop of Rome a Personage of so great Eminence for Vertue Learning and Eloquence declar'd aloud in his Epistles to the Emperour Mauricius and to John the Bishop of Constantinople So also to the Bishops of Alexand. and Antioch That Antichrist was near That the Title of Vniversal Bishop was a certain Indication of him That it was Pride to assume such a Title It was like Lucifer Son of the Morning ascending the heights of the Stars setting his Throne above the other Angels above the other Stars affecting to be like the Most High Now seeing no such could be fix'd in the Firmament or Heaven of the Gospel he must needs Fall How close then is this to the prophetick Language I saw a Star fall from Heaven or as Christ in a like case speaks I saw Satan fall as Lightning from Heaven as the Dragon fell but found in the Beast a Kingdom on Earth as before said Just as when Satan fell from Heaven he had a Kingdom assign'd him by the Divine Permission and Decree viz. God of this World Ruler of the Darkness of this World This Star who is the Son of Perdition whose coming is after the manner of Satan had the same in Proportion the Key of the bottomless pit is given to him that is permitted to him given judiciarily into his hand by God's wise and holy sufferance and over-rule of all things to his Glory This Fall then of this Star is like the Angels leaving their own Habitation their first Estate or true original Principality Jude v. 6. a Fall not like that of the Stars the Dragon swept down with his Tail or of the Star Wormwood an involuntary Fall a Fall from the Heaven of a political Order and Supremacy to a low State without Power but a Fall of Apostacy from his due Station a planetary Defection from his own Orb v. 16. into a Kingdom of the bottomless Pit to which Darkness is reserv'd for ever And whenever the Antichrist came the Beast rose out of the bottomless pit or which is the same this Star had fallen there must be then Woe Woe Woe for the Vengeance of God at the same time made him way and pursued him every Trumpet sounded against him The first was to hurt only the Revel 9. 4. Men that were not seal'd of which he was the Prince the second was upon those who were guilty of Murthers Sorceries v. 20. Thefts Idolatries The Woman whom the Beast carried was guilty of all these was impenitent in them although c. 11. v. 15. compar'd with c. 14. c. 15. c. 16. God gave her space to repent The Third Woe-Trumpet brought with it the Kingdom of Christ and the Destruction of Antichrist or the Bestian Kingdom so there was Woe Woe Woe on the Bestian Earth whenever Antichrist came Immediately after this Remonstrance of the Bishop Gregory the Bishop Boniface accepts from the parricidick Emperour Phocas this Vniversality so that in his sense Antichrist then came and the first Woe-Trumpet according to Prophecy is dated from his Fall What can be more wonderful as Gregory was at all a good Man his Prediction must be own'd to a better Spirit and to the Knowledge Divine Prophecy gave him and to the Impression it had made upon him As he was himself part of that Body upon which his own Prediction ran it was like Nebuchadnezzar's prophetick Dream of Dan. 2. the Ruine of that Image by the Stone of which he was the head of Gold or like the Prophecy of Caiaphas a very bad Joh. 11. 51. part of which himself was concern'd in however his eminent Station gave the Rebound of his Prediction as through the World And the time of Rome lying so low is noted most emphatically by Prophecy viz. Rome without any eminent Light of Government and then follows such an immediate Appearance of Antichrist according to the Signal given of him by that Bishop of Rome and according to Prophecy the Star Fell. This is in some sense I may say but too remarkable in so plainly declaring who is Antichrist and that his Kingdom holds by the Key of the bottomless Pit It is true the Beast had been in his forty two months above a hundred Years yet as a Tyrant prophetically declar'd to be a Tyrant is not yet so in his Infancy or Under-state no more than Hazael was a Tyrant when Elisha told him what 1 Kin. 8. 11. he as such a Tyrant should do no more was the Beast such a Beast while he was under the Inscription Is not So that though he was a Beast by way of Succession and some presagious Actions He might yet not be a falling Star till he now fell and receiv'd this Key for the whole Bestian Body or Succession is consider'd in the whole Beast not in its several Ages nor in the single Persons making it some better some worse all that enter its Composition are consider'd as one Beast in the prophetick Scheme in any Age in any Bestian Qualities more or less yea though so moderate as that they should only bear up the Title and maintain the Succession And this removes all possible Objection as thus Was he that had been a Beast so long a Star yet to Fall You see he might be so while he was the Beast Is not and yet not a falling Star for this fall prepar'd his rising out of the bottomless Pit and so
to shew himself a Beast whereas yet he could not appear so but must remain in his State Is not till this fall and after it too even till he came to his number that Prophecy might be fulfilled when he ascends out of this Abyss And though his fall was but to the Earth yet because instead of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven he pretended to he had only the Key of the bottomless Pit he is justly said to rise out of it for that he ascended what was it as the Apostle argues in a much better Case but that he descended first Ephes 4. 9. for seeing he rises to his Power by the Efficacy of his deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish by his sathanick Signs and Wonders by his excommunicational Thunders from beneath by which he affrights men downwards and that much of his Potentacy lies in the management of a false Hell of his own founding It is very proper to him to ascend out of the bottomless Pit and the Power of the Keys he assumes is very ominous to him for what he calls Keys is this one Key of the bottomless Pit and so in just derision of him he carries this device in Prophecy The Key of the bottomless Pit was given him I confess The Patriark of Constantinople was the First in this Assumption the Emulation of which mov'd Gregory it is to be fear'd as a lower cause to so high an Exclamation but though he was First yet he was not to have the Key of the Abyss in Supremacy for Prophecy sees not as Man sees by degrees and as in parcels but at once it therefore calls him that fallen Star alone who was to have this Key although the other was a falling Star also and spake as a Dragon He is then and he alone He that hath under Sathan the Key of the bottomless Pit and though an Angel is call'd afterwards the Angel of the bottomless Pit whom we shall find in its due place very diverse from this Star who may seem to have a better right to this Key we shall yet find he was only a Warlike King of the Locusts under the Title of a Prophet the false Prophet Mahomet but was not could not be this Star whose fall must be from Heaven perpetual even as his aspiring Pretensions to Heaven are so continual as shall be further declared as one who once had a fixation in Heaven which Mahomet never had He that ascends out of the bottomless Pit is he that open'd it and let out the Smoke he opens it he lets out the Smoke out of which the Locusts came but against his own Intention he intended himself to ride in this Cloud as in an infernal Chariot alone but with the Smoke Sathan also ascended and became an Angel of the bottomless Pit in the King of the Locusts who were the Flood out of his Mouth propagating his Kingdom by both the Star and by the King of the Locusts The latter of which was principally a great Judgment of God on the Antichristian Star as shall be shewn at large In the mean Time we find the other Beast ministring to this delivery of the Key of the bottomless Pit under the decree and judicial Ordination of God For they made Trial for him of the Efficacy of the Lamb-like Horns joyn'd with the draconick Idolatry and Persecution and so exercis'd the Power of the first Beast before him while he as one and the chief Revel 13. among them look'd on They essayed the calling fire from Heaven and working lying Miracles in his sight to establish the Grandeur of false Prophecy they stirred up all to worship the first Beast viz. The Roman idolatrous Supremacy and to make an Image of Vniversality to it in such a Roman Catholick Supremacy as of the Vicar of Christ on Earth And even the Eastern Horn that aspired for it self above this Beast yet by approving the Idea by making the Experiment by assuming the Title provok'd and inkindled the Ambition of him who by the divine Decree had the Permission got the Possession and hath for many Ages wedg'd himself fast into it and left the other Horn leisure only to be angry at his defeat while his vain claim justifies the thing as lawful and desirable and therefore gave the occasion to the High sounding Voice of Gregory the Great And it is very observable on this very account the Divine Justice fell all along severely upon the Eastern Empire and Patriarchate by the two first woe-Trumpets especially at the taking of Constantinople and to this day lies heavy upon them so that as the Grecian Emperours gave first to the Constantinopolitan Patriarch and then to the Bishop of Rome this Antichristian Vniversality so most distinctly the Wrath of God was very dreadful upon both the Empire and the whole Hierarchy as so antichristianizing and so it continues and will so far conjoyn them in the Punishment of the Beast and false Prophet as they shall not divorce themselves from them by Repentance For this Prophecy looks upon both the Eastern and Western Hierarchy as one and the same Beast with two Horns under the same grand Beast and their People as one Body of Men Gentiles Inhabitants of the Antichristian Earth and Sea and as two Wings of the same Eagle And they all along are both punish'd in and with one another 'T is not the lesser Controversies among themselves concerning Primacy or some other matters that can dissolve the Antichristian Vnion wherein this Prophecy leaves them it must be sincere Repentance turning from Idolatry Superstition Enmity to the pure Religion and from Pride and Tyranny enjoyed only by one one of the Horns indeed for many years as most nearly allied to the Grand Beast but affected by both that must make that Wall of Partition that hath not yet been made between the Eastern and Western Antichristians or between any parts of each and their Antichristianism In the Interim from this very Time we are upon the Beast falling as a Star to the Antichristian Earth receives as Latin that is strictly Roman the Universality of both East and West as was always design'd by God to be so given or permitted and so by degrees enlightens Rome when all the Rulers of the Day and even of the Night were smitten gone down and set and now he begins to carry the Woman on high even at his first ascending and so gradually as he ascends to his Number And hereby the fallen Star appears to be the same Beast that rises out of the bottomless Pit to war with the Witnesses and therefore must be the same that wars with the Saints who are the Witnesses and who is led captive or taken by the Lamb and his Army of the faithful and true and goes into Perdition that is is cast into the Lake and so the same throughout And when he is so cast into the Lake an Angel of another Character does not fall but descends from Heaven
Wither of all the Greenness of Religion For so Scripture Prophecy both designs before-hand for and after derives from it self The Distribution of their dreadful Effects to a five months of Torment upon men like the stroke of a Scorpion while it was a vexation to understand the Report we suppose according to History was their first invading the World in general and hovering over the Apostate Kingdom The swiftness of their Success was so prodigious that it could not but be thought that the Lord uttered his Voice before his Army and that as his Camp was very great so he was strong that executed his Word that the Day of the Lord was very terrible and none could abide it before their Face all People were much pained and all Faces gather'd Blackness The continual Tidings of their Victories and Successes was to be continually tormented as with Job's Messengers or with the stroak of a Scorpion a not being kill'd but a living in pain But when this Army drew nearer into Italy and even to Rome it self in the second five Months when it enter'd the very Gates of that great City they ran up the Walls and enter'd in at the Windows to pillage and plunder and were also perpetually striking with the Tails of not only their false Religion but in Contempt and Scorn of the Antichristian Idolatry and Image-worship it was worse than a speedy Death or a total Conquest the prophetical Death here intended especially when it came to cruel Slavery It was no wonder then men sought for Death that is a quiet State although of being conquered and in Subjection and could not find it it fled from them for God had determin'd them this lingring Torment and not a speedy Death or Conquest over them and even these Locusts could do no more than what was commanded them and given to them Now their Power the five second Months was more than the first it was not only to torment with their terrour and report but to hurt with a real Presence but it was only to hurt and not to kill as the Turkish Cavalry was to do at Constantinople so they could do no more than hurt they could not kill the Bestian Rome and Empire were to survive them Thus they had five Months and five Months of Action eminent grand Action but seeing they had the space of five Months more in their Fourhundred and thirty years they must be suppos'd to come out of a first Formation and rude Preparations or to be at a distance from the effects of Torment and Hurt upon the unsealed Anticbristian especially Western State And at their latter end of Power a winterly Torpor and Deadness seis'd them and the Turkish Power drove them into a desolate Land and their stink as of an Army of dead Serpents came up that yet in their Time had done great things and so is their Memory at this day And thus History and Prophecy will agree in the account of their Time at least in relation to the Bestian Kingdom besides supposable Interspersions or Truces of their Impressions upon the Earth of the fallen Star or Antichrist The just and natural ensuing Woe upon this first as close Arg. 4 as the two Bestian Times one to another and yet distinguish'd too under the very same Mahometan King or Angel of the bottomless Pit and in the Entail of the same serpentine Religion is a very persuasive Argument of the due Explication of these things in Prophecy whose Situation Connexion and Sequence one upon another even as the Hour Day Month and Year upon their Five Months Five Months and their Vacation or Non-Term of Action is close and inseparable but this will rise into a farther Observation upon that part of the Line in the mean time as a strong support it helps to sustain the Point we are upon The very great fitness of these Locusts under their King Mahomet is every way most admirable to be a Scourge and Arg. 5 Woe upon the Antichristian Empire and their Months or Half-Moon to be a portentous Paraselene or another Moon upon them They are a mock-state every way to them by the severe Vengeance of God an Antichrist to Antichrist coming by Sergius the Monk out of their very Smoak let out by the Key-bearing fallen Star Their King an Angel of the bottomless Pit rivals the Star of the bottomless Pit the Monarchy of the Beast and his ten Horns is mated by the Monarchy of this King and one Vniversality by the other the pseudo or false Prophetism of the one by that of the other the Miracles of the one by those of the other the Superstition of the one and the Cruelty and Bloodiness of the one by those of the other both are sharers in the Roman Empire each hath his Rome one old Rome the other new Rome each of which Imperial Cities are in this prophetick Emblem Thirds of Men. Both aspire to the Possession of Jerusalem as having the promise of Universal Monarchy and Dominion but both mistake the Jerusalem in Bondage for that which comes down from above at which both will be vanish'd Both are Draconick and oppose and stave off the true Kingdom of Christ both oppress the Witnesses and Servants of God but the Beast by single War with them the King of the Locusts in the general and mistaking the false Church for the true and its earthly Glory for the Glory of Christ and so cannot hurt the true Glory both last the one as a Bestian Kingdom the other as a Woe till the end of the 1260 Days Both are to be utterly destroy'd before the Glorious Kingdom of Christ But the latter is a Judgment and a Woe-Trumpet on the former both as it is Christian in Pretence and Profession to which Mahomet is a profess'd Foe and as it is Antichristian Idolatrous and Superstitious for so it is scorned and abused and derided as well as persecuted by Mahometanism Now to ballance these two Antichristianisms one with another and the Interest of Satan in them it is thus to be settled in one Satan is as an Angel of Light falling from Heaven and making use of the Key of the bottomless Pit as if it were the Key of the Kingdom of Heaven in the other he is plainly the Angel of the bottomless Pit and acts as the Destroyâ—r Now the first must be necessarily the most hateful to God because it is the greatest Blasphemy its Moon eclipses the Kingdom of Christ most directly and as it were in the Draconick Nodi surpris'd it when it was to appear at the casting down Satan from Heaven and the manly Birth caught up to the Throne of God upon which Antichristianism as the Finess of Sathanism Mahometanism was provided as a Scourge and Woe of the coursest and thickest of the bottomless Pit and the blackest Appearance of the Angel of it and therefore though Mahometanism shall be finally destroyed and sent back to the bottomless Pit yet Antichristianism shall receive greater
late Other Parts of the reform'd Church have not pursued the true Principles of the Reformation the Regulation of all Things in Doctrine Worship Conversation and Discipline according to the pure and perfect Rule of the Word of God but that Word in many things is regulated by Antiquity not considering how early the Mystery of Iniquity was at work and where the Foot of the account of the Beast's Number ought to be plac'd even at 25 or 26 from the Resurrection Revel 3. v. 1. c. so that these as in the Church of Sardis affecting too much outward Pomp and Grandieur are to strengthen the Remainders which are ready to dye that are to fill up the Reformation to endeavour to open the Voices of the Thunders among themselves and to prophecy more vigorously before Peoples Nations Tongues and Kings concerning which Things the generality are so asleep That there are but a few Names who have not defiled their Garments but will be in great danger of a shameful Devestiture or Degradation when Christ appears Revel 3. 3. compar'd with Revel 16. 15. The Church of Philadelphia although in a general Zeal to have a perfect Square with pure Evangelical Truth be indeed v. 7. c. in Being yet not come to make the Apocalyptick Line of Time by its proper Interval or space nor can do before the end of the 1260 days as it is drawn upon these Churches to the New Jerusalem which appears in Philadeph and the Right of a Church Their Door of the Profession of Christ according to his Word is endeavoured to be shut although Christ as by immediate Power hath hitherto kept it open yet They of this Church have but a little strength outward Power or Glory Revel 3. 7. c. The Synagogue of Sathan is ready on all Accounts and at all Advantages to Dissinagogue them and cast them out to controul and brow-beat them and that Synagogue must be of the Reformed so the naming them Jews imports as in the Church of Smyrna Jews signified Christians in Profession but becoming Gentiles so here it signifies Reformed but so far relaps'd as to be falsly so call'd who are at the same elevation of Corruption the Apostacy was at in the Church of Smyrna Not long before the 1260 dark days came in so that though they disallow the Apostacy since that time yet they are ready to Cannonize it so far as to that Time it had proceeded and might if they had Time find the same Path to the same End Yet still they escape the Beasts Number 666. Now in regard of all these things it is most evident The Witnesses must be yet in Sack-cloth but they are if they are not wanting to their own Priviledges and Office like Moses and Aaron commission'd to smite with Plagues as often at they will that is to declare the foulness of the Apostacy to Revel 11. 6. remonstrate the Bestianism and Antichristianism of it and to foretel the seventh Trumpet and its Voices and Vials in Ruine of the Kingdom of the Beast and the great Judgments to be executed on his City Church Himself and his false Prophet and all the Impenitents of his Kingdom from first to last and also to declare the Redemption of the whole Israel of God from this spiritual Egypt and its Slavery the opening the Temple that the Ark of the Testament the Tabernacle of Testimony may be seen in Heaven and the Kingdom of Christ appear in the New Jerusalem And this they may do as often as they will That is There is abundant Evidence of Prophetick Truth to do it by There are abundant Promises of Acceptance Favour and Support in the doing of it so that it is a Remisness of Will that is of Zeal not to do it For Blessed is he that heareth and they that read the Words of this Prophecy especially when the Time is so near at Hand The last part of this Time is the most Glorious because Revel 11. 11. c. it issues out into the seventh Trumpet and then those great things will come to pass in Preparation of which all that was at the beginning of that Time was but a shade and semblance Then the Spirit of Life in full and perfect measure shall enter into the Witnesses and set them on their Feet and great fear shall fall on them that see them there will be then so wonderful an appearance of divine Power and Judgment as upon the Apostles Doctrine and Miracles in the very first Times Where if things had gone on with the same Power from Heaven as at first the Kingdom of Christ had then appear'd but the Mystery of Iniquity surpris'd them at 25 or 26. There shall be a Voice calling them up to Heaven and as in the Cloud wherein Christ himself ascended They shall Ascend and whereas only the Servants of Christ beheld Him Their Enemies shall behold them which speaks the publickness of their Ascention and the mighty Influences it will have And in the same Hour the Tenth that is the Decem Principality of the great City viz. most necessarily That great City in which the Witnesses lay dead in the breadth of it fell For when the Ten Horns that give State and Altitude to the Beast fall off from his seventh Head the Woman that sits on the Beast which is this very same City-Church must needs fall from that Height with which the Beast carried it while exalted with his Ten Horns which substantial Reason will recompence for the seeming Impropriety of such a use of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Tenth being both in Dan and this Prophecy so essential to the Beast that carries the Woman The Ascent of the Witnesses into Heaven I understand to be some Exemplification on Earth of the Glory and Triumph The Witnesses of Christ that have gone out of the World suffering for Christ in any degrees of Martyrdome have at this time in Heaven upon this change of the World to Christ's Kingdom as undoubtedly the Saints have on all such Changes even as the Angels joy in the Repentance of Sinners As the Saints in Heaven triumph'd at the Desolation of Heathenism or the casting down of the Dragon The Exemplification then of this on Earth by the exalted state of the true Servants of Christ there is the Importance of these Symbols And in the same Hour oppos'd to the same or one Hour of Revel 17. 12 13. the Ten Kings receiving Power with the Beast and giving then their Kingdom to him and therefore comes now into a fit Counter-parallel There shall be an Earth-quake such a mighty Concussion shake and change of the State of the Christian World that Cities shall be removed as it were and not be the same they were before That great City although it shall remain on its Heap yet its tenthly or Ten Kingdom'd-state shall utterly fall seven thousand not Names only but Names of Men shall be slain They shall be slain in
although they are as overflowings of the Prophecy beyond its Conduct of things within the Trumpets yet it is most demonstrable They must all return within the Trumpets and Time at large begin with the Trumpets and intimate Time be guided by the Pillar of Time erected within the fifth Trumpet For seeing the Woman and the Witnesses 1260 days must needs be equal in their Beginning and Ending and the Beasts Intimate Time must be plac'd where the Witnesses Vanquishment and Death are and that these must be within the Trumpets nay in that all Time must be before the seventh Trumpet and end at it All Time therefore from thence in account recoyls backward so as to find room for it self even to the first of the 1260 Days within the first Trumpet which beginning at 437 ends with 42 the Concent of all Periods at 1697. All which ought to be evinc'd all along and I do more then hope hath been so evinc'd I have already prevented my self in the Remarques of this whole Line by placing them early in the first Views of it and therefore now make only these short ones as a Conclusion We may be heal'd of any dangerous Wonder that an Remark 1 Apostacy from Christian Religion so foul and thick as to need no Confutation of its Figments and Fables the very Title his Holiness Vicar of Christ do so loudly proclaim Antichrist That such a one hath endur'd so long a Time hath captivated the Wise the Learned the Politick the Noble the Royal the Imperial we see in this Prophecy It was to do so and by this Oath of Christ it was and is to last Time Times half Time even till the end of it It is to do so e're its Decem Principality It s ten horn'd Kingdom Fall And although it began by degrees yet it hath two most sudden Downfalls one at the Reformation as but in preparation and beginning the other at the end of that Half time then begun viz. at 1697 when His Fall shall be exceeding great Seeing it is most impossible Intimate time should return Remark 2 whatever Sufferings there may be of the Church of Thyatyra how great how dismal soever yet there cannot be a slaying of the Witnesses any more for Christ hath sworn with the Rainbow cap. 10. 1. on his Head It shall be as the Waters of Noah to him Isa 54. 9. There shall be no such Return for ever nor can I apprehend the Church of Sardis can in any parts of the Reform'd Nations Rev. 3. 3. v. 9. lose its State by a Return of that Apostacy its only danger is its shame that without Repentance will befall it at the more glorious Appearance of Christ's Kingdom and especially those Parts of it that have relapsed to a Synagogue of Sathan shall with double shame be forc'd to come and worship at Philadelphia's Feet and to know Christ hath lov'd it who endeavour'd to shut its Door Seeing we are compassed about with so great a Cloud of Witnesses Remark 3 let us with great Confidence wait hope expect pray for the great Glory that is to be brought unto us at that great Appearance that will be made of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ at the end of the half time or half day or at the last of the last 180 of 1260 Days viz. at 1697 so often memorializ'd although but in preparation to that Kingdom it self 75 Years after And if we shall not live to it in this World yet we shall lose nothing by it for in Heaven and with the Lamb on Mount Zion we shall with the other Witnesses rejoyce in Rev. 14. 1. so happy a Change as will even then be made and so rejoyce for ever each in our Lot of the Land of Promise or the New Jerusalem The end of the second Point of this Line of Time or its Period SECT XIV Wherein is contained a brief Disquisition upon the seven Voices as they run along Apoc. ch 14. THE last Line of Time upon the grand Line of Daniel's 2300 Ev. Mor. stretches out it self beyond the so often repeated Prophetical Line we have been upon and yet it is most justly and according to the Reason of the Line to be joyned with it because the holy Spirit hath in Daniel so joyned to 1260 30 more making 1290 and then 45 making 1335 as hath been so often observ'd so that from hence however joyn'd rises a distinct Line of 75 Years consisting of its lesser Distinctions 30 and 45. And with great Wisdom and Design they are undoubtedly thus joyn'd and yet distinguish'd for hereby is shewn 1. That it is the same principal Line of 2300 Ev. Mor. thus protended 2. That the managements of Divine Power as to the Divine Kingdom are of a distinct nature from what they were any part even the last and best part that is the Half-time of the 1260 Days or since the Reformation and yet that there is an Agreement too so that the Kingdom is distinctly advanc'd in the first 30 above the State of it along the Half-time and still farther and higher advanc'd in the last Distinction or the forty five and yet that the Kingdom does not appear in Glory until the End of the 1335 all which appears very plainly both in Daniel and this Apocalyptick Prophecy where seeing the Voices and the Vials come after the 1260 Days we may conclude by the Union and by the Distinction together That the latter end of the sixth Trumpet adheres close to the seventh and then by the Voices first and the Vials after them both of the seventh Trumpet following so close one upon another and by the Blessed State coming upon all we may be most assur'd the Voices and the Vials answer to the Thirty and the Forty five Years of Surplusage to the 1260 Days so distinguish'd and so conjoyn'd Now that these Voices and Vials of the seventh Trumpet are yet to come and to come in the Order laid down and within the Time laid down these six Things may indubitably convince us 1. We may be fully assur'd nothing so great as the seven Thunders could be heard before the Reformation so high so loud for the Kingdom of Christ so they must be with the Reformation beginning 2. There is most apparently a space allowed for the Thunders remaining seal'd after their Voices uttered which space hath so great reason as hath been given to be rated at a Half-time or 180 Years and so cannot be run out yet since the Reformation 3. Nothing so eminent since the Reformation as the Fall of the Tenth of the Great City or the Turkish Woe ceasing whatever hopes now appear nor of the seventh Trumpet so closely lynck'd with both hath yet been seen 4. The Oath of Christ that Time should be no more cannot possibly allow such a space of Time or Delay as the Half-time after Time Times Half-Time within the seventh Trumpet or indeed any Time at all wherein every thing should not be in
motion and zealous of finishing the Mystery of God and that within so short a Time as 75 Years so that as the Voices and Vials cannot have yet been since the Reformation so they cannot take up above 75 Years after it For to shew them quick they are styl'd Voices soon given and Vials suddenly pour'd out and what is quicker than the Voice of God's Thunder than the Spouts and Cataracts of Heaven 5. If there be seven Voices or Thunders they must needs unite with the seventh Trumpet and the seven Vials must issue from the seventh Voice or else the admirable Contexture of this Prophecy its Symmetry and Harmony must needs be lost as therefore the seventh Seal comprehends the seven Trumpets during which the Kingdom remains seal'd even so must the seventh Trumpet the Voices and to shew the Voices are seven Voices the seven Vials are fill'd from the Blood of the Wine-press of the seventh Voice 6. It is most impossible the Bestian or Antichristian Power should be in such a State as at this day it is If the seventh Trumpet with its Voices and Vials had made their Impressions on it it must needs have been torn and rent in pieces thereby But because that so illustrious End of the sixth Trumpet and the seventh Trumpet are to come and that the seventh Trumpet is so expresly styl'd Mystery I shall with all Humility Modesty and Brevity undertake not any thing in their Explication as to the very manner or precise sense of Particulars but only in the general demonstrate their Order and Sequence and observe their necessary main Importance but whether even that Fall of the Tenth of the City and the concomitant mighty Works do not with a great notice of themselves only given at the end of the sixth issue into the seventh Trumpet and so are gradually fulfill'd in the Voices and the Vials and how the Bestian Power or the spiritual Pharaoh and his Egypt is so much as kept in a State of Being or Existence at all and survives as Pharaoh and Egypt of old under such Voices and Vials to the last or as the City where our Lord was crucified did under such a Ministry and a course of Miracles and Prophecies fulfilling upon it till destroy'd by Titus I confess my self unable to account but must leave it to that Time it self that will be so full of Light to explain it But that the Prophecy gives us an orderly course of seven Voices although in reverence as it were of the Prophecy it self to its own Type of the Thunders once seal'd they and their Order is so much cover'd I shall thus argue There are in this Apocal. Prophecy ch 14. seven distinct Issues Arg. 1 or Emanations following in a Connexion and yet to v. 1. v. 13. v. 6. v. 14 15. each is annex'd its signal Note of Distinction so that while they are in a Connexion they are also under a Distinction v. 8. v. 18. v. 9. and they are just seven and most undeniably so From hence it appears they concert with all the Apocalyptick Sevens in which Number the whole Prophecy is all along conveyed To each of these there is applied either a Voice from Heaven Arg. 2 a loud Voice or a loud Cry according to the Note of the seventh Trumpet There were great Voices in Heaven Every one of these Sevens hath therefore this Note except the Third concerning the Fall of Babylon omitted then as it were on purpose to distinguish it and that it might not be mistaken for the Execution of this Voice by the seventh Vial c. 18. else it cannot but be thought That Angel discharg'd his Office and Trust with the same Zeal the other Angels did and that a Point of so great Concernment to the Kingdom of Christ as Babylon's Fall was neither whisper'd in a low Accent nor coolley or so much as calmly pronounced To shew there is a Connexion of the Seven when there had been no mention of any Angel in the first Voice yet it is Arg. 3 said in the second Voice Another Angel Now seeing he cannot be call'd Another with respect to any precedent Angel it must undoubtedly be with Relation to the first Voice and thus as there is a Connexion so there is an Order in the fourth Voice therefore the Angel is call'd the third Angel to shew there is a design'd Order And as to shew the same Order also the first Angel was called not the first but another and if Another there must be a former another can't be without a first other for Another is a second other So it appears again there is an order of Voices signified in this third Angel but fourth Voice for the Order is again express'd by Third a most express Note of Order The very Importance of each Voice carries a Succession to Arg. 4 the Kingdom of Christ which that we may better understand we must consider Voice and Voices and Thunder in their general Notation in Scripture signifie Doctrine and an Emanation of Doctrine so John Baptist is called a Voice and those two Apostles Boanerges or Sons of Thunder and especially in this Prophecy Thunders and Voices are always big with some Appearance of Christ's Kingdom This course of Voices must therefore be a course of Doctrines very productive of Christ's Kingdom and in the two last of earnest Prayers for it that were returned to as Christ's Prayer Glorifie Joh. 12. 28. thy Name by a Voice of Thunder I have both glorified it and will glorifie it again and as the Place where the Apostles prayed was shaken so these Petitions will be to the Acts 4. 31. World as a Thunder and Earthquake and yet the Kingdom it self after these Preparations is in a still Voice of Grace and Peace We must then enquire from whence these Voices rise and spring and we may find three Origins of them 1. They rise from the Church of Philadelphia whose proper Interval or Support of the Line of Time is at the seventh Trumpet as hath been affirmed And it is said Christ set it an open door viz. of divine Doctrine reaching to Christ's Kingdom So the Apostle calls the Propagation of the Gospel 1 Cor. 16. 9. Col. 4. 3. by his Ministry the opening to him a door wide and effectual and the very Publication it self a door of Vtterance 2. They spring from the seven Thunders that uttered their Voices but as not in due time to proceed nor in the order of the Apocal. Sevens were then sealed but are now written The first Voice therefore as the Voice of Thunder allies the whole Course of them to the Thunders and the Persons from whom the Voice of the first Thunder proceeds had the Name of the Lambs Father Written which Number was first under Seal at the Apostacy beginning then they shewed themselves at the Thunders but immediately were seal'd again and now unseal'd and written at the Thunders unseal'd and written in these Voices So in