giving us to understand these soules were slaine for that Essentiall word of God who in the foregoing Vision Chap. 19 13. sate on a white horse that is the eternall Son of God for whose sake many thousands laid downe their lives in the Arian Macedonian and Nestorian tempests c. in the three hundred following yeers Wherefore he saw both the soules of these and of the other Martyrs resting on thrones in Heaven And them that worshipped not the Beast Gr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whosoever The Ellipsis or defect is to be supplied from the foregoing part Thus I saw also the soules of such sitting as had not worshipped c. These he distinguisheth from the former because they are latter in time which the adjuncts shew They worshipped not the Beast and his Image c. Perhaps also all were not Martyrs but some of them Professours onely though but few seeing the Beast caused all to be slaine that worshipped him not and his Image Chap. 12.15 These therefore had to doe with the Beast Now the Beast began to reigne rage and to be worshipped in the last Ages of the thousand yeers viz. from the six hundred and sixt yeer as we shewed in Chap. 13. 17. whosoever therefore from that time even unto the end of the thousand yeeres did constantly oppose the Beast and got the victory over him which was said of the multitude of Harpers standing on the Sea of glasse Ch. 15.17 and unto which multitude these also belong are here spoken of and commended for their constancy in banishments torments and all manner of punishments which they suffered in maintaining the Faith of Christ against the Beast Whence we gather these certain conclusions I. That the Beast his Image and his Character were within these thousand yeers because there were then some who worshipped the Beast to wit all the Inhabitants of the Earth Chap. 13.8 and they that would not worship him were either Martyrs or Confessours II. That Antichrist was again to rage within the said thousand yeers because the Beast then was and would be worshipped Now the Beast is Antichrist as appeared Chap. 13. 17. and Ribera confesseth Cap. 13. Numb 1. Cap. 19. Num. 31.32 III. That these yeers are not indefinitely the whole time from the Vision untill the end of the world or untill the comming of Antichrist because Antichrist began to rage between them or while they were running on IV. And lastly that the Papists Antichrist who as they feine shall come and beare sway in the last foure yeeres of the world is but a vaine Skare-crow by which they deceive themselves and the world because Iohn foretold that the true ANTICHRIST should bee manifested within the first Thousand yeeres after CHRISTS descension Ribera saw this knot in Apocal. Cap. 20. Num. 33. therefore to untye the same he saith that which followeth And lived and reigned is not to be referred to those that worshipped not the Beast but onely unto the soules of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus But this subtilty is too repugnant to the Text and sheweth that here the Papists are at a Non-plus for John saith of the very same they lived and reigned Of whom he had before said they sate upon thrones Now these were not onely such as were beheaded but also the Conquerours of the Beast But saith RIBERA he saith not that these were dead or slaine What of that It is enough that he maketh the Confessours also Conquerours of the Beast and saith that they sate with the Martyrs or certainly he meaneth that these also were slaine because before in Chap. 13.15 he had said that all that worshipped not the Beast and his Image were slaine but these worshipped not the Beast and his Image therefore they were either slaine or Confessours that were Conquerours of the Beast and it remaineth that they sate with the Martyrs It remaineth that they lived and reigned in these thousand yeers It remaineth that the Beast was within the said first thousand yeeres for betweene this time Iohn saw the soules of the slaine for the Testimony of Jesus and of them that denyed to worship the Beast but the worship of the Beast could not be refused before he was Lastly it remaines that the Papists Fiction touching the Beasts coming in the last four yeers of the world is as repugnant as the opinion of the Chiliasts to this most manifest place of Scripture And they lived and reigned with Christ these thousand yeeres Now comes as it seemes the inextricable knot which of old drove the Millenaries into by-wayes while they did not sufficiently consider neither the Scope nor the words of the Prophesie nor the Analogie of Christian beleefe The which least it happen to us also let us well ponder the sense of the words directing the same to the scope before declared Let us therefore I say consider of these things in order I. Who they were that lived and reigned with Christ II. How and how long they lived and reigned with him III. Who were the rest of the dead and how they lived not againe IV. What the first Resurrection may bee V. LASTLY What the opinion of the Chiliasis or Millenaries was and how to bee refuted What concernes the first Beza renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lived and reigned which are Preterperfects by the Futures shall live and reigne because he saw ver 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall reigne is in the Future But here the Preterperfects are to be retained because they answer to the Preterperfect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sate notwithstanding the difference in respect of the sense is very little for John speaketh of things to come as past by a Propheticall manner for the certainty thereof but the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Christ belong in common to both They lived with Christ Who they are that lived reigned with Christ and with him they reigned But who To wit They which sate on Thrones also reigned and lived with Christ namely the Soules of them that were slaine by Romane Tyrants and by the Hereticks for the witnesse of Iesus and the Soules also of the slaine or tormented for denying to worship the Beast as erewhile I shewed against Ribera's subtilty For John declareth the condition of those whom he saw sitting on thrones what it was during the thousand yeeres both corporally on Earth already spoken of and spiritually in Heaven which here he declareth They lived and reigned with Christ to wit contrary to the foolish opinion of the world touching them which is for the consolation of the Godly The world indeed judged these slaine to have miserably perished but death to them was life Oppression a Kingdom with Christ This is the First that the soules of the slaine not restored to their bodies but being out of them as before wee shewed did live and reigne with Christ The Second seems more difficult to be expounded viz.
will recall a man from his carnall security to the feare of God and working of righteousnesse except he have a heart of steele for as much as in the day of Gods judgement a most exact account of what hath been done in the flesh must be given by all the greatest Kings and Potentates not excepted When without any respect of persons they that have done well shall possesse life eternall They that have done ill shall be cast into everlasting fire The Angell therefore could not use a more forcible reason to deterre men from the contempt of God and his word To this purpose is that in Sirach Chap. 7.40 In all things that thou sayest or doest remember thy end and thou shalt not sin Now if any aske how this prophesie is true and accomplished seeing it is so long since John said 2 Pet. 3.9 Gods judgement was at hand Let him heare Peter answering the mockers of his time The Lord is not slacke concerning his promise as some count slacknesse but is long suffering towards us not willing that any should perish but that all should come unto repentance The Angell saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is come for shall certainly come by an usuall Enallage of the preterperfect tense instead of the future so a little after is fallen for shall certainely fal noting the immutability of the events decreed by God so formerly he often said he will come shortly that is sooner then we are aware of that the deepe fleepe of security might be driven out of us and lest with the wicked servant we should say Luke 12.45 My Lord deferreth his comming But rather let us consider seeing the Apostles did presage the day of judgement to be then at hand how much nearer is it now unto us after so many ages And worship him that made In the third member he recalls the world from popish idolatry unto the service of the true God alone whom he notes by a periphrasis from the worke of the creation of heaven and earth the sea and fountaines of waters The Old version ads and of all things that are in them which words are not in the Greeke but seem to be taken out of Psa 146.9 unto which place the spirit here alludeth The fountaines of waters are reckoned up among the chiefe works of God because the continuance of the fountaines is indeed a very wonderfull worke of the Lord concerning which Phylosophers have much disputed with great admiration Psal 104.10 114 8. And it is also celebrated in the Psalmes He sendeth the springs into the valleyes which run among the hills Which turneth the rock into a standing water the flint into a fountaine of waters Furthermore that religious worship is onely due to God both the Scripture and nature it selfe teacheth For God alone is omnipotent knowes all things and is present in all places He is able to heare and helpe all that call upon him wheresoever they be He alone is the Author of nature governour and Lord of the world wherefore all ought to depend upon him onely in him alone we must beleeve and put our considence Ier. 17.5 But cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arme Hence faith and prayer are in Scripture coupled by an individuall tye as the cause and effect Rom. 10.14 Mat. 4.10 How shall they call on him in whom they have not beleeved Therefore it is an expresse commandement Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serve Now howsoever this be an undeniable and manifest truth yet the world forsaking the Lord followed and wondred after the Beast all I say both great and small bond and free worshipped the Beasts image kissed his feet and attributed divine honour unto him as though he were God on earth And this the worshippers of the Pope doe not denie according to that of the Poet before mentioned Ense potens gemino cujus vestigia adorant Caesar aurato vestiti murice Reges Nay all have not the priviledge to worship before the Beast and kisse his feet this onely is permitted to Kings and Emperours Others must be content devoutly to worship his image and call upon the Saints that are canonized by the Beast and adore his Crosses Crucifixes Altars set up by him in temples groves and highwaies c. From this beastly worship of idols the Angel here dehorteth the world as calling them to the worship of the true God Neither will he any whit esteeme their vaine pretenses That the Pope is not worshipped as God but as Gods and Christs Vicar for they falsely affirme him to be that which he is not That they call not on the Saints with a worship of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for this is a false distinction the religious worship both of Latreia and Douleia being in Scripture onely attributed to God and signifie both one thing That they worship not graven images but God in them this also is false for Images are no gods neither will God be worshipped in or by them Thou shalt not doe so unto the Lord thy God Deut. 12.31 Thus far of the everlasting Gospel published by the first Angel or reformer of Popery The summe of which is in these three things I. That God is to be feared and Antichristianisme to be repented of II. That glory is to be ascribed to God by beleeving in his sonne III. That God is to be worshipped by fleeing the Image of the Beast and performing obedience to God 8 And another Angel followed because the former Angell although he cryed with a great voice did little profit unto the inhabitants of the earth who were drowned with the wine of Babylonish whoredome for after Wickleffe Husse and Jerome of Prague were burnt the Papacy remained stil in its vigour furie Therefore another Angell followed who more forcibly assailing Antichrist weakened his kingdome in many Provinces And here againe by an Enallage One Angell is put for Angels for there shall be divers succeeding each other in divers places But One shall excell and continue the ministery of the former Angell who was a while interrupted Now this Angel if we looke into histories who can he be save Luther This second Angell is Luther who followed 130. yeeres after Wickleffe and 100. after Husse and Jerome he first began in Saxony by word and writing to thunder against the Popes Pardons publikely put to sale soon after against the whole Papacy anno 1517. To him was joyned Philip Melanchton as a most faithfull assistant and soone after many other excellent men who by little and little restored the everlasting Gospell in divers parts of Germany and expelled Popery About the same time Zwinglius and Oecolampadius began together to oppose Popery and 〈…〉 Gospell in Helvetia But let us heare what this Angell publisheth Babylon is fallen is fallen He threatens ruine to Babylon for her wicked fornication by which
is also another reason ab incommodo for it seems not convenient to say that the Saints after Satans loosing and when he again rageth should then reign Nay rather they shall reign Satan being as yet bound for this raging enemy being loosed would scarce suffer them to reign Besides the other opinion doth with the Chiliasts and Papists too much determinate and circumscribe the time of Christs comming to Iudgement against the expresse saying of Christ Mat. 24.26 Of that houre and day no man knoweth c. And therefore I say that both Satans binding and the Saints reigning with Christ shall bee in the same thousand yeeres Now touching these things It is demanded I. Whither the thousand yeeres be definitely or indefinitely to bee understood II. If definitely where they are to begin and end III. What condition John did see the Saints to be in during these thousand yeers IV. What Satan is said to attempt after the accomplishing of these thousand yeers In the expounding of these Questions those things are contained which follow in Verse 11. I. WHITHER THE THOVSAND YEERS BE DEFINITELY TO BE VNDERSTOOD whether I say the thousand yeers be definitely or indefinitely to be understood in both appeareth a difficulty If thou say indefinitely taking a thousand for many or for all unto the end then in vaine it were said Afterward Satan shall be loosed If definitely then the difficulty will be so to expound the beginning and ending thereof and how in the meane time Satan was bound afterwards loosed that we runne not into the errour of the Chilasts or some other inconvenience Augustine whom most of the ancient and latter Writers follow Lib. 20 de C. D. cap. 7 understood the thousand yeers indefinitely that is for the whole time from Christs death and resurrection when Satan began to be bound that he should no more seduce the Nations unto the end of the world because that sometimes in Scripture a thousand signifies indefinitely a very long time as Psal 105.8 He hath remembred his Covenant for ever the word which he commanded unto a thousand generations Notwithstanding he doth not precisely extend the thousand yeers unto the end of the world but untill the time of Antichrist who as he thought following herein the errour of his Predecessours mislead by Papias should come in the last foure years of the world and reigne three years and an halfe but he questioneth whether Antichrists time should be added to the thousand yeers or rather to the little season in which Satan is to be loosed This opinion Ribera prosecutes at large shewing Com. in Apoc cap. 20 N. 36.37 c. that these thousand yeeres signifie the whole time from Christs Resurrection unto Antichrists Kingdome because by thousand in Scripture we often understand a very great and indefinite number Joh. 9.3 Psal 91.7 1. Sam. 18.7 Psal 90.4 c. The like also we find in Heathenish Writers Virgil. 1. Aeneid 11. Aene. 2. Pers Sat. 5. Ovid. Met. Lib. 13. c. But this opinion cannot stand for many causes for first we may not rashly and without necessity goe from the Letter to Figures Now here no necessitie urgeth us to turne from the proprietie of the letter about the thousand yeers unto a trope of indefinite signification Besides neither the Subject Yeers nor the Epithite Thousand doth here admit a Trope Not the Subject because howsoever other names signifying time as houres dayes weekes moneths are often in Scripture taken improperly Yeers also attributed to God do improperly signifie eternity Job 10.5 36.26 Psal 102.25.28 Heb. 1.12 Or by an Hebraisme the time of divine Iudgement as Isa 61.2 Luke 4.19 the acceptable yeere Isa 34.8 the yeere of recompence Jerem. 23.12 the yeere of Visitation Notwithstanding Yeers with a numerall Epithite as in this place have never any other signification save propet and definite Againe neither the Epithite Thousand the which howsoever it doth sometimes both in sacred and humane Writers only amplifie a matter indefinitely as may be seen in the Examples before mentioned Notwithstanding being in Histories and Prophesies of Scripture joyned to yeers I shall alwayes beleeve that it is never taken but in a definite signification except any man can shew me the contrary Thirdly the Text it selfe yeelds us a weighty reason because Iohn indeed at first in verse 2. determinates the thousand yeers without the Article having it only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but afterward emphatically repeats it foure times with the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these thousand yeers and undoubtedly defines the same Fourthly from the Text wee have another evident reason viz. that during those thousand yeers Antichrist was worshipped for within those thousand yeers they also that worshipped not the Image of the Beast that is of Antichrist lived and reigned with Christ and therefore it cannot be understood that these thousand yeeres were finished before Antichrists coming nor indefinitely untill his coming We are therefore to embrace their opinion who hold that these thousand yeers are definite And now let us come to consider the termes II. Where these thousand yeers have their beginning and ending Such as understand the thousand yeers definitely are diversly minded about their beginning as by and by I will shew I suppose it best to take their beginning from the Angels descension because otherwise the determination of the thousand yeers so often repeated should be uncertaine and vaine I say in case they should have an indeterminated beginning elsewhere Now the descension of the Angell was in the Incarnation of the Son of God as before we shewed Notwithstanding Satan was not bound presently upon his Nativity because the Son of God did not immediatly exercise his power in his Child-hood But the true beginning is understood from the cause why the Dragon should bee bound which was that he should deceive the Nations no more to wit by keeping them in Paganisme Where we are to begin the thousand yeers and turning them from the Gospell of Christ Therefore when the Dragon began to desist from deceiving the nations then he was bound Now he desisted from seducing the Nations any longer not presently at the beginning of the Ministery or Resurrection of Christ or of the preaching of the Apostles although the Angell did then begin to cast the great chaine upon the Dragon but especially after the dispersion of the Iewes and the destruction of the Iewish Temple and worship by the Romanes for before that time the beginnings of the Gentiles conversion to Christ were but small because the Dragon never ceased to hinder the Gentiles from the Gospell of Christ by meanes of the turbulent Iewes as the History of the Acts of the Apostles testifies But afterward Ierusalem being destroyed the Iewes were rejected and dissipated and in their roome the Gentiles were called and added to the Church as Paul teacheth Act. 13.46 Rom. 11.11 c. Then at length it appeared that Satan was bound because
as that he could not seduce or hurt none at all neither by his Emissary Angels or by other his instruments as Tyrants Hereticks Antichrist but onely as it is expressed in the Text that he should not deceive the Nations any longer that is uphold Paganisme and hinder the course of the Gospell among the Gentiles Thus I have laid downe my judgement agreeing with other most learned Interpreters before me as Bullinger Junius c. not that I do tye any man unto it but leave it to consideration but they who begin the thousand yeeres from Christs nativity as Aretius or from his Resurrection as Chytraeus or from the time of universall Christianisme under Constantine the Great as Brightman Napier c. although they differ a little in the termes yet all have this common with us that the first thousand yeers from Christs birth is to be ascribed to Satans imprisonment and that the Dragon is now long agoe loosed out of prison There are two other opinions of them who referre the thousand yeeres unto the last times as if they were not yet begun One of the old Chiliasts of which I will speak afterward in verse 5. The other new of certaine learned brethren that these thousand yeeres are not to begin till after the casting of the Beast into the Lake of fire that is after the overthrow of the Papacy Then they thinke that he shall be bound a thousand yeers in the bottomlesse Pit and that the Martyrs which have beene slaine by Tyrants and Romish Popes shall then corporally live again and reigne with Christ in Heaven those thousand yeeres and then at the end of these thousand yeeres shall be the Resurrection of all the rest of the dead and the last Iudgement Now what I thinke in this opinion to be wanting I will here touch onely in a generall way reserving the rest to its place First I cannot approve that these thousand yeeres are not as yet begun nor past because two false Hypotheses are supposed One that Satan hath not as yet bin bound that he should seduce the Nations no longer in Paganisme the which is repugnant to the History The other that the world should yet continue a thousand yeers after the overthrow of Papacy which is repugnant to the divine oracles touching the abolishing of ANTICHRIST by the brightnesse of Christs coming after which to expect a thousand yeers in this world to me feemes very absurd They object that the Oracles of the Prophets are not yet fulfilled Ierem. 30. and 31. Mich. 4.3 unto 8. Mich. 5.9.15 the answer of Christ Act. 1.6.7 Mat. 23.28 Rom. 11.25 But in all these not to be tedious I would first desire them to seeke their thousand yeers Secondly that they diligently consider whether those Oracles spoken of in verse fourth are Prophesies touching the Kingdome of the Martyrs in Heaven or not rather of Christs Spirituall Kingdome and State of the Church of the Gospell on Earth partly already fulfilled and partly not but in time to bee accomplished Secondly that opinion contradicts it selfe For it propoundeth that the Pope before these thousand yeeres shall be cast into the Lake of fire and that Popery shall be abolished and withall that the Pope during the thousand yeeres shall by little and little gather his strength and at the end of the said yeeres joyne himselfe with Pagan Kings to make warre against the Saints But how shall the Pope doe this being in the Lake of fire They answer that the same Pope indeed that is cast into the Lake shall not reassume strength but there may bee some other after him who shall not bee abolished till the brightnesse of Christs comming But this is to dally in a serious matter The ruine of the Papacy in which they fixe the beginning of the thousand yeers we understand not to be the casting of one or two of the Popes into the Lake for many are already cast away but the overthrow of the whole Papacy Here then let them explaine themselves whether they understand it of the overthrow of Papacy in part or totally If they understand it onely in part they must say that Satan hath bin bound above an hundred yeers because since that time Papacy hath gone to decay in Germany and some other Kingdomes which thing Bellarmin also confesseth for saith he Bell. Lib. 3. de P.R. Cap. 21. from that time since you affirmed the Pope to be Antichrist his Empire hath beene so farre from encreasing that it hath alwayes more and more decreased If of an universall or totall overthrow how then shall the Beast gather strength by little and little especially while he is in the lake of fire Thirdly they take up another absurdity against the Text viz. that in the beginning of the thousand yeeres the Martyrs shall corporally live againe and reigne with Christ a thousand yeers whereas the Text expressely speaketh of their soules not of the bodies of the Martyrs neither saith it that they lived again or were raised up from death but that they lived of which in ver 4. Fourthly they frame another absurdity in pretending a two-fold resurrection of the dead One of the Martyrs after the overthrow of the Papacy the other of the rest of the dead after the thousand yeers reigne of the Martyrs the which is contrary to an Article of our Faith I beleeve the resurrection of the flesh that is of all the dead at the last day and it is refuted by experience Again if they understand the overthrow of the Papacy in part seeing this hath bin accomplished more then an hundred yeeres agoe they must shew that the first bodily Resurrection of the Martyrs is also past If totall seeing this shall not bee but by the brightnesse of Christs coming to Iudgement they cannot deny that then the Martyrs also shall be raised with the rest of the dead Fiftly I know not how they can make their opinions hang together for they say that Christ shall come to Iudgement a thousand yeers after the overthrow of Papacy and that after those thousand yeers Gog and Magog shall make warre against the Christians What shall this warre be taken in hand after Christs last comming to Iudgement Lastly this opinion doth fully agree with the errour of the Chiliasts long agoe condemned by Christians of which I will speake by and by viz. in this that the world shall remaine a thousand yeers after the abolishing of Antichrist directly contrary to the Apostle 2. Thess 2.8 affirming that Antichrist shall bee overthrowne by the brightnesse of Christs comming And in that it imports two particular Resurrections contrary to the Scripture touching the resurrection of all the dead together at the last day Onely herein it differs Lib. 20. de C.D.C. 7. that it makes not the thousand yeeres reigne as they Earthly but Heavenly although Augustine confesseth that there were also among the Chiliasts some who beleeved that the spirituall delights in that Sabbath should come
see Chap. 1. ver 6. Chap. 5.10 The future 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be denyeth not that now also the Faithfull are Priests of God but noteth the continuation and consummation of our Priestly dignity in the world to come Hence first it appeareth seeing the Scripture extendeth the Spirituall-Priesthood unto all the regenerate that are washed from their sinnes in the blood of Christ 1. Pet. 2.5.9 Rev. 1.5.6 that this priviledge doth so agree unto the blessed Martyrs as it derogates nothing from other Confessours and regenerate Secondly that for the same cause the First resurrection v. 5. is not to be understood corporally but spiritually because otherwise the Martyrs alone should become Priests of God and of Christ in case they alone should have part in the first Resurrection And shall reigne with him a thousand yeeres The third blessednesse and priviledge of them that live againe is to reigne with God and Christ a thousand yeeres 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with him saith he to denote the unity of both persons in the deity XLII Argument of Christs deity But who shall reigne The Martyrs onely or the other blessed also In my former Edition I restrained the same to the Martyrs from verse 4. But having more seriously weighed the whole Epiphonema or exclamatory conclusion I am forced to extend as the Priest-hood and blessed Life so the Kingdome generally unto all that have part in the first Resurrection that is unto all the regenerate And so much the words do demonstrate if well observed For seeing John had said before of the Martyrs in the Praeter Tense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They reigned with Christ of these he now saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They shall reign with him in the future Besides touching the Dragons binding and the Martyrs reigning he had before said thrice with the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those thousand yeeres Of these now hee saith indefinitely They shall reigne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thousand yeeres Hence I observe this diversity both in the persons reigning and in the thousand yeeres that John for the comfort of the rest of the Saints and blessed ones doth in this verse extend the Kingdome of the Martyrs with Christ beyond the thousand yeers before defined as if he should say The soules indeed of the Martyrs lived and reigned with Christ those thousand yeers of Satans binding but with them afterwards others also having part in the first Resurrection shall as Priests of God and Christ reigne other thousand yeeres that is for ever and ever as is interpreted Rev. 22.5 Neither matters it that also in ver 2. he said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thousand yeers without an Article and yet definitely for no man but understands that there it ought not to have bin said with the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those thousand yeers because no mention was before made of a thousand yeers But afterwards that we might not understand the thousand yeers both of Satans binding of the Martyrs reign with Christ in v. 3.4.5 to be divers but the same it is said rightly with the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those thousand yeeres and for the same cause the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is againe repeated ver 7. where he mentioneth the period or end of Satans binding The Second Part of the CHAPTER Touching the new attempt of the Dragon being loosed at the end of the Thousand yeers by the Gentiles and by Gog and Magog against the Church 7. And when the thousand yeeres are expired Satan shall be loosed out of his prison 8. And shall goe out to deceive the Nations which are in the four quarters of the Earth Gog and Magog to gather them together to battle the number of whom is as the sand of the Sea 9. And they went up on the breadth of the Earth and compassed the Campe of the Saints about and the Beloved-City and fire came downe from God out of Heaven and devoured them THE COMMENTARY 7. BVt when the thousand yeeres are expired Now followes the Second part of the Chapter of the loosing and new raging of the Dragon after the thousand fatall yeers were expired containing the THIRD ACT of the last Vision being an amplification of the Churches calamities and combats under both Antichrists of the East and West who shall againe grievously trouble the Christian World as we shewed in the PREFACE And thus at length we come to the explication of the fourth Question before propounded in ver 3. IV. What Satan shall doe after the thousand yeers are expired He had said that Satan being bound with a great chain should be thrust into the bottomlesse pit for a thousand yeers and afterward againe loosed ver 3. and shewing in the following verses what in the meane while was done in the Church and what was the state of the ungodly both without and within Now Kat ' anaphoran or in relation to what was before he saith that Satan was to be loosed after the thousand yeers and expoundeth what he attempted with the successe thereof yet aenigmatically so as this part of the Prophesie is very obscure neither may we scatcely so much as guesse what the meaning thereof is notwithstanding the most diligent Interpreters do thinke that somewhat about the same may bee observed from the Histories of former times whose steps seeing nothing more certain is revealed unto me I am willing to tread in When the thousand were finished In which Satan remained in chaines and in which in the mean while Christ enlarged his Kingdom among the Gentiles and the Martyrs had lived and reigned with him Satan shall be loosed out of his prison Hence it plainely appeareth as before I said that the thousand yeeres of Satans imprisonment and of Christ his kingdom are not diverse but the same for it is said with the Article When THESE thousand yeers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be fulfilled Satan shall be loosed This very thing Austin well observeth saying Lib. 20. de C D. c. 13. The Chiliasts opinion cannot stand That the Scripture by the same thousand yeeres determinates both to wit Satans binding and the Saints reigning Which being observed it appeareth that the Chiliasts opinion cannot stand viz. that Satan should be bound in the sixt Millenary of the world in which they affirme Christ was borne and that in the seventh Millenary the Saints shall reigne with Christ on Earth Besides neither can the opinion of Brightman hold that Satan was bound a thousand yeers from Constantine untill the yeere of our Lord 1300. after which Christ should reigne another thousand yeeres by the Gospell on Earth with his Elect untill the yeer 2300. in which Millenary the Gogish or Turkish battles should be fought whence he gathereth that the truth of the gospell shall triumph among the Nations seven hundred yeers a thing indeed more to be wished then expected with any probability Thus by what hath been said before it is cleare
are for the most part to bee fully accomplished neer the very last times which is distant from the time this was revealed more then 1500 years some extend this to the whole time of the new Testament which though it were to continue more then a 1000 of yeers yet is called short both in regard of the age of the world then alâ—ready past Iohn 2 18. 1 Cor. 10 12 Psal 90 4. 1 Thess 5.3 as also in regard of eternitie in which shall bee neither shortnesse nor length of time For this cause the whole time of the new Testament is in scripture called the last hower the last times the ends of the world For the whole time and age of the world is but a moment in the eyes of God or as yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the night Which is the reason that Christ saith chap. 21. 12 that he will come to judgement quickly or shortly that is sooner then men imagin suddenly in which sence the words following come to passe were of necessitie to bee restrained to the full accomplishment of this prophesie which may not bee for it is to bee extended to the whole time and currant of those things which were foretold So that by shortly is meant the beginning and progresse of the fullfilling thereof Shall shortly come to passe that is shall begin for things are said to come to passe shortly not which are eyther already past or else are to come a long while after but which are beginning to bee effected are even in doeing Signifying that the stormes of afflictions were not to bee differred to the last times but that they were suddenly while the Apostles yet lived to rush in by heaps upoÌ„ the Churches Ioh. 16.12 the which Christ also foretold his disciples and histories manifest the accomplishment of it For the first persecution of Christians began straightways under Tiberius and Nero which tooke away Paul and Peter the other under Domitian in whose time Iohn was banished Wherefore hee foretels them not to terrify but to animate the godly against the dangers at hand that it might not come upon them unawares as Christ saith Iohn 16 1 these things have I spoken unto you that ye should not bee offended for the darts which are foreseen are the lesse hurtfull withall hee teacheth what is the portion of the Church in this world namely to suffer afflictions least wee should fayn delights unto our selves So likewise hee comforteth us from the brevitie of the afflictions and certainty of the promised deliverance For as afflictions must shortly come so also shall deliverance shortly and certainly come because Christ foretold the one as wel as the other unto Iohn Lastly it appeareth that the revelation treateth not of things past but to come wherefore they misse of the scope who apply a great part of the types to the state of the Iewish occurrences and Roman Empire then allready past And signifyed it by his angel that is Christ signified it He declareth the faithfulnesse of Christ in executing the charge committed to him of God and shewing this revelation to Iohn his servant and dear Apostle by sending his angel who instructed him in every particular of it And signified that is who also signified the same c. for so it is expressed in vers 6 16 of chap. 22 where the Lord Iesus saith that he sent his angel to shew these things to Iohn to his servants in the Churches So wee see that the scriptures compared together interpret themselves Wee need not restrain the word signified to a typical and dark manner of revelation but rather it noteth a plain and manifest discoverie made unto Iohn because that which is here said to bee signified is in the fore alledged place expounded by the words shewing and testifying c. And hee sent Gr. sending this whole verse retaineth the Hebrewe phrase 3 Argument of the deity of Christ and is as if it were read thus who also sending his angel signified the same to his servant Iohn Hence wee gather a third proofe of the God-head of Christ much like to the second for as Iohn is a servant so also is the angel and both are imployed by Christ as his proper servants who is Lord of them both and therefore God for the angels are servants to none but to Iehovah God of whom it is said Psal 104.4 who maketh his angels spirits c. it is true Christ is Lord of the angels in that hee is the mediator but unles hee were God hee could neither bee mediator or Lord of the angels by this argument Hebr. 1.6 the Apostle proveth the God-head of the son because the angels of God adore him Vers 2 Who bare record of the word of God hence it appeareth Iohn the Euangelist the writer of the revelation that the Euangelist Iohn is the writer of the revelation for hee bare record of the word of God in the very entrance of his Gospel saying in the beginning was the word this is the testimonie of Iohn when the Iews sent unto him and ye sent to John and he bare witnesse which things though spoken of Iohn the Baptist yet were written by Iohn the Euangelist who bare record to the word in setting downe of the testimonies of the word of God besides none of the writers of holy scripture have more expresly testified the divinity of Christ then the Euangelist Iohn For who but Iohn nameth of the person office and benefits of Christ Of the ministries of Angels happines of the triumphant church with the crosse and comfort of the militant withall teaching us to imbrace Godlinesse to bee constant in afflictions to hold fast faith and love to take heed of false prophets to Go out of Babylon and beware of Antichrist c. To be short it containes many worthy comfortable sentences as blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. c. Promises also of the deliverance of the Church of the mariage of the Lamb with threatnings of destruction to the enemies All which things how profitable and usefull they are it is manifest unto all For the time is at hand A reason to stir up a diligent care in us to read hear and keepe this prophesie Because the time both of the furie of the adversarie against the Godly as also of the deliverance of the Church is at hand The knowledge of evill and Good things even at the dore is not to bee neglected but the diligent reading of this prophesie causeth us to know both evill and Good things at hand therefore it is not to be neglected It admonisheth us therefore to watch lest unawares we be overwhelmed with the present troubles It comforteth us also that we be not disheartned for feare of the present battles but with full assurance of the presence of God and promised victorie we hold out manfullie unto the end That the time was then at hand histories
make manifest for Iohn being banished in the â—le of Patmos began alreadie to feel the fury of Domitian And here the dream of such is refuted who binde the fulfilling of this prophesie to the last three years before the end of the world 4 Iohn to the seven Churches Those things being forespoken of which served to gain autority attention to this booke John dedicates the revelation to the seveÌ„ Churches of Asia wishing Grace and peace unto them By seven Andreas understandeth all the Churches Because in scripture the number seven is a number of perfection but because the seven Churches in Asia are as it were nominated by a marke to be knowen therefore I understand that it was purposely dedicated unto them not that the revelation belongeth not to others but because the first vision doth directly concerne them the rest generally belongs to the whole Church Of Asia He speaketh of Asia the lesser or that part of Asia Ptolo. lib. 5 geogra cap. 2. which is invironed from the East with both countries of Armenia from the west with the Aegean sea from the North with the Euxine sea from the south with the Mediteranian sea Here Iohn had planted seven Churches of note whereof that of Ephesus was the greatest but after he was banished the teachers carelesly performing their office he is commanded in the first vision to reprove admonish them of their duty Grace to you and peace be or be multiplied as in 1 Pet. 1 2 by a familiar salutation he seekes to gaine the good will of those whom he was afterwards more sharply to admonish The Apostolical salutation hath beene opened in the Epistle to the Romans and Corinthians Grace is that free favor of God from which doth flow all the mercies of God and every good thing which we enjoy The Glosse doth wel understand it of the free forgivenes of sins Peace the effect of Grace is the tranquillity and joy of the conscience Rom. 1.2 of which the Apostle speaketh being justified by faith we have peace with God The Hebrews by the word peace understand all maner of prosperitie and hence the Apostles in the beginning all most of all their Epistles doe not with out cause wish the same unto the faithful Which is and which was and which is to come It is manifest that this is a paraphrase of the name of God who alone is the author and giver of Grace peace But others do interpret it otherwise Some of the father alone from whom the Apostles generally desire grace to the Churches Rom. 1.7 Grace and peace be to you from God our father he is called which IS because he is from none but the beginning of the deity is from him And which was because he was before all time in eternitie And which is to come Iohn 5.12 because he wil come to judge the world by the son that the father is said to judge no man is to be referred to the immediate judgement For the father hath not so given over the judgement to the son as not to keepe the power of judging stil in his owne hand Others refer all to the person of the son For he is he which is because Christ is the same God with the father which was because the word was in the beginning and which is to come because he will come in the clouds to judgement vers 7. Others will have the three persons to be noted by three differences of time attributing the severall times to the severall persons that is which is to the father which was to the son and that which is to come to the holy Ghost his coming in to the Church by proceeding from the father the son so Andreas grace be to you peace from the Godhead which subsisteth in three persons To be short others thinke that God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 essentially described and doe apply all the words to every one of the persons for the father is he which is which was and which is to come so is the son and so is the holy Ghost What then all these expositions were right and godly if Iohn in these words had ended his prayer but he addeth and from the seven spirits and from Iesus Christ by which hee declareth that he directeth his prayer in the behalfe of the Churches to the holy Trinitie But not indeed in words commonly used yet such as are convenient to his purpose for the stile of this prophesie hath many things proper and excellent fitted to the argument of visions which not being observed by some interpreters they vainly wearie themselves and go astray For seldom the name of God or of the father or of the son or of the holy Ghost is found in the revelation in expresse words But John speaking of God useth for the most part propheticall descriptions Therefore this prayer is set downe in words agreeing to the excellent proprieties of this prophesie and in stead of the ordinarie forme of salutations used of the Apostles Rom. 1.7 as grace and peace to you from God our father and from the Lord Iesus Christ or the grace of the Lord Iesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the holy Ghost be with you all Iohn useth this kind as more proper and secret Grace and peace from him which is and which was and which is to come and from the seven spirits and from Iesus Christ c. in which words the true God three in persons one in essence is described as the divine attribute and prayer of the Apostle doe plainly manifest Now I come to the particulars From him which is Thus he describeth the person of the father by attributes proper to the divine essence yet common to every one of the persons Hereupon Christ assumes the same to himself vers 7. which is a most evident argument of his divinity And it is a description of eternity including and exceeding the three differences of the time present past and to come that is from him which is was and shall bee the words which is to come being put for shall be as in that of John 16 13. He will shew you things to come Act. 18 21. that is things that shall be so I must keepe the feast that cometh in Jerusalem And it seemeth that he altogether intended here to expresse that name of God in Exodus Exod. 3.14 EHIEH I wil be from which cometh the name Jehovah in which word as Vatablus wel observeth the Hebrewes take notice of those three differences of time It serveth for the great comfort of the Church in that he prayeth for grace peace not simply from God the father but from him which is which was and which is to come who alwayes remaineth the same and with whom is no variablenes Iam. 1 17. nor shadow of turning Indeed in the world the Church hath experience of diverse changes but in God alone she findeth constant
Andreas well observeth And voyces Namely the terrible voyces of thundrings and lightnings This is spoken appositively for thunder is the voyce of Iehovah shaking the earth terrifying the ungodlie The voyce of Jehovah maketh the desert to quake Psal 29.8 which teacheth how terrible and inaccessible the seat of God is In Chap. 10.3 these thundrings are said to be seven and to utter their voyces wherein there is an allegory as shall be shewed on the place And soven lamps Namely were or stood before the throne of God these are interpreted by John himself to be the seven spirits which he calleth the seven Angels standing before God Alluding to the vision of Zacharie Chap. 4. where the seven lamps on the golden candlesticke v. 2. are v. 10. called the eyes of Iehovah which run to and fro through the whole earth Signifying by eyes the Angels who are as it were the eyes feet and hands of God which is spoken after the manner of men like as Constables and Sergeants are said to be the eyes hands and feet of the magistrate because by them he performeth and knoweth all things that are don in the city The like allusion is in Chap. 5.6 where the eyes of the lambe are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth But of this more in its place Also before the throne The third apparition about the throne is the sea of glasse like unto Chrystall Which sea some of the ancient and they which follow them will have to bee the sacrament of Baptisme said to be of glasse as Lyra supposeth because of its puritie and like to Chrystall because of its character which can never be blotted out Let them who will make use of this interpretation But neither Ribera nor my self do approve thereof Alcasar also judgeth that it cannot bee applied but with violence unto the sacrament of Baptisme Andreas Cesariensis understandeth it of the multitude of Angels and heavenlie powers Others suppose it hath an allusion unto Solomons brazen sea and that the materiall alteration of brasse into glasse which one may see through doth denote the difference betwixt the Law and the Gospell but these allegories will not hold The interpretation therefore of Ribera is more probable applying it to the multitude of men living on the earth who are compared to the sea of shining glasse because the sea is a gathering of many waters by which peoples and nations are signifyed Chap. 12.15 and they are shining because the counsels and the most secret actions of men are before the throne and open to the eyes of God beeing like the clearest chrystall discerning all things Bullinger before Ribera is yet more cleare The sea saith he before the Throne resembling glasse and Chrystall in brightnes and perspicuity signifies this fraile world which is allwayes in Gods sight For the holie scriptures doe type out unto us by the sea in regard of its instabilite noyse and tumultuousnes the mutability and inconstancie of this present world the state thereof beeing more fraile then glasse This exposition I well approve of as beeing indeed most probable As for Alcasars fiction in applying it unto his devised sacrament of Confession it is both a violent and a false wresting of the text So then the sea signifies the world which is said to be before the throne because the same shal be judged by Christ The world indeed doth swell rage against the saintes but it is as fraile as glasse or Chrystall whose waves are easilie broken and held in by the powerfull hand of the Lord. Now this thing is here inserted both for the comfort of John and the whole Church In this sence also and for the same end it is said in Chap. 8.8 the great mountaine burning with fire was cast into the sea Chap. 15.2 they that had overcome the beast are said to stand upon the sea of glasse of which more in its place And in the midst of the throne The fourth apparition about the throne are the foure beasts differing in forme but having eyes before and behinde and each of them sixe wings Alluding to the foure beasts in Ezechiel Chap. 1. And therefore ancient and moderne writers for the most part Whither the foure beasts type out the foure Evangelists understand by them the foure Evangelists which are commonlie expressed and painted in these formes Matthew in the likenesse of a man Mark of a Lyon Luke of an Oxe and Iohn of a flying Eagle Irenaeus applies it to the foure Gospels But Lyra refutes this from the order here observed because the face of a man appropriated to Matthew is here put in the third place he therefore here understands the foure Patriarchal Churches viz. Hierusalem Antioch Alexandria Constantinople But if so where then in the mean time was Rome did she not at all appeare in heaven He tels us she was comprehended under one But which of them or how it was he sheweth not neither indeed could he Besides the old writers doe not agree about the tipes of the beasts in applying them to the Evangelists The common opinion is that Matthew should be the man and Mark the Lyon Lib. 1. de consensu Evang. cap. 6. but Austin Bede will have the contrarie The reason alleadged why Matthew is likened to a man is because he begins his Gospel from the generation of Christ according to his manhood Againe Marc to a Lyon in regard he begins from the preaching of the Baptist crying like a Lyon in the wildernesse so Luke to an Oxe beginning his Gospel with the sacrifice of Zacharie Iohn is the flying Eagle in writing high and great mysteries of Christs divinity But what soliditie there is in these things let others judge It is tedious to set downe their reasons why these beasts should appeare in foure diverse formes First as a Lyon because say they God under the Law of nature shewed his glorie immediately unto the fathers Secondly as an Oxe because the Lord then required such beasts to be offered in sacrifice Thirdlie as a man because the son of God was made man Fourthly as an Eagle because the holy Ghost descending from heaven causeth the righteous to fly upward Ribera maintaining the common opinion Commen in Apoc. 4. num 39. answereth Lyras objection concerning the change of the order here That the common exposition observes the order of writing But Iohn the things according to their manifestation for the Baptist began to preach before Christ But this is to abuse the reader besides how could Iohn see the foure Evaugelists in the heavens he beeing himself one of them here then present upon earth To this Ribera answers That John saw those things which long after his death were to come to passe But this seems to contradict the text forasmuch as he saw the foure beasts which were then in heaven as also the foure and twenty Elders that is the Church triumphant with Christ Some interpret this of the
saying that they are so in the middle betwixt both as that they seem to be necessarie for man before God in this he doth not separate their worship from the religion of the high Gods And deriding this vanity he speaketh further it is to foolish to beleeve that such Gods as are made by men should more prevaile with the Gods whom God hath made Ibid. cap. 24. then men themselves whom God himselfe hath also created Let us therefore cast of Poperie as a heathenish worship derived from Apuleius and Plato The third Act of vision II. The opening of the sixt seale A great earthquake darkening the lights c. 12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixt seale and loe there vvas a great earthquake the Sunne became blacke as sackcloth of haire and the Moone became as blood 13 And the starres of heaven fell unto the earth even as a figtree casteth her untimely figges when shee is shaken of a mighty winde 14 And the heaven departed as a scrowle when he is rolled together and every mountaine and Iland were mooved out of their places THE COMMENTARIE ANd I beheld Horrible wonders appeare at the opening of this sixt seale as earthquakes shaking of the heavens convulsion of the starres subversion of mountaines and Islands the explication whereof is difficult Arethas understands it of the darknesse over all the earth of the earthquake and rending of rocks at Christs suffering Matt. 27.51 Ambrose by a trope applies this horrible concussion to the destruction of Ierusalem But what use was there to reveale that unto Iohn by obscure types which was already past and fresh in memorie and by historie formerlie made known unto all Lyra understands it figuratively of the Diocletian persecution more cruel then the former But the most cruelst of all was the persecution yet to come namely under Antichrist Andreas therfore more probablie refers it unto the time before the comming of Antichrist wherein the miseries and persecutions here spoken of should come to passe But most interpreters understand it of the verie last persecution under Antichrist of whose mind I also am notwithstanding they erre from the scope of the history in their application For they following the common opinion that som one particular Antichrist shal oppresse the Church about the last foure yeeres of the world referre these earthquakes and darknings of the sun c. unto the foresaid time Neverthelesse herein they agree not For Ribera and others interpret it properly of the signes going before Christs last comming spoken of Matt. 24. Luk. 21. But most applie it to the horrible confusions and calamities which by Antichrist shal be brought upon the whole earth But for my own part I understand this third Act of the vision to shadow out the manie and sore trials wherewith for a thousand yeeres and more as histories testifie the Church of Christ hath been excercised under Antichrist Now this Act consisteth of two parts The third Act of the second vision hath two parts The first treats of the greater more horrible confusion of the Christian world under Antichrist contained in the 12.13.14 following verses which are to be separated from the last three verses of the Chapt the reason whereof I will shew by and by The other part of the Act is more comfortable as beeing opposed to the former troubles in which is propounded unto the godlie for their great consolation the sealing of the elect in their foreheads in the first eight verses of the following Chapter Now unlesse this be observed howbeit manie things I confesse in a general way may be truely learnedly piously treated of touching this earthquake darkening of the Sun other prodigious things as miseries to befall the world yet in deed these Generals tend but to the darkening of the matter And therfore for the right understanding of the sixt seale we must of necessity have recourse to the histories of the east and westerne kingdoms both from the time that Popery was first established in the West and Mahumetisme in the East as also diligently consider the state and experience of the present times touching all which a word or two in Generall About the yeere of our Lord six hundred after that the Church had obtained some rest was freed frō the persecution of open enemies she immediately began to be rent asunder by divisions corrupted with diverse heresies yea at length Pagan worship under the cloake of Christianitie and humane traditions so prevailed as that shee became pale and sick even unto the death For then arose the hot contention between the Bishops of Rome Bizantium about the monarchical primatie over all other Bishops and Churches Hereupon the Emperour Mauritius much favouring Iovinian his metropolitan made way for him to obtaine the primacie under a pretence that where the principall seat of the Empire was there ought also to be the chiefe chaire of the Church Now on the other hand Gregorie Bishop of Rome invying this honour of universalitie and power in his corrival Lib. 6. Epist 10. Lib. 4. Epist 34.36.37.39 affirmed that this title was wicked perverse proud prophane foolish and frivolous neyther ought there to be any such scandal raised among the Bishops at last he thus concludeth I saith he doe confidentlie affirm that whosoever either calleth himself or desireth to be called the universall priest seeing herein out of the pride of his heart he lifts himself up above his fellow brethren is the fore runner of Antichrist Thus we see that Gregorie makes the title of universall to be the true badge of Antichrist And indeed he so much prevailed with the Emperour as at that time the pride of Jovinian his corrival was repressed But Mauritius a while after beeing wickedlie murdered by Phocas and Gregorie dying about the yeere 604. Pope Sabinian his successour thirsting after the foresaid tyrannie burnt the writings of Gregorie and made void his decrees however he attained not what he aymed at beeing prevēted the yeere after by an infamous death After him succeeded Boniface the third who by Phocas the usurper was proclaimed universal Bishop Prince of Priests notwithstanding the clergie most of the Italian Bishops opposed the same Thus he declared himself unto the whole world to be that Antichrist and the first as Platina and other writers affirme that established his tyrannie by these insolent expressions as thus we will and command we appoint and charge we will and require c. From that time the Christian world began to be shaken with a horrible motion For now Christ the Sun of righteousnes was obscured The Moon of the Church turned into blood The starres fall from heaven Bishops become secular princes heaven or the opened booke of holy scriptures rolled up The mountaines kings princes stand in jeopardy of their power to be short the Islands are remooved out of there place by beeing brought under the yoke of Romish tyrannie Then saith
Platina onely the rents of Bishoprikes was looked at Plati in vita Bonif 3. but not what sheep were in the pasture It would be tedious to declare how this Antichristian tyrannie by the successours of Boniface was afterward established As for Boniface himselfe he indeed sate scarce a yeere on this chair of universall pestilence For on all sides these ecclesiastical harpies so gaped after the prey as that by poyson murder deceit factions seditions enchantment and magical art one sought to dispatch the other Balaeus hath distributed these Antichristian Popes from this Boniface unto Julius II that is from the yeere of Christ 606. unto the yeere 1513. Balae in Act. Rom. Pont. into five distinct classes or orders as may there be seen Who for the most part as Genebrardus a Popish writer himself cōfesseth were Magicians Sorcerers Atheists Adulterers Murderers wicked perjured impure not Apostolical but apostatical and heretical men they were I say capital enemies of Apostolical doctrine inventours and defenders of idolatrie superstition and a new worship bloodthirstie men and so have continued even unto this day And here indeed the earthquake began to shake all Christianity in the Westerne parts Now about the same time viz. in the yeere 609. Heraclius beeing Emperour who toke away Phocas the tyrant Mahumet an Ismaelite by open force raysed no lesse an earthquake in the East For he beeing a souldiour and an hypocrite by the help of the Persians tooke from Heraclius many provinces and after he had established a kingdom unto himself he caused one Sergius a Nestorian Monke to compose the Alcoran who mixed togerher somwhat of every religion in such a manner as might best serve to draw the affection of carnal people unto a love and liking thereof thereby to strengthen the politie of his new usurped kingdom in the world and the better to root out the faith of Christ Whence it came to passe that by this commotion most people in the East fell from Christian religion and the Sun of righteousnesse beeing darkened the mist of Mahumeticall superstition prevailed and oppressed not the East alone but all the south parts of the world also these are the earthquakes darkening of the lights and prodigious wonders here enigmatically described according to the manner of propheticall scriptures Now we come to the words themselves And behold a great earthquake most dreadfull and prodigious things with which under the reigne of Antichrist as most interpreters both Greeke Latine confesse the Christian world yea and heaven it self too were to be shaken as the darkning of heavenlie lights the falling downe of the stars and lastlie the the concussion of the mountaines and Islands are here shewed unto Iohn under the Image or form of a great earthquake Indeed such kind of praedictions are diverse times mentioned both in the writings of the Prophets and Apostles But not in one and the same sence the which thinge we are well to take notice of for the circumstance of the places will lead us sometimes unto a literall sometimes unto an allegoricall interpretation thereof Vndoubtedly the predictions of Christ The signes which are literally to be understood touching the end of the world and his last comming are to be taken litterallie as in Matth. 24. Mar. 13. Luk. 11. Then there shall be signes in the Sun and in the Moon and in the Stars and upon the earth distresse of nations with perplexitie the sea and the waves roaring Mens hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are comming on the earth for the powers of heaven shall be shaken and then shall they see the Son of man comming c. and in Revel 16.20 Every Island fled and the mountaines were not found viz. in the day of judgement For indeed all these things shall then really come to passe Now in other places these expressions doe set forth allegorically horrible alterations or Gods great judgements and those eyther particular against the enemies of the Church as in Isay 13.10 where the prophet speaketh of the horrible overthrow of the Babylonians in these words The stars of heaven and the constellation thereof shall not give their light The Sun shal be darkned and the Moon also shall not give her light And again in Isai 34.4 And all the host of heaven shal be dissolved and and the heavens shal be rolled together as a scroll and all their host shall fall down c. And from this place as it seems by the like phrase the words here in our text are taken Again in Ezech. 32.7 concerning the overthrow of Aegypt I will cover the heavens saith the Lord and make the stars thereof dark I will cover the Sun with a cloud and the Moon shall not give her light Or universall signifying the total commotion of the Church somtimes in a good sence sometimes in a bad and somtimes in both In a good sence as in Hag. 2.7 Hebr. 12.27 Thus saith the Lord yet once it is a little while and I will shake the heavens and the earth and the drie land And I will shake all nations and the desire of the gentiles shall come c. In which oracle is prophesied of an universall concussion that is of the reformation of the world by Christ the which how it hath been shall yet further be fulfilled we have expounded in our commentarie on Hebr. 12.27 In the evil part it is undoubtedlie taken in this place as signifying the shaking of the heaven and earth that is the future corruption oppression of the Church by Antichrist Now this concussion both in a good sence by Christ also in an ill sence by Antichrist is prophesied of by Ioel 2.28 The oracle of Ioel Chap. 2.27 expounded And it shall come to passe afterward that I will poure out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesie c. And I will shew wonders in the heavens in the earth blood fire pillars of smoack the Sun shal be turned into darknes the Moon into blood before the great terrible day come Act. 2.17 which prophesie Peter shewes to have been partly fulfilled when as on the day of Pentecost the Apostles the Apostolical Church were miraculously filled with the holy Ghost Partlie to be accomplished before the last comming of Christ at what time the Church shal be troubled with horrible calamities not so much by hereticks or tyrants as by Antichrist Christs adversarie Now these things are foretold least the faithful should imagine Christs kingdome to bee of this world or to expect pleasures in this life but rather to prepare themselves for all manner of adversities in the mean while beeing fully assured that these calamities shall no way hurt the Elect persevering in prayer and supplication Ioel. 2.32 and therfore this is added as a consolation Whosoever shall call on the name of Iehovah shal be delivered for in
death then with such a dreadfull distraction feare of present punishment enjoy the light any more Three times in scripture we finde these expressions Once in Hosea 10.8 concerning the overthrow of Israel by the Assyrians Secondly in Luke 23.30 touching the destruction of Ierusalem and thirdly in this place about the final punishment of reprobates And this here is rightlie applied to the like miseries because in their causes they are all alike For of old this exclamation was fulfilled in the wicked Israelites beeing cast both into temporal eternal punishment Afterward it was also verified in the destruction of the city and the utter overthrow of the Iewish nation and shall most fullie be accomplished at the day of judgement when the wicked shal hear that fearfull sentence pronounced Goe ye cursed into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devill and his angels Then shall they burst forth into these words of despaire Mountaines fall on us as thinking it better for them once to be crushed by the mountains and brought to nothing then for ever to be tormented in flames of hell fire But here I cannot sufficiently wonder at the false and impious interpretation of Lyra Gagnaeus and others who are not ashamed to applie that unto the martyrs saintes in heaven thereby to establish their blasphemous invocation on saintes departed which the scripture plainly attributes unto reprobates despairing of salvation These cryes they wil have to be made by the martyrs under the Diocletian persecution The mountaines the rockes to be the Saintes called mountaines because of their exaltation unto heavenly things Vnto them the godlie in their straights and anguishes shall cry fall on us that is come to us and help us in our persecution Hide us that is protect us by praying unto God for us But what a horrible depravation of scripture is this We know that the godly martyrs in their persecution by prayer fled unto God sitting on the throne unto the Lambe standing in the midst thereof that is Christ the onely saviour But for any worship to be rendred unto fained saintes the martyrs and others of the faithful were altogether ignorant of For what can be imagined more wicked then that the martyrs in their greatest anguishes leaving God Christ should implore the help of the creature against the expresse commandement of God call upon me in the day of trouble c. From the face of him that sits There are three causes of this their great fear and desperation The sight of God the Lamb the day of judgement and an evill conscience Touching the first no marvaile seeing God is a consuming fire the wicked are as stubble which the fire easely consumeth brings to nothing And from the wrath of the Lamb No where in scripture is wrath attributed unto the Lamb but in this place here it noteth that revēging justice proper to God alone XXXII Argum. of Christs deity which the wicked shall tremble at when the Lamb shall pronounce the sentence go yee cursed c. Now here the Godhead of the Lamb is evidently proved seeing Antichrist and his wicked instruments doe and shall stand in fear of none but of God onely omnipotent as is confirmed by the following reason 17 For the great day of his wrath is come This is the second cause of the wickeds horror This great day of God and the Lamb is the day of judgement For in the day of judgement being asked a reason of their ungodlinesse cruelty cōmitted they shal be mute stand ashamed They who understand this great day otherwise then of the last judgment doe groslie deceive themselves But Alcasar applying this to the Iewish people is more ridiculous who would mingle an historie knowen unto the whole world with these propheticall types In the mean while let the reader observe the relative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his anger evidentlie proving as before we shewed the deitie of Christ For that great day of wrath or of judgements especially of the last judgement is every where in the scriptures called the great day of Jehovah Ier. 30.7 Ioel 2.11.31 Zepha 1.14 Mal. 4.5 Act. 2.20 Now here this day is called The great day of the Lambs wrath And who shall be able to stand The third cause of their trembling is an evil conscience against God Men the spouse of the Lamb. The words are taken out of Ioel 2.11 For the day of Jehovah is great and terrible and who can abide it Even the godlie themselves break forth into the like speeches when they looke upon the rigour of Gods judgements If thou shouldest observe iniquitie O Iehovah who shall stand but this they speake with a filial fear and humbling of themselves and not with horror despairing as doe the wicked To stand in judgement is to rely on the confidence of a good cause and to be absolved or quitted as Cicero saith in his epistles Yesterday we stood well in the Senate Not to stand is to loose ones cause and to be condemned according to the Psalmist the wicked shall not stand in judgement Ps 1.5 so againe the foolish shall not stand in thy sight Psa 5.5 Hence they here cry out Who that is none of Gods enemyes the Lambs shall be able to stand Thus we have heard the Acts of Antichrists tragical end now followes the happie and joyful change of the church the sealed holy ones shal stand before the throne singing to God and the Lamb Salvation bee to our God c. The Argument Parts and Analysis of Chapter VII THe wonders of the sixt seale belonging to the third and fourth Act of vision 2. are continued in this Chapter After the prodigious earth-quake of Antichrists kingdom and the horrible cryes of his supporters under their punishments Now further things are exhibited unto Iohn some to come to passe in heaven and others in the earth In the earth he saw four Angels labouring to hinder the blowing of the windes And another Angel reproving them and sealing of the twelve tribes of Israel a hundred fourty and four thousand saintes in their foreheads In heaven he saw an innumerable multitude before the throne shouting with prayses unto God and to the Lambe one of the four and twentie Elders shewing unto Iohn who they were and their happie condition And thus the second vision is ended The parts are two THe first touching the indeavour of the four Angels and their restraint in the first 8 verses The other containes the harmonious thanksgiving of the heavenly inhabitants and of their felicity from v. 9. unto the end In the former part is set forth the state of the godly under Antichrists kingdome that is howsoever Satan and Antichrist shall labour by all means possible to suppresse the Gospell and tread all things under foot yet some winds shall blow that is some witnesses of the truth shal strongly oppose Antichrist the Lord still preserving certaine
of Christs flesh hiding or covering his divinity Others for the obscure knowledge by which he revealed himself unto the world in the time of the sixt trumpet beeing as it were as yet covered with great darknesse making the sense thus hee appeared clothed with a cloud that is he manifested himself in an obscure or darke way unto the world For my owne part I take it according the manner of the scripture to be a signe of divine majesty For Iehovah was wont to appeare unto the people in a cloud 2 Chro. 6.1 the cloud also leading the people in the wildernesse sheltering them from the heat of the sunne was Christ Therefore he is clothed with a cloud to shew that he is Lord of a heavenly nature And the rainebow on his head The rainebow signifies grace beeing sett by God as a signe Gen. 9.13 that he would not send the floud any more upon the earth Christ therefore appeares crowned with a rainebow as the messenger of grace peace for he is our peace Eph. 2.14 the prince of peace Isa 9.6 This signe was very fit for the time confirming tidings of peace with God to the afflicted Church shortlie to rest from all her troubles and enjoy future happinesse His face was as the Sunne Thus also in Chap. 1.16 it is said Christs face shone as the sunne shineth in his strength that is it was most cleare shining in ful brightnes For hee is the sun of righteousnesse illuminating his Church clearing up the stormes of afflictions For as the sunne in its vigour dissipates the cloudes drives away cold alayes the windes and brings a serenity so Christ by the brightnesse of his spirit of grace will asswage the stormes of afflictions dissipate the tempests of calamities and bring unto the faithfull a quietnesse of conscience in the midst of all their troubles at last by the cleare beames of his countenance will dispell all manner of adversitie His feet as pillars of fire In Chap. 1.15 Christs feet were as fine brasse burning as in a fornace by which metaphor the power and strength of Christ is signified for pillars by their strength underprop support the house Fire consumes chaffe other things so Christ appeares here with such feet who by his power and strength will stand fast against the adversaries Antichrist the Church he will purge defend but consume the enemies like stubble Hitherto we have heard the description of the Angel who doth in this manner shew himself unto Iohn that the Church groaning under the burden of afflictions might know that Christ will come to revenge and relieve her deplorable condition especially under the fift and sixt trumpets for hee will be present with his Church in all her troubles because hee is crowned with a rainbow as also he is powerfull to asswage the tempests of calamities as having a face like the sunne whom the scorpionlike Locusts with their horses and Lyons heads and tailes like serpents shall no way terrifie or overthrow because by his feet as with fiery pillars he so settles his kingdome as it cannot be moved to be short hee easily can destroy Antichrist with all his Locusts arising out of the pit seeing he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mightie powerfull This is the scope and use of the description of the Angel 2 And he had in his hand a little booke open Now follow the Acts of the Angel which tend to the same purpose The first is that he holds in his hand a booke open This booke open is the same which before was shut Here it may be demanded whither this open booke bee the same with the former shut with seven seales I suppose it is the same because Christ under the forme of a Lambe received the booke that was shut unsealed and opened the same neyther doe wee read that he gave the booke being opened to any Now who can better hold the booke open then he that opened it here therfore Christ under the figure of a mighty Angel holds that book open in his hand which before he opened Neither is it any way cōtradictory that there it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a booke but here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a little book seeing both words are derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a booke besides the book beeing opened was lesse then when it was shut or els it seemed to be lesse in waight when the seales were taken off or lastly it was lessened in regard many events were now revealed unto Iohn so that it contained not so many secret mysteries as it did before But what may bee the meaning Why Christ holdeth the booke open in his hand that Christ holds this little booke open in his hand The book was written within without within were contained the secrets of future things to bee revealed unto Iohn without was writtē the doctrine of the Gospell before published penned by the Apostles Christ opened the whole booke both because the Apostles were by him inspired and sent forth to preach the Gospell to the whole world as also because he revealed these mysteries unto Iohn Now least it might have been thought that by the great stormes tumults cruel devises of Tyrants Locusts the armies of horsemen the booke of the Gospell had been wrung out of the hands of Christ in regard that almost throughout the whole world the doctrine of free grace justifying faith and the certainty of salvation had of a long time been buried especially under Antichrists kingdom Therefore Christ now appears holding the same open in his hand thereby teaching us first that not withstanding the perfecution of tyrants the superstitions and lyes of Antichrist by which he darkened the doctrine of Gospell yet he held forth in his hand the booke of his word that is raised up continually some faithfull professours and teachers of the truth who maintained the same against all tyrants and Antichrists And indeed the bookes of martyrs and other ecclesiastical histories doe abundantly witnesse that there have been multitudes of such not onely during the persecution of the Romane Emperours and hereticks but also these thousand yeeres many under Antichrist condemned cruelly put to death for heresie But secondly it teacheth us that at last he will also purge his booke from the pollutions of the Locusts dregs of Antichrist by fit witnesses of his truth whom in the last times he will raise up for that end in the midst of Antichrists kingdome And he set his right foot upon the sea The following actions of the Angel illustrate the matter going before For in that he set his feet upon the sea and earth cried as when a lyon roareth caused the thunders to utter their voyces and sware by the living God all this tends to give us to understand that Christ suffered not the booke of his doctrine to bee wrung out of his hand neither by the Romane tyrants
4. 3. From the efficacie and authority of their office v. 5. 6. II. Their warre with the beast where 1. we have the description of the beast his hostile invasion and victorie ver 7. 2. The martyrdome of the prophets and place of reproach v. 7. 8. 9. 3. The joyes of the wicked for the slaughter of the prophets with the cause of this their great rejoycing vers 10. III. The avengement of the prophets where 1. we have their restoring to life vers 11. 2. The astonishment feare of the wicked ibid. 3. Their glorious ascending up into heaven v. 12. 4. The shaking and ruin of Antichrists kingdome IV. An acclamatory conclusion of the end of the Churches calamities of judgement at hand v. 14. The latter part the seventh trumpet sounding declares the change of the Churches warfare in three particulars 1. An heavenly triumph because the kingdomes of the world were become Gods and Christs ver 15. 2. A triumphant song of the first companie viz. of the four and twenty Elders whose reverend cariage gratulatorie hymne is recited in which 1. they give thankes to Christ for freeing his Church and kingdom from the tyrannie of the adversaries v. 17. 2. They declare the vain fretting wrath of the wicked hereat v. 18. 3. They proclaime the resurrection of the dead with the last judgement ibid. 4. They denounce rewards unto the godly and punishment unto the wicked ibid. The excecution of judgement on the godly ungodly To the godly heaven is opened that they might see Iesus Christ the Ark upon the wicked are sent lightnings thunders eternal haile The first part of the Chapter Of the reformation of the Church by the two witnesses under the Westerne Antichrist 1. And there was given me a reed like unto a rod and the Angel stood saying Rife and measure the Temple of God the Altar them that worship therein 2. But the Court which is without the Temple leave out and measure it not for it is given unto the Gentiles the holy City shall they tread under foot fourtie and two moneths 3. And I will give power unto my two witnesses they shall prophesie a thousand two hundred and threescore dayes clothed in sakcloth 4. These are the two Olive trees and the two candlestickes standing before the God of the earth 5. And if any man will hurt them fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies if any man will hurt them he must in this manner be killed 6. These have power to shut heaven that it raine not in the dayes of their prophecie and have power over waters to turne them to blood and to smite the earth with all plagues as often as they will 7. And when they shall have finished their testimony the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomlesse pit shal make warre against them shall overcome them and kill them 8. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodome and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified 9. And they of the people and kindreds and tongues nations shall see their dead bodies three dayes and an halfe shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves 10. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoyce over them and make merry shall send gifts one to another because these two Prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth 11. And after three dayes and an halfe the Spirit of life from God entred into them they stood upon their feete great feare fell upon them which saw them THE COMMENTARIE ANd there was given mee a reed This is a generall prophesie touching the restoring of the Church beeing declyned under Antichrist Before Iohn was commanded againe to prophesie But now to measure the temple of God with a measuring reed that is to prophesie of the measuring of the temple of God which should be afterwards in the times of Antichrist The measuring of the temple is the reformation of the Church The measuring of the temple signifies the building repairing thereof as appeares if this prophesie bee compared with that in Ezech. 40.41 c. unto which this place doth allude The Temple of God signifies the Church as almost all interpreters both ancient moderne understand it and indeed the words here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 temple of God are so taken 1 Cor. 3.16 2 Cor. 6.16 2 Thess 2.4 They who apply this to the temple of Jerusalem are refuted by the time it self for when these things were spoken unto John that temple with the city beeing utterly destroyed was never any more to be restored Lyra Lyras frivolous interpretation doting as his manner is applies it to the festivitie of the dedication of temples instituted by Pope Felix about the yeere 525. at which time the Bishop holding in his hand a sprinckling reed goes about the outward walles of the temple as if he were to measure the same and within on the floore from one corner thereof unto another he thwartwise writes downe the letters of the Greek alphabet and so measures the space within The words therefore Rise and measure he will have to be meant of Pope Felix speaking to every Bishop about the dedication of temples the court leave out or cast forth because masse may not be celebrated except the place be consecrated But I passe by these fopperies For Ribera and Alcasar themselves acknowledge that the Temple here signifies the Church of God Now let us see what instrument hee is to use what to doe with it wherefore and when First hee shewes the instrument A reed like unto a rod was given mee to wit by the Angel who before commanded him to eat up the booke and againe prophesie that is by Christ Ribera wel observeth that it was not a writing pen but a measuring reed because it is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like to a rod that is a great measuring staffe with which Architects use to mete plats of ground and buildings a measure of six cubites and a handbreth Ezech. 40.5 The Rod wherewith the Church is measured What is meant by the measuring rod of the Church is nothing else but the word of God the most perfect rule of faith and Church discipline Rupertus acknowledgeth it to be the authoritie of the Evangelical scripture So that this reed is indeed the same little booke which Christ gave unto John to eat it up the which is here againe delivered to him under the type of a reed or rule in regard of the measuring worke here enjoyned Thus also my Anonymus above 260 yeeres agoe The rod saith he is the sense of the scripture because as a rod of diverse colours it chastiseth sinners Rise and measure the Temple of God First he must measure the Temple Altar Worshippers therein Secondly leave or cast forth the inward court The reading of both is somewhat
righteousnesse then after they have known it to turn from the holy commandement delivered unto them 2 Pet. 2. But that which followes doth expresse the thing more clearly The holie city shall they tread under foot fourty two moneths He declares by an auxesis or amplification how the court is given as if he should say The holy city troden under foot by the Gentiles is the Church the court shall not onely be given unto the Gentiles but all the holy citie also shall be troden under foot by them Ribera againe rightly understands the holy citie to be the Church typed out by Ierusalem of old Moreover we are to observe that the Angel that is Christ who speaketh these things doth allude to his own words Luk. 12.24 Jerusalem shal be troden down by the Gentiles untill the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled foreshewing the besieging taking overthrowing of the city temple by the Romans so that to tread under foot is to fal upon wast destroy in a hostile manner as was done unto Ierusalem not long before by Titus Vespasian Now like as Ierusalem was a type of the Christian Church so the treading down of Ierusalem by the Romans was a type that the Church also should be troden under foote by the same nation For Rome as it was of Ierusalem so shal it be the calamity destruction of the Church What cā be said more clearly then this that the Church shal be possessed troden down laid wast by the Romish Antichrist his adherents So then these words viz. the Romaine Gentiles shall tread the holy citie under foot agrees to that of the Apostle The man of sin Antichrist shall sit in the temple of God that is he shall suppresse the Romish Church by tyranny proudly boasting himself to bee as God the head universal monarch But when how long Fourty and two moneths here is wisdome It is manifest by the consent almost of all interpreters that the time of Antichrists persecution is hereby set forth But what time how long it is to continue or how to determine either of the beginning or ending thereof is obscure both unto mee other interpreters and happily it is beyond the reach of man For it pleaseth the spirit that we should rather still be searching into some things which concerne the times then certainly to know them as Christ intimated unto his disciples Act. 1.7 It is not for you to know the times and seasons which the father hath put in his own power However I will recite the chiefe opinions of learned men The first is of some Ancients brought in by the authority of the Pope which Caesariensis followeth so doe generally al the Papists to this day viz that fourty two moneths are astronomicall moneths making three Aegyptian yeeres and an halfe whence arose that received poopish opinion that Antichrist should onely reigne three yeeres and an halfe This they collected out of Daniel Chap. 7.25 And they shal be given into his hand untill a time and times the dividing of time And Chap. 12.7 where the Angel sweareth that all these thinges shall bee finished at a time times halfe a time The which division of time is also assigned unto the Church banished in the wildernesse Reve. 12.14 of which we will speake in its place Now they make the three yeeres an half to bee the time immediatelie going before the end of the world Lib. 3. de P. R. c. 17. because Antichrist as Bellarmin affirmeth shal be slaine by the Iewes before the fourth yeere be ended then fourty five dayes after Christ shal come to judgment Now hence they seeke to establish two things I. that Antichrist is not yet come into the world II. And so consequently the Pope of Rome is not he ibid. cap. 8. For Antichrist saith Bellarmin in his V demonstration shall onely reigne three yeeres and an halfe But the Pope hath already spiritually reigned in the Church above fifteen hundred yeeres and more then five hundred temporally neither can any one be noted or accounted to be Antichrist unlesse he hath precisely reigned three yeeres and an half Therefore the Pope is not Antichrist neither is he as yet come But to speak nothing of the most false assumption of this ridiculous demonstration it is certaine that the Romane Bishops before Constantines time were so far from raigning spiritually much lesse temporally in the Church as on the contrary they all suffered martyrdom for the sake of Christ True it is Sylvesters successours many times affected the primacy but were continually suppressed by their fellow Bishops untill that Boniface the third many labouring but in vaine to hinder it was by the authority of Phocas the Emperour set on the chaire of universall pestilence The fiction of the 42 astronomical moneths refuted To let these things I say passe for the present the proposition which is taken from this place of the Revelation is altogether false because that Popish opinion touching the 42 astronomicall moneths of Antichristian persecution is contradictorie both to it self and the holy scriptures It consists not with its self because the things which they faine that their Antichrist shall effect are as impossible to be don in the space of three yeeres and a halfe as for a snaile in three dayes to creep over the whole earth he must be acknowledged by the Iewish nation dispersed throughout the earth for the Messias he must sit in the temple of Ierusalem which for so many ages hath lyen wast under a horrible destruction moreover he must kill three kings of Egypt Lybia and Ethiopia and subdue seven other princes he must repaire the ruins of Rome burnt by those ten kings and chasing the Pope from thence sit there as Monarch persecute and blot Christian religion quite out of the world to be short bring the Church and the Empire of the whole world under him c. Who I pray you except he were a mad man would imagine that all these things should bee possibly accomplished in four whole yeeres What for messengers thinke ye shall Antichrist have to send abroad who so suddenly shall tell and perswade the Iewes dispersed over the face of the whole earth of the comming of their Messias The temple forsooth shall be built againe in three dayes the which Solomon having all manner of materials prepared to his hand could not finish in seven yeeres nor Zerubbabel scarsly rebuild in fourty six yeeres Yea this Antichrist hardly of four yeeres standing shall expell the Turk out of Syria the Persian out of the East C ham out of the South Prester John out of all the North. What can be imagined more frivolous shall the Emperours and Christian kings be fallen into such a dead sleep as altogether in a moment to be suppressed by one man Will the Pope with his Cardinals watch no better but suffer Catholick Rome to fall to Paganisme shall
all Christians so rashly yeeld assistance unto Antichrist so soon as he manifests himself O foolish vanities Thus we see this fiction is inconsistent It is also diverse wayes repugnant to the holie Scriptures For they teach us that Antichrist shall not come but by an universall apostasie from the faith 2 Thess 2.3 1 Tim. 4.1 the elect onely excepted who are sealed in their foreheads But who would say that al Christian Bishops with their highpriests could be led aside from the faith within lesse then four yeeres Besides the Scripture witnesseth that the day Mark 13.22 1 Thess 5.2 moneth and yeere of Christs last comming beeing hid from all creatures is onely knowen unto God and the Lord will come suddenly as a thiefe in the night when the world shall say Peace and safety But according to the opinion here laid down the day moneth and yeere of the last judgement should not bee unknown for from the rising of Antichrist unto his death there should remaine but three yeeres and an halfe and from his death unto the last judgement 45 dayes for so Bellarmin expresly writes Lib. 3. de P. R. c. 17. that after the death of Antichrist there shall be no more then 45 dayes unto the end of the world Seeing therefore that the opinion being granted there followes a falsity the opinion it self must needs be false This reason is so strong as that it forced Ribera to forsake that false opinion about the 45 dayes as we shall hear on Chap. 20. To be short this onely sufficeth that in Chap. 13.5 these 42 moneths are againe repeated touching the beast unto him power was given to continue fourty two moneths which cannot in any wise be understood of Astronomicall moneths or three yeeres and an halfe For that beast to Bellarmin Alcasar and others not a few is the Romane Empire the power whereof whither it be taken of the old or new continued far longer then three yeeres and an halfe For these causes therefore and many other absurdities this first opinion cannot possiblie stand And this errour is the rather to be excused in the Ancients who diverse wayes erred about Antichrist as Bellarmin himself confesseth because they saw not the histories of future ages Ibid. cap. 3. but is not in our dayes to be suffered in the least but banished out of the Church as a most pernitious errour For it hath brought both a securitie upon the world hitherto as also it keepeth the Papists to this day in their blindnes insomuch as they neither will nor can see and avoyd Antichrist raigning in the Church long agoe discovered by the light of the Gospell Concerning the divisions of the times in Dan we will speak in the following Chapter The other opinion understands these to be propheticall moneths The other opinion of fourty two propheticall moneths Ezech. 4 5 6. Num. 14.34 Cent. 1. lib. 2. c. 4. col 438. taking a moneth for thirtie dayes of yeeres or thirtie yeeres and so these 42 moneths make twelve hundred and sixtie yeeres like as Ezechiel was commanded to lie on his left side 390 dayes upon his right fourty dayes for fourty yeeres by taking a day for a yeere so the Israelites are commanded to wander in the wildernes fourty yeeres according to the dayes in which they searched the land counting a day for a yeere and so the Centurie writers of Magdeburg take it and our Junius on this place who begins the fourty two moneths or 1260 yeeres of this treading under foot from the passion of our Lord endeth it in Boniface the eight who was created Pope in the yeer 1294. from which the thirty foure yeeres of Christs life beeing deducted there remaine 1260 yeeres now concerning this determination I will speake afterward Bellarmins objections against this opinion are not solid He saith Ibid. cap. 8 that the scripture indeed speakes of weekes of yeeres Levit. 25. Dan. 9. but that we finde not dayes to be put for yeeres or moneths of yeeres Vnto which I answer it is not true that dayes are not put for yeeres for the two alledged places Num. 14.34 Ezech. 4.6 doe plainly shew the same That which he objects that yeeres are not taken for dayes according to the letter otherwise Ezechiel must have lien on his left side 390 yeeres is frivolous for dayes doe not signifie yeeres litterally but according to the pleasure of God so speaking fourty yeeres are imposed upon the Israelites for fourty dayes and on the contrarie for 390 yeeres 390 dayes are granted unto Ezech. so that it cannot bee denied but the scripture in a propheticall sense doth reciprocally put a day for a yeere and a yeere for a day Touching the moneths of yeeres he cavils in vaine For if the scripture allowes of dayes of yeeres weekes of yeeres why not also of moneths of yeeres seeing moneths are reduced into weekes and weekes into dayes The determination I leave to the authors notwithstanding it seems not to bee without some inconveniences For first as concerning the life of Christ In heresi 51 Alogian I rather thinke with Epiphanius that he lived 32 complete yeeres and 74 dayes then 34 yeeres of which I have spoken somthing otherwere So then the end of these yeeres would come short of Boniface VIII Secondlie it sufficiently appeareth by what we have spoken on Chap. 4.1 I will shew thee things which must bee hereafter that this account must not begin from Christs passion or any other time before this vision was exhibited unto John And therefore these yeeres are to begin after the Revelation so after the times of Domitian Thirdly although Boniface indeed most wickedlie trode under foot the holy city yet after him it ceased not for his successours no way inferiour to him in Antichristian tyrannie have gone foreward treading down the Church unto this day Now it is apparent that here is noted the time how long the holy city must be troden under foot by Antichristian Gentiles So that these XLII moneths shal not be ended untill the holie city be freed from this treading down And therefore this opinion also seems to have little soliditie in it The third The third opinion touching Sabbath-moneths is John Fox that excellent writer of the English booke of Martyrs in his conjectures on the Revelation who understands the XLII moneths of sabbaths weekes or yeeres of so many times seven yeeres which make 294. and so many yeeres he reckons from the death of Iohn Baptist unto Constantine the Emperour under whom the Christians first were freed from persecution as therefore saith he the times of the first persecution of Christians under the Jewes and Emperours increased unto 294 yeeres so likewise the last persecution treading down of the holie citie shall endure 294 yeeres beginning from the time that the power of the Turkes first began to increase viz. from the yeere of our Lord 1300. So these moneths should have been ended
in the yeere of Christ 1586. and the holy citie now delivered from beeing troden under foot by the Gentiles more then 50 yeeres Now howsoever I doe not at all derogate from this opinion as beeing indeed verie pithy and ingenious yet I scarslie dare follow it For first the hypothesis or argument propounded touching the Sabbath-moneths seems to be very uncertain neither can it easily be proved by any example of Scripture where a moneth is put for a weeke of yeeres The which also that excellent divine of great Brittaine Robert Abbad Bishop of Sarum whom I name for honours sake seems clearly to prove Demonstr cap. 8. pag. 111. in his demonstration of Antichrist against Bellarmin Secondlie it appeareth plainely that this prophesie is not to be understood of treading down the holie citie by the Turkes because two witnesses are brought in prophesying against that treading down whereas prophesies will little help against Turkish tyrannie courage force of armes rather must free the holy city from that oppression Thirdlie it is verie unlikely according to his opinion that the XLII 42 moneths should now be finished and the holie city cease to be troden down by the Gentiles For both in the East West a miserable desolation of the holy city is yet to bee seen For the Turkes power is so far from beeing broken as on the contrary it dayly increaseth and sets more more his feet upon the holy citie The Romish tyrannie also although it bee greatly weakned by the prophesie of the two witnesses not withstanding it is not as yet broken but still oppresseth the Church both in the Western and Northern kingdomes I therefore leave the conjecture of this most learned man in the same nature as he himself desireth I saith hee doe not at all assume this to my self to define here any thing on a certainty or that my opinion should be any way praejudicatorie unto others far better then my self this onely I desire that the same liberty which others take unto themselves may also bee granted to mee without offence In Alcasars opinion I finde nothing eyther probable or true Vestigat pag. 567. save that he rejects the common opinion of Antichrists reigning three yeeres and a halfe For my part saith he as yet I may freely say that if I take this exposition about Antichrists persecution as the chiefe thing in this eleventh Chapter then I know not how to draw the line of the REVELATION and knit things together in order And afterward Notwithstanding as the halfe houre in Chap. 8. the five moneths in Chap. 9. are not to be taken in a proper sense but mystically so for the more convenient connexion of the REVELATION these fourty two moneths are not to be taken in a proper but mystical sense for to take these numbers of dayes moneths yeeres as they sound it were not sutable unto an enigmatical stile In which two things are to be gathered First that this place serves not at all for to establish the common opinion of Antichrists reigning for three yeeres and a halfe whereas the Patrones thereof doe hence chiefly build upon Secondly that our interpreters who take not the numbers of dayes moneths or yeeres according to the letter but understand them eyther of Sabbath-moneths or propheticall dayes definite or indefinite The fourth opinion of fourty two indefinite moneths Act. 1 7. doe no way stray from the aenigmatical stile of the Revelation Bullinger therefore most of our interpreters considering that the method and drift of this prophesy is chiefly to enlighten us somewhat in the future events of the Church but not that we should dare define precisely the moments seasons which the father hath set in his owne power doe thinke that a certaine designed time indeed of Antichristian persecution is noted yet left unto us uncertaine so far as concernes the termes to wit all that which is reckoned from those fatall 666 yeeres mentioned Chap. 13. unto the last judgement For confirmation of which opinion two reasons are brought One that in Chapter 13.6 this self same number of 42 moneths is attributed unto the first beast that is to the Romane Empire of which we shall speak afterward The other because Daniel Christ our Lord Paul the Apostle doe joyntlie teach us that Antichrists persecution shall endure unto the day of judgement the yeere or day wherof no man can certainlie determine Demonstr p. 108. Abbat also before spoken of after many things at last assents to this opinion I saith he doe willinglie consent to them who suppose that by a defined number of moneths and yeeres a certaine time indeed is appointed of God but not so expressed by the very period of the numbers as to be discerned by the Church before hand but numbred and circumscribed by the counsell and providence of God alone and can not be knowen unto us but by the event accomplishment of them The which opinion seeing as yet I find no other more probable I also far the present will follow to wit that the time of treading down is defined by XLII moneths a finite number beeing put for an indefinite not as if it were not definite and certaine to God But because it remaines to us indefinite that is we cannot at the present determine of the certaine time It is circumscribed by a few moneths that the faithfull in their tribulations might bee encouraged unto patience knowing that their troubles shall not continue overlong but as it were onely for a few moneths Againe it is enlarged unto 1260 dayes to shew us that we are to prepare not for trials of some few dayes or yeeres onely but resolve to be constant unto the end I confesse there are many things by some alledged to the contrarie The difficulties against the fourth opinion answered Gen. 31.7 Prov. 24.16 Matt. 18.22 but with little ground They say that the scripture doth never put a finite number for an indefinite but the contrarie appeares by Iacobs speach to Laban Thou hast changed my wages ten times And Solomon The just man falleth seven times And Christ Thou shalt forgive thy brother not seven times onely but seventy times seven c. They say in other places of this booke an uncertaine number is not put for a certaine as Chap. 12.6 The woman shall be in the wildernes 1260 dayes And Chap. 13.5 The beast shall rage XLII moneths And Chap. 20. Satan shall be bound a 1000 yeeres So in Ieremie 29.10 After 70 yeeres ye shall returne out of Babylon Therfore also the number in this place is not uncertaine I answer in the first place that the number is not uncertaine to God although it be so to us for the present Secondly there is a dissimilitude of places now touching these severall numbers taken out of the Revelation we shall speake of them hereafter The seventie yeeres of the captivity are so circumscribed as that they could not bee uncertaine the
false that no other cause can be given of the translation of Henoch and Elias without this fable For they were taken up alive that they might be examples to the world how much the Lord accounts of godlinesse and that there is another life prepared for the faithfull in heaven Now to these two he vouchsaved this grace before others because he was better pleased with them then with others That Henoch and Elias should yet live a mortal life be subject to death is a verie fable For how can they prove this fiction And what mercie would there translation into heaven be if there they are reserved unto a more cruel death Wheras the Scripture teacheth that to them who are eyther in paradise Luk. 16.26 or in the place of torment there is no going forth or returning Passing by therefore this fable let us now goe foreward In Austins notes or the Revelation Whether the two witnesses be the two testaments attributed to Triconius the two witnesses are said to be the old and new Testament which Bede and Brightman follow and some others of ours as if the sence should be thus notwithstanding Antichrists treading down the scripture yet God would give it power to prophesie that is reprove his tyranny instruct the faithfull secretly mourning under the crosse in the way of life eternal For the Scriptures are Gods witnesses in the world against the wicked as Christ saith search the scriptures for they testifie of me Io. 5.39 Now thus far indeed it is true But I see not how the following attributes except it be by a harsh allegorie can be applied unto the scriptures viz. in that the witnesses are said to be clothed in sackcloth killed by the beast their carkeises thrown in the streets restored to life and ascend into heaven There are some who thinke that in the last times there shall come two most powerfull teachers who being indued with the power and spirit of Elias shal fulfill all these things literally both by prophesying and fighting against Antichrist But they doe acknowledge that this their opinion is uncertaine And therefore in as much as I finde nothing certainely concluded touching this matter by others and seeing the Lord for the present doth not suggest any thing unto mee I wil follow the opinion of Bullinger and some others of our best interpreters who understand the two witnesses indefinitely to be diverse reformers of religion in Antichrists times The Papists indeed imagine The two witnesses are indefinitely to be understood Lib. 3. de P. R. c. 6. that they are two strictly and no more But it is not credible that Antichrist sending forth infinite Locusts out of the smoke of hell into the Church Christ should raise up onely two witnesses besides it is impossible as we even now proved that the things spoken of v. 9.10 should be effected by two persons alone As for Bellarmins objections we shall have occasion to examin them hereafter We therefore by these two witnesses doe indefinitely understand a succession of certaine maintainers of Evangelical truthes against Antichrist Yet they are said to be two definitely both because they are but few in respect of the Locusts of whom the whole Christian world are full as also because in all matters of judgement two suffice to confirme a testimony that so we might neither be deceived by the applause of the multitude of Locusts nor offended at the fewnes of sincere teachers wherewith Antichrist upbraides us Besides in the last place as of old the Lord was pleased to use two witnesses as instruments in his hand for special deliverances of the Church Thus he sent two viz. Moses and Aaron unto Pharaoh for the deliverance of the Israelites out of Aegypt Josuah and Caleb to search the promised land Zerubbabel Jehoshuah to bring back the people from BabyloÌ„ unto which two there is here a plaine allusion in vers 4. As these two latter I say sufficed to deliver the people of God out of the first Babylonish and corporall captivity so two that is few prophesying witnesses shall suffice to deliver the Church from the second Babylonish spiritual captivity And thus much concerning the two witnesses Now what doe they They shall prophesie to wit againe according to the commandement Thou must againe prophesie We are not by prophesie strickly to understand a praediction of things to come but in a larger sense for the preaching of Prophetical Apostolical doctrines which were darkned yea troden down by Antichrist but again renewed by their prophesying that is by faithfull preaching unto the Church for Christ will give this unto them that is so arme them with an heroick spirit and qualifications as that they shal be able strongly to oppose and shake Antichrists kingdom which seemed to be so established throughout the Christian world as if it had been an invincible fortresse But when how long Two thousand two hundred sixtie dayes This againe is hard to be understood but we must looke back to what hath been treated of touching the fourty two moneths for it is cleare enough that by those moneths these dayes one and the same time is designed The Papists opinion touching these dayes refuted For fourty two equall moneths precisely consist of 1260 dayes but herein is the difference that the Papists restraine these moneths and these dayes astronomically unto three yeeres an half which is the time their supposed Antichrist shall reigne and these witnesses prophesie but this cannot be both because the fable of Antichrists standing so short a time hath been before refuted as also because it is contradictorie that the time of Antichrist and of the two witnesses should be of one continuance yet Antichrist should slay the witnesses after they had prophesied 1260 dayes rejoyce thereat with his followers Others interpret these dayes as the moneths also prophetically of so many yeeres taking the beginning eyther from Christs passion Another opinion not probable or from the time of Constantine or from the beginning of the Ottoman Empire whose opinions we have shewed to be very improbable because according to them the yeeres of treading downe the Church the prophese of the two witnesses should be expired now long agoe but this is not likely To be short others understand the XIII moneths the 1260 dayes The third and best opinion indefinitely for the time of the Churches oppression and of the prophesie of the witnesses defined indeed in Gods eternall comsell but hid unto us for the present that we should not curiously search â—â—to that which God hath reserved to himselfe or by knowing the term to say with the wicked servant Luk. 12.45 My Lord delayeth his comming c. And this is the reason why the end of the world is hitherto kept secret from men The time therefore of reading down and of the witnesses shal be the same for all the while Antichrist shall tread the Church
remain after the witnesses are slain But according to their supposition the Beast shal be no more but killed after three yeeres an half Now we have shewed that the 1260 dayes of their prophesie is put indefinitely by an allusion unto the historie of Elias who by prayer shut heaven from raining for so many dayes Therfore also the end of their testimonie is to be taken indefinitely for the time appointed by God therein to fulfill their ministerie And so the sence seemes thus The Beast indeed shal raise up war so soon as they begin to prophesie yet he shal not overcome them before they have finished their testimonie according to the will of God The which serves for the great comfort of the witnesses For as the high-priests could not hurt Christ before his houre was come although they never ceased to lay wait for his life so likewise Antichrist shall not be able to overcome Christs witnesses before the course of their ministery be finished Therfore the words when they have finished are not to be referred to Antichrists rage against them spoken of in the first place but to the two latter hee shal overcome kill them For he shall alwayes war against the witnesses but shal not kill and overcome them before they have finished their testimony This also serves to prove that Antichrist shall have power indeed to kill overcome the witnesses but not their testimony in the least for it is said they shall accomplish their testimonie And therfore the preaching of the Gospel shal endure unto the end Thus we see who the Beast is what time is to bee understood It remaines now to be handled what manner of warre it is what the effect therof shal be Touching the war it is said He shall make war against them Before he had sufficiently declared what the witnesses should doe and effect against the Beast now on the contrarie he shewes what the Beast shall doe and effect against the witnesses for Antichrist will not sit still and suffer his kingdome to be destroyed but with all his power wil fight for the same And therefore as soon as the witnesses shal begin to prophesie against his kingdom he wil prepare himself to war against them and by how much their prophesie is powerfull by so much the warr shall be the greater But what manner of war and victorie shall this bee Rupertus saith such as is usually betwixt truth and falshood The war shal be both ecclesiasticall and civill and therefore such also shall the victorie be His Ecclesiastical war shal be three manner of wayes The manner of the beasts war against the witnesses First by the seditious sermons of the Locusts their venemous writings and sophistical disputations in the behalfe of Apollyon against the witnesses of Christ branding them for most pestilent hereticks They shall preach with great applause to the multitude that the Beast is head of the Church Christs Vicar and armed as with the key of Peter so with the sword of Paul and Caesar crying out with full mouths that his kingdom is the Catholick Church Secondly through the Councils of Locusts by whose decrees the Beast shall establish his kingdom and anathematize as heretical the truth of Christ For it is true Aene. Syl. in histor concil Basil pag. 79. as Julian the Cardinal freely wrote from the Council of Basil unto Pope Eugenius that by the meanes of Councils the libertie and power of Ecclesiastical persons hath alwayes been strengthened and augmented To be short by the bulles and excommunications of the Romish court by which he shall condemne Christes witnesses with their testimony for heresie and delivering them over to the secular power destroy them by fire and sword to wit as unworthy to breath or live in the world Moreover the beast will raise up civill warres and by his subtiltie cause the kingdomes and provinces of the Christian world to fight against the Gospell that so the witnesses of Christ may bee overcom and killed Therfore it followeth The beast shall overcome them and kill them The latter declares the former This very thing doth sufficientlie shew that these witnesses cannot be literallie taken for Enoch and Elias For what godly man will beleeve that those holy prophets whome the scriptures testifie to have been tranflated from death to life eternal should again return into the earth to be cruelly killed by Antichrist Furthermore the Beast shall kill the witnesses in the like manner he overcame them partly by ecclesiastical censure partly by the secular sword so then not by the goodnesse of his cause nor by the holie scriptures for by these the witnesses shall overcome and consume Antichrist but he shall overcome them by outward force and tyranny by the authority of Councils by thundring out his bulles by cruel warre and his hangmen Thus I say he warreth against the Saintes overcoms kills them not by arguments scriptures but by sword fire excommunications So also my Anonymus 260 yeers past wrot concerning the Popes victorie He shall overcome them in reputation of his friendes kill them some corporally eyther by burning or murdering them with the sword other kinds of death others civilly by adjudging them to perpetuall imprisonment against these whom he cannot torment in this manner he will at least thunder out his excommunications insomuch as they shall not be accounted otherwise then dead men in the Church so far as concerneth a spiritual life What would not this author have written had he seen the histories of our time the foregoing age when the Beast anathematized the two witnesses of England John Wickleffe that excellent teacher and opposer of Poperie and his protectour John Earl of Leicestre whose carkeise not long after being taken up out of the grave he caused to be burnt When he overcame burnt contrarie to the publick faith of the Empire the two witnesses of Bohemia John Husse and Ierom of Prage prophesying that the Ecclesiasticall court of priests should he cast forth When by the bloodie inquisition he delivered unto death many thousand martyrs in Italie Spain France England Belgia when he enwrapt almost all the provinces of Europe in cruell warres to suppresse the Gospell when at length in Germanie God restored the slaine witnesses unto life The Iesuites I doubt not may find this litle commentarie of Anonymus in their publick libraries speaking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 plainely impartially not respecting persons And thence let them judge whither the Pope of Rome were by us of late first accounted that Beast and Antichrist as Bellarmin falsly affirmeth Lib. 3. de P. R. cap. 21. And their carkeises The particle spirituallie here mentioned shewes that this also is not literallie to be understood as we shall further see by that which followes The cruelty therefore of the Beast against the witnesses falsly condemned for heresie is hereby noted forasmuch as they shall not be satiated by cursing and putting of
it up and how The particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as shewes that the waters and flood are allegorically to be understood Most understand this flood of waters to be the manifold and grievous afflictions and persecutions by which satan seekes in all times to oppresse the Church taking it to be an allusion to that complaint of the Church of old Psal 124.1.3 unlesse Jehovah had bin on our side now may Israel say Then the waters had overwhelmed us the stream had gon over our soul c. This I confesse is not amisse But it must bee more specially expounded now the Dragon persecuted the woman in her slight by a flood of waters and that also before the Beast ascended out of the sea of which it followeth Chap. 13. Foxe makes the flood to be those horrible edicts Fox his opinion proscripts and commands of Emperours especially of Maxentius and Maximinus which were every where published for the taking away of Christians from the earth But these things fel out before the former persecution neither did the woman take her flight under the perfecutions of the Romane Dragons Bullinger comprehends under it Bullingers interpretation all the Churches afflictions This flood saith he signifies that the Divell powred forth a sea of evils on the Church as sects dissensions tumults seditions and persecutions by which allmost the whole earth was over flowen And he applies these things to the verie time of the Apostles when satan stirred up every where the magistrates and priests against the Apostles and Apostolical trueth this is true indeed yet in my judgement but little agreeing to the sense of the present prophesie Brightman understanding by these waters Brightmans opimon peoples or nations as afterward in Chap. 17.15 interprets this other persecution of the irruptions of the Franci the Alemanni Burgonions Goths Vandals Hunni Treballi the Heruli the Lumbards and such other Northern nations who about the yeere 400 and thence forward rushed in the sluces being as it were taken away upon all Europe and Asia for to swallow up as with deepe gulfes the Christian Church Yet the earth that is the counterfaite and earthlie religion swallowed up the force of this flood because these barbarous nations by whom the Dragon thought to blot out the very name of Christ after they came into these countries more full of humanity they embraced the Christian religion which they saw amongst them though indeed it was most corrupt For all of them were either Arians or Nestorians or Eurychinians but yet changed not their life and Barbarous manners So the earth deluded the Dragons indeavour The which exposition seemes not in the least to be contrarie to histories and the order of this Vision Notwithstanding I should rather consent to them The waters cast out by the Dragon are heresies Ioh. 7.38 who applie this to the foul heresies scismes blasphemies and monstrous doctrines by which the Dragon attempted to drown the Woman while she fled even under Christian Emperours For as the doctrine of the Gospell proceeding out of the mouth of God is compared to streames of waters which none are able to resist as Christ saith he that beleeveth on me out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water So the heresies comming out of the Dragons mouth what are they but as a violent vomit or floods to swallow up the Church For even in Constantines time the Arian heresie and blasphemie against Christ violently burst forth like to a most swift stream and overflowed all the East and soon after the West also whereby the Church was allmost swallowed up in her flight After the Arian heresie against the son of God followed the Macedonian against the holy Ghost soon after that the Pelagian against the whole Gospell That also of Nestorius and Eutyches the Monothelists against the truth of Christs person the which mightily shooke the Church almost for the space of 300 yeers as the histories of Eusebius Socrates Theodoretus Zozomenus and Evagrius witnesse The Dragon by these floods thought to drown the woman in her flight but in vain as it followeth 16. But the earth helped the woman Some here by earth understand Churst in regard of his stabilitie and because the waters of the Dragon were swallowed up the darts and plots of the adversaries suppressed and the afflicted Church not utterly overthrown Others of earthly men by whom the Lord often wonderfully protects though they aime at other ends his Church and people as of old by the Philistines he delivered David from the hands of Saul by Lysâ—as he preserved Paul from the fury of the Iewes Brightman as I said before understands this of those Barbarous nations who comming on furiously to root out Christian religion yet preserved the same by embracing it though much corrupted There are som who interpret it of Councils which being gathered together out of all nations swallowed up the blasphemous floods of heresies by refuting them Thus the generall Council of Nice condemned the Arian heresie the Synod of Constantinopel the Macedonian and Eunomian that of Ephesus the Nestorian that of Chalcedon the Euâ—ychinian But this sense seemes to be forced It is an allusion to the historie of Corah Dathan and Abiram whom the earth swallowed up alwe Numb 16.22 As therefore the earth did then help Moses Aaron against the seditious rebels miraculously opening her mouth and devouring them So the Lord no lesse miraculously helped the woman flying from the floods of most dangerous heresies so as she was not drowned by them that is he wonderfully swallowed up those false doctrines with the authors therof as if the earth had opened her mouth utterly devoured them we need not therefore subtilly dispute about the earth considering how the Lord continually dissipated al the heresies which during the space of 300 yeeres overflowed the Christian world caused the same I say to vanish away like smoak by the power of the holy scriptures and zeal of Orthodox teachers 17. And the Dragon was wroth The third assault of the Dragon not against the woman herself for her he lost as being out of his sight in the wildernesse but the rest of her seed whom he purposed to set upon by open warre This therfore is a preparation to the following third Act of the Beasts war with the Saints And so this third assault belongs to the Antichristian times which begane in the raigne of Phocas Boniface III. the first universal high-priest when the Church was now fled into the wildernesse and so none appeared any where but as a whorish woman The meaning of the verse we take to be thus The Dragon being angry that he could not by the flood of heresies drown the woman in her flight now despairing of further effecting any thing against her he stirres up a new warre against the rest of her seed by themeanes of the Beast as it followeth For that which here the Dragon is said to doe in the
an ill speaking mouth Great things blasphemies is put for great blasphemies which are rehearsed v. 6. Here observe that the little horn also Dan. 7. v. 8.20 hath a mouth speaking great things whence it is conjectured that by it Antichrist is shadowed out specially seeing the three following things are also attributed to him as blasphemies against the highest warre with the saints and the time of his rage to be XLII moneths vers 25. Historically indeed that horne seemes to be Antiochus the scourge of the Iewes but Mystically it figured Antichrist For as Antiochus afflicted the Iewish Church so doth Antichrist the Christian Thus we see that the old this new prophesie excellentlie agree both in phrases deeds and illustrate one the other And power was given him to do The first part of his power we have heard now follows the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 power of doing The OLD VERSION TO DO OR MAKE some copies adde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 warre which seems to be taken from v. 7. The sense is all one yet it is better to take it absolutely of making but is not making here put for sacrificing I wonder our Sophisters have not observed this that so they might make the beast a sacrificer or masse-priest But TO DO here is put for to rage and destroy according to his pleasure This is given him by the Dragon God permitting the same yet holding the bridle in the midst of the beasts rage And that we might not imagine the beasts fury to be absolute a term is prefixed unto him for the comfort of the godly Fourty two moneths his rage shall continue long but not alwaies What is meant by these moneths I have shewed on Chap 11. ver 2. The Gentiles shall tread down the holy city XLII moneths The time is the same because the History both there and here is all one so that the treading down of the city by the Gentiles is this very rage of the Beast here being to endure XLII moneths and it will clearly appeare by the sixt Vision treating of the destruction of the Whore and Beast that these moneths took their beginning at the Beasts ascention out of the bottomlesse pit and are now for the most part expired 6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemie The usurpation of his power followeth both by his mouth in this verse as also in action in the following He opened his mouth in blasphemie that is he began to blaspheme in a horrible manner These are the great things which were given to the Beast to vomit out with open mouth that is publikely and in the very height of pride and malapertnesse Now what are these but those great priviledges the Romish Beast boasteth of as that he is in Gods stead yea a god and Christs Vicar on earth Peters successour having alone the Keyes of Heaven that he is the invincible Monarch of the Christian world the Prince of Bishops the head and spouse of the Church the King of Kings the Lord of heaven earth and hell the alone interpreter of the holy Scriptures chiefe Judge of all religion having all laws and mysteries lockt up in his breast the chiefe decider of the Catholike faith judgeing all men but to be judged of none to whom none may say though he lead thousands of soules with him into hell My Lord the Pope why dost thou so to whom is given all power in heaven and in earth who opens and no man shuts shuts no man opens who loosing no man bindes and binding no man looseth forgiving iniquities taking away the sins of the world with many other blasphemies which proceed out of his lascivious mouth But distinctly or in particular the bent of his blasphemies are against God his name his tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven Now to shew again how he blasphemeth God and his name It is by doing that which the Apostle foretold of Antichrist and which we see the Pope of Rome to do even at this day viz. he opposeth and exalteth himselfe against all that is called God or that is worshipped so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God shewing himself that he is God for he arrogates to himself the name and honour of God suffereth his Clawbacks to cry out Who is like unto the Beast Who is able to make war with him he challengeth to himselfe all the rights and works of God that he can create God make some thing of nothing make the word of God that he cannot erre that his decrees are of like certainty and authority with the divine Scriptures that it is of necessity to salvation to be subject unto him that it belongs to him to give the kingdoms of the world to set up depose Kings as he lifteth c. All which things if the Pope doth what is left for God Is not this blasphemie against God his name The tabernacle of God is the Church in which God dwelleth this he also blasphemeth for he falsly affirmes himself to be the Head Bridegrom and Lord therof tyrannically oppresseth and infects her by the poison of wicked doctrine seduceth and as much as in him lies thrusteth her into eternall destruction by his lying signes and horrible idolatry Andreas understands this Tabernacle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be the flesh of Christ in which the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dwelt with us Ioh. 1.14 This tabernacle of God he also blasphemeth divers waies for what blasphemie is more horrid against the Son of God then that the Pope should boast daily by his Locusts to create Christ of a piece of bread in the Masse to sacrifice and to destroy him What blasphemie more odious against the office of Christ then that the Pope boasting himselfe to be the greatest high Priest proudly should exalt himselfe as above Christ the great high Priest he denies that the alone sacrifice of Christ is sufficient for the expiation of the sins of the Church unlesse it be again and againe iterated by his Masse-priests he denieth that the merits of Christ alone suffice to take away sins the punishment thereof unlesse through his indulgences he adde a supply from the treasure of the Church which is the merits of the Saints Other things I passe by And them which dwel in heaven I see not why we may not understand these heavenly inhabitants properly of the Angels blessed souls triumphing with the Lamb in heaven for against these the Pope also poures forth his blasphemies more waies then one for will they nill they for his own gain sake he obtrudes false honour upon them makes them gods and builds temples altars and images unto them and by this worship exerciseth a most filthy trade and the most of them he forceth to succeed in the places of Heathenish idols and doth weary them as if they were houshold and tutelar gods with diverse troublesome and sordid services setting one over Hogs another Horses another Asses one over
functions in divers Visions should also be represented under divers Types as sometimes being called the Son of man otherwhile a Lambe a Lyon an Angell c. He is said to come out of the Temple the which Iohn in Chap. 11.19 saw open in Heaven for the Temple especially the Sanctuary was a figure of Heaven Heb. 9.2 so then he came out of Heaven from whence the Iudge shall come We see that all things are dramatically acted in this Revelation for as in Comoedies among men divers persons comming out of divers Scenes do act their parts on the Theatre so it is in these Visions to the end we might more easily perceive Heavenly things by a certain similitude of things done amongst us 18. And another Angell came out from the Altar Seeing the former Angell having the Sickle was Christ the Iudge We therefore do rightly understand this Angell to be some chiefe Minister of Christ whose Cry Thrust thy Sickle is not a commanding voyce or admonitory as if the Iudge were slack in his Office but supplicatory desiring him not to deferre the Iudgement any longer but to execute the same because of the inveterate malice of the world as in verse 15. He comes out of the Altar Or from the Altar that is from Christ who is the Heavenly Altar namely as a Herauld who in the name of all the rest proclaimes the time of the last Iudgement testifies the desire of all the Heavenly Powers for the vindication of the Church and punishment of the adversaries and offers as it were his most ready ministery to the Iudge Having power over fire Hence we learne saith Andreas that God hath set the angelicall powers as administrators of things created by him One over Water another over Fire Dan. 10.13.20 another over another part of the world This exposition I do not altogether reject seeing the Scripture other where testifies that some Angells were set over particular Kingdomes Yet I neither will affirme nor deny whether some are set over one Element others over another because afterward in Chap. 16.5 What is meant by this fire mention is made of the Angell of the waters Neverthelesse it is clear God useth them to execute some one judgement some another Furthermore what this Fire is over which he is said to have power is diversly disputed some understand the fire of the holy Ghost But no created Angell can have power over the holy Ghost who is the eternall God Others the fire which shall consume the world as if this Angell who is said to have power over fire should set the whole world on fire But God shall need no Incendiaties to burne the World Ribera hereby understands the fire of the heavenly Altar by which the Sacrifices of the Saints were burn'd probably indeed but by an allegory not safe enough for seeing the sacrifices of the Saints in Heaven are their prayers and thanksgivings by which they allwayes praise the Lord I see not how it agrees to Christian beleife that any created Angell should have power over this fire But I wonder that none have applyed it to the fire of Purgatory Bede applyes it to the fire of Punishment which Ribera approves not because the punishment of the wicked is here Metaphorically figured not by fire but by the Wine-Presse of Gods wrath yet a little before we heard that the ungodly should be tormented with fire and brimstone the smoake whereof should ascend up for ever and ever This interpretation Bullinger followeth and we also approve of for fire in the Psalmes and generally through the whole Scripture denotes Gods plagues and punishment on the wicked the which he executeth by his Angells This Angell therefore hath power to wit ministerially over Hell fire because by this Angell or by these Angells for it may be an Enallage of the singular for the plurall Christ the Iudge will cast the tares into eternall fire which agrees with the Parable of Christ Mat. 13.42 They shall cast them into a Furnace of Fire And gather the Clusters of the Vine of the earth A Vine doth sometimes denote the Church Isa 5.1 Mat. 20.1 Into which the Lord sends divers labourers to dresse the same But here it signifies other the Church of malignants or the world of ungodly men therefore he calls it the Vine of the earth for the whole multitude of the wicked who are not those ripe grapes which the Lord looked for and found not in his Vineyard Isa 5.2 but it is taken in the evill part for the wild unripe and sowre grapes which God in wrath threatens to cut off And they are said to be ripe not for new Wine but Verjuyce because when the wickednesse of the ungodly is grown to its full ripenesse destruction ruine necessarily followes 19. And the Angell thrust in his Sickle The execution will be short for the Iudge when the houre is come shall without any let cut downe the Vintage of the earth that is execute wrath on the wicked by casting them into the great Lake of Gods wrath The lake of Gods Wrath is great Hell metaphorically is called the lake of Gods wrath or the place of infernal torments for as the clusters of the Vine are troden in the Wine-presse so the Reprobates shall be punished in bell It is great that is large enough to containe all the multitude of the wicked that perish A large Vintage requires a spatious place now this Vontage shall be the greatest to wit of all the wicked even from Cain the first parricide 〈◊〉 the last 〈◊〉 which shall be death And therefore the lake must be great 20. And the Wine-presse wa◠troden without the City This shall be the thrusting of the wicked into eternall torments Without the City viz. the Heavenly Ierusalem which is described Chap. 22.15 Without shall be dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and murtherers and Idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie which is the proper description of the Grapes of the Vine of the earth to be troden in the great lake of hell and to be cast forth into utter darknesse where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth And blood came out of the Wine-presse The Scripture is wont to call red wine the blood of the grape of the like rednesse thereof Here he calls the liquor flowing out of the lake Blood not by reason of the colour but to denote the bloody and horrible kinde of punishment that is to befall the wicked for seeing they could not be satiated with the blood and slaughter of Saints therefore hell also being made red with their blood shall not be satiated for ever and ever Vnto the Horse-Bridles He aggravates the horriblenesse of their plagues from the great abundance of blood flowing out of the Wine-presse both by the space of a thousand and sixe hundred furlongs and the depth so great that it reacheth even to the horse bridles For there shall be an innumerable multitude of the clusters of the earth
desperate obstinacy in sins Riberas opinion If with Ribera we take the Sunne properly then a horrible scorching by reason of an excessive heat is portended to the Antichristians that their bodies as by a burning flame should be inwardly broiled like such as are right under Zona torrida who are tormented with continual heat forced in the day time to shadow themselves in Caves under the earth Drinesse followes heat and barrennes the drought of the earth barrenesse is accompanied with want of corn pestilence hunger and intollerable thirst by which plague the ungodly shall rage and poure forth horrible blasphemies against the Name of God and at last rush into utter despaire so the sense should be thus he poured out his Viall on the Sunne that is by it so powerfully wrought on the Sun that it scorched the earth with its beams more vehemently then formerly And thus Bullinger Meyerus Aretius Foxe Why the literall exposition cannot hold Chytraeus who notwithstanding alleadgeth also a mysticall sense interpret it Now the reason why I assent not unto them is first because this shall be a plague peculiar to the Antichristians whereas heat drought barrennesse hunger and thirst are common calamities incident to the godly and wicked neither are we to doubt But that these words It was given to this Angell or to the Sun for the relative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be referred to either though more properly to the Sunne to burne or scorch men with heat are onely to be referred to those ulcerous ones having the marke of the beast ver 2. Secondly The second effect should but little agree for why should men blaspheme God because of the heat They would rather curse the sunne it self thus scorching them Lib. 4. pag. 135. after the manner of the Atlants who as Herodotus reports in Melpomene curse the sun rising over them and bitterly raile on it because with his scorching beames it spoiles both them and their country Thirdly although afflictions for the most part are Sermons of repentance yet this plague seemes chieflly to worke inwardly on the conscience thereby to instigate men to repentance but they on the contrary do obstinately blaspheme Therefore I rather understand it of an inward A divers mysticall sense then outward plague Now passing by the letter the conjectures of Interpreters are very divers touching this sun and its scorching which I thinke it not amisse briefly to repeat Lyras opinion that by comparing them we may gather a truer sense Lyâ—â— doting as his manner is makes this Angell to be Pope Leo III. whom the Romanes by sedition displaced evilly intreated and cast into prison out of which notwithstanding he made an escape by the meanes of some as Writers report he poured out his Viall on the sunne in declaring the griefe of his mind to Charles the great King of France because as the Sun in its light excells all other Planets so he shining in faith and magnaminity excelled all the Kings of the earth To him it was given to afflict men by heat because Charles came to Rome with an Army and grievously afflicted the Popes Rebells and restored Leo to his seat Hereby men were scorched to wit the seditious Romanes by the heat of wrath and blasphemed the name of Charles The rest I mention not The unsavourinesse of the glosse being as it plainely appeares altogether contrary to the scope Some interpret the Sun to be Antichrist Gagnaeus opinion who falsly affirmes himselfe to be the Sun of the Church So Gagnaeus the Papist and our Marlorate He shall torment men with heat 1 Pet 4.12 that is afflict them with grievous persecutions for heat and fire denote afflictions But this exposition cannot stand because Antichrist will not persecute his followers but the godly only who by no torments will be brought to blaspheme the name of God Others understand the Sun to be Christ the sun of righteousnesse to whom it shal be given to torment the consciences of Antichristians with the heat of his wrath as it were by fire for because they can by no meanes resist the Gospell of Christ by the heat of wrath being turned into fury they shall blaspheme the name of God that is the truth of the Gospell in its clearest light as if it were divelish and hereticall being far from repentance and giving glory to God If this be the sense we may then understand what we are to expect henceforward of the Papists and how we are never to hope for any reconciliation with them Brightmans interpretation Here also I will alleadge Brightmans opinion not altogether divers from the former The sun he interprets of the holy scriptures by whose light our darke mindes are enlightned The Viall is to be poured out on these not to hurt them as the former vialls were hurtfull to the earth sea and rivers but to give a force and set an edge upon them that may more sharply pricke and penetrate into the consciences of men for although the scriptures in our times have been very much illustrated yet many things especially propheticall are as yet not sufficiently explained And although indeed Antichrist be plainely discovered yet what shifts and feined pretences doth he daily make to the end the world may not take notice of him But by how much the day of Iudgement drawes nearer by so much the more shall the light of the Sun that is the Scriptures bring to the eyes of the world a more abundant and clearer light The summe of all is that a greater perspicuity of the Scriptures seemes to be expected by which Antichristians as by a more vehement heat of the Sun shall be very much tormented because the filtinesse of Antichrist will hereby be more discovered which shall occasion them to persecute men with the greater hatred yea such shall be their exceeding folly as they will rage and fret against the Sun because their filthy whoordomes are laid open to the view of all the world This sense is clearer then the former yet both are to one effect for Christ by the scriptures will send forth a great light and new heat which indeed should rejoyce the adversaries amend them bring them to repentance but through their owne malice they shall be the more enraged thereby Now all things will be cleare And it was given him to scorch men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the phrase denotes some extraordinary judgement of God For indeed neither Christ nor his word do in themselves or of their own nature worke this effect viz. to torment men with the scorching heat of fury but the sunne is given or attributed unto them accidentally God sending on Antichristians strong delusion that they should beleeve a lie because they received not the love of the truth They ought indeed by the beames of the Sun of righteousnesse so cleerly shining in the holy Scriptures to be enlightned warmed and stird up to acknowledge love and imbrace the truth
but that the mountaines of Rome and Rome it selfe are a part of the devill yea his strength and dwelling place which is worse then the former See verse 3. 10. And they are seven Kings Now that wee might not sticke in the bare Mountaines of Rome He addeth another mystery viz. that the seven heads are also seven Kings thus of one type he makes two antitypes But what Kings Ribera that wee should not seeke them at Rome and so perhaps find the Pope amongst them saith that they are the Kings of the whole earth This is wonderfull before he said that the beast was the devill therefore either the whole world is the devill or else these are not the Kings of the whole earth unlesse perhaps he would rather say that the devill reigneth on his heads the mountaines of Rome and that Rome rides upon the devill out for shame with so vile and wicked a fiction For whose the mountaines are the same are the Kings also but the mountaines are of the woman Rome therefore the Kings also are of the woman Rome Let this once for all be minded as a sure position But who are these kings Wonderfull Riddles are propounded by the Angell Five are fallen One is the other is not yet come and when he commeth he must continue a short space This is a Gordian knot and not to bee untyed had we not the benefit of histories Now passing by the opinion of many I will record three of the principall the comparing of which will somewhat ease us First that of Victorinus whom our Bullinger and Iunius follow 1 The opinion of Victorinus about the seven Kings that these are the seven Kings which reigned at Rome after Nero. Five are fallen viz. Vitellius Otto Galba Vespasianus Titus ONE WAS viz. Domitian who in Iohns time reigned at Rome The other was not yet come Namely Nerva his Successour who being come was to remaine a short time because hee reigned not full two yeeres Which opinion howsoever backt with the authority of these great men I cannot follow Why it is rejected First because before Iohn not onely five Caesars were fallen at Rome but six others besides Fulius Augustus Tiberius Caius Claudius and Nero neither can any reason be given why these should be excluded Secondly because these seven Kings are not singular persons otherwise those seven being dead all the heads of the beast should have perished and the Beast either should have remained without heads or new heads must have growne upon him as Apollidorus fabulously writes of Hydra or else being without heads he should have bin extinct All which things are contrary to the prophesie for the beast yet lives and is reserved unto the last judgement This Ribera saw and doubted not to affirme that all Expositors In chap. 17 S. 25 except Victorinus understood that in every of these seven many were comprehended although he joynes a foolish fable that not the Kings of Rome are meant but of the whole world which Fiction we erewhile refuted Notwithstanding as if hee forgot himselfe he affirmeth and strongly proveth that it is not unusuall to the Scriptures that in one king many like as it were of the same body are signified which saith he is carefully to be observed alledging for example the Ramme and Goat in Daniel of which two the first denotes the Kings of the Medes and Persians the other all the kings of the Macedonians But good Sir this say I is carefully to be observed against your selfe for by this reason of yours is manifestly refuted or wholly weakened your Fiction that Antichrist shall be onely one singular person and that because hee is said in the singular number to be the man of sin the son of perdition the Beast False Prophet c. for behold what followes If Antichrist be one of these Kings then verily he shall not be one singular man but a king having others succeeding him in his kingdome as had the Kings of Medes Persians and Macedonians in their kingdomes But thou thy selfe makest the seventh of these kings to be Antichrist The other saist thou is not yet come that is Antichrist who shall come in the seventh age Now to come to the second opinion which is Riberas out of Gagnaeus viz. 2 Riberas opinion about the beast that the seven kings are the seven ages of the world or seven kingdomes adversarie to the Church The first age from Kain to Noah The second from Noah to Abraham The third from Abraham to David The fourth from David unto the transportation into Babylon The fift from the transportation unto Christ The sixt from Christ unto Antichrist The seventh from Antichrist unto the end Of these saith he five are fallen because five ages were past before Christs birth One was because the sixt age of Christ did then run on One is not yet come because the seventh age of Antichrist was not as yet When he is come he shall remaine a short space because Antichrist shall onely reigne three yeeres and an halfe A wonderfull Metamorphosis of kings into ages But what reference have the ancient ages unto the heads of the beast that is unto the mountaines and kings of the Citie Rome for it cannot be denyed but that the Angell precisely speaketh of these These kings therefore are not to be sought any where but there even where the mountaiues are because the heads are mountaines and kings Now the mountaines are at Rome and therefore the kings are there also But truely the Iesuite doth subtilly send us to Kain Nimrod Nebuchadnezzar c. The subtilty of the Iesuite least we should find Antichrist at Rome Nay but the kings are to bee sought in Romes mountaines for here they sate reigned and at length have also born up the woman I passe by that there is no proportion of the seventh age with the six former For what are three yeeres and an halfe to the former ages which all of them dured many hundred yeers By which very thing the fiction of Antichrists three yeers reigning is refuted III Opinion touching the seven kings Now I come unto the third opinion viz. of Aretius Napier Brightman and others to whom the seven kings are not seven Emperors nor seven ages but they wil have them to be seven kinds of goverment of the Romane Monarchie six whereof Tacitus mentioneth in his first booke Kings saith he at the beginning governed Rome Libertie and Consulship was set up by Brutus The Dictatorship was onely taken up for a time Neither did the power of the Decemviri last above two yeeres Neither did the Consulary authority of the Tribunes of Souldiers remaine long The power of Cinna and Sulla was but short Pompie and Crassus soone gave place to Caesar And Lepid us and Antony to Augustus who received the Empire all things being confused through civill discords under the name of a Prince He reckons up Castig Brightman pag 110. I say six sorts
he was not able to seduce the Nations any longer or uphold Paganisme But that was in the yeer of our Lord LXXIII This yeare therefore we make the beginning of the thousand yeers of Satans binding From hence unto the Yeer of our Lord 1073. The end of the thousand yeeres are a thousand yeers at which time Pope Gregory VII a Celtiberian Monke and diabolicall Iugler poysoning Alexander II. invaded the Papacy by most wicked arts who sitting on the Papall Chaire the devill began againe to be loosed and to rage tumultuously filling the Christian world in a horrible manner with wars and slaughters by the means of this his cursed instrument But thou wilt say Whether the Dragon were bound in the first thousand yeers Did not Satan in the first three hundred yeers after the descension of the Angell most cruelly afflict the Church by the Romane Tyrants and in the three hundred following yeers defiled the Christian world with most grosse heresies and in the four hundred succeeding yeers raised up the Romane Antichrist out of the bottomlesse Pit giving unto him his Throne and great power working with all manner of unrighteousnesse and cruelty in the very heart of the Church How then could Satan be said to be bound these thousand yeers in which he raged so outragiously I answer The binding of Satan as before I said may not be absolutely understood as if he then could not or did not hurt the Church at all but restrictively unto the cause expressed in the Text so farre as he was then restrained from seducing the Nations any longer that they should not embrace the Faith of Christ To this binding of Satan it is sufficient that then he could not by the Tyrants Iewes or Philosophers hinder any longer the propagation of the Gospell among all Nations And therefore howsoever in great number the Gentiles were converted to Christ and Paganisme every where decayed yet no marvaile though Satan did rage in his principall members and breathed out threatnings by the Tyrants of the Romane Empire and by Hereticks in the Church it selfe Hence arose so many persedutions of the Saints and such great conflicts of the Church with Hereticks during sixe hundred yeers neither is it strange that Antichrist was then raised up by Satan for seeing hee was bound himself he gave his throne and power to Antichrist that the Beast might be the Vicar of the Dragon while he was in bonds and the more furiously exercise all his power Hence the Dragon is said to have given his Throne to the Beast Revelat. 13.2 By which it plainely appeareth how far these thousand yeers do agree with The comparing of the thousand yeers with the 1260. dayes 42. months or differ from the 1260. dayes and the 42. moneths in which the Holy City is said to be troden vnder foot by the Gontiles Chapter 11.2 and the Beast was to rage Chap. 13.5 In some part they agree for in the last foure Ages of these thousand yeers those 1260. dayes and 42. moneths began to run on because in them the Beast began to tread the Church under foot But they differ in that these thousand yeers are referred to Satans binding the 1260. dayes and the 42. moneths to Antichrists tyrannicall reigne They are already ended more then five hundred yeeres these are not fully ended because the Beast hath as yet scarcely reigned a thousand yeers Now those things that are brought against this our opinion Objections taken away are easily taken away FIRST the Order of the Prophesie is objected viz. that the Dragon shall at length after the Beast is cast into the Lake of fire be bound a thousand yeers in the bottomlesse Pit but the casting of the Beast shall bee the ruine of the Papacy Therefore the thousand yeers shall not be begun till at length after the ruine of the Papacy But the major is denyed because the casting of the Beast into hell praecedes indeed the binding of the Dragon in order of the Vision but not in order of time Before I say Iohn saw the Beast to be cast into the lake in the foregoing sixt Vision being as it were the last Act of that Vision but not in this last Vision in which is now afterward related the binding of the Dragon the which notwithstanding praeceded the casting of the Beast or ruine of the Papacy many Ages being as it were the first Act of this last Vision The plaine and forcing reason hereof is that the Beast and False-prophet shall not be abolished but by the brightnesse of Christs comming to judgement But it is absurd to imagine that Satan should be bound a thousand yeers after the last Iudgement The cause therefore of the errour is that the diversitie of that and this Vision is not observed Secondly they object That if the thousand yeers must begin from the destruction of Jerusalem then that time in which Satan shall be again loosed cannot be called a SHORT SEASON because it containeth above five hundred yea about sixe hundred yeeres But the consequence is denyed for although the time of Satans loosing hath now bin for these five Ages and perhaps shall continue an Age or two more even untill the end of the 1260. dayes the which thing the Lord knoweth Notwithstanding we have a little before clearly demonstrated that it is rightly called a LITTLE SEASON both in respect of God as also in respect of the Dragon and of the Ages past and lastly and that indeed principally in respect of the thousand yeeres of Satans binding then which that time shall be shorter because God will shorten those dayes for the elects sake Thirdly they object that such as have not worshipped the Beast nor received his Character should not then reigne with Christ those thousand yeeres But this is denyed for the thousand yeers were ended in Gregory VII unto the time of which filthy Beast more then 460. yeeres of Antichrists reigne were run on during all which time very many Martyrs and Professours worshipped not the Beast and his Image All these therefore after death did according to their soules live By the figure called Synecdoche a part is taken for the whole and reigne with Christ in blessednesse those thousand yeeres by a Synecdoche because they lived with Christ in the last foure hundred yeers of the said thousand Now in verse 4 I will plainly shew that this Synecdoche is neither unusuall in common speech nor in Scripture or that it derogates any thing from the happinesse of the latter Martyrs As therefore the Martyrs lived not altogether or were all put to death at one time but successively so also they began not altogether to live and reigne with CHRIST in Heaven but successively during those thousand yeeres Lastly It is objected that the devill was not bound in those first thousand yeers because he seduced very many But this was resolved in the first Question for neither are we to imagine that Satan was so bound
how they lived and reigned with Christ and how long But the matter is not obscure if the words be rightly considered and not wrested against the Scope and mind of the Spirit as the Chiliasts did rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they lived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they lived againe that is How the Chiliasts corrupted the text they rose up out of their Sepuichres and what the Spirit speaketh of the soules of the Martyrs they wrested to their bodies and so feined a corporall Resurrection of the Martyrs a thousand yeers before the last day This first Falshood was the ground of the Millenaries errour against which we must firmely hold too and urge the simple word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lived in stead whereof The ground of the Chiliasts error they evilly suborned the compound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lived againe For here is spoken of the soules of Martyrs living in Heaven which as being immortall Spirits could not die with their bodies or be slain on Earth therefore cannot bee said to live againe but as it is in the Text they lived with Christ They object to the contrary that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lived is put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lived again as before in Chap. 2. ver 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But both is denyed because these two words doe much differ in sound and in sense and therefore may not be confounded neither here nor in the place alledged Not here because this confusion imports two absurdities ONE Physicall or naturall that the soules of the Martyrs were flaine The OTHER Theologicall that a Corporall Resurrection of an infinite number of the dead shall be before the last Day contrary to the Faith of all Christians taught by Christ himselfe The houre is comming Ioh. 5.28 in the which all that are in the Graves shall heare his voyce and shall come forth They which have done good unto the Resurrection of Life and they which have done evill unto the Resurrection of death Neither before in Chap 2. because Christ in saying which was dead and lived gives us to understand not onely that he was dead and raised againe but also that he lived even while he was dead in the flesh or that he was living in his Divinity to demonstrate his two-fold nature as before we shewed Chap. 1.18 and Chap. 2.8 Adde to this that although it ought there so to bee taken yet here it cannot because of the Arguments following which admit not the same Moreover they urge the Antithesis of the following Verse But the rest of the dead lived not againe By which say they it seemes to bee plaine that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but thence the contrary doth plainely follow viz. that the Holy Ghost by a different word noteth a diverse sense for the Antithesis is not of a contradiction in Synonymaes but of a metaphoricall contrarietie both in the subject and attribute because the same thing is not denyed touching the Remnant of the dead which was affirmed touching the soules of the Martyrs properly that they lived and reigned with Christ But another thing contrary to a happy life Metaphorically that they lived not againe in the first Resurrection for that they repented not which as by and by I shall clearely shew is the proper and genuine fense To returne to the Question The soules of the Martyrs live with Christ How the soules lived and reigned with Christ not onely a Naturall Life for this after death is common to the soules of the Godly and ungodly being immortall Spirits neither onely a Spirituall Life of Regeneration which the Martyrs had before they were slaine on Earth but a blessed and glorious Life which Iohn saw them enjoying with Christ in Heaven They reigned also with Christ not in the Kingdome of Grace which is in this Life but in the Kingdome of Glory which is in Heaven according to the promise I appoint unto you a Kingdome as my Father hath appointed unto me And To him that overcometh Luk. 22.29 Rev. 3.21 will I grant to sit with mee in my Throne even as I overcame and sit with my Father in his Throne But they do wholly erre who suppose that we interpret this clause of the life of Regeneration and of the Kingdome of Grace and thence draw Sophismes for the Chiliasts opinion which shall be treated of in the following Verse Iohn therefore saw the Soules of the Martyrs that were beheaded here on Earth living blessedly and reigning gloriously with Christ in Heaven But how long Those thousand yeers viz. How al the Martyrs lived a thousand yeeres with Christ in which Satan was kept bound in the bottomlesse Pit not that the Martyrs were all slaine together about the beginning of the thousand yeeres and so all of them lived the whole thousand yeers with Christ But he speaketh of a continuall succession that none during the said yeeres in which they were slaine for the Testimony of Iesus or for refusing to worship the Beast did miserably perish but lived blessedly and reigned with Christ in heaven Wherefore in the thousand yeers is a Synecdoche familiarly used in our ordinary speech and in Scripture as before I said For example A man is said to come to day though hee come not in the Morning but at Noone or Evening or A man is said to live or die in this yeer not onely if he live or die at the beginning but also towards the middle or end of the yeer so the Martyrs are said to live and reigne with Christ a thousand yeeres although all of them were not slaine at the beginning but some towards the middle others towards the end thereof Mat. 12.39 Ioh. 2.19 By a like Synecdoche the Son of man was three dayes and three nights in the heart of the Earth and in three dayes raised up the Temple of his body although hee lay not much longer then one day and two nights in the Sepulchre The Iewes were Lxx. Iere. 29.9 yeers in the Captivity of Babylon although Daniel was longer Zerubbabel and they that were born in the Captivity were Captives fewer yeers Gen. 6.3 So God granted from the five hundreth yeere of Noah unto the flood an hundred and twenty yeers unto men although all they that were born within the 120. yeers had a shorter time of repentance c. Away therefore with their scoff of 400. The Martyrs shall also reigne after the thousand yeers Crownes in stead of a thousand Neither is this Synecdoche any way derogatorie to the happinesse of the latter Martyrs slaine by Antichrist for we are not to thinke that they ceased to live and reigne with Christ after the thousand yeeres were ended for they shall reigne with him for ever and ever as wee are taught Revelat. Chapter 22.5 It was enough for Iohn to shew what condition the blessed Spirits should be in those
corporally raised Therefore these also Answ I. The Antecedent is denyed for neither doth that type speake of a corporall Resurrection according to the Letter but of a successive living againe as was there shewed II. They who confound them with these shew that they are but strangers to the Revelation for these Martyrs and Confessours belong to the first ten Ages from Christs birth The other two unto our last times in which the Temple was to be measured or the Church purged from Popery Objec VIII The Prophets and many Martyrs came forth out of their Sepulchres at Christs death on the Crosse Mat. 27.53 according to the Prophesie of Daniel Chap. 12.2 Neither was that corporall Resurrection any way derogatorie to the Article of Faith touching the future universall Resurrection Therefore also these Martyrs lived againe corporally neither is it any way derogatorie to the universall Resurrection of the dead Answ Whether those Saints whose bodies came out of the Sepulchres and appeared to many after Christs Resurrection to testifie the efficacie of his Death were Prophets or Martyrs appeares not from the Text neither is it a point of Faith to know the same However the Prophesie of Daniel cannot without wresting bee applied to these which expresly speaketh not onely of the Resurrection of such as shall be saved but of the damned also that is of the last Vniversall Resurrection But that speciall and corporall Resurrection of those Saints is certainly to be believed because it is written neither can it be derogatorie to our beleefe of the universall Resurrection seeing the Scripture doth plainely except this from that But this Resurrection of the Martyrs a thousand yeers before that is not to be beleeved because it is not written but onely as we have shewed sought to be maintained by wresting the words of this Prophesie yea it derogates from the Faith because he that beleeveth this cannot beleeve the other viz. that there shall be a universall Resurrection at the last day Objec IX Christ promised it should be so Mat. 19.28 Luk. 22.28 In the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory ye shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel c. Answ These indeed are most sweet promises of our Saviour touching the singular rewards of the Apostles in Heavenly Glory and touching the large recompence of their labours and losse of all things which here they sustained for the sake of Christ But it is erroneous to beleeve that here any thing is promised touching a corporall resurrection of the Martyrs that shall be before the rest of the dead and of a golden Age to continue a thousand yeeres before the last day in which the Martyrs reigning with Christ in Heaven the Iewes beeing joyned to Christians and freed from the yoke of all adversaries shall as the opinion of some is serve Christ in all manner of prosperity and peace Let such I say see too least they erre and diligently consider Act. 3.21 that those rewards are promised to be fulfilled in the regeneration or restitution of all things at the last day promised also Mark 10.30 with persecutions which things are plainely repugnant unto the Millenary Resurrection and peace before the last day Lastly they pretend that it were greatly for the comfort of the Martyrs if they knew that a little after their martyrdome the thousand yeers being near at hand they should rise againe and ascend both in soule and body into Heaven and reign with Christ a thousand yeers before the rest of the Faithfull Answ To seek for comfort in a doubtfull thing is to feed upon the wind in a false thing to mock with ones selfe and with God neither is it without impiety how pleasing soever it seems to humane wit forasmuch as faith cannot be had in a doubtfull or false matter such as is this Corporall Resurrection and so no solid consolation But this is solid and double comfort to the Martyrs if from the sure word of God they do beleeve that their Soules as soone as they goe out of their bodies shall live and reigne with Christ in Heaven and that at the last day when their brethren and fellow servants who are to be slaine on earth shall be fulfilled their bodies also being raised up by the Son of God Rev. 20.4 Ioh. 6.40 Rev. 6 11. Rev. 22.5 they shall reigne with him for ever and ever in Heaven TOVCHING THE OPINION OF THE OLD CHILIASTS HAving expounded and vindicated the true meaning of this Prophesie it remaineth in the last place to lay downe and weaken the false opinion of the Old Chiliasts who understanding this Prophesie corruptly according to the Letter and not according to the Analogie of Faith did thence invent this Jewish Fable which Austin hath set forth in these words Lib. 20. de C. D. C. 7. That as the world was created in sixe dayes and the seventh was a Sabbathisme so the world should continue sixe thousand yeers and afterward should follow a Sabbathisme in the last thousand yeers namely by the Saints that shall rise and celebrate the same which opinion he saith might be somewhat tollerable if it were beleeved in that Sabbathisme some spirituall delights should come to the Saints through the presence of the Lord. For we also were sometime of this opinion but seeing they affirme that such who should rise againe shall enjoy carnall Feasts and eat and drinke beyond measure and modesty these things cannot be beleeved but by carnall men and therefore such as were spirituall called them that believed these things CHILIASTS being a Greek word and by us may be rendred MILLENARIES The first Author of this opinion Papias author of the Chiliasts opinion as Eusebius recordeth Lib. 3. Hist Cap. 33. was Papias whom Irenaeus and Hierom at which I wonder make to be a hearer of the Apostle Iohn where as Papias himselfe in the Preface of his worke confesseth that he never heard or saw the Holy Apostles but saith that he received this tradition from the Elders of the Apostles Now Eusebius also writeth of this Papias that being pious yet too credulous and of little soliditie he tooke up many Fables for Apostolicall truths because he understood the Apostolicall Interpretations amisse and that he became ringleader of the Chiliasts error unto many who followed his traditions among whom also was Irenaeus Hence almost all the Elder fathers Many of the fathers held the opinion of the Chiliasts following the antiquity of the tradition and authority of so great a man who was accounted a Disciple of the Apostles became Chiliasts IUSTINUS Martyr dial cum Tryphon Judaeo IRENAEVS Lib. 5. Cap. quinque extremis not long since published at Paris and annexed as a filthie clout to his workes but it had bin better they had buried the same in eternall oblivion then to uncover the secret shame of so worthy a Father NEPOS a Bishop of Aegypt whom DIONYSIUS ALEXANDRINVS
refuted as Eusebius writeth Lib. 7. Hist C. 10. TERTVLLIAN Lib. 3. Cont marcion Lactantius lib. 7. instit Cap. 23. disputes at large of this Fable VICTORINVS PICTAVIENSIS in his Commentary on the Revelat. How uncertain the antiquity of tradition and the authority of the fathers is Austin also himselfe in the aforesaid place confesseth that hee sometime held the same Hence all men may see how little is to be ascribed to antiquitie of TRADITIONS and the authority of the FATHERS For antiquity without truth What is it but the oldnesse of errour Who more ancient then Irenaeus Hee writeth that he was the hearer or Disciple of Papias and Papias of the Apostles Papias on the contrary denyes that he heard or ever saw the Apostles with his eyes Behold antiquity without truth The said Papias received the Chiliasts Fable by tradition of the Elders and drew many to embrace this errour by his authority The fable of Antichrists four yeeres reigne And without doubt from the said Author Irenaeus sucked another fable which by this means was generally received touching Antichrist that hee should reigne not fully foure yeeres in the end of the world for the most ancient Writers were ignorant thereof IVSTIN the oldest Writer extant affirmeth that Antichrist the man of sinne was already at the doore Dialogo cum Tryphone CLEMENT who wrote next to IVSTIN hath not one word of Antichrists three yeers reigne Tertullian who lived at the same time affirmed that Antichrist was neare at hand Cyprian also next to the former writeth Lib. 5. Epist 7. yee ought to know hold Libro Defuga persecut and certainly beleeve that the day of triall is begun already and that the decay of the world and the time of Antichrist draweth on Ibid Antichrist commeth Wherefore the Fables of Papias were not taken on till at length in latter Ages Furthermore the Chiliasts Fable occasioned many which dis-approved the same but were not able to refute it to fall into another errour worse then the former affirming that the Revelation was to bee rejected as written by the Hereticke CERINTHVS Among these were Cajus and others touching whom in EVSEBIVS DIONISIVS ALFXANDRINVS speaketh who opposed NEPOS the Egyptian Others on the contrary to keep up the authority of the Revelation laboured to divide the opinion of Cerinthus and the Fathers as if Cerinthus indeed maintained a voluptuous Millenary kingdom full of lust and riot But the Fathers the spirituall delights of the Saints But Ribera affirmeth Comm in Apoc. 20. N. 26. that there was no difference betwixt the opinion of Cerinthus and the Fathers because Irenaeus Tertullian Lactantius c. wrote the same things about the Millenary Kingdome which are contained in the opinion of Cerinthus And this Dionysius and Caius also an old Writer affirmeth Euseb Lib. 3. Hist Cap. 28. however it be the Chiliasts opinion was by the Christians condemned for ascribing to Christ contrary to the Scriptures a voluptuous and earthly Kingdome and for bringing in contrary to the Apostolicall Faith one and so making a two-fold Resurrection after another the which opinion how improbable it is hath I suppose bin sufficiently shewed so as I trust that such who think it ought again to be renewed as far as concernes the latter part thereof will after the due consideration of these things in the fear of God with Austin change their opinion Now for the refuting of this old Fiction of the Chiliasts which Jerome in the life of Papias calleth a Jewish tradition we may briefly observe that it consists neither with the present Vision nor with it selfe nor with other Scriptures nor Christian beliefe Now this besides what formerly hath bin spoken I will shew by foure clear Arguments First I have made it manifest already that the thousand yeers of Satans binding A refutation of the Chiliasts errour by experience and the Kingdom of the Martyrs with Christ in Heaven beginning from the overthrow of Ierusalem unto Gregory VII that Romish Beast are now past above 548. yeers And yet there hath not bin any corporall Resurrection of Martyrs or Golden Kingdom of Christ on earth The experience therefore which we now see but the fathers could not refuteth this Fiction Secondly 2. From the text That Millenarie Kingdom is expresly ascribed unto the soules of the Martyrs and Confessours when as Austin well observeth they were not restored to their bodies Then I say their soules sate upon thrones lived and reigned with Christ in those thousand yeeres this therefore is not to be applied unto the Resurrection of the body Thirdly This errour as arising from a false Chronologie is plainely refuted 3. From the erroneous chronologie For the Chiliasts following the erroneous computation of the Greekes affirmed that Christ was born in 5199. yeer of the world since which are past 1621. yeers which number being added unto the former would make 6820. yeers from the Creation But thus not onely the sixt Millenary or the thousand yeers which they ascribe to the binding of Satan should bee past but also there should but a few yeers of the seventh Millenary and their voluptuous Kingdome of the Saints with Christ should already have dured above eight hundred the which is refuted by History and experience so that if Irenaeus Tertullian Lactantius c. did now live they should bee necessitated to confesse that they much erred from the truth Lastly the whole Scripture holds forth IV. From the difficulties of the last times Ioh. 18.36 Ioh. 18.20 Mat. 24.21 Luk. 18.8 2. Tim 3.1 that the last times shall not be voluptuous in the least but difficult and sorrowfull unto the Church in this world Besides Christ did often foretell that his Kingdom should not be earthly My kingdome is not of this world The world shall rejoyce but yee shall mourne In the world yee shall have tribulation Then shal be great tribulation such as was not from the beginning of the world unto this time Watch therefore that ye may be found worthy to escape all these things When the sonne of man commeth shall he finde Faith on the earth Through manifold tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of Heaven This know that in the last dayes perilous or difficult times shall come c. These and such like testimonies of Scripture which speake of the afflicted state of the last times doe abundantly refute the Millenaries Fiction Now wee goe forward with the Text. 6. Blessed and holy is hee that hath part By an Exclamation he extolleth and commendeth unto us the felicity and necessity of the first Resurrection or spirituall living againe by which of old those Rest of the dead in Paganisme and Antichristianisme obstinately refused to live againe by which all and they onely shall be blessed and holy Act. 8.21 Ioh. 13.8 What it is to have part in the first Resurrection The profitablenesse necessity of the first resurrection who have part in the first
be seven months much lesse seven yeers but XLV dayes onely Therefore either this latter Fiction of theirs or else the former is false This difficulty by which they see their Fable overthrowne Ribera seeks to shift off one way Bellarmine another Ribera saith In apoc 20. N. 70. the words of Ezechiel signifie power not the Act not as if they shall spend seven months in burying the carkeises But the number of the carkeises shall be so great that if all should be buried there would be need of seven months time for the doing of it Bellarmin understands it that the Prophet speaks not properly but figuratively putting seven yeers for a very long time But by these slights they take not away the difficultie in the least Riberas glosse de potentia is by the Text there refuted ver 1.3 All the people of the Land shall bury them Therefore they shall bury all the carkeises ipso actu because the Land must be cleansed of the carkeises and therefore they shall spend seven months actually in burying of them This Ribera saw therefore at last he was forced contrary to Bellarmine and the common opinion to grant not onely XLV dayes but seven yeeres after Antichrists slaughter unto the day of Iudgement As for Bellarmines shift it makes the difficultie yet greater for whither the Prophet understands properly and definitely seven moneths and yeers or figuratively and indefinitely a very long time it appeareth the Fiction is false which Bellarmine there affirmeth That after Antichrists death Ribera refuteth Bellarmines Fiction there shall be no more then XLV dayes unto the end of the world the falsitie whereof Ribera himselfe doth solidly confute by two places of Scripture both because those things which in Mat 24.38 are spoken touching the security and riot of the world at Christs comming cannot in the least be done in XLV dayes as also because then as soon as Antichrist should begin to reigne it might certainely be knowne when the day of Iudgement should be which to thinke saith he is absurd 1. Thes 5.2 because the day of the Lord shall come as a thiefe in the night But he pretends Mat. 24.36 that perhaps it cannot be knowne by the unlearned No nor by the learned for it is said Of that Day and Houre no man knoweth no not the Angels of Heaven Therefore beeing convinced by the truth he at length ingenuously confesseth that no man can know how long time shall remaine from Antichrist Therefore O Ribera thou seest that time to be foolishly defined of thee by the space of seven yeeres and more foolishly by Bellarmines XLV dayes Behold the power of the trueth and the Iesuites discord Now however it belong not to this place Whether Ezechiel Iohns Prophesie touching Gog be the same to shew whither the Prophesie of Ezechiel and this here in the Revelation be the same or not yet contrary to the Iesuites affirmation we are to hold that here indeed is an allusion unto the Prophesie of Ezechiel both in the name of the adversaries and in likenesse of punishment yet this Prophesie is diverse from that For that did belong unto the times going before Christs comming and indeed hath been fulfilled already but this is to be referred to our and the following Ages in case there shall be any more What I said of the accomplishment is manifest from the Argument of the prophesie which is directed unto the people in the Captivity of Babylon for first God promiseth to bring them againe into their countrey Ez. 39.25 Now will I bring againe the captivity of Jacob c. When I brought them againe from the people c. Secondly he foretels new calamities which afterward shall befall them by their Adversaries Gog and Magog c. of whose horrible slaughter he prophesieth Lastly he promiseth a Spirituall reformation of the Church by the benefits of the Messias shortly after to come in the flesh Ibid ve 29. Neither will I hide my face any more from them when I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel saith the Lord Jehovah Now it is certaine the first and third part of the Prophesie was fulfilled And therefore without all doubt the middlemost also it being the chief It is objected that Gog was to come in the latter or last of yeeres that is Eze. 38.8 in the end of the world But the Glosse is infirme It is also said ver 16. that he shall come in the latter or last of dayes Now nothing is more frequent to the Prophets then by this phrase to denote the term of some certaine time Ierem. 49.39 In the latter dayes I will bring againe the Captivity of Elam that is at length or after much affliction Ierem 30.24 In the latter dayes yee shall consider it that is after your deliverance out of Babylon Ezech. 38.8 After many dayes thou shalt be visited in the latter yeers thou shalt come And afterward In the latter dayes I will bring thee c. that is after I have brought backe my people Therefore here also by the latter yeers an indefinite term may be understood Hence Theodoretus wrote Nehem. 4. 6. that these very Nations did straightway invade the Iewes after their returne to hinder them from building the Temple and City But our Interpreters Tremellius and Junius do in my understanding more rightly according to the circumstances of the name and time applie the Oracle of Ezechiel to the cruell warres raised up against the Iewes by the Macedonians Antiochus c. but often put to the worst not without a divine miracle by the Macchabees for they learnedly shew that Gog and Magog do denote the Nations of the lesser Asia and Syria so called after Gyges King of the Lydians with the Kings Antiochi Seleuci Demetrij and Nicanors mighty Oppressours of the Iewes which happened not presently upon their returne out of Babylon but long after in the end of yeers or dayes that is about two hundred yeeres after the Prophesie To these Ribera doth frivously object In Apoc. 20 S. 57. that Josephus and the Iewes write nothing of the accomplishment thereof which had it bin fulfilled they would have mentioned the same neither would they any longer expect the Messias As if forsooth so manifest or at least so probable a truth were to be called into question because of the blindnesse of the Iews Therefore in a word this I do hold That Ezechiels Prophesie touching Gog and Magog grievous enemies and wasters of the Holy Land was not indeed then fulfilled litterally for it clearly appeareth that part of the Prophesie is an Allegory of a Slaughter from Heaven but Analogically or with reference when the Tyrants of Syria and Asia were repressed by the valour of the Macchabees The old new Goggish war But that there by a certain allusion unto the Prophesie of Ezechiel and the accomplishment there of like as the Revelation is full of such Allusions
there shall be no such ministery in Heaven that the Apostles are said to lay the foundation of the wall of the the holy City whereas rather that belongs to Christ Lastly that the Kings of the Earth are said to bring their glory unto this Citie ver 24. and that in it shall be medicine for the Nations which things are not to be understood of Heaven but of the Earth But there is nothing here touching these things which may not easily be applied unto the state of the glorified Church if wee well minde the scope of the Allegoricall Vision and observe other things which doe not at all agree with the state of the Church here on Earth as we shall shew in its place Certainely the glory of the Church shall never be so great in this life as to bee altogether without tares that there should bee none in her but Elected Ones that she should be stained with no scandals and feined Christians in a word that there should be no Temple nor Sun shining in her c. He saith secondly that the vocation of the Iews unto the Church Whether this Resurrection of the dead be the calling of the Iews is in Scripture often called a Resurrection of the dead as Rom. 11.15 for if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead Isa 26.19 Thy dead men shall live my Carkasses shall rise againe c. Ezech. 37.12 I will open your graves O my People and cause you to come up out of your graves c. Dan. 12.2.3 And many of them that sleepe in the dust of the Earth shall awake some to everlasting Life and some to shame and everlasting torment Hosea 13.14 I will ransome them from the power of the grave I will redeeme them from death But verily it would bee a long worke for him to prove that these places of Scripture the first excepted doe at all belong to the calling of the Iews seeing Some doe manifestly speake of their deliverance out of Babylon Others of the Spirituall Redemption of the whole Church by Christ Others of the last Resurrection of the body Onely the Testimony of the Apostle is to the matter but proves nothing For neither doth it follow from the particular because there the conversion of the Iewes is called a Resurrection therefore here also There the thing is cleare here not so Nay here is no mention of a Resurrection but it is set forth under other figures And all the circumstances doe most evidently represent the Type of the last Iudgement AND I SAW A GREAT WHITE THRONE After these things saith AVGUSTINE Lib. 20. de C. D. c. 14 he briefly declareth the last Judgement it selfe and how it was revealed unto him which shall be at the second Resurrection of the dead viz. of their bodies First therefore he describes the Iudge with his preparation in this verse Secondly them that should be judged ver 12. Thirdly the processe and sentence ibid. Lastly the execution of the sentence viz. the casting of the adversaries into the Lake of fire vers 13.14.15 but the placing of the Elect in the Heavenly Jerusalem in Chap. 21. 22. This is the summe of the things remaining A Great Throne As set up for the Great that is Vniversall Iudgement of the whole world White bright with celestiall splendor and majesty And him that sate on it Namely the Iudge him undoubtedly of whom Christ himselfe speaketh Mat. 25.31 When the Sonne of man shall come in his glory and all his Holy Angels with him The white throne of christ his glory Ioh. 5.12 Act 17.31 then shall he sit upon the Throne of his glory Wherefore the white Throne is the Throne of his glory or glorious Throne neither are we to imagine it to be made of gold or Ivorie but thus the Iudicatory Power of Christ is called For the Father hath given all Judgement to the Sonne that by him the whole world should be judged Here therefore Christ the Iudge appeared unto Iohn sitting on his Throne in the Spirit that none should question but that the world shall at last be judged Why the last judgement is so often exhibited XL Argument of Christs deitie For this Iudgement to come is so often foretold in Scripture and exhibited to the sight of Iohn in this Revelation that the Godly indeed should wait with joy for that day of their deliverance but mockers be raised up from their security Furthermore without all doubt this Iudge sitting on the Throne is Christ because the whole Scripture agrees hereunto Now a little after in ver 12. he is called GOD before whom the dead shall stand to bee judged Therefore undoubtedly also he that sate on the Throne Chap. 4.2 was Christ gloriously reigning in Heaven That which followeth serves to signifie his unspeakable majesty From whose face the Earth and the Heaven fled away The splendor and majesty of the Iudge is such Husterosis is when a thing is before put down which should come after or contrariwise Lib. 20 de C. D. c. 14. as neither Heaven nor Earth is able to behold or abide the same How then shall the wicked stand before him Augustine understands it of the future renovation of Heaven and Earth and here also he acknowledgeth an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the Heaven and Earth fled not before but after the Iudgement to wit saith he the Iudgement being finished then shall this Heaven and Earth cease to bee when the new Heaven and Earth shall begin For this world shall passe away by a change of things not by an utter destruction the Heaven and Earth I say shall flee away that is this shape of Heaven and Earth shall passe away because they shall be changed from vanitie through fire that so they may be transformed into a much better and more beautifull state Of which innovation the Apostle Peter professedly writeth The Heaven shall passe way with a great noyse and the Elements melt with heat but we expect new Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwelleth righteousnesse And Paul saith 2. Pet. 3.12 1. Cor. 7.31 The figure or falshion of this world passeth away Of which AVGVSTINE The figure saith he of the world passeth not away in nature for we expect a new Heaven and a new Earth in which judgement and righteousnesse shall dwell Of which Iohn in the next Chapter I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth that is purged from all vanities Rev. 21. v. 1 Of which innovation not a totall destruction the words following must be understood And their place was found no more not as if it were no where but that it remained not such as it was before But whether Heaven and Earth shall so change their place as that the Earth should be moved out of the Centre of the universe the Heaven by its bending downe no longer inviron the Earth is not known either
downe and beleeved because therefore the Holy Scripture is the principle of Christian beleefe with Christians it needs no proof but beliefe Secondly that the scripture is divine and these words of the Angell true and faithfull is beleeved either by divine or humane Faith That it may be beleeved by humane Faith it can bee made out by probable yea forcing Arguments as from the majesty of the matter and style from the consent of this Prophesie with other Propheticall Scriptures But especially from the truth of the Oracles which we know for the most part are fulfilled touching the woman in travell and fleeing into the Wildernesse also of the Beast deceiving the world of false miracles of the great whore making drunke the Kings of the Earth with the cup of her spirituall fornication c. For this is Bellarmines Argument in the foresaid place If the praedictions of Scripture touching future things are true as the event hath proved why should not the testimonies of things present be true And indeed this his saying is alwayes to be retorted against Popish Sophisters demaunding us How we know that the Scriptures are true and divine But that any man should beleeve this with divine Faith cannot possiblie bee effected by outward arguments unlesse God by his spirit doth inwardly perswade the heart For divine Faith is not wrought by humane Arguments but wrought in the heart by the testimony and power of God Lastly by such kinde of cavelling all Authority both of God and man is made a mocke of and all Faith both of God and men is taken away For thus Adam Abraham Moses and the Prophets who heard God to speake might have excepted Who knowes whither it be the voyce of God Thus the Apostles might have shifted off the authority of Christ and Ecclesiasticall men the authority of the Apostles And why then I pray may not we much more the Authority of the Pope Touching humane authorities of Histories and Writers what more easie then to object whence knowest thou that Cicero Aristotle Plinie or Livie wrote these things or ever had a being in nature Thus no Faith should be safe but a meer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or uncertainty shall reigne in divine and humane matters which Satan labours to effect by these his Instruments But we go forward And the Lord God of the Holy Prophets Hee confirmes the truth of the Prophesie from God the Author thereof the faithfullnesse and truth of whose words cannot be questioned The Copulative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And hath the force of the causal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because He calleth Christ the Revealer of this Prophesie the Lord God of the Prophets as appeareth by the following words sent his Angell for this Christ did as in ver 16. I Jesus have sent my Angell See also Chap. 1.1 XLV Argument of Christs Deity This Argument of Christs Deity is beyond all exception the which Eniedinus the Samosatenian of whom mention hath often above bin made durst not meddle with For if Christ be the Lord God of the Holy Prophets then verily he is the same true and eternall Iehovah with the Father who by his spirit stirred up the ancient Prophets Moses David Isaias Jeremy c. by revealing his Oracles unto them therefore he was yea he was the God of all the Prophets of Moses and Author of the Law These things considered who can imagine that CERINTHUS should write this which he beleeved not but opposed with all his might The difference of the reading is also to be noted which notwithstanding lessens not but confirmes the Argument Andreas and the Kings Copie for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of the Holy Prophets read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of the spirits of the Prophets and so the Old Latine Version hath it that is who of old inspired the Prophets that is Propheticall Revelations The sense comes all to one For therefore he is called the Lord God of the Prophets because by his divine power he moved them to Prophesie His Angell That is Mee For they are the words of the same Angell who hitherto did exhibit by Christs commandement divers Visions unto John That hee might shew to his servants These things have been expounded in the Preface whence they are taken And that in speciall how at the giving of the Revelation such things could be said shortly to come to passe which yet are not altogether fulfilled after so many ages In a diverse respect he saith they should shortly be done I. In respect of eternity unto which all times are but a moment which is short II. In respect of the beginning for the Prophesie began soone after it was revealed and yet is a fulfilling III. In regard of the security of men unto whom all these things have happened and yet daily do quickly that is suddenly and unawares Now thus the Scripture speaketh of all future things that they shall shortly bee done Luk. 12.45 2. Pet. 3.4 to stirre us up to watchfulnesse and care least with the wicked servant we should say My Lord delayeth his comming or with mockers where is the promise of his comming And therefore it followeth 7. Behold I come quickly It is the voyce of Christ the Lord God of the Prophets By this acclamation hee approveth the words of the Angell that the things revealed must shortly be done as if he should say Indeed they shall shortly be done for I come suddenly or I will come to wit unto judgement as in ver 12. For all these things must be done before I come but I will come shortly Therefore they must shortly be done They are no Prophesies which shal not begin to be fulfilled til after many ages even now they begin Therfore now even now there is need of comfort 1. Thes 5.3 or as before shortly that is sooner then men imagine For when they shall say peace and safety then sudden destruction shall come upon them This variation of persons belongs to the forme of dramaticall representations in which divers persons use to be brought in speaking Blessed is he that keepeth He commends the Prophesie from its profitablenesse Now not onely they doe keep the sayings of the Prophesie which diligently search out the accomplishment of them but they much more who conforme their Faith and Life according to the same who worship not the Beast and his Image who detest the whoredoms of the whore flee out of Babylon and lastly who in faith adhere to God and the Lambe This Argument wee have more largely treated of in the Preface Chap. 1.3 whence it is taken Now let it suffice to note that blessednesse in vaine is promised unto the Keepers of the Revelation if it could in no measure bee kept But surely it is not promised in vaine and therefore the Visions of this Booke are not so intricate but that by diligent meditation and observation we may in some measure finde out the understanding of them 8. And I John John also speakes
effusion of much Christian blood about the yeere 1300. the which opinion doth well agree to the vision yet it seemeth we are to ascend higher even to Mahumet himself the first author of the Eastern apostasie as Bullinger Illyricus doe rightly in my opinion interpret it For about the same time that the Romane Bishop was created by Phocas VNIVERSAL king of the Locusts and so according to Gregories opinion declared to be the Antichrist there arose in the East a new Mahumetan sect by this occasion Heraclius the Emperour Phocas successour having ended his warre against the Persians The originall of Mahumetanisme dismissed without pay his Saracene souldiers whom he had in his armie under their captaine Homar these beeing returned into Arabia asked counsell of Mahumet the false Prophet at that time famous by a new kind of doctrine patched together of Judaisme Christianisme and Gentilisme For of the Iewes he borrowed circumcision and some other rites of the Christians the doctrine of love and duties between man and man of the Pagans militarie discipline c. Mahumets answer to the Saracens who gave them this for answer My will saith he is that yee executing the commandements of the Law doe in mutuall love and charitie stick close to each other both in riches and provertie that ye pollute not other mens wives by adulterie that yee abstaine from evill your selves and hinder others also doe good and perswade others thereunto wage warre in the name of God by feare and force impose lawes on the disobedient in dooing whereof I certainlie promise paradise unto you This doctrine which Mahumet afterward put into his Alcoran the Saracens with their captaine Homar received and drawing the rest of the Arabians into a societie of warre with them in short time they subdued and brought under their power the neighbouring provinces of the Romane Empire as all Arabia Palestina Syria Aegypt Africa Cypresse and many cities of Asia the lesse even unto Byzantium withall propagating and establishing the impieties and blasphemies of Mahumet and on the contrarie rooting out Christian religion which indeed at that time was every where much corrupted at length they entred into Spaine and held it in their possession untill in the yeere 1488 at which time after most cruell warres and with great difficulty they were driven thence by Ferdinand king of Castile grandfather to Charles the fift To these Arabians and Saracens the Tartars Turks professing the same Mahumetan religion joyned themselves who at length all of them by mutuall consent became one Empire whereof Ottoman a Turk by nation was the first Emperour in the yeer 1300 as hath been said and hence it is called the Ottoman or Turkish Empire unto this day since which time they have by cruell wars praefigured in this trumpet enlarged their borders through Asia Affrica and almost whole Europe even into the very hart of Hungarie Now these things thus briefly premised in an historicall way we may the more easilie understand the types of the following trumpet Aâ—bâ—h◠〈◊〉 Angel sounded In the person of the Angel I seek for no mysterie By his sounding hâ—e gives us a signe well to observe the future events which shall here be represented First he notes the author of the Revelation viz. Christ whose voyce he heard from the four hornes that is out of the midst of the golden or perfulâ—â—tory altar mentioned Chap. 8.3 which under the Law was a type of Christ The hornes thereof are mentioned in Exod. 30.10 where the high priest is commanded once every yeere to make an atonement with the blood of the sinne offering upon the hornes of the golden altar for the sinnes of the people to signifie that their sins should be at length truely expiated by the blood and intercession of Christ It was before God Not as if there were in heaven a golden altar but it is an allusion to the ceremonial type For the golden altar stood before the vaile by the ark of Jehovah The allegory betwixt the four Evangelists and these foure hornes I referre to its place But here it is an allusion to the ancient type as before in Chap. 6.9 Christ is said to be the Altar protecting the soules of the Martyrs XXXIV Argum. of Christs deity Iohn therefore sets forth the author and matter of this Revelation namely that he heard Christs voyce commanding four Angels to be loosed as actors of the future tragedies And here the divine authoritie of Christ appeares who commands as the Angels in heaven beeing Lord of them so in earth stirreth up wicked and tyrannicall men to punish the ingratitude of the world by them 14. Saying to the sixt Angel which had the trumpet This also may literally bee understood that Iohn truely heard the thing here mentioned committed to the sounding Angel that is having ended he should speedily unloose the Babylonian Angels Loose the four Angels He shewes how hitherto they were there bound that they might not exercise their cruelty but now by Gods commandment are loosed to execute his judgements in punishing the Christian world for their idolatry and other wickednesse Here is an argument of the Lords divine providence who holds in and le ts out the enemies of the Church as he pleaseth Hence we should both feare the Lord and pray to him that the enemies bee not loosed for our destruction as also to trust in him seeing against us they can doe nothing contrary to the will of God or without his permission and sufferance This worke of loosing is committed to an Angel because Angels are Gods ministring spirits to execute his judgements whither good or evill Now let us consider who these Angels are Who are these foure Angels bound at the river Euphrates what is meant by the great river Euphrates I have shewed you what other mens opinion is concerning these things Some also take these foure Angels to be the same which in Chap. 7.1 Held the foure windes of the earth from blowing c. But to this I can no way assent True it is as they there so these here are evill and not good Angels as the circumstances shew Notwithstanding neyther the one nor the other are devils For the former were the temporall and spirituall instruments of the Western Antichrist hindring as much as they could the preaching of the Gospell from the Christian world But these are onely secular ministers of the Eastern Antichrist who hindred not so much the preaching of the Gospell In what they differ from the four Angels Chap. 7.1 as by murdering of Christians brought a lamentable destruction upon them They are clearly differenced from the other by the circumstances of the place beeing loosed at the great river Enphrates so that hitherto they were there bound not as devils confined to a certaine place but as cruel barbarous people kept in by the hand of God that they could no sooner break forth to destroy the Christian world Euphratâ—â— I take
properly for that great river mentioned in the historie of the creation throughout the scriptures which descending from the mountaines of Armenia did run between Chaldea the midst of Babylon This river hitherto was the bound of the Romane Empire separating the Christian world from the Barbarous people beyond it towards the North East the Scythians Tartars Turkes inhabited beneath it towards the south the Arabians Saracens Now hitherto by the divine commandement these nations kept themselves quiet But here foure Angels that is peoples viz. the Arabians Saracens Tartars Turks are loosed that is by the will of God goe forth as armed against Christians I therefore take the foure Angels to be the foure peoples or nations who about the fore-said time gathering themselves together Why these Barbarous peoples are called Angels brake forth by the just judgement of God with their hostile armies upon the Christian world They are called Angels not by nature but as respecting their ministerie For they were stirred up and sent by God to punish Christians neyther is it unusual in this booke that men whither ecclesiastical or civil any way imployed by the Lord as his instruments should be signified by the name of Angels Now it will appeare by the 17 ver that these Angels note not particular persons but whole nations and armies 15. And they were loosed God speakes and it is don he commands and all creatures are ready to doe his will By Christs commandement therefore the foure Angels that is these people present themselves before God with a mightie army to destroy the world yet not herein to obey the Lord but to kill the third part of men so that not their obedience but their bloody disposition ready to kill and destroy is here signified therefore it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they might slay Gods command excuses not the Turks cruelty And here we are to note the diverse and contrarie end and worke of God and the wicked in one and the same thing least we might thinke that the cruelty which the Turkes howbeit let loose by God have hitherto exercised against Christians were excusable For God in punishing the idolatrie and other sinnes of men sought thereby to bring them to repentance But the enemies minded nothing but rapine and murthers and how to advance their Mahumetane power As therefore neyther Pilate nor the Iewes in crucifying of Christ are to be excused Act. 2.23 4.18 because they did that which the hand and counsell of God had decreed considering that they did it not to obay God but to destroy Christ and in this regard the worke of God was holy but theirs most wicked even so the pronenesse of these to hurt Christians is no way to be commended or excused In that it is said they were prepared for an houre and a day and a moneth and a yeere It signifies their readines and I suppose there is no other mysterie in it at all times whensoever the Lord would please to send them forth And as it serves to amplifie the bloody and cruel nature of these adversaries so it sets forth Gods watchfull providence who determines the very moments of his judgments so that nothing can be don in the world but by his fore-appointement Now we know that these are the foure divisions of time for four and twenty houres make a day thirty dayes a moneth twelve moneths a yeere Brightman saith well that this serves for the comfort of the godly to whom the spirit of God would have it knowen that this most grievous calamitie hath his appointed termes and limits Brightmans conjecture about the terme of the Turkish power considered even to the least moment beyond which it should not be prolonged But whither that will hold which he further affirmeth touching the space of three hundred ninety and six yeeres by reducing after a prophetical manner the yeere into moneths moneths into dayes and dayes into yeeres and thence by numbering from the yeere of Christ 1300. He gathereth that the power of the Turkes should last unto the yeere 1696. which should be the last terme of the Turkish name yet in the meane time he conjectures that their strength shall decay and tend to ruin some fortie yeeres before I doubt I say whither this wil hold For to grant what he saith touching the day moneth and yeere what shall then be understood by the houre besides hee takes a Julian yeere consisting of 365 dayes but an Aegyptian moneth containing thirty dayes the which little agrees And therefore it may well bee that the Turkish tyranny shall longer last in case the world continue I rather assent to Bullinger who thinkes that here is noted the swiftnesse of these people in warre they suddenly are up in armes fal on unexpectedly at a word speaking give assault they flie and in fleeing fight To slay the third par of this see vers 18. 16. And the number of the armie of horsemen The number of the horsemen of warre wherewith the foure Angels assault the Christian world is as it were innumerable viz. as our translation and some others have it two hundred thousand thousand But in the Gr. it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 two millions of millions one million containes ten thousand so that two millions of millions is twenty times a thousand thousand Erasmus twenty thousand times ten thousand Luther indefinitely many times thousand thousand The like number almost of Angels we finde in Dan. 7.10 thousand thousands ministred unto him ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him Now here is signified such an innumerable armie as hardly ever was in the world such an army as easily will discipate all things and by humane strēght not to be resisted And it is wel known that the Arabians Saracens Tartars Turkes alwayes goe forth with huge armies especially of horsemen in which consisteth their greatest force yea many times one Emperour of the Turkes alone brings forth more horsemen into the feild then all the Christian Princes joyning their forces together can possibly doe Moreover hitherto these barbarous nations have cōquered by reason only of their multitudes Tamberlane king of Scythia brought forth an armie of twelve hundred thousand with which he overcame Bajazet Decad. 3. lib. 6. de reb Vnga Bonfinius reporteth that Ladislaus afterward called Varnensis from the overthrow he there received going against Amurath with foure and twenty thousand horsemen was counselled by Dracula of Vailachia passing thorow his borders not to goe forward with so small an armie against the Turke who dayly saith he rides forth with greater forces a hunting And I heard the number of the least any might question how Iohn should know the number he shewes that he heard the same mentioned from the throne of God 17 And thus I saw the horses So much for the number of these barbarous souldiers now he describeth their armour cruelty He saith he saw the