to the Opinion even of the Ancient Fathers As the Empire was healing into the Image of old Paganism again and became a Beast it grew actually divided into several Kingdoms which therefore is as much if not more express than the Crowns upon the ten horns of the healed Beast Chap. 13. vers 1. And therefore the more needless to mention the Crowns here 13. These have one mind and shall give their power and strength unto the Beast that is shall be of one Paganochristian Religion whereby the Empire had again become a Beast and shall give their power and strength unto the Beast being ready by force of Arms if need be or by what other Power or Authority they have to maintain this Beast in its beastly that is in its Idolatrous condition and Pagan-like Superstitions 14. These shall make war with the Lamb and the Lamb shall overcome them namely at the last by that patience and truth that is found in his followers For he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings So already by right and his Father has decreed that at last he shall have full and quiet possession that all the Kingdoms of the Earth shall become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. And they that are with him are called and chosen and faithful The great stress lies upon chosen and faithful For many are called but few are chosen But those choice ones that are said to be with him are stout Soldiers that will follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes never leave him for any persecution whatsoever but be firm and faithful unto him be their patience never so much exercised by sufferings 15. And he saith unto me The Waters which thou sawest where the Whore sitteth are Peoples and Multitudes and Nations and Tongues Even all the Nations and People in the Roman Empire 16. And the ten Horns which thou sawest upon the Beast viz. under the seventh head that is the Paganochristian head be it Pope or Emperour for the Supreme Power Paganochristian be it lodged where it will is the head of the healed Beast or of the Beast that was and is not and yet is These some of them at least shall hate the Whore that is the Idolatrous Hierarchy and Church of Rome particularly And shall make her desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire The making of her desolate and naked is the stripping her of her wealth and revenues and bestowing of them upon better uses And the eating of her flesh may partly have the same signification Flesh signifying wealth with the Onirocritical Interpreters But it may also signifie carnal Ordinances and Institutes Superstitious and Idolatrous which are the fulsome flesh of this Whore And the eating this flesh of hers and burning her with fire is the abolishing of these grosly Superstitious and Idolatrous Rites through the spirit of Truth and Zeal which is likened to fire This has been done in its measure in the Reformation when so many Kingdoms and Principalities forsook the Church of Rome but may be further that is more extendedly fulfilled under the fourth and fifth Vials Politically understood 17. For God hath put in their hearts to fullfil his will It is easie enough to conceive that by Gods connivence at these times of ignorance as the Apostle speaks of the Gentiles it might be permitted to the Pseudoprophetick Beast through the officious assistance of the Powers of darkness to do such Miracles and use such wayes of imposing upon the ten Kings as would certainly enough determine them to the Idolatrous Religion of the Empire But that they were thus certain to be deceived is the fault of their own lapse and of the after-consequences of it not any injustice in God who no otherwise here is said to put in their hearts to fullfill his will c. than in Exod. he is said to harden Pharaoh's heart from letting the people of Israel go And to agree and give their Kingdom to the Beast the same that was hinted vers 13. and so to be understood Until the words of God shall be fulfilled For Dan. chap. 7. it is plainly said of the little Horn which there takes upon him to change Times and Laws that they shall be given into his hands for a Time and Times and half a Time which therefore is a Time determinate by God But then it presently follows But the judgement shall sit and they shall take away his Dominion to consume and destroy it to the end And that little Horn is the Whore of Babylon as I have proved Synops. Prophet lib. 2. cap. 14. sect 12. 18. And the Woman which thou sawest is that great City which reigneth over the Kings of the Earth that is which reigned in S t Iohn's time over the Kings of the Earth whereby it is manifest that Old Rome is understood not New Rome or Constantinople For no Polity seated upon seven Hills but what was there reigned over the Kings of the Earth in S t Iohn's time The sense therefore of the Verse may be clearly delivered in this short Paraphrase The Woman which thou sawest riding on the Beast whose name is Was is not and yet is is that great City that now ruleth over the Kings of the Earth namely Rome whose Inhabitants though flowing successively are accounted one and the same City because included within the same reputed walls and buildings as that is accounted one and the same River that flowes betwixt the same banks though the same water does not continue for a day together Therefore the Ruling Power Ecclesiastick or Hierarchy of seven-hilled Rome in Italy as the two-horned Beasts name is Latinus in the other Vision chap. 13. is this Woman that rides the Beast that was and is not and yet is and most principally concerned in this Vision which contains as it were the Arraignment of her person described from her Quality or Dignity being Queen or Empress as it were of the whole Empire signified by the Beast she rides on and from her Gorgeous Apparel and from her Palace or Chief Place of her Residence seven-hilled Rome But the Crime or Charge against her is the corrupting of the whole Empire with Idolatry and Cruelty murdering the Saints of God and Martyrs of Iesus Her doom or condemnation is very copiously and pompously set out in the Chapter following And this I think is a very easie natural and coherent Exposition of this Seventeenth Chapter of the Apocalypse and such as cannot but abundantly satisfie any unprejudiced Reader But whoever will take the pains carefully to peruse and throughly to understand the eight last Chapters of the first Book of my Synopsis Prophetica amongst which is my Ioynt-Exposition of this Seventeenth and Thirteenth Chapters of this Book of the Apocalypse I hope be he never so much prejudiced if he will speak his own conscience he will confess that I have made out with evidence even mathematical and undeniable demonstration that the sense
For that this belongs to Rome the wonted character Third plainly shews Therefore under this Trumpet there is no longer at last any King of Rome denoted by the Sun nor Consular Power nor Senatorian nor the Power of other known Ancient Magistrates of Rome denoted by the Moon and Stars but the City at last namely after that from the year 542 in the Ostrogothick War by Belisarius and Narsus Iustinian's Generals it was deprived of the Consular Power and after taken twice by Totilas and burnt and retaken by Narses and a little after struck to the ground by thunder and lightning and tempest being despoiled of all Ancient Ranks of Roman Magistracy sunk to that ignoble and obscure Title of the Dutchy of Rome and after was forced to pay Tribute to Ravenna under the Exarchate a City that before had been subject to her In which inglorious state she continued till the year 750 Which year is the Epocha of that notable Interval of the Kingdom of the Saracens from the beginning of the Caliphate of the Abasidae who first made Bagdad their Imperial Seat to the taking of the said Bagdad by Togrulbeck King of the Turks which was in the year 1055. And this is the easie and natural sense of the fourth Trumpet and perfectly fills up the scope thereof 13. And I beheld and heard an Angel flying through the midst of Heaven saying with a loud voice Wo wo wo to the Inhabiters of the Earth by reason of the other voices of the Trumpet of the three Angels which are yet to sound These Woes are denounced against the Roman Empire who by this time besides the guilt of the blood of the Primitive Martyrs had in a gross manner lapsed into a kind of Paganochristian Idolatry which they would be found in under these following Trumpets and in cruel persecutions of the Apostolick Members of the Church that would not submit to their Idolatrous Paganochristianisme Wherefore vengeance proportionable to their redoubled wickedness shall be poured down upon them under the voices of the Trumpet of the three Angels that are to come NOTES CHAPTER VIII Vers. 7. As a character of the Roman Empire c. That the third part or subtriple proportion is a character of the Roman Empire will appear from Chap. 12. vers 4. where the Dragon with seven Heads and ten Horns which is undoubtedly the Roman Empire Pagan is said with his taile to have drawn the third part of the Stars of Heaven and cast them to the Earth Which in the Prophetick stile is as much as to say that he had brought down a third part of the Princes or Rulers of the known world in that time and subjected them to himself that is that the Roman Power had subdued a third part of the Powers and Principalities of the World to her self For Heaven and Earth are the parts of a Political World as well as of a Natural And the Stars of the Political World are the several Princes or Rulers thereof But when they are subjected to some other great Potentate then they cease to be fixed Stars but fall to the Earth that is to the low estate of subjection or are utterly extinct And in that they are said to be cast down by the taile of the Dragon by his taile is understood his Retinue his Train Military especially his Armies and Forces whether by Land or by Sea This is a most assured sense of the Prophetick stile and that therefore the amplitude of the Roman Dominion is hinted by the third part of Stars cast down to the Earth by the Dragons Taile as if it were about the third part of the known world in S t John 's time And that consequently this subtriple proportion is an intended character of the Roman Empire whereby we may know that such or such a Vision belongs to it And thus to give characters from Numbers and Proportions is according to the Cabbalistical mode and the very Genius of this Book which is Cabbalistical And it is absurd to think there should be so repeated a mention of a third part so perpetually of things as if Divine Providence had a peculiar pique against the third part of things or persons more than any other part as it may seem in at beast a dozen places in the Apocalypse were it not there were this mystery under it CHAPTER IX 1. ANd the filth Angel sounded and I saw a Star * fallen from Heaven to Earth that is a lapsed Spirit or Angel a Devil if you will For as a Star signifies an Angel so a fallen Star a lapsed Angel And to him was given the Key of the bottomless pit That is he had great Power in the Kingdom of darkness of which a Key is a Symbol 2. And he opened the bottomless Pit and there rose a smoke out of the Pit as the smoke of a great furnace That is there arose a hot and hellish zeal conjoyned with dark Ignorance for the Imposturous Religion of Mahomet And the Sun and the Air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the Pit That is the Gospel of the Sun of Righteousness was endeavoured to be clouded and eclipsed by the over-running force and false pretenses of Monotheisme and of a more pure worship in Mahometisme 2. And there came out of the smoke Locusts upon the Earth That is under this dark ignorant and false pretense the Saracens professors of the Mahometan Religion spread themselves over the Earth And unto them was given power as the scorpions of the Earth have power to have their sting and poison in their taile which deadly sting and poison in the Saracens was the falseness of their Religion which they transfused at the end of their conquests That was the poisonous sting to all conscientious Christians and to others it was at least poison if not a sting 4. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the Earth neither any green thing neither any tree Which here in Analogie stand for several orders of Men as the Locusts for the Saracens But only those men that have not the seal of God in their foreheads which intimates that notwithstanding the grassations of these Impostors the truly Apostolick Church would be kept safe And there is mention made of Men to insinuate that these Locusts were also men not mere insects For Locusts do not fall upon Men but upon Grass and Trees 5. And to them it was given that they should not kill them That is that these Saracens should indeed infest the Roman Empire sore but not destroy it quite as after happened by the Euphratean Horsemen But that they should be tormented five months that is during their time of lying upon it called here five months in allusion to the time of Locusts who live about that space of time as Naturalists relate But their continuance in vexing Italy was not much above five months of years if that may be particularly glanced at And their torment was as
is plain that the measuring belongs to the men not to the place This space therefore of ground answers to that space of time which is comprehended in the Ephesine and Smyrnean succession of the Church And the correspondence is admirable betwixt the Smyrnean succession and the Thysiasterion when so many Martyrs as so many Holocausts were sacrificed in testimony of the Truth of the Christian Religion the space where the Altar of Holocausts stands falling in with the space of Time of the Smyrnean persecutions 2. But the Court which is without the Temple leave out and measure it not For it is not commensurable to the Rule of Gods Word and the Apostolick Faith and Practice but contrary or repugnant namely that time of the Church which is comprised in far the greatest part of the Pergamenian succession and all the Thyatirian in which they are said to offer things sacrificed to Idols and were in some kind or other become Idolatrous never go about therefore to measure them for they are incommensurate to the Rule and point-blank contrary thereto such is the outward Court. For it is given unto the Gentiles and the holy City shall they tread under foot forty and two months that is a kind of Paganochristianity instead of pure Christianity shall visibly domineer for forty and two months of years that is 1260 years which is the same proportion of Time to the commensurate Time of the Church under the Ephesine and Smyrnean succession and a little further that the proportion of the outward Court has to the inward Court which proportion is as 1260 to 360 that is the outward Court contained the inward three times and an half in quantity 3. And I will give power unto my two Witnesses and they shall prophecy a thousand two hundred and threescore dayes cloathed in sackcloth The works of darkness were numbred by months the Moon being Ruler of the night but the works of Righteousness by dayes of which the Sun is moderator But by dayes are understood Prophetick dayes here that is years a thing known and usual in Prophecies By these Two Witnesses are understood all that bore witness against the Idolatries and disorders of this time of Apostasie and they are said to be cloathed in sackcloth to denote both the sadness of heart they are in to see such times and also to signifie the low and mean condition of such Holy and Apostolick men in this wicked time of Apostasie But all these mournful Witnesses are said to be two though never so many partly by reason of the Types in the Old Testament to which they allude Moses and Aaron Elias and Elisha Zorobabel and Ieshuah who show'd their Zeal for the purity of Gods Worship against the Idolatry in the Wilderness in the Baalitish Idolatry and in the Captivity of Babylon There may be also an allusion to things in this Division into two viz. to Magistracy and Ministry to the Old Testament and the New or else to the People of the Iews such as are kept out from our Religion by the gross Adulterations of it and to the Virgin Company of Christians 4. Those are the two Olive Trées and the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the Earth A description of the two Witnesses in the sense above declared with a particular allusion to that in Zachary chap. 4.11 where by the two Olive Trees upon the right side of the Candlestick and the left is understood Zorobabel and Ieshuah those faithful Servants in the Babylonish Captivity and the time of the mournfull Witnesses is the very time of the Whore of Babylon 5. And if any man will hurt them fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their Enemies The allusion is to Moses and Elias who did really bring down fire upon their Enemies but here it is to be understood Mystically of the fire of the Spirit Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts It was the Word of the Lord to Zorobabel who was a Type of these Witnesses and an helper of Gods People in the Babylonish Captivity And it is said of the Man in Esdras coming out of the Sea And he shall destroy them without labour by the Law which is like unto fire In which sense I would understand that which followes And if any man will hurt them he must in this manner be killed by the power of the Spirit in conviction and prayer these are the weapons of their warfare 6. These have power to shut heaven that it rain not in the dayes of their Prophecies namely in the dayes of their mournful Prophecy their prophecying in sackcloth This is figuratively spoken by a Prophetical Metalepsis or Zoopoeia of the second kind attributing that to their activity or it may be oral denunciation which is only a consequence of their condition they being put out of power and place in Church and State The allusion is to Elias his hindering it from raining three years and six months in Ahab's time which time exactly answers to 1260 dayes the time of these mournfull Witnesses But the rain that is here hindred is the sound Apostolick Doctrine and Heavenly influence thereof which hinderance is a consequence of these mournfull Witnesses being put out of power and place And have power over waters to turn them to blood because their Apostolick preaching of the Gospel of meekness and peace does not take place And to smite the earth with all plagues as often as they will that is as often as occasions offer themselves * For particular occasions answer in analogie to particular acts of will in this Prophetick Zoopoeia and indeed all the ten plagues of Aegypt came upon the Roman Empire because these Witnesses to the Apostolick Truth are not heard it having become a Land of Aegypt to the true Israelites the pure and Apostolick Christians How the plague of Frogs of Lice of swarms of Gnats and Flyes murrain of Beasts Boyles and Ulcers Hail and Locusts in a mystical sense interpreted fell upon this mystical Aegypt as it is called in this Book of Prophecies as a necessary consequence of these Witnesses disgrace affliction and deprivation of power and office were easie here to show if it were not too long for this short Explication we are upon 7. And when they shall be * a finishing their Testimony that is performing their witnessing to the Truth against all the Impostures and Idolatries of this Spiritual Aegypt The Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit that is either out of a pit of the Earth or the abysse of the Sea and so it will signifie either the two-horned or the ten-horned Beast shall make war against them and shall overcome them and kill them shall oppose them and overcome as to the power of this world and kill them so that they shall be politically dead all of them and some as it happened to the Waldenses and Albigenses and others be slain in a natural sense
and delusions of his wicked Spirits at their Images or Altars to deceive the people 4. And they worshipped the Dragon which gave Power to the Beast namely which had given him his Armies his Throne and his great Authority that is to say though he appears in the shape now not of the Dragon but of the Leopard or Panther a Beast the Dragon is said so much to abhor that is in the gratefull shew of Christianity yet so far forth as they gave obedience to the Paganical and Idolatrous part joyned with it they indeed worshipped or obeyed the Dragon whose Fiends or Goblins might please themselves to receive that worship at their Altars and Images that they had by their jugling tricks and false Miracles reintroduced into the Church and flear amongst themselves at the Imposture that they made the Church in so gross a sense become the worshippers of Devils as it is said in the sixth Trumpet And they worshipped the Beast that is they yielded obedience to the Beast to the Imperial Power in such a state as it was saying Who is like unto the Beast who is able to make war with him Things are so well setled and strongly this way and so accommodately to all mens liking that neither Jew nor Pagan can be able to dissettle the Peace of the Empire in this point or make war and raise stirs against it 5. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies that is great and enormous blasphemies which are injunctions for Idolatry of several sorts for Blasphemy in Scripture often signifies Idolatry And Power was given unto him to continue forty and two months the same time the outward Court is trodden down by the Gentiles that is the entireness of his Dominion shall continue till the seventh Semitime till about the fourth month thereof 6. And he opened his mouth in Blasphemy against God to blaspheme his Name by giving his incommunicable Name to Idols or Images or Name may signifie his person and so his person is blasphemed by Idolatry committed against him by worshipping any other person besides God or Christ. And his Tabernacle namely the Body of Christ which is the Living Tabernacle of God it is blasphemed more wayes than one both in that they Idolatrously worship a mere Wafer instead thereof and make it also so vile a thing that it shall be at the command of every Priest for whatever uses he will please to fetch it down by his transubstantiating charm to be devoured into the foul stomachs of the People and as it may happen to be eaten by base Vermine such as Rats and Mice And them that dwell in Heaven that is the Saints and Angels they most wickedly blaspheme in that they set up Idols by the instigation of Evil Spirits the Forces or Armies the old Dragon delivered to the Beast who no doubt are busie enough to assist there and play tricks and do call these Idols by the names of the Saints or Angels and impute these tricks there played in the behalf of Idolatry by them to the Saints when they are the mere delusions of these Goblins or Devils Besides it it a gross reproach to the Saints and Angels to suppose they will accept of Religious Worship and so prove Rebels to God Wherefore that Power that established and decreed such enormous things as these Image-worship Saint-worship and Transubstantiation may well be said to open their mouth in blasphemy for publishing such Edicts c. 7. And it was given him to make war with the Saints and to overcome them that is to oppose them and subdue them and keep them under all along that they shall have no power in the Empire as it was said before of the mournful Witnesses that they were Politically dead all the three Times and an half in a manner But in some part of this time the war and slaughter or killing is not mystical but proper For of the Waldenses and Albigenses in France alone there is said to have been slain no less than ten hundred thousand And in the Inquisition within thirty years space no less than an hundred fifty thousand persons were consumed with all manner of grievances and miseries besides infinite numbers more And Sanderus the Jesuite reports that an infinite number of Lothards as he calls them and Sacramentarians through Europe were burnt with fire and fagot but excuses it as not done by the Pope and Bishops but the secular Magistrate which is the thing this Prophecy foretells that it is the Beast with ten horns the Secular Power of the Empire not the Beast with two horns that is the executioner of the cruelty or that dooms to death Iezebel excites but Ahab the Secular Powers execute or command to be executed her bloody suggestions against Naboth that is against those that have the Witnesses of Jesus the Spirit of Prophecy as is elsewhere explained And power was given him over all Kindreds Tongues and Nations namely that he might persecute and force men to Idolatrous worship in all the parts of the Empire 8. And all that dwell upon the Earth that is whose minds are fixed on earthly things shall worship him that is obey his Idolatrous Edicts and Commands whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world that is are not of the number of the Called and Chosen as they are termed Chap. 17. nor of those that are redeemed from the Earth as they are described Chap. 14. For those will ever stand out till they get the victory over the Beast 9. If any man have an ear let him hear For this was a remarkable intimation and worth the observing as also that which follows 10. He that leadeth into Captivity shall go into Captivity He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword that is That Power which now in this forty-two months of years of the Beast domineers so and forces men to their Idolatrous worship shall at last be led captive into the Truth and they that kill now with the sword of persecution shall be slain by the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God answerably to the witnesses slaying their enemies by the fire that came out of their mouth Which victory was obtained in the resurrection of the Witnesses in a degree in the third or fourth month of the seventh or last Semitime viz. in the late blessed Reformation as I have above noted Here is the patience and the faith of the Saints that they may stand to it with these spiritual weapons till it shall please God to give them success as he did in the time even now mentioned 11. And I beheld another Beast coming out of the Earth Why there is two Beasts here since the Empire became Christian in profession I above intimated namely because there is as it were Imperium in Imperio a Secular Empire and Sacerdotal which pretends to an Universal Rule in