THE INTERPRETATION

Of the Little Book, or, of the other Systena of Ahocalyptical Visions, according to the Rule of the Apocalyptical Key.

The course of the seals being finished, in which the affairs of, the empire were described, we come now to the other prophecy, much more noble in its kind, as containing the FATES OF THE CHURCH, or of Religion. John is introduced to it by the delivery and eating iip of the open book, being endued as it were with a degree of the prophetic faculty. " And the voice (says he) which. I had heard from heaven, spake again unto me saying," (viz. that voice, as of a trumpet, talking with him, ch. iv) "and said, Go, take the little book which is open in the baud of the angel, standing upon the sea, and upon the earth ; and. I went to the angel, saying unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take and eat it up," &c. Moreover, as the prophecy now to be revealed, as the knowledge of Divine things and secrets, especially those to come, usually is, was to be sweet and pleasant in its foretaste; but, on account of the calamitous state of the Church, or perhaps, of the obscurity of those allegories and types with which it was covered, it would, like aloes taken into the stomach, greatly wound the mind of him who should unfold and penetrate into its sense. Therefore it is said, that the book to be eaten by the apostle would indeed be sweet in the mouth, that is, in first appearance and first flavour, delightful to the mind, but when received into the stomach and digested, would bring on bitterness. "And it shall," says he, " render thy belly bitter, but in thy mouth it shall be sweet as honey." The whole image is taken from Ezekiel, except that, though there is mention of sweetness in the mouth, yet there is no reference, or but an obscure one, to bitterness in the belly.

The book, being thus taken and swallowed, the meaning of the symbol is explained in the clearest and most express words; namely, that on St. John was imposed the gift of another and still inore noble prophecy, which should retrace the path of the former, to be received from Christ, and to be brought to the knowledge of the Church. And I took," says he, "the little book from the hands of the angel, and ate it up, and it was in my mouth sweet as honey, but when I had eaten it, my stomach was embittered." "And he said unto me," (this is the meaning of the symbol) "Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings*."

*By those words, "Thou must prophecy again," (by which the type of the eaten hook is explained) it is intimated that the following system of visions goes over again the Apocalyptical time from the very beginning. But if any vision of that prophetic system is to be sought for from the commencement of the period or Apocalyptical time, it is certainly agreeable to reason, that the first vision of the system should challenge the foremost place, both because it is first, and because it is the sum and compendium of all that follow.

Such was the inauguration of St. John. Then follows the prophecy, which begins with an act of his, relative to the temple of God. And therefore, by the image of a double court, one measured, and the other rejected on account of the profanation of the Gentiles, demonstrates that there would be in order a double state of the Church.

THE MEANING

Of the Interior Court Measured by the Reed of God.

The inner court of the temple, with those who worship therein, to be measured by the Divine reed, denotes the primeval state of the Cliurcli; examined, and accurately proved to be holy, according to the rule of the Divine word. Not yet iii truth, as it was afterwards, (when we arrive at the times of the outer court) varying from ineasure, without symmetry, from the coiitagioii of idolatrous worship, but serving God for some ages, regularly, through one only Mediator, Jesus Christ.

For it appears to me that a measure of this kind was intended, even under the type of the angelical dimension in Ezekiel;. because it is said to him, c. x1iii. from v. 7 to 10, and in the following verses, " But thou, O son of man, show the temple to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed for their iniquities, and let them measure the pattern." See the passage. But if any one should think differently, and had rather refer the type of dimension to the signification of building, as what is displayed in. architectural engravings, or graphically, may be the measurement by God, according to the prophets, that will still correspond to the same sense. For what then will this court denote, measured by the Divine reed, but the state of the Church so represented to be the workmanship of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ himself being the chief corner-stone ? opposed to the following court, which God did not acknowledge for his building, and therefore John is prohibited from measuring. Whether you interpret it in the latter or the former manner, the substance, as you see, will be the same.

But he that shall interpret it in a different sense,unless I am mistaken, call bring no example of his interpretation from Scripture.

How appositely indeed the situation of the altar in this court may adumbrate the frequent sacrifices of martyrs, under that state of the Church, will appear, both from the circumstance itself, and from the contemporary vision of the red dragon fighting with Michael for the offspring of the woman, when we come to the interpretation thereof.

THE MEANING

Of the Outer Court with the Holy City trodden under foot by the Gentiles, and on that account to be omitted and rejected from measurenaent.

The outer court trodden under foot by the nations, and rejected from the divine measurement designates the holy city of God, or the Christian Church, soon after the end of the times of the regular court, (to which it immediately succeeds) to be given up to new idolatries, and its affairs having been confirmed by the entire demolition of the Gentile worship under the first court, it was now to be profaned by the contagion of renewed idolatry, as of revived ethinicisim; in one word, the anti-christian apostasy which was to flourish in the Church for forty-two, months of years*. Concerning which, in the history of the Beast, in a vision of a like nature conteniporizing with this court, we shall fully and particularly treat.

* There is an allusion to the profanation of Antiochus, which is described Ps. lxxix. Vide 1 Macc. c. vii. v. 17, and Ps. lxxix. 1, 2, 3. " O God! the heathen are come into thine inheritance, and made Jerusalem a heap of stones," &c.

But let us consider the words of the text in the interpretation of which we are now engaged. "And there was given me, says he, a reed like a rod; and the angel stood, saying, Arise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and those that worship therein. But the court, which is without the temple, leave out, and do not measure it, for it is given up to the Gentiles, and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty-two months."

In order that we may rightly understand the meaning of these words, it is to be understood that TO 'IEPON (by which name I embrace the whole edifice of the temple) was distinguished by a double court, the one interior, in which the Naos, or temple itself, together with the altar of burnt-offering before its doors was situated, and was open to the Priests and Levites only; the other exterior, which is called (2 Chron. c. iv.v. 9) the great court, and by Ezekiel, more than twelve times,the court without, or the outer court. This was the court of the Israelites, or of the Israelitish people, and therefore not improperly called the court of Israel, though that part belonging to the men, was especially called so by the Jews. The first court was known by the names of the temple and the altar of sacrifice. "Rise, said he, and measure the temple of God (Naos) and the altar of sacrifice." Where the historian does not mean the altar of burnt-offerings only which was there situated, but the space which surrounded it, that is, the whole space of the altar and sacrifice ; as is to be collected from the words immediately connected with it, "and those who worship therein ;" that is, in the place of sacrifice. How, likewise, 9vtrtattTnptov is taken c. xiv. v. 18, and c. xvi. v. 7, vide Beza: Whence the old lexicon in Greek and Latin interprets OvataaT;,ptov altarium, sacrarium, altar, sacred place, and vice versa, the glossary of Philoxenus, sacrarium' tip~dov OvataQTnptov. Temple of a hero, place of the altar. But this EwataQT' ptor, together with the area of the temple (i. e. To; Naos) I learn to be rightly comprehended within the name of the interior court, from the description of the tabernacle, where, in like planner, the whole enclosure which surrounded the dwelling-place, and altar of burnt offering is reckoned under the denomination of one court, as appears L: x. c. xl. v. 33. So much of the first court which John is ordered to measure ; but the latter court is designated clearly enough by its name" The court which is without the temple, that is, by an ellipsis of the former substantive, the court which is exterior to the enclosure' of the temple and altar, and since the Gentiles admitted without right and justice were stabled in this, it is ordered by no means to be measured, but to be cast forth, and considered as profane.

But you will say, it is not the outer court, but the holy city which is to be trodden dowel by the Gentiles. I answer, that the outer court and the holy city mutually explain each other, since the outer court was the place for the holy city or people of Israel to meet in for divine purposes: Nay, in the wilderness, the tabernacle having only one court, (which it was not lawful to enter or dinarily, unless for the Priests and Levites), there was no outer court, beside the camp of Israel, or the holy city. Therefore the sense is the swine as if it were said, "The court which is without the temple cast out, and do not measure it, for it is given up to the Gentiles, and they shall tread it under forty-two months. For the relative it, a substantive is substituted, and that of the swine kind, so as to point out the subject intended by the antecedent. "The holy city, says he, shall they tread under forty-two months." The change of the substantive for the relative often occurs both in this book and elsewhere, namely, when either the substantive which precedes, is repeated in the place of the relative, or its synonyme is substituted instead of the relative. An example of the latter kind you have here, and Acts c. xxv. v. 21. And indeed what else shall we say could be given to the Gentiles to leave the power of occupying, so as to trample under foot ? And what could the Gentiles trample on, but that which was given them? so that these words, not less than the court and holy city, seem mutually to explain one another.

THE ICHNOGRAPHY

To these two courts, (of which only, and not of more, the Scripture makes mention) a third was added in after ages, namely, in the temple of Herod; with another wall built, in the circumference of the temple, which was called that of the Gentiles and unclean persons; but this was not accounted sacred, nay more, on the columns erected, there was inscribed in Greek and Latin letters, "Let no stranger of another tribe pass through into the holy place." Josepltus de Bello J udaico, 1-G. cvi. Greek 18.

THE MYSTERY

Of The Two Witnesses prophecying in Sackcloth

Two witnesses or prophets sent by God, clothed in sackcloth, are to preach, while the Gentiles are treading under foot the court of the people of God or the holy city. These are the interpreters and assertors of Divine truth, who should deplore that foul and lamentable contamination of the Church of Christ, by continual complaints, and whom God would raise up as "unceasing monitors to the Christian world, committing whoredom with the Gentiles, and as t guides to his saints preserving the faith. After the example of those illustrious pairs, under the Old Testament, Moses and Aaron in the Wilder ness Elijah and Elisha under the Baalitical apostasy, Zorobabel and Jesllua under the Babylonian captivity. From their number, condition; power and actions, these Apocalyptical witnesses seem to be manifestly described, as likewise the state of the church in wlticli they prophesied, agreeably with that of Israel, under the images of Babylon, the Wilderness and Gentilism, or Baalism. Let the reader examine with his own eyes what I have said of the description of the witnesses in the following table:

Now let us come to the text. " And I will give power, (says he) to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy 1260 days, clothed in sackcloth. Where it is first to be remarked, that; the whole prophecy which follows, from this comma to the sounding of the seventh trumpet,as the nature of the subject demands, was not exhibited to sight in a vision, but dictated to John by the angel sustaining the person of Christ, the observation of which renders the genius of the allegory or type much more easy to be perceived. "To my two witnesses." He calls them two with reference to the type, which is, as I have observed, of pairs; as if he lead said I will give to my Zorobabel, and Jesliua, to my Elijah and Elislia, to my Moses and Aaron. To which is to be added, that he calls them witnesses: Now witnesses by the law ought to be two, to establish every word. Add that they may be called two on account of the number of the tables of God, which the witnesses of the Old and New Testament as of two Testaments, might apply in their prophecy*.

* Why should not the two witnesses be considered as the Old and New Testament, which during the apostasy of 1260 years were to be neglected and vilified as we see they are in Popish countries ; but in the hands of sincere behevers, properly applied, would produce the effects described? R. B. C.

" That they should prophesy clothed in sackcloth," that is, by woefully lamenting the trampling down of the Holy City, in consequence of the introduction of Genthe worship, by affording testimony to the truth of God, and by exhorting to repentance, " For 1260 days" which indeed are contained in forty-two months, and these it is plain are not days of hours; both days and a half, part of those days a little after, assigned to the death of the witnesses, and which the things predicted to be done in them, prove, cannot be taken for days of hours; and because the beast (whose duration is the same), is contemporary with the company of 144,000 sealed: the company of the sealed is contemporary with the six first trumpets, and the affairs of the trumpets cannot possibly be run through in so very short a time as 1260 horary days, or three years and a half. But why, you will say, should the profanation of the Gentiles be measured by months, and the pro. phecy of the witnesses asserting the pure worship of God in days ? Namely, because the worship of idols and every sin and error is under the power of darkness and night, over which the moon presides; on the other hand, true religion may be compared to the light and the day, the presidency over which belongs to the sun. Therefore (Acts c. xxvi. v. 18) the mission of Paul to convert the Gentiles from idols, is said to be, "to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." With the same meaning also it is said "what fellowship has light with darkness ?"

Now months are directed by the motion of the moon the queen of darkness, but days and years by that of the sun who presides over light. For the same cause, as we shall see hereafter, the blasphemy of the beast will be reckoned in like manner according to the motion of the moon, by months, but the residence of the woman in the wilderness by days and years with reference to the motion of the sun. "These are the two olive-trees and the two candlesticks, standing before the Lord of the earth." That is, they are like Zorobabel and Jesliua* whom the Lord anciently anointed over the Jewish church, ruined under the Babylonian captivity, at length to be restored and superintended by these witnesses in a similar manner, under the bondage of the Gentiles. For the allusion is to " those two olive-trees," which Zacharias saw growing on each side of the golden candlestick, and supplying oil to its lamps, (Zach. c. iv) of which the angel being asked what they meant, " these, said he, are the two sons of oil, or the anointed ones, which stand before the Lord of the whole earth,pointing out the two heads of the church then in subjection to the Gentiles. Zorobabel,general, and Jesliua, the high priest, of whom he had prophesied a little before. For the candle then with its seven lights, designated the temple,and by its type the church of whose instauration and conservation, the two holy ones were to take charge of, not by force, not by strength, not by any human aid, but by the power of God alone, operating in a certain invisible and wonderful manner, as those olive trees, standing on each side of the candlestick, supplied oil to its lights in a very extraordinary and imperceptible way. But why, you will say, is mention here made by John, not of one as in Zacharias, but of two candlesticks, to which likewise and not to the anointed ones, the two prophets seem to be compared? I confess that I ain here at a stand, nor have I yet found a sufficiently prompt and clear reason for this difference. In the mean time I think there lurks a Hebraism in the words, and it is as if he lead said : These are the two olive trees, at or near pointing out the two heads of the church, then the two candlesticks, standing before the Lord of the earth so that the comparison of the two witnesses may be only with the olivetrees, but the addition of the candlesticks may be judged only to pertain to the description of those olive trees.

*As these witnesses prophecy for 1260 years, (the whole time of the apostasy) to whom can the allusion be made, but to two testimonies, which might be constantly produced by the faithful against the corruption of the times; and I know not where we are to look for them, but in the books of the Old and New Testament, combined in the Bible? R.B.C.

For the copulative in the Hebrew has sometimes preposition bv, that is, with, near by; as (1 Sam. c. xiv. v. 18) " Because the ark of God was at that time, and the children of Israel. Vide Lex. Schinleri. But there will still remain a difficulty about the two candlesticks.

May it be said, that *the one only in Zacharias may here be reckoned for a double candlestick on account of the double rank of lights on each side of the stem; and the two olive trees pouring in ofl secretly on each side? There is, likewise, in Zacharias the mention of seven and seven and twice seven infusers, but what the meaning is does not sufficiently appear. But may we not suppose that this duplicate alludes to the private designation of the Christian church as being compounded of two people, of Jews and Gentiles; or what, perhaps, is nearer the truth, because, at the time, in which the witnesses clothed in sackcloth, were uttering their lamentation, it was to be divided together with the Roman empire into that of the east and west.

However it may be, it is certain that the candlesticks signify not the prophets or presidents of the churches, but the churches themselves, because in chapter i. the angel interprets the seven candlesticks, as so many Churches. "The seven candlesticks, (says he) which thou sawest, are the seven Churches.*"

*If this was a difficulty to Mede, it is almost presumptuous in any other to attempt an explanation. But there have been tmo revelations of light from God, under two dispensations, and preserved by two Churches or holy societies the Jewish and the Christian. In the time of Zachariah, there was only one revelation, one church, one candlestick, and if we may be allowed to apply the two olive trees to two figurative infusers, rather than to two persons, we may suppose them in the first instance to have designated the law and the prophets. But in the time of St. John there were two revelations, tmo churches, tivo candlesticks, the one illuminated by means of the Old Testament, now combining the law and the prophets, the other by the New Testament comprising the doctrines of Christ and his apostles. Reference is made to Zachariah, because he described the one and prefigured the other. May not then the two witnesses be summarily intended for the law and the gospel, or rather for the Old and New Testament? R. B. C.

If any one wish to hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies, and if any one wish to hurt them, so must he be killed." The witnesses do not revenge themselves by the sword or daggers, if they are ever injured by their enemies, but out of their mouth proceedeth the vengeance; that is, they transfix their enemies with the shafts of the Word; whilst they are denouncing the wrath of God impending over the violators of his ministers, or imhloric)g vengeance with their prayers and groans. For the fire which is here reported as proceeding out of the mouth of the witnesses is the word of vengeance; agreeably to that saying of the Lord to Jeremiah (v. 15) "Behold I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them." Moses, indeed, and Aaron, and afterwards Elijah, the former against the conspirators in the sedition of Korah, the latter against the ministers of Allaziah the King, the worshipper of Baal, literally called down fire from heaven, but the fire of our witnesses is to be interpreted mystically, since by the instruction of the holy spirit, our Egypt, and consequently the wilderness, is to be understood spiritually. Moreover, what the prophets denounce in the italue of God, they are said to execute, as what the Lord says to the same Jeremiah, (c. i. v. 10) I have set thee over the nations and kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, and to destroy, to build, and to plant." Let not any one now be surprised that fire or the divine vengeance is said to be poured out of the mouth of the witnesses, with whom however the only power is that of denouncing or imploring it from God. It is thus the witnesses revenge their own injuries. That which follows shows by what means also they revenge the reproach brought upon the temple of God.

" These have power to shut heaven that it rain not;" (viz. that mystical rain fall not) " in the days of their prophecy. That is, they are endued with the power of the keys, by which they can shut heaven on those hew Gentiles, contaminators of the Christian worship, that the grace of Christ's blood, sealed to them by baptism may not distil upon them for the remission of sins, so long as they shall persevere in being the cause of the mournful prophecy of the witnesses by their idolatries and superstitions. I will speak more plainly. They expel by the word of God those new idolaters from the hope of eternal life promised to the pure worshippers of God alone; until, mindful of the stipulation in their baptism, and ltnving rejected the services of Satan, they shall have returned to the worship of the one God, through the only Mediator Jesus Christ, and thus put an end to the mournful prophecy of the witnesses. In the same manner also, Elijah did not bring rain again upon the Israelites, when they were already almost half dead with drought, until the worship of Baal and his prophets were exterminated.

Of this power of the witnesses we have an example hereafter, (c. xiv. 9) " If any one say they shall worship the beast and his image, and shall receive the mark on his forehead, or his hand, he shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God; of unmixed wine poured out into the cup of his indignation, and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever."

Lastly, " they leave power over the waters, to convert them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague as often as they will." Moses and Aaron exercised a power of this kind when they were about to conduct Israel out of Egyptian slavery. Whence I collect, that the power of the witnesses, represented by this type, does not refer to all the days of the prophecy in sack cloth, but to the end of them, or the time of the phials; when indeed, under the auspices of the witnesses or prophets, as of Moses and Aaron, the Christian people, by plagues described under the image of those of Egypt, are in like manner to be led forth out of the tyranny and slavery of the beast. For the first place of tire phin.ls smites the earth with a sore; by the second and third, the waters are turned into blood; the rest afflict with other and heavier plagues the adherents of the beast, or the Gentiles abiding in the court of the temple.The interpretation of all which we reserve for the proper place. Here it may be sufficient to have referred this last power to the effusion of the phials.

"But when they are about to finish their testimony, the beast which ascendeth out of the abyss, shall make war upon them, and shall overcome them, and shall slay them'"

We have hitherto treated of the office and power of the witnesses ; the fate now follows which they shall experience at the end of their prophecy, the description of which is wholly taken from the history of our Lord's passion. For the Lord Jesus, in like manner, when he was finishing his preaching, which lasted about as many days as the prophecy of the witnesses, was killed by the Roman president, a, legate of that beast, which warred with the witnesses, (but in the shape of its sixth head) The third day after, when there was a great earthquake also, he rose again; and a little after, namely, on the fortieth day, being received up in a cloud, he ascended into heaven. All which things God wished to represent in this slaughter of the witnesses or prophets ; that as in the nature of their office they ImA luonie a, resemblance, as was stated before, to those illustrious pairs; so in sullering and death they should become conformable to Christ their Lord, that faithful Witness; which ought to be their consolation and their glory in the midst of their troubles.

But let us throw light on the text. " When," says he, "I they shall be. finishing their testimony," (for so orav TFMcwat should be translated, not by the preterite, when they have finished) " the beast who ascends out of the abyss, shall make war upon them and shall kill them." That is, when at length, a part of the Holy City, or of the Christian world, having acknowledged the impurity of Gentilism, repenting, and cleansing the temple of God among them, and the" witnesses rejoicing, shall begin to put off their sack cloth, and to be discharged from their daily lamentation, though they shall not be yet fully discharged from it, the seven headed Roman beast in his last state, (of whom see ch. xiii) indignant that the preaching of those hitherto mourning persons should have prevailed, will make war upon them, conquer, and kill them Of which, the first symptom of the lamentation of the witnesses beginning to come to an end, took place at the commencement of the Reformed Church, and has been continually repeated up to this present time. The other, respecting the war and slaughter, I suspect to be yet future. Our Brightman, indeed, supposed that it lead been long ago fulfilled in the war of Slnalcalde, under Charles the Fifth. Others accommodate it to the recent destruction of the German. Churches. And who would not much rather wish that so sad a misfortune for the Church had already passed, than. that it should remain to be apprehended ? But the interpretation is not to be governed according to our wish ; nay, the error will be greater on this side than the other; since the expectation of future calamity is more conducive to piety, than too credulous a security respecting it, as if already past. Two things persuade me that this last slaughter is yet to be dreaded. The first is, that those sorrowful times, of the Gentiles treading under foot the Holy City, or the Christian Religion, that is, the forty two months, as long as the beast shall be reigning, cannot be said to have completed their period; nor, therefore, the days of the witnesses lamenting in sack or hair cloth, contemporary and coeval with those months.

The other is, that this destruction of the witnesses (as we shall in a short time see), is immediately antecedent to the overthrow and ruin of the great city, that is, of Rome, which the series of the phials will not permit to be at so short a distance, as we are not yet carried beyond the fourth of them, (though, in the present agitation of affairs, it is to be hoped, that is now passing) as we shall then be instructed. But we will show, by and by, that the ruin of the city relates to the fifth, of which it is very probable that this slaughter of which we treat, will be the forerunner; especially since it is usual for our general Christ to contend with his enemies, and to bestow a victory upon his followers, only by the method of the cross. It does not follow, however, that because this should be the last slaughter, and even yet future, that any thing can certainly be determined of its severity, above all which preceded it.

For perhaps it deserved a singular mention and description, not so much on account of its severity, (certainly, not of its duration) as because it was a sign that the sorrows of the witnesses were then about to be immediately concluded, and of the impending ruin of the Roman city, and therefore alone was selected out of all the slaughters by which the beast would wear out the saints. In like manner, for instance, as the surrounding of Jerusalem by the army of Cestius Gallus, a little before the fatal siege of Titus, was predicted as a sign of its ruin then impending before the doors. For as our Saviour said to his apostles, inquiring about the signs of the time of its destruction, "When ye shall see Jerusalem encompassed with armies, then know that its desolation draweth near." So here it should seem to be intimated by the overthrow of Babylon; when you shall see that slaughter of the witnesses for three years and a half, then know that the desolation of the great city approacheth.

But the destruction by which the witnesses are predicted to be overthrown, must I think be understood in a very general sense, in which it may comprehend death, metaphorically or analogically so called. In this notion, that is said to die, which in whatever state it was constituted, either political or ecclesiastical, or in any other, ceases to be what it was. Whence likewise he kills, who inflicts on any one such a death. For as in the sacred style, to live is oftentimes to be, to die, is not to be. In which sense, we are said to die to Satan and sin, when we cease to be any longer their servants; and to live to Christ, when we begin to be his.

And the mode of opposition seems to require that as the resurrection of the witnesses to life, after the slaughter was perpetrated, should be of this kind, so the slaughter itself should be. But that is clearly analogical, because no resurrection properly so called, will take place before the advent of Christ, under the seventh trumpet; but this takes place while the sixth is still running on.*

* If these observations be just, (and there is every reason to beheve that they are) what are we to think of the witnesses ? They crumot be living persons in succession throughout the period of 1260 years, because they die and revive metaphorically. Are they not, then, as I before observed, the twin parts of the true religion; that is, the law and the Gospel, contained in the Old and New Testament? Their death, therefore, will be the temporary dissolution of their acknowledged authority in some part of the world, by the success of infidelity for a short time; and their resurrection will be the reinstaternctit of their influence over the nations, in consequence of some signal revolution, which will carry conviction to the minds of men, and bow their necks to the yoke of Christ. Thus explained, the whole parable becomes consistent and intelligible. R.B.C.

The death of the witnesses them in war, if we explain it according to this rule of interpretation, will appear to be their overthrow and dejection from that office and 'Station in the Church, reformed by the force of their preaching, which they had obtained for a while, whether that may be joined with corporeal death or otherwise; so that the prophetic life which they had lived till that time, should from thence continue no longer, and that they should no more exercise their offices. By which, at the same time, it necessarily follows, that the columns being withdrawn, and the false prophets of the beast substituted in the place of the prophets of Christ, the whole polity of the reformed Church, as widely as this may happen, should fall to the ground. Which, whether it will come to pass sooner or later, He only knows, in whose hands are the times and seasons.

In the mean time, lest any one should possibly be deceived, there is one thing to be accurately tittended to, that this last wqr of the beast is not of the same kind with that which he had hitherto waged against the assembly of the saints,(of which indeed we shall speak in the history of the beast, c. xiii) " that it was given him to make war upon the saints, and to overcome them;" but altogether of a different character. For why should that be related as peculiar to the last times of the beast, which if not from his first rise, at least from his acme, had been common to him ?

The war which the beast waged against the saints universally, is one; that which he wages in his last state, is another; namely, with the prophets who had begun to lay aside their prophetic lamentations with their sackcloth; that is, with the heads of the Church, reformed from his party. This is still more manifest from the different event of one war iroin the other ; the former, indeed, pros perous, the latter very unfortunate. By the former, the beast obtained power over every tribe and tongue, and nation, &c. ; by the latter he draws down upon himself a sudden and fatal de struction, as we shall see in the text. "And their dead bodies shall be in the street of the great city, which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." That city surnamed great, is Rome, so called, not so much with a view to its size, as because it was the queen of other cities, according to that say ing of the angel, c. xvii., "The woman which thou sawest is that great city which hath dominion over the kings of the earth." In like manner, by the name of the great king, (by which God is called, 1's. xlviii. v. 3, and Matt. c. v. v. 25, and which title was of old peculiarly suited to the kings of the Assyrians and Persians) is intimated the King of kings, who has power over other kings.

For which reason, throughout the whole Apocalypse, by whatever name Rome is other wise called, whether of Babylon, or of the harlot, she is always distinguished by this title, great; as that great Babylon, that great harlot. Add that in the whole Apocalypse, this title is bestowed on no city besides, unless at last, after its fall, to the new Jerusalem, descending from leaven, in whose light from thenceforth the Gentiles should walk. Which whoever could suppose was intended here must have need of Hellebore. But neither Jerusalem in the time of St. John, nor any other Jerusalem, except that, is ever to become "the great city," or the head or queen of the other cities of the world. It is added, " which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt: " Egypt, on account of its tyranny ; Sodom, on account of its fornication; that is, spiritual fornication. But here (as the reader should diligently observe) is a key to the allegory, (of which kind many occur in this book) by which, in truth, the Holy Spirit means to intimate once for all, that whatever is any where exhibited in these visions of Egyptian plagues, or of the destruction of the Sodomites, is wholly to be interpreted avevftarcxces, that is, mystically; since Rome, or the state of the Roman commonweal, the subject of all those plagues, was a mystical Sodom and Egypt. Then all references, too, to Egyptian plagues in the description of the* trumpets and phials, as well as in this history of the witnesses; and of the destruction of the Sodomites in the judgment of the beast, c. xix. v. 20, and c. xx. v. 10 ; of all which. the sense is to be opened by this key. Hence it may even be demonstrated, that the subject of the trumpets is the Roman empire; because of those plagues some are Egyptian. Now to what can Egyptian plagues be applied, but to Egypt! and this by the authority of the Holy Spirit is Rome.

Respecting the great city, then, the meaning is plain, but what the 701arEi'a of the city may be, of which mention is here made, is not so easily to be known. For it seems, it cannot be taken for a street, or for what we call in Latin platea, or forum, or for any other place within a city, for the following reasons:

1. In the first place, Christ our Lord, who is said to have been crucified in this 7raaTEi'a, was not crucified either in any street or forum of the city of Rome, or Jerusalem, but without the gate of the latter, (Heb. c. xiii. v.12) in a province thereof only, by Pilate the governor. Therefore the raarF~a of the great city is not any street or broadway within the walls of either of the cities, but a place without the city.
2. MarEia,secondly, being put in the singular number, it is very probable that it designates a thing of that kind, of which a city has one only, and not many. But there are many streets in every city; at least in every one of consequence.
3. Thirdly, it is supposed, that the bodies of the witnesses lie where they were conquered in battle; but it is not usual for troops to be gathered together within the walls of a city ; but if not in the enemy's land, at least in the region and provinces subject to the city.
4. Fourthly, " the people, tribes, tongues, and nations," might see " the dead bodies of those who were slain for three days and a half," and not suffer them to be buried.

It seems, therefore, that they did not he in any way or street of the great city, but were either dispersed or spread abroad throughout the provinces, to which, consequently, the signification ofr;ls 7raartias ought to be accommodated.* And if any one should say, that the army of the beast, by which the witnesses were routed and slain, might be composed of various people and tongues, and therefore might appearance of allegory can be pretended, that there should not be any absurdity in the literal sense.

*From hence, again, it appears obvious that the witnesses could not be two persons existing together at any one time, or in succession, because after death, such a, description could not be applicable to their dead bodies; but rather two combined systems or modes of religious instruction, which might be metaphorically be said to die and revive; that is, to be discarded for a while, and afterwards restored to just influence and authority. R.B. C.

What else, then, can we say of this passage, but that by the expression of 7raarfia, the whole region and territory, subject to the dominion of the city, was pointed out, and that such a signification may be drawn either from the Hebrew y1R, to which it often corresponds in the version of the Septuagint ? namely, according to the custom and use of the Hellenistic language, which is wont to apply a Greek word answering in one signification according to its original use, to a Hebrew word signifying many things, in some other signification; as might be proved by many examples, if there were a question of this custom. y�1n signifies with the Hebrews whatever is altogether external, either without the house, as streets and ways in cities; or without the city,as the circunjacent country or land.Job c. v. v. 10,where in the Hebrew it is rnym sm95y, the Chaldee renders it, " Who giveth rain on the face of the earth, and sendeth waters on the surface of the province,or on the region of the people."Or from a notion of width, that it may be the same as aXciroC rids -YT15� IS. C. viii. v. " and Apoc. c.xxix. v. 9, of Gog and Magog ; " They came up upon the breadth ofthe earth, (FVl raaroc me ync) and encompassed the beloved city." Now it makes for this interpretation, that Vn'I another word which the Septuagint translate zr;karfiav, and xr which signifies breadth, or raaroc, has exactly the same letters, and each is called by the same word in the Chaldee, twin. Or lastly, by the notion of breadth, which is the original meaning of the word 7raarE~a, the Holy Spirit meant to intimate the amplitude of the dominion of that great city, by which it surpassed all cities, and even at this day surpasses them, as if f7ri r;lc raardac was used for furl Xt''dpac ric raarelac, on the extensive country, &c. The word a;kareia is an adjective, used substantively, and therefore something ought to be understood, and it may be either one thing or another, to explain the interpretation, nor do I know whether that signification of street is often found among the ancient Greek writers.

But now it can no longer be obscure to one by whom this interpretation is approved, either in what manner Christ may be said to have been crucified in the 7raarfla of the Roman city, or when the carcases of the slain witnesses were to he cast *out ; namely, not in the city of lioine, but in the Roman domain. I know, indeed, that many of our writers, in order to arrive at the same conclusion, understand here, under the natne of the city, the whole dominion of the city. But what then, I pray, will be the meaning of raarEia? For of those two, of which it seems almost necessary it should be one, it can be neither; not dominion, as that is designated under the iiante of the city; not any province, though a great city has many; for raarE~a means something unique and singular, as it is put in the singular number. And this may suffice for our remarks on the zrXareia nits iroaEwc me ItE7aXnc. Let us now proceed to the remainder.

"And (some) of the peoples, and tribes, and tongues, and nations, shall see their dead bodies for three days and a half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put into monuments."Whether this is to be taken in the sense of inhumanity or of kindness, is doubtful, and not to be decided except by the fulfilment of the prophecy. For it may be taken either as done by enemies, adding this for the sake of ignominy, to the slaughter which they had perpetrated, that they would deny sepulture to the bodies of the dead: Or by friends and favourers of the witesses by this means consulting the interests of those who were soon to revive. For, however it may be held on other considerations, an act of the greatest cruelty, not to bury the dead, and to cast them out unburied, and especially among the Jews, as the greatest ignominy; yet to prohibit those who were so dead, as not to create a despair but they might again be restored to life, from being immured for a short time in the cloisters of the sepulchre, ought to be placed to the account of kindness. If the first is to be understood, some marks of infamy or ignominy seem to be intimated by this type by which the followers of the beast, not content with leaving made away with the witnesses, would inflict oil them in addition.

But if the latter, it may be some assistance from the reformed natiolis, out of fear of whom, as of a multitude, much the largest; and therefore, while the wound was yet recent, and their affairs not yet confirmed, not to be provoked with impunity to desperation, or at least, by exertion and secret favour, it should come to pass, that they should riot deal with the witnesses as if there were no hope of their revival. Aclimet, from the doctrine of the Indians, (Apotelesma,130) If any one in dreams should seem to be buried, the sepulchre refers to the full certainty of his death. If he should seem to observe some deficiency of those things which pertain to sepultures, that deficiency niust be placed to the account of hope. If now you should be disposed to inquire what appears in the text which would lead rather to one interpretation than the other, I would introduce this observation into the argument of the subject, that since he announces what is here suggested. in a different mode, and in different words, and since he treats of enemies in the following verse, he wishes them to be understood, in this and the latter instance, not as the same, but as different persons. In the one case, indeed, as the enemies, in the other as the friends of the witnesses. For of the enemies, in the following verse, exulting and sending presents to one another, he says, "They that dwell on the earth," but of those who would not suffer the dead bodies of the witnesses to be put into graves, " they of the tribes, and people, and tongues," partitively, as if it would note certain persons different from the others in disposition. Let the reader judge.

For three days and a half. "That is, as it appears for three years and a half, for the things which are there foretold, as to be performed; prove that it cannot be understood of liorary days. For who can beheve that the short space of three days and a half are sufficient either for disseminating the report of the slaughter of the witnesses through the world, or for sending messengers with gifts backwards and forwards among the nations. It is obvious that it would not be sufficient even for preparing them. To this must be added, that half a day, or twelve hours, is wholly inadequate for measuring acts of this kind. For these sort of things are accustonied to be inarked, not by hours, but rather by months, or at least, by entire days. In the meanwhile it is to be observed, that the time is here to be computed, not from the date of the witnesses being killed, but from that in which they shall he dead and inanimate, after they have been slain. But how long that war shall last, and how much time will be given to killing the prophets, the fulfilment of the prophecy only will explain. " and they that dwell on the earth shall rejoice over them, and be merry, and shall send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented them who dwelt on the earth." Of the custom of sending gifts in cases of public joy or of great rejoicings, vide Esther, c. ix. v. 22. "And after three days and a half, the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet, and fear fell on those who beheld them."

Such as the death of the witnesses was, such will be their awakening or resurrection front the dead; namely, their restitution to their former state ; and that, not so much by any exertion or human assistance, as by the finger of God, who is wonderful in his works. For this is imphed in the words, " The Spirit of life from God entered into them:' Achtnet says, (Apotelesnl. vi. and vii. of the Doctrine of the Egyptians and Persians) "If any one in dreams thinks he sees the resuscitation of the dead, it signifies the liberation of the conquered and the termination of wars." Apot. vi. Deliverance from Calamities. Vide Ezek. ch. xxxvii.

And they heard a great voice from heaven, saying to them, Come up hither. And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies beheld them." Not only will the witnesses be restored to their former place and station, but they will be even elevated to a higher degree of honour and bower. For that is the signification of being carried up in a cloud, and ascending to heaven. Vide Dan. c. vii. v. 13, and c. xix. v. 1. Whence in the interpretation of dreams which the Arabian I have so often quoted, Apomasar or Aclimet, has collected from the ancient records of the Egyptians and Persians, we read, "If a king seem to himself to be seated in the clouds, and to be carried wherever he will, his barbarian enemies shall be reduced into subjection to him, over whom he shall preside with supreme command." Also, " If a king should seem to himself to have flown, as it were, to heaven, where the stars are, he shall possess eminence and distinction above other kings." Also, " If a king should seem to be carried upward to be seated in heaven, he shall reduce under his authority a larger region than that which he possesses." Apot. 162. 164.

These I bring forward for the purpose of showing, that the parable I speak of is apphed in that signification by the prophets, in which it is understood according to the use of the Last. The ministry of the witnesses, then, will not he despised as before, nor they themselves treated as men of ate abject and contemptible kited. So that what our Saviour said of himself, Luke, ch. xxiv. v. 26, " Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and then to enter into his glory ?" may acquire. its force and truth in the example of the prophets likewise. And who knows whether the reformed Church may not undergo the reproach brought upon Christ on this behalf by ule sulnlttction or the withessey Cur tt, them, because they lead not treated them according to the dignity of their embassy, while they enjoyed it.

It is too well known what is the sin of the reformed Churches in this case; and as, while the prophets of Christ were strenuously engaged in purifying the temple of God, solve ill the mean time contaminated that most holy work by pillaging its treasures, and embezzling its oblations, not having left a maintenance in some places, to the great disgrace of true religion, by which its ministers might be sustained honour ably, and according to the dignity of their order, much less, a superabundance, that they might lay aside for the improvement of the reformed affairs, the necessities of a sacred war, the aid of afflicted brethren, and for other pious uses: Was not this the kind of prevarication for which anciently the Jewish temple was profaned by Antiochus Epiphanes, and the religion of the true God given up to be trodden under foot, in like manner, for three years? " A host," says Daniel, " shall be given to him against the daily sacrifice, on account of prevarication, and it shall cast dowel the truth to the ground, and it shall practise and prosper," ch. viii. v. 12. See the history, second Book of Maccabees, from the beginning of the third chapter to the fifth, and judge. But I will not press the matter any farther. This only will I add, perhaps this increase of honor and power to the witnesses by their resurrection, will be brought about by the command of the Supreme magistrate, (which, perhaps, may be that voice from heaven) as a compensation.for the infamy and ignominy with which the followers of the beast had disgraced them when dead, supposing that to be signified by the prohibition of sepulture.

" And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth part of the city fell, and there were slain in the earthquake (the names of) seven thousand men." At the time at which the witnesses or prophets returned to life, and ascended into heaven, there was a great earthquake, that is, a great commotion of the nations, and revolution of political affairs, by which, in fact, a way was opened to the witnesses, and a facility given them of returning to life, with such an increase of dignity and power. By that commotion of the nations, " a tenth of the city fell, and there were slain seven thousand names of men." That we may attain as nearly as possible in a future event to the meaning of these words, two things are to be preestablished and proved. First, since there is no misfortune attending the fall of the beast, but what is contained in some one of the phials, the same overthrow of the beast is here described as at the effusion of the fifth phial. The proof is, that the subject is the same in both plagues; in the former, the seat or throne of the beast; in the latter, the great city.

That the great city is Rome, the seat of the beast, is so plain that it need not be proved. It is still farther confirmed, because the slaughter which is here described, so nearly precedes the full abolition of the beast at the seventh trumpet, that nothing is related to have intervened but the conclusion of the second woe ; but now, at all events, the total destruction of the beast is the work of the last phial, the conclusion of the second woe, or of the plague from the Euphrates, of the sixth phial. Therefore the destruction of the great city, which immediately precedes that conclusion, agrees with the fifth phial. Another thing to be previously established by us is, that the ruin of the great city is that very destruction of Babylon, which is celebrated in the eighteenth chapter. This is proved, because it is certain from that sane chapter, that the destruction of Babylon, or the Roman city, goes before the complete demolition of the beast and the august reign of Christ, beginning with the seventh trumpet. Now the destruction of the same city, which is here related, so nearly precedes that kingdom, that the Spirit, with the mention of no destruction beside, as intervening, passes at once to that kingdom, and the description of the seventh trumpet. It necessarily follows, that the same destruction of the city is described in both places. For who can bring his mind to beheve that the Holy Spirit would have altogether passed over that very great desolation, and have introduced the mention of some smaller overthrow, by no means to be compared with it?

This being the state of the case, it follows, that the interpretation of the passage is to be guided by the above rule, and is to be proved, as it were, by a touchstone; and therefore a meaning of these words is to be sought for, of such a nature as may agree with the description of that Babylonian destruction. Let us now see by what means this may be done. Philip Nicolai, a theologian of the Augustan confession,* a learned and acute ntan, thinks that by the AEKarov zits I'Xewc is to be understood the decarchy of the city, or the ten kingdoms, subdued to its dominion, which indeed, in this concussion of the nations, revolted from Rome, to whose government they had been subject for so many years ; and from thenceforward its commands were not to be obeyed. This, in truth, is what is said in another place.

*Confession of Augsburg.

That "the ten kings who had delivered up their power to the beast, when the words of God were fulfilled, should hate the whore, and make her desolate, and naked, should eat her flesh, and burn her with fire." But this notion of the word AEKa'roy, however it had in the first place presented itself to me, while reflecting on the meaning of this passage, and though it pleased me very much from the appositeness of the event, yet afterwards, when I examined the matter more closely, appeared a little strained, and unusual; so that I fear it will not easily be approved by those who would desire a simple and unforced interpretation. I seek, therefore, for another. And first it suggested itself to my mind, that the tenth, perhaps, was the name or a tribute, either that which the high priest receives from the whole kingdom of the beast, or that which the city itself receives from its estates by the right of dominion.

This tenth of the city , in that commotion of affairs, was to fall, that is, to fail, and therefore I inferred, that the principality of the city would be wholly extinguished; namely, despoiled of the territory bestowed oft it for a patrimony, and its high priest driven from thence by force; that it would lose the prerogative and dominion which it was accustomed to exercise, to so great an extent over cities and people ; since it would no longer be that which had procured for it prerogative and dominion, the metropolis of the kingdom of the beast, nor the seat of the false prophet. For it is well known, that tribute is the symbol of dominion, and that in this name, most of the provinces under the empire of ancient Rome paid the tenth part of their products every year. Which likewise may be proved to have been customary iii the kingdoms of the east, both front the first of Maccabees, c. x. v. 31, and c. xi. v.35, and from that summary of royal right, 1 Sam. c. viii. (for observe, what is said of tenths is not to be taken of sacred tenths or tithes: They were royal, accustomed to be paid to kings as viceroys of the gods) which Aristotle also confirms in the second book of his economics. It ought not, then, to appear strange, if any one should here affirm that under the name of a tenth, a representation so common, might be signified some kind of tribute belonging to the city.

But there is no need to go back so far, since in Italy that mode of tribute has not yet been abolished, and besides, the Roman pontiff has long since renewed the image of it in his ecclesiastical empire, by annually requiring a tenth part of ecclesiastical benefices. But to this interpretation it is an objection, that it seems it ought then rather to be called AEKQrfl than o,fKato". Besides the word f7fEQE, it fell, by which some effect consistent with an earthquake must be designed, is not sufficiently suited to an interpretation of thin sort. Ntiy, if it could be c�sttalrlishc�d, yet it: would seem to express the fall of Babylon, with which we presuppose it to be identified too obscurely and faintly, and not in a suitable manner.

At last, then, until any one shall suggest something more certain, and consonant to the text, I am brought to this conclusion, that I conceive by the tenth of the city, a part of the city is indeed to be understood, but not a hart of the present city, but the whole of it, which is the tenth part of the ancient one. That this is the fact, and that not more than the tenth part of the ancient city of Rome, as it existed in the age of St. John, remains at this day, may appear from the following reasoning. For Lypsius affirms, that ancient Rome, such as it was in the age of John, with respect to form, was nearly round, but not however exactly so. Its semi-diameter, from the golden milestone placed at the top of the Roman forum, to the extremity of the building, was about 7000 paces, that is, 7 miles, its circuit at length was 42 miles. Since then it was not exactly round, let us diminish its semi-diameter, in order to measure its area by one mhe (as much as in a hexangular figure, according to a perpendicular to the side, it ought to be diminished). It will then be 6, which multiphed by 21, the half of the perifery, will give 126 for the area of the city.

But modern, or pontifical Rome has only 13 or 15 mhes for its circuit, as they know, says Lypsius, who have measured it. Its form, as may be seen from its ichnography, is an oblong, nearly duutdrangular, in a proportion almost double. To measure which, let a rectangular parallelogram be constituted, whose perimeter may be 15, its length double the breadth ; of which form, in fact, the sides will be 2 and 5, which multiplied into each other, will give an area of 121. Now the number 126 contains 10 times the Dumber 121. The latter area, then, is the tenth part of the former, and conse- diiently, modern Rome the tenth part of ancient. Q. E. D). Any one who is not much accustomed to reasonings of this sort, may apply the judgment of his eyes to the following diagram.

ANCIENT ROME, MODERN ROME

We cannot, indeed, examine every thing here acebrding to line and rule, but it is wonderful how near we can npproacli to it. 1 define the circumference of the present city by the walls by which it is surrounded, for beyond thein, contrary to what was fbi'Inerly the else, it is not at this day inhabited; but the whole contents, whatever they may be, are included within the walls; those walls which Hadrian the First, and Leo the Fourth, pontiff, erected, as it were, by a. fatal instinct, as the boundary to that which had just been made the seat of the pontifical kingdom. For so Bondus relates, that the walls which now exist were built by Hadrian I. for 100,000 pieces of gold, collected from Tuscany. Those, as is remarked by others, Leo IV. afterwards, about the year of our Lord 850, either repaired or finished; and having added the Transtiberian or Leontine city to it, completed the city in the form and circuit in which it is now seen. And though it has much of the space included within the walls void and desert, yet since the walls are reckoned among the principal works of the city, the city itself cannot be considered as less extensive than its walls. Ampler, indeed, it might be, if, as the old one formerly was, it were extended every way beyond the walls by contiguous buildings."

That I may at length draw to a conclusion, the sum of what I have said reverts to this; that the Holy Spirit means to say, or to intimate, that so much of the Great City as remained at this earthquake, should become a ruin at the time, viz. a tenth of the city ; for there was to be no More remaining up to that period. Nine parts were to fall many ages before; and we in truth have seen them fall, partly by the destructions and devastations which the barbarians brought upon it at so many different times, partly by decay from great age, and partly overthrown by lightning, as have have pointed out under the fourth trumpet. The tenth part was reserved for the pontifical Roman fate, being constituted the head of a new empire, and the mother of Christian harlots. This part the earthquake, which is connected with the resurrection of the witnesses, will entirely demolish.

Nor was it perhaps necessary that we should interpret the Holy Spirit as having spoken so rigidly as we leave done, of the tenth part of the city, according to geometrical mhes. It would have been sufficient, if, as formerly, he lead spoken by his influence on Isaiah, c. vi. v. 13. of the destruction of the Jewish people, " A tenth of it shall be preserved, and be brought back into the land." So here we play understand, not so strictly a tenth, as some very small part, about a tenth of the ancient amplitude of the Roman city, which should remain as the seat of the beast for the last destruction.

It is added, "And there were slain in the earthquake seven thousand names of men." Here, if by names of men we understand heads of men, or individual men, the number seems too trifling, and not consistent with the magnitude of the slaughter, which the Holy Spirit elsewhere intimates. For in the destruction of Babylon, will there not be a far greater number slain than seven thousand men? And is it likely that the effusion of the fifth phial on the throne of the beast should terminate by so very small a massacre of men? In order to satisfy this doubt by some other means: First, it is to be observed, that by the name of the city is here to be understood, not the citizens and inhabitants, but the buildings and walls, that is, the royal seat of the beast; and so a double destriictioii of Babylon is described in these prophecies ; first, of Babylon as the royal city of the beast, that is to say, of the Roman city at the fifth phial; afterwards of Babylon, as to the citizens or Roman state, which consists of the Pope, with the senate of empurpled Cardinals, and the other crowd of citizens, especially of ecclesiastics, who, after Rome has been destroyed and burnt, betook themselves to a Habitation in some other place, and who are to be reserved for the last phial: at whose effusion it is said, over and above other destructions of nations and states in every part of the world, in that eartliduake which was far the greatest of all that lead ever taken place, even " that great Babylon came in memory before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath," c. xvi. v. 19; which, notwithstanding the burning and destruction of Babylon, described in the xviiith and xixth chapters, certainly precede the full extermination of the beast, and false prophet, as is there manifest from the text. I know some unravel this knot in a different manner, by saying, that Babylon, of which mention is made in the last phial, is Constantinople, the metropolis of the Turks; but they will never persuade me, that the Holy Spirit, in the first and principal image of all, has used so remarkable a synonylne, and that we are to understand two Babylons, and not ogle only; and the same, though with a double reference. To come, then, to. the point. It may perhaps come to pass, that the first destruction of Babylon, that is, the devastation and ruin of the city of Rome, may be effected without any immense or total slaughter of the citizens. And though her smoke was to ascend for ever and ever," that is, she should be wholly converted into ashes, and levelled with the ground, never again to be inhabited, yet a great part of the citizens might escape from the overthrow of the city, either because they would in time consult their safety by flight, or from some other cause, which the event will make manifest.

And this is one mode by which the doubt may be satisfied about the too trifling number of those who were slain. Another is, if we should say that by" names of men" are possibly intended men of name, or renown. For a hypallage of this kind is not unfrequent in the Scriptures, that in the order of the nouns, that which precedes is used in the place of an epithet. As for example, " c The silver of the shekels," Lev. c. V. for shekels of silver; the uncleanness of man, for a man of uncleanness, that is, an unclean man, (ib. c. vii) the law of justice, for the justice of the law; Rom. c. ix. the riches of grace, for rich and abundant grace, and the like. A name, besides, is familiar for .celebrity in almost all languages, especially the sacred, in which men of name are illustrious men ; sons without a * name, (Job c. xxx) ignoble; in Chaldee, vulgar persons. Whence Beza, in his Annotations on the Epnesitms, c. i. v. 21, and Philipp. c. ii. v. 0, speaking of the exaltation of Christ above every name ; as also Iieb. c. i. v. 4, understands name in the signification of dignity and worth: If we follow an interpretation of this kind, (nor do I see what can be opposed to it) the names of men will be dignities of men, O'vopaarol, men of name, illustrious men and excelling in dignity, of whom about 7000 (and what if they should be of the order of the false prophet, which they call ecclesiastics ?) should fall in this concussion. of things and nations. The number, however, of 7000, I conceive to be so intended that a few more or less may be understood, according to the manner of Scripture. Iiow great a number of the Plebeians are to fall in this war it does not belong to the subject to declare, since that may be conjectured from the slaughter of the nobles, nor did the Holy Spirit wish to descend so far as to reduce the dregs of the slain to a calculation.

But still another interpretation may be given, which would not render it necessary to come to an enumeration of particular men; for instance, if we may interpret names of men as companies and societies of men, men accustomed to be called by their proper names no less than individuals, as are states, municipalities, parishes, villages, abbeys, and similar titles of human communities. For what are these things else, if we are desirous of forming the hypothesis, than names of melt for so is the political state of the Thebans called by Eschines OnPaiwv avopa, and the Roman name is used for the Roman people *.

* This is much the most probable supposition as applicable to the numerous titles of ecclesiastics under the Roman Catholic hieracby. R. B. C.

What, then, if out of these titles of human communities, whatever they may be, and whether at Rome, or in what they call the state of the Church, about 7000 are to be slain in this concussion of the nations; that is, they are to sink under adverse power, which Scripture, according to its usual style, has called death.

But nothing is to be rashly pronounced concerning a future event, since the issue of things predicted is a commentary on the prophecy. These observations I have adduced that it may appear more clearly, as far as relates to words, that the interpretation may be more liberal than is commonly supposed, since the use of Scripture does not bind down the word name to any uniform and certain signification. For names of .men are not to be found conjunctively any where else, than in the place now under consideration; nor are names to be found, singly of individuals, unless twice only, c. i. v. 15, Apo. c. iii. v. 4. The word is otherwise apphed in a different signification. There remains, "And the rest were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven." That is, by their consternation; by whichi, even unwillingly and ungratefully, they acknowledged the finger of God. For to acknowledge, by whatever mark, the wisdom, goodness, or power of God, is to give him glory. As they who detected by God confess their sins, are said to give glory to God, as Achan. Then follows, The second woe is past, the third woe cometh quickly. The meaning is, that the great earth quake should be continued till the end of the second woe, or sixth trumpet ; and the mournful prophecy of the witnesses was at length to finish with it; 'since after such a victory over the followers of the beast, and their ascent into the. heaven of power and honour, they would no longer be clothed in sackcloth. If the second woe, or the plague of the sixth trumpet, he the overflow of the Turks from the Euphrates in ancient time on the Roman world, as we then interpreted it, it can scarely be denied, but that the passing away of this plague, must be the drying up of the waters of the Euphrates at the effusion of the sixth phial, by which "the way of the kings from the east might be prepared," c. xvi. v. 12. From which coming of the kings of the east, (lest any interval should otherwise be left between the two trumpets) the seventh trumpet seems to begin, and therefore that wonderful preparation of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, for the war to be waged at Armageddon, c. xvi. vv. 13, 11, together with its event at the last phial, v. 17, must be referred to the beginning of the same seventh trumpet. And indeed, it appears very probable, that the preparation for war belongs to the same trumpet as the war itself. But here a doubt arises, which requires solution, and therefore must not be passed over in silence. For since there is the salve termination to the forty-two months of the beast as there is to the 1260 days of the mourning of the witnesses, and those days finish at the conclusion of the plague of the sixth trumpet, or of the second woe, it may not improperly be asked, why the months of the beast should not be extended farther, since, after this time, no small portion of the beast remains which is not to be put an end to, until the beginning of the seventh trumpet.

It may be answered, that this takes place because at that time the conversion of Israel, and the new kingdom begin, (for they are called kings from the Last) or because, in the duration of the beast, the empire of the Roman city is chiefly attended to. But that great city, the royal residence of the beast, is taken and over- thrown in that earthquake; so far that the beast from thenceforth will leave in some degree changed his form, since his metropolis being thus demolished, it can no longer be considered as the kingdom of the seven mountains, (which is the other signification of the seven heads) There still remains in the text the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and the august kingdom of Christ in the great day of judgment. The interpretation of which we will defer to the end of the book; that we may exhibit all the prophecies relating to it in that place, at the same time and in one point of view.

THE MEANING

Of the Red Dragon with Seven Heads fighting with Michael about the new-born Child.

The first vision of the little book, of which we treated in the eleventh chapter, ran through the whole Apocalyptical course, from the beginning to the end, and that, as we elsewhere observed, to point out its connexion with the seals and trumpets. Now to that vision the remaining prophecies of the salve interval, and of the affairs of the Church are to be accommodated, in order to complete the system of the little book. Of which, " the war of the red seven-headed dragon with Michael," comprises the same period as the measured court of the ecclesiastical state, in which the dragon, inhabiting the Roman empire, raged with dire persecutions against the Church with child, and travailing to print; forth Christ * as king over the Roman world, and for nearly three hundred years waged war against the Spirit of Christ, powerfully operating in his servants. But the woman at length, after throes in delivery, spoilations, and butcheries, gave birth to such a Christ**, brought forth a King " who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron," and the dragon, being dispossessed of the Roman throne, " there was" in that world " salvation and rower, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ."

This summary of the whole matter being preillised, for the sake of clearness, let its come to the particular explanation of the text.

" And a great sign (he says) was seen in heaven," whither John was called in the beginning to behold, and where he had seen all the foregoing visions. I do not think any other sense of this circumstance is to be sought for. For it is manifest even from the end of the preceding chapter, that John had hitherto beheld what passed in heaven. " A woman clothed with the still, and the moon under her feet, and oil her head a crown of twelve stars." A sign, and a very beautiful image of the primitive Church in a state of pregnancy, resplendent on all sides with the fitith of Christ, the Still of Righteousness, and treading under her feet the elements of the world, (whether the shadows of the Law, or the darkness of Genthe superstition;) glittering, lastly, with the insignia of apostolical origin. Many are inclined to consider the moon is a symbol of terrestrial and mutable things, which the Church of Christ looks down upon as beneath her. Though this play be true, yet never, I beheve, in the whole Scripture, is the moon celebrated under this allusion.

But the interpretation of prophetic symbols is not readily to be sought for elsewhere, but in those properties, by which, in some place or other, Scripture bears testimony to it. Now it is certain that most of the feasts on which they performed their holy rites, in typical worship, were described according to the changes of the moon ; as the new moons, the passover, pentecost, the feast of tabernacles ; nay, that the calculation of the whole ecclesiastical year, depended on its revolution. To which, perhaps, that passage in the 10th Psalm, v. 19, may refer: " He appointed the moon for seasons," for feasts. Why, then, may not the symbol of the moon be referred to the Mosaic worship which the Church, in truth, by the revelation of Christ, beholds as prostrate, and placed under her feet; according to that observation of the apostle to the Colossians, ch. ii. v. 11., in which he asserts that "Christ had bloted out the; handwriting of ordinances which was against us, and had taken it away, leaving nailed it to his cross."

Moreover, as God may be said to leave created the sun as the greater luminary, for the dominion of the day, and the moon, the lesser luminary, for the dominion of the night, why should not the symbol of the moon, appointed to the presidency over the night, signify what is the display of the power of darkness, 'or blindness, that is, the worship of Satan and his demons in idols? So that indeed the whole matter may be transferred to baptism, in which the Church, illuminated, and from thenceforth to be clothed with Christ, tramples under foot the worship of idols, with a renunciation of Satan and his angels, his service, and his pomps. For all these things the ancient formula of renunciation expressly contained ; and besides, the abjurors turned to the West, as to that part of heaven from whence the ) light arises, as, on the contrary, the professors of faith in Christ, and in the true Triune God, turned to the East,, as the cInarter from whence the still, after the night leas passed away, brings back the day. (Dionys. Arcop. de Hierarch Eccles. ch. ii. Cyril Hierosol. Catech. i. Mystagog. Greg. Nazian. Orat. xl. Hieron. to ch. vi. Amos. Ambrosius. Of those who are initiated into Mysteries, ch. ii) Moreover, with a regard to the same figure (as was also observed above), the duration of the apostasy, or of Christianity defied by idols, is descried by months, according to the motion of the moon, but that of the woman and the witnesses persevering in the faith of Christ, by years and days, with reference to the motion of the sun. To which interpretation I should in preference accede, I am somewhat in doubt, and whether to one only, or to both. In truth, the apostle to the Galatians, cli. iv. seems to call both, as well the Mosaic tutorsbip as the worship of Genthe idols, promiscuously the elements of the world, and the Church of Christ rejoices that loth are subdued under her feet. Let the reader use his own judgment.

" And being with child, she cried out in pain, and labouring to be delivered." The Church, whenever she is regarded universally and abstractedly as an imaginary person, is a mother, but when with respect to individuals, who are produced in her continually, she leas olrspring which she is said to bring forth to God. This is so obvious in the prophets, that it is unnecessary to add a word more respecting it. Vide Ezekiel, ch. xvi. to v. 21, also ch. xxiii. v. 4., Isa. ch. liv. Hosea, ch. ii. v. 4, 5. The allegory, then, is not to be disturbed by the unreasonableness of any one, because he would distingushi the mother from her offspring, which, however, in another sense, coalesce in one and the same Church. Kinischi on Hosea, ch. ii. v. 2, 3, "The synagogue or congregation is compared to a another by way of universality, but the several individuals to children."

Those pains and torments on account of which the woman in childbirth cried out, were those severe persecutions which the primitive Church endured at the time of her delivery. For it is well known that tribulations and distresses are compared to the pangs of childbirth. Whence those words of Isaiah, cli. lxvi. v. 7, "Before she travailed she brought forth; before her pain came she was delivered of a male child." The Chaldee has this paraphrase: "Before tribulation come upon her, she shall be redeemed; before trembling cone upon her as the pains of a woman in labour, her King shall be revealed, that is, the Alessiab." But Jeremiah himself interprets this image, ch. xxx. v. 6, 7, " Ask now and see, if a man do travail with child? Wherefore do I see every man with his band on his loilis, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! because that day is great, and there is none like it. It is even the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it." See also what our Saviour calls (:Xvas, Matt. ch. xxiv. v. 8, 9, Mark, ch. xiii. v. 9,"'These are the beginning of sorrows," IJ;IVWV, &c.

"And there appeared another sign in heaven, and, behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten crowns. And upon his beads seven crowns. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them upon the earth." This is the sign or image of the heathen Roman empire worshipping the dragon; inasmuch as his emblems universally are seven heads and ten horns; seven heads both on account of the seven hills on which the city was built, and on account of the seven orders of kings or dynasties which would successively rule the empire of that city; but the tell horns are so called oil accomit of the ten kingdoms, which were to rise in the time of its last head (upon which they grew) which interpretation is not mine, but that of the angel, ch. xvii. where there will be a more conveient opportunity of treating on these matters, if any thing requires to be added. In the mean time, another character of the Roman empire is here subjoined, for it is said to leave drawn " a third part of the stars of heaven with its tail, and cast them on the earth; "that is, to have subjected a third part of the princes and dynasties of the world to its empire. For so much, namely a third part of the globe known in the age of John, the Roman domniion circumscribed within its boundries.

Now the tail, according to the doctrine of the Indians in Aclimet, generally signifies attendants and followers of power, Apot. 15 2 ; but what more the tail of the serpent slay imply, will be seen by-and-by. And these, indeed, were the characters of the Roman empire universally; but the representation of a dragon determines the worshipper of the dragon and the enemies of the woman's seed specifically, that is, as heaathen, and the adversary of the Christian name; and since he is red likewise, it points him out as cruel, and crimson with the blood of the saints. Add that, under the type of a dragon, reference seems to be had to Pharaoh, the dire and malignant enemy of the ancient synagogue, travelling in Egypt, as the Roman of the Christian Church in childbirth. For he also, in a similar manner, and on the same account, is clothed with the image of a dragon, Psalm lxxiv. v. 13, 14, " Thou hast divided the sea by thy strength. Thou hast broken the heads of the dragons, (that is, of the Egyptians) in the waters. Thou hast broken the heads of Leviathan (Chaldee, of Pharaoh). Thou hast given him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness." Isaiah, ch. li. v. 9, "Awake, awake! put on strength, O arm of the Lord! Awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not he that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Ezek. c. xxix. v. 3, " I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon." In all these passages the Hebrew word is i'Dn which the Septuagint, Symmachus, and Jerome, interpret the dragon ; and, indeed, the Syrian interpreter always calls the dragon in the Apocalypse by the same word. For the confirmation of which, Drusius says, that it is the Arabic language in which the dragon is called Thennin. And Exod. ch. vii. " Aaron threw down his rod before Pharaoh and it became a serpent, or dragon."

It signifies, indeed, elsewhere, a whale or grampus, but then as a marine dragon, whose form in some respects it resembles. But wily, you will say, is so much stress laid upon this word ? Why, in order to show that in the resemblance which Satan first abused, in subverting Adam, it is the custom of the Holy Spirit, under the type of that disgraced and accursed animal, to designate the infested by the devil, and hosthe to his church, the seed of the woman.

"And the dragon stood before the woman, who was about to be delivered, that when sire should bring forth, he might devour her child." That is, as Pharaoh did to the ancient Israel springing up in Egypt, and as afterwards Herod did to Christ, the Son of Mary, our Lord, so the Roman dragon laid wait for the mystic Christ, whom the Church was about to bring forth, that he might oppress him immediately after his birth.

"And she brought forth a male child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron" (or an iron sceptre). That is, she brought forth a mystic Christ, or Christ formed in his members, not the Son of Mary, but of the Church, according to that of the Apostle to the Galatians, c. iv. v. 19. "My little children, of whom I travail in pain again, till Christ he formed in you." For since the words are a periphrasis of Christ, it is necessary that some Christ should be intended by them, as in the prophetic types is frequently the case, not truly, but analogically spoken; "who," says he, " was to rule all nations with an Iron sceptre," that is, with power produced by the force of iron, or war, as he was about to leave dominion over those who were not originally his citizens, but either enemies, or foreigners, whom it would be necessary to subjugate before he governed. 'The words are taken from Ps.ii. v. 9. not according to the present Masoretic reading, but the ancient one of the Septuagint, and of the apostles. Of which authors, I think I can collect, that this is the meaning, from c. xix. v. 15. where in like manner as in the Psalm, they are applied to Christ our Lord, to whom they primarily belong. " Out of his mouth," says he, "went a sharp sword, that with it he might smite the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron." Here the words are apphed to the mystic Christ, or the Christian man, the offspring of the church among the Gentiles, who is represented under the type of Christ his Head, and to whom the Lord promises that he would sometime give a power of a similar nature with his own, under the name of the Church of Thyatira. "He that overcometh," says he, "and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to pieces ; as I also have received of my Father." It will be some assistance here, to attend to the words of Andrew, in which, according to the opinion of Methodius, he comments upon this place. "The Church," says he, "without intermission, by those who are initiated in baptism, generates Christ, as to be formed in them, to the complete fulness of spiritual growth. The male child is the people of the church, by whom Christ, as God, by the hands of the Romans, strong as iron, rules the nations." He alludes to the type of the fourth kingdom in Daniel, in which I do not agree with him, (for how could David have alluded to that?) otherwise he is not wide of the mark, as will soon appear.

"And her child was caught up unto God; and to his throne." A hendiadys* for the throne of God. The son of the woman was caught tip to the throne of God, that is, was elevated to the Roman throne, where, with that power with which it was declared that he was about to rule, he did rule the nations. Christ, the Son of Mary, was indeed truly raised to the throne of God; but the mystical, or supposed Christ, whom the apostolical Church brought forth analogically, since the throne of the higher powers is, as the apostle calls them, Rom. c. hiii. the throne of God, the terrestrial heaven.

* cn &a cZvolv, i. e. one thing divided into two by a conjunction. R. B. C.

" For there is no power," says he, " but of God." Whence, in the divination of dreams, " If any one should appear in a dream to be carried up into heaven," they interpret it of a royal exaltation. It is well known, likewise, in the sacred language, that magisigistrates are called D;n5H, that is, gods. " God standeth in the congregation of the mighty, he is a Judge among gods." Ps. lxxxii. 1. " I leave said ye are gods, and ye are all the children of the Most High." v. 6. As those then ace said to sit in the seat of Moses, who teach the doctrine delivered by Moses ; so those may be said to sit on the throne of God, who exercise his functions in the earth. When, therefore, the offspring of the apostolical Church is said to be caught up, or taken to the throne of God, it is the same thing as to be elevated to stick a height, as to sit as it were next to God, which, I say, is true of royal eminence. Now this was fulfilled, when the Christians tinder Constantine the Great, and his successors, became possessed of power, after the Dragon was cast out.

But you will say, since the mystic Christ is said to be appointed to rule the nations over which he presided, in the same manher as Christ the Lord, with an iron sceptre, in what warfare, or by what battles (if this be the signification of the iron sceptre), did the ofspring of the apostolic Church subjugate to himself the Roman world? I answer, by a double warfare. The first, spiritual, wonderful, and divine, against demons, the princes anti gods of this world, which, indeed, with an army of celestial angels fighthig with him against his enemies, he manfully waged, of which we shall treat in the sediiel; the second, strictly corporal, when he hall just attained the throne, which so many illustrious victories prove partly of Constantine over Maxentitis, Maximinian, and Licinius ; partly of Theodosius the Great against others, as well as Eugenitis and Arbogastes, the standard bearers of demons, before the contumacy and pride of the Genthe worshippers of the Dragon, rebelling against Christian government, was fully broken, subdued, and laid to rest.

But before we leave this subject, one thing still remains to be observed, namely, that not immediately as the offspring of the woman was brought forth, was he raised to the throne of God, but as soon as he came to maturity in the kingdom. Therefore she is said to have brought forth a son, who was to rule, that is, not immediately, but when he came of age.

As Christ, the Son of Mary, our Lord, (to whose image this mystic Christ, the offspring of the Church, is in all things conformed), was in like manner, not as soon as he was born, but where he had arrived to a proper age, raised to the throne of God, and took possession of the kingdom, there to sit till he had reduced his enemies under his footstool.

"And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a, place prepared for her by God, that they should nourish her there, one thousand two hundred and sixty days;" of which, as it is afterwards repeated, and somewhat more fully described, we will defer the explanation to that place.

"And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels: And they prevaled not, neither was their place found any inure in heaven." It was said, that the mother leaving brought forth, as soon as her child was safe, escaped the snares of the dragon. But how it came to pass, that he who had so diligently watched her, should yet leave failed in his attempt, now at length begins to be related. We learn that this happened by the aid, and under the auspices of Michael, who went strenuously to oppose the dragon, as he lay in wait; and when at length he became his superior, threw him down from heaven to earth. Thence the son of the woman not only escaped unhurt, but was raised to the throne of God, and she withdrew into a secure place from the fury of the dragon. "And there was war in heaven." Namely, while the woman was bringing forth, not after she had brought forth, as many suppose. For it is certain from v. 14. that this war was carried on before tire flight of tire wnnan into the wilderness. But the woman did not flee into the wilderness before site had brought forth, and before her son was caught up to the throne of majesty, v. 5 and 6. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon," not alone, but with the assistance of the martyrs and confessors of Christ their King, by whose grace they fought; of wltotn, therefore, it will soon be sung in the hymn of victory, that " they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and for the word of his testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the end ;" which cannot be said of angels only. "And the Dragon fought, and his angels," that is, demons, with the assistance likewise of their worshippers, the Roman tyrants and their ministers.

But who, you will ask is Michael ? Not, I think, Christ himself, but, as it appears from Daniel, unless I am mistaken, one of the chief princes, or seven archangels, nay, the first, c. x. namely, that great angel, who is said by tire same author, to stand up on the hart of the people of God, c. xii. ; and whom, therefore, Christ, the great General in chief, and the King alike of angels and men, employed in opposition to the fury of Satan and his followers against his people. For the angels are sent forth " for the salvation of those who are the heirs of God," Heb. c. 1.* and who protect and defend them according to a mode of acting secret and unseen, against evil spirits, who operate on such men as tyre enemies of God, and his Christ, although they do not appear in a visible shape.

* Rather" to minister to those who shall he heirs of salvation."R. B. C.

So in this war, in which we are treating of the primitive Church of Christ against the Roman worshippers of the dragon, the angels took part under Michael their leader, either by confirming the holy martyrs and confessors of Christ against the threats and power of tortures, and in diminishing their twins in their last agonies, and sometimes taking away entirely even the sense of pain ; or by breaking and debilitating the attacks of their spiritual adversaries, and by throwing in tire way of their persecutors, who acted under their influence, sometimes obstacles, and impediments, arising on a sudden, and so stifling their attempts; sometimes by infusing terrors and other alienations of mind, so that suddenly desisting from their undertakings, they even unwillingly granted to the Church a truce, and breathing time; until at length, after a war of three hundred years, when Christ saw that his people were sufficiently tried, and he determined to give a full victory to his angels, when the offspring of the woman was placed on the imperial throne, and the Christians were possessed of power, the kingdom of the devil being vanquished, fell with a wonderful ruin. For this is what he says," The devil prevahed not, neither was a place found for him any longer in heaven;" that is, routed and chased with all his forces, he was cast out of heaven, ("Prevahed not," is a Hebraism, of which hereafter) " And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent which is called the devil, and Satan, who deceiveth the whole habitable world ;" (that is, impels it to idolatry, and had hitherto been seated in the Roman empire ;) " he was cast out to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." That is, he, with all his demons, hitherto worshipped as gods, were hurled dowel from the summit of divinity in which they gloried, to the depth of execration and contempt. As what we read to leave been done formerly in the liberation of Israel from the tyranny of the Egytian Pharaoh, to whom the dragon bears a resemblance, that " God executed judgment on all the gods of the Egyptians," (Ex. c. xii. v.12; Num. c. xxxiii. v. 1) the sauie found a place here likewise, at least according to the words. The Jews have a tradition, that it took place there likewise. Vide both Targuius, It. Salomon, lL. Aben Ezra, with R. Moses, ben Nachman, &c. Nor is there ground for any one to pervert the clear words of Scripture to any other sense, especially since Isaiah appears to allude to it, c. xix. v. 1.

"Prevailed not," for was conquered, is a Hebrew figure, as I observed; by which adverbs of denying signify the contrary of that to which they tire apphed. As in this very vision it is said a little farther, "They loved not their lives unto the end" that is, they reckoned their lives of no account, or they gave them up for Christ. For this niocle of speaking among the Hebrews is not diiiiiinitlon, but augmentation. So Prov. c. xii. v. 3, " A man shall not be established by wickedness;" that is, he sliall be utterly removed and eradicated. Id. c. x. v. 2, "The treasures of wickedness profit not;" that is, they are hurtful, they are destructive. Id. c. xvii. v. 21, " The father of a fool shall not rejoice;" that is, he shall be affected with sorrow. And 1 Cor. c. xvi. v. 22, if any one love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema;" that is, whoever hates and curses him. Vide Burtorf Thesaur. Gramm. lib. 2, c. xix. So here, the dragon and his angels prevailed not, is the same as they were completely overcome.

But I leave already given a fuller history of this victory in the interpretation of the sixth seal, with which this fall of the dragon contemporises; nay, it is the subject of that seal, as fiir as it regards the remarkable change of the Roman empire. But what I have said of the offspring of the woman placed on the imperial throne, and of the Christians then possessed of power, is clear and manifest from the song of triumph which is subjoined" And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ, for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accused them before our God day and night." " And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their life unto the death." Which words, as they are very clear, and delivered without any veil of allegory, so they are a key to the interpretation of the whole vision.

For, from hence it may be clearly perceived, in the first place, what the elevation of the offspring of the woman to the throne of God would be, namely, the introduction of " salvation and might, and the kingdom of God, and the power of his Christ," to the Roman throne; and likewise by the conquest of what enemy, he should come to the kingdom; namely, by the overthrow of that accuser, who calumniates and traduces the brethren day and night before God; and lastly, what kind of forces Michael and his angels should employ in this battle against the dragon and his satellites, namely, the holy martyrs and confessors, " who overcame hint by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of his testitmony, because they loved not" (that is, they gave up) " their lives unto the death." And, indeed, it is utterly impossible that the elevation of the offspring of the woman, the overthrow of the dragon, and the introduction of the kingdom of God, and of his Christ, should not correspond with one and the same event, since the flight of the woman into the wilderness begins from all as from one termination of affiiirs. But why is Satan here called by the name of Kar;Tyopos, or Accuser? It is to be understood that this arose from the usage of the Hebrews, by whom he was anciently called by the same name, which they made their own. For they call him `11117, Kategor. R. Juda, in the book Musar, as cited by Drusius, says, Kategor is Satan, the wicked adversary or calulnnlator, who is an adversary to mall, and calumniates him before the blessed Creator. Maimonides in Pirke Avoth, (where in a sentence of R. Eliazar, both this, and the word Paraclit of a contrary signification, likewise derived from the Greek, occur) says, He is called Paraclit, I1a11uKXnroS, or the Intercessor, who intercedes with the king, for a good blessing for man; the opposite to whom is Kategor ; for he it is who traduces man to the king, and endeavours to destroy him. And, indeed, if ever Satan deserved the name of accuser or calumniator on any other occasion, he strictly deserved it during the time of this childbirth, alld the war attending it. Witness the many calumnies and reproaches with wllicli the dragon worshippers overwhelmed the Christians, during this whole tine, objecting to them Thyestman feasts, Edipodian incests, adultery, promiscuous concubinage, homicides, conspiracies against princes, pestilence, famine, fires, and whatever public calamity took place.

But there rather appears here to be a reference to the book of Job, where Satan, by calunating and accusing him, was the cause of Job's being permitted by God to be proved by him with temptations and tribulations. Which here, like wise, the Holy Spirit intimates, was done by him after his accustomed manner. The intelligent reader will understand what I mean. Then follows in a song of triumph" Wherefore rejoice, ye heavens and those wllo dwell therein," (that is, holy angels, and blessed spirits, by whose exertions this victory leas been obtained) "Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea," (that is, to the terrene world) " for the devil is come down to you, leaving great wrath, (and therefore prepared to contrive some new mischief) knowing that he path but a short time."

For though from the time when he was cast down by Constantine the Great, from the Roman throne, the worship of the dragon continued for a short space among the people; yet when he foresaw that not long after he should be expelled likewise, and that the whole Roman world would be sprinkled with the baptism of Christ, in the progress of events ; being wholly inflamed with anger and fury, he took counsel how he might bring the victory of the Church into hazard, by whatever means he could employ; and if he should fail in the attempt, even when cast out, he might subvert it by some new contrivance. In both of which designs we shall see that the most wicked spirit was not wanting to himself.

THE MYSTERY

Of the Woman dwelling in the Wilderness.

The woman delivered of a child, when the dragon was overcome, from thenceforth dwelt in the wilderness, by which is figured the state of the Church, liberated from Pagan tyranny, to the time of the seventh trumpet, and the second Advent of Christ, by the type, not of a latent, in- visible, but, as it were, an intermediate condition, like that of the Israelitish Church journeying in the wilderness, from its departure from Egypt, to its entrance into the land of Canaan; a state, therefore, safe from the fury of that red dragon, who resembled Pharaoh, but not yet arrived at that pitch of glory, to which it should finally arrive, when the rest of her enemies should be subdued, as by the possession of Canaan. A state, indeed, which was externally better than the servitude of that heathen tyranny, (out of which, as from Egyptian slavery, the Christian people emerged by the power of Christ) as from thenceforth endued with a power, under the auspices of Christian emperors and kings, of worshipping Christ freely, as the Israelites if the wilderness of worshipping Jehovah ; with tem- ples, likewise, as the tabernacles of Christian worship, magnificently built, with an ecclesiastical polity, constituted by kings, with sacred revenues, tithes, and oblations, but unhappy by its apostasy of various kinds, not less than Israel in the wilderness, with the calf, Baal-peor, Balaam, Korah, &c. Nor, perhaps, should that circumstance be passed over, that the forty-two months of the Christian woman's residence in the wilder- ness answers to the number of resting-places of Israel in the wilderness. Vide Numbers,c. xxxiii.

The reason and tendency of the type being thus explained, let us illustrate the text particularly, and apply it to the event.

" And when the dragon saw that be was cast down to the earth, he persecuted the woman 'Who brought forth the male child. And there was given to the woman two wings of a great eagle, that she might flee into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and a half, front the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast forth water out of his mouth after the woman, like a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood."

This was the first attempt of Satan, when he was cast down, but not yet entirely cast out, re- maining, on the contrary, a short time below. That he might, if it were possible by any means to do so, overwhelm the woman, who, when her offspring was possessed of power, was departing to a station in the wilderness, before she should retreat thither wholly secure from his fury. For she did not immediately, as she began to escape, arrive in the wilderness, but after some space of time and delay had intervened; as Israel consumed some time in the journey which he had undertaken, from Egypt.

But the words here used are so to be understood, that they may appear in some way to be referred to what was said above of the same flight of the woman into the wilderness, either in this, or in a similar sense. "When the dragon saw that he was cast down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who had brought forth the male child." For since (as was observed above) "there was given to the woman," after the birth and exalta- tion of her offspring to the throne, (by two wings of a, great eagle furnished to her, as if for flight) " to depart into the wilderness, where she waits to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time; he cast out of his mouth after her a flood of water, that he might cause her to be carried away with the flood: So, likewise, Pharaoh persecuted the people of Israel, departing into the wilderness out of his dominion, by a flood of another kind.

The great eagle is the Roman empire. Its two wings, the two Caesars of the now divided empire of the Nest and last, under whose pro- tection and authority the church departed into its eremitical state. For it is well known, that the Roman empire, as soon as it had received the Christian faith, became bipartite, and was borne up as it were of the two wings of the Caesars. The eagle being the ensign of the Roman empire, renders this interpretation of vious to any one. But what forbids us from confirming the interpretation of the prophetical type by an apocryphal writer? This is Esdras the prophet, for under this denomination does Clemens of Alexandria quote ltim, (Strom, book 3d, a little before the conclusion) according to whom, the type of an eagle signifies the fourth kingdom, the twelve feathered wings as many first Cacsars. Vide c, xi. and xii. But tell me, header, would you not also say, that here is a reference also to that saying of the Lord concerning the departure of Israel out of Egypt. Exod. c. xix. v. 4. "Ye have seen," says he, "what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bare yon on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself," that is, into the wilderness. But there is something else in this verse which requires to be expounded. Why is the time of the woman's inhabitation in the wilderness, which was reckoned a little before by days, here changed into years, or a time, and times, and half a time? I seek no other cause of this alternation, than that it might be the key to a similar notation of time in Daniel, and might inform us that the Church was now arrived at those very times, which he decribed by the period or a time, times, and half a. time. And, indeed, without this index, that de- signation of time would have been very uncer- tain, and inexplicable. For from what source, or by what indication, could it leave been known, that time denoted a year ? or if so, that times did not mean more than two years? But now, from this communication it is clear, that the period may be resolved into 1260 days, and therefore, signifies a year, two years, and a half.

These difficulties leaving been explained in this manner, let us now examine what that water was which the dragon vomited out of his mouth like a flood, that he might overwhelm the woman while she was preparing, to take her journey into the wilderness. The gushing out of water is language and doctrine according to Prov. c. xviii. v. 23. " The words of a man's month are deep waters, the well-spring of wisdom is a flowing brook." Whence the word Y:)), which signifies to burst forth, and gush out as a fountain, is apphed to doctrine, as Ps. lxxviii. v. 2. "I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter, or pour forth, things hidden from the foundation of the world ;" which is alleged of the doctrine of our Saviour, Matt. c. xiii. v. 3 5. So Prov. c. i. v. 23. Wisdom is said to preach in the streets; "I will pour out my Spirit upon you ; I will make known my words unto you." What, then, is the effusion from the mouth of the serpent, a venomous beast, but pestiferous doctrine, that is Heresy ? according to that verse of Prov. c. xv. v. 28. "The mouth of the wicked poureth forth evil things." Now the history of this time ex- hibits it as proceeding like a flood from the mouth of the dragon, I speak of Arianism and its offspring. By this his flood the dragon had nearly caused the woman to be carried away. He intended it no doubt. And, in truth, it was wonderful that the Roman emperors, who had so recently given their names to Christ, and had not fully settled the Christian establishment, of- fended and alienated as they were at the horrid dissension in so primary a joint of doctrine among Christians only just respiring from persecution, at such deadly party feuds, tumults, and credulity, among the brethren, even equally to that of the Pagans, should not have cast off the faith.

"But the earth succoured the woman, and the earth opened its month, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth." That is, the multitude of Christians in the councils persisting in the orthodox faith, exhausted the diabolical inundation, as the earth does water, when it leas long continued in a state of drought. For if water, (but of a poisonous and pestiferous nature) such as proceeds out of the serpent, represents heresy; the mode of analogy undoubtedly required that the substance which should leave the effect of absorbing and removing the saine, should he figured by the earth, as that whose property it is to exhaust an inundation of waters by its andity.

Which, indeed, happens in this matter so much the more agreeably to the explanation of the subject, because elsewhere likewise in histo- rical and simple expression, the earth is com- monly used for the inhabitants of the earth. Vide Gen. c. xli. v. 37. 1 Sam. c. xiv. v. 25. Deut. c. ix. v. 28. and elsewhere at large.

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