The Supplement on the Eleventh Chapter: Five Introductory Premises

i. — For the better understanding of this chapter, I shall shew, who is the angel here spoken of; what is his purpose; and when he comes down here in this vision. The angel who delivers the contents of this chapter, (v. 1 — 14,) immediately by word of mouth to John, is CHRIST HIMSELF, for he gives power to his two witnesses, (v. 3;) nor does he speak anywhere but on this occasion, and in c. i. and he is the same who came to Daniel at the end of his prophesy, where he useth the same gesture and ceremony, and the same oath, and that about the same thing and to the same purpose; see c. x. 6 with Dan. xii. 7. The prophecy of Daniel contains the very same matter, more obscurely, as doth that of the Revelation,

more clearly, viz. the tyranny of the fourth Roman monarchy, and the oppression of the church thereby, first under the Heathenish empire, and then under the Pope its last head, of whom Dan. vii. and xi. 36 — 45, prophesied; after whose time expired, a fifth monarchy of the saints should come in: and in both prophecies the time of Antichrist’s reign is defined to be the same; at the end of which, (in this first seal-prophecy, according to the course of time run out,)this angel here descends in vision. Now first of all he renews the oath then taken, and here swears again, (c. x. 6, 7,) “That there should be time no longer; but in the days of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets;” see Acts iii. 21, speaking of the same reign of the church: These words of the angel’s oath imply, that the visions of all times past in the former seal-prophecy, from the primitive times, having brought things to the last scene of the world’s time, now “time (or delay) shall be no longer:” it is but a little, and the last sand drops; the blast of the seventh trumpet will end all. Accordingly the angel here explains distinctly what was the Pope’s time mentioned in his former oath to Daniel, and what was the “accomplishing to scatter the power of the holy people,” there made the immediate fore-runner of the fulfilling of all things; and as “willing to shew the immutability of his promise, he confirms it with an oath, that we might have a strong consolation,” (Heb.vi. 17, 18,) speaking thus in effect: “I come now, beloved, after so long a while worn out, to bid you lift up your heads; for time, now in the days of the sixth trumpet, is expiring, and my kingdom is at the doors: the times of the beast, (‘prophesied of by Daniel,y of whom you shall hear more in this little book-prophecy brought with me open in my hand to give you, do now shortly end and determine; the “time, times, and half a time,” allotted the beast, (the Pope, the last head and king to reign in the fourth Roman monarchy,) is shortly to expire; and with him the times of this present oppressing world: and that you, my church, may know and have infallible warning, when it shall be, I will both explain to you, How long, in DanieFs prophecy, the beast is allotted ‘to scatter the power of the holy people] my witnesses; and also, What shall be the manner of that eminent last scattering, the immediate sign andprecusor ofAntichrisCs ruin, and of the fulfilment of all these other things; and I will shew you also, The face of the church in that age immediately preceding: Thus you may have together a true computation of the time, and also of such events (and face of the sky) as may be an eminent sign to you; that when you see these things, then know, that the time is expiring and determining. And of this I myself do thus immediately inform you, because that last scattering will be so great a one, as all the faith you have will be put to it: and therefore also I have now in these times sworn to itt that you may eye my oath, and remember

2 T 2

628 SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH [REV. XI.

•//; for even now ‘your redemption draweth nighj nigher than you are aware of”

ii. — The angel here enters on the stage, and acts his part in a fit scene or place in this comedy, or vision of all times successively, hitherto acted before John to be by him penned for us. The seals and trumpets, c. vi. — ix. (containing one prophecy,) run over all times from John unto the end; as doth “the little book” in c.x. containing another prophecy of the church. Just now, as in the last age, and towards the expiring of the sixth trumpet’s first revolution of all time, this angel steps in with his new or second prophecy in his hand ready to be delivered; and as some sands of time under the first prophecy were not yet run out, he conveniently and admirably fills up the little interim with an additional discourse of his own, to inform the church what special occurrences were to fall out therein before the final consummation of all under the seventh trumpet, and thus to give warning when the end of both prophecies should be. The Turkish empire is still standing, and the sixth trumpet must be still blowing. Now the sixth seal had set forth an utter end of the Roman empire all it could; being however to continue yet some hundreds of years before the blast of the seventh trumpet; which space the angel here fills up with relating what special occurrences, most intimately concerning his people, should fall out in the western church, (over which the Pope had the dominion,) now towards the end of both Turkish and Popish empires; and so, in this last age before the ending of these times: And though such occurrences properly fall under the cognizance of church-matters in the book-prophecy, yet they are fitly introduced here between both prophecies, as the signal of the ending of the full course of both stages of times. The angel’s discourse thus filling up that remaining time in this interlude, with what was indeed yet to fall out together with it, before the sixth trumpet ends; he concludes with “The second woe is past,” q. d. “The sixth trumpet ends also hereabouts;” and then in order he blows the seventh.

in. — The manner of the angel’s delivering all this to John, is as the narration of a chorus, or as the speech of an interlocutor in a comedy; explaining by word of mouth what could not have been well understood by vision; so the angel in c. xvii. also doth, interpreting who the whore is, as this angel interprets the times of her and the beast, and the tokens immediately fore-running the ending of them. The narration here is indeed first occasioned by a vision of the church’s face and state in the last age of these •iccomplishings, viz. a temple, with its surrounding outward •ourt, and its altar within, and two witnesses standing and ministering before the Lord: else John could not have been bid,

1, &c. to “rise and measure the temple;” for to such supposed vision alone is the angel’s discourse adapted: and this is made ;.?;e first occurrence belonging to the age wherein time is to expire,

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and the ground of his discourse; which, after explaining how much time the beast was to have, and how and when it should end, closeth again with the relation of another after-occurrence, and last signal of that age, (v. 7,) just as one of the vial-angels being to describe the beast and the whore, in all the times allotted her, yet takes his rise from a vision of her, as then in her last old age, under the vials, “drunk with the blood of the saints,” just before her ruin: So here this angel first enters on the stage as an actor, in the very declension of the sixth trumpet, under which he swears; and then, (after presenting the vision of a measured temple, and its courts falling again unmeasured into the hands of the Gentiles, to tread it down, and thus “to scatter the power of the holy people,”) he plays the part of an interlocutor, narrating the whole times of Popery, to expire after this their last revival; and introducing also the opposition of the witnesses during the same, (v. 3 — 6;) till he returns back to the last catastrophe of the age of the commencement of his speech, (towards the end of the sixth trumpet;) with which he determines his speech about the witnesses, (v. 7, &c.) now thus made clear by his previous statements concerning them.

iv. — The oath in Daniel fitly accords with all here, v. 1 — 14; wherein there is both an interpretation of the period of time, and eminent events signalizing its close: for in the angel’s oath, 1st, The beast’s reign there lasts for three times and a half, and here for forty-two months, (of thirty days i. e. years each,) not one of which shall pass over, without his reigning; and of the one thousand two hundred and sixty days, i. e. years, not one shall pass over without the sack-cloathed and oppressed saints’ opposing him. 2dly, The holy people in Daniel, are the two witnesses in Revelations, who yet, 3dly, Towards the end should obtain some “power of the holy people” against him: so here, v. 3, &c. they had power to erect a temple, (backed with a mighty party of an outward court;) whence they had already poured out four vials, so as to scorch their injurers vfiihjire, &c. v. 5, and at their weakest, to prevent rain, v. 6, &c. 4thly, This their power, as well as the people themselves, the beast should in the ending of that time, eminently scatter; as the accomplishment, or last act of his so doing, before his ruin and their sorrows cease together: so here when ready to cast off’ their sackcloth, and “about to finish” (TELESOOSI) their testimony against this beast, then their “outward courts shall be trodden down,1’ and themselves exposed to the beast’s fury and outrage, to be by him scattered among the nations and killed, where “their dead bodies shall be seen lying in the streets,” &c. which oppression is described, v. 7 — 10, with their gathering together again, to be scattered no more for ever, v. 11 — 13.

v. — The times and events are here mentioned together, to shew that the whole series of the one should end with the other;

630 FIFTH [REV. xi.

so that it is not only making a computation, but defining the period of months or days; the angel hitting hereby the very aim of his former oath to Daniel, viz. the expiration of the three and half times, and the accomplishment of the scattering, &c. the whole term being fulfilled in the particular exploits this beast shall play, to the very eve of taking away his kingdom. In c. xiii. 5 — 7, The beast had “power to do, (POIEIN,) forty-two months,” and therein “to make war with the saints and overcome them; and power was given him over all tongues and nations and kindreds,” of the ten European kingdoms. Now the Gentiles here, and that idolatrous company in c. xiii. 3, 4, that set up this power of the beast to be worshipped, are the same, and have the same lease of months; only here is shewn how the whole term should be fulfilled, through all those times, and by all those wars and slaughters of Antichrist: For, First, The treading down of the holy city for twelve hundred and sixty years, comes in here upon the court of the temple being given up anew to the Gentiles; as if the angel had said, “Cast out the court of this age, (which though it hath helped against the Papists to keep them off, hath yet defiled the churches,) and leave it out of thy measure, for it is given to the Gentiles in this last age to re-enter thereupon, and to get power over:” which last treading it down and overcoming it, (having before both possessed it, and then lost it from their dominions,) will carry them on to the destined period of the beast’s reign in Europe, that holy city, which is the seat of this church: So that, notwithsandinding intermissions and occasional losses of parts of their dominions, yet the last recovery of all will justify their claim to possesession for the whole forty-two months, first and last; as in the last payment, the whole sum is mentioned as paid. Interpreters therefore do mistake this temple-measuring and its court-delivering, for the Papists’ possessing throughout all ages the face, (which they call the outward court,) of the temple, because “the forty-two months’ treading down the holy city,” follows thereupon: as if they were to reign many years after its being delivered up: If so, it could not be meant of some special event or act relative to the church and its outward court in this last age of these latter times: For, 1st, Not the court, but the city is to be trodden down; for the Papists were lords over the greater part of Europe, even when the outward court was separated from them; the one stands indeed in the other, as the temple stood in Jerusalem. 2dly, The scope of here naming when the term of years ceaseth, is to shew, That in this latter age the beast should re-enter into full power and jurisdiction over the holy city, by the court of the temple being again laid common with the rest of the city; as a king is said to reign fifty years, though obliged to leave his throne for an interim of revolt: and so Antichrist hath his whole number of months of reigning from time to time; he reigns not by days, for the Goths at first

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much interrupted the exercise of his power. 3dly, “And they shall tread down,” &c. comes in as a reason for the court’s being in these last times given to those Gentiles, and therefore Anti christ hopes by repossessing it to recover all Europe again: CAI also, (” and they shall,” &c.) is often a causal particle, noting out the reason of a thing: So then the term of the Papists’ commission over all the nations and tongues of Europe, (only those exempted in c. xiii. 1, 8,) being leased out to them; though the outward court of carnal Protestants and unregenerate hath made a separation together with the true worshippers, yet being inwardly Gentiles, and their names not written in the book of life, they are given to these Gentiles again as their allotted inheritance to be re-entered, the lease not being yet expired: as in a law-suit, a man pleads at the end of eighteen years for restoration to a part of an estate withheld from him under a lease of twenty-one years: so the court here being land within the bounds of the city, and belonging to the Pope by gift for so long, and his forty-two months lease not being expired; therefore, he must accomplish to scatter the court and to tread down the city, according to the angel’s interpretation here of his own words in Dan. xii. 7. Secondly, The computation by days is introduced to shew how this long description of the witnesses, and this numbering of their days, is but in order to their last accomplishment; as v. 7, calls it the “when” of finishing their testimony: and as more than half of this discourse sets forth this their last scattering hereupon, it shews the scope of the former part to have been the same. And though the Antichrist-beast hath already had some famous overcomings and killing of these witnesses, yet this one is here singled out, (about which the whole book-prophecy is silent,) not perhaps for the eminency of the prevailing, but as the last struggle; which also herein is eminent, that after taking away so much ground from the beast, and winning from him a temple and court set up on his own ground, he should prevail again, though for a short time: and such a remarkable prognostic is here therefore mentioned. Thirdly, The series of coherence and connexion of one thing with another in these first verses, is briefly this: The period of months for the Pope and his company to reign, and of days for the witnesses to prophesy in sackcloth, is the same; and both refer unto the two of these last occurrences in the reign of the one and the oppressed state of the other: 1st, The whole time of treading down the holy city shall end with a recovery and treading down of the outward court of the temple of the reformed churches; and the date is therefore added to show how it ends: and accordingly the vision of the temple-measuring is but an introduction to this last occurence. 2dly, In the date of days, the order is inverted; and the whole time of the witnesses’ prophesying, is first mentioned in continuation with the whole time of the adversaries, (the juxtaposition of the days serving to

632 THE B EAST*S TIMES OR YEARS, [REV. XI. 1, *2.

elucidate the months;) after which their last scattering comes in as the accomplishment of the time: and the dates go together also, because the witnesses are the continual opponents of these Gentiles, and the chief objects of their malice: CAT also, in v. 3, is often used adversative!y7, “But, 1 will give power,” &c. q. d.” Whereas the Papists have their forty -two months for treading down the holy city, (Europe the chief seat of Christian profession,) from whom the Protestants have, meanwhile, won a temple and outward court; yet to make good the period of their reign, they shall regain that court of the new tabernacle separated from them; But they shall not carry it thus, unopposed by my two witnesses, whom I will empower to testify, though in sackcloth, all those days; and even in this their last treading down to avenge themseles with fire fyc. of these Gentiles, who shall yet go on, and in the end of their days prevail even over these Thy two witnesses also, so as to kill and destroy them when about to finish their testimony’’’ Thus though their appointed time comes in a good way off before, it is in order to this their last slaughter; to shew, (as in Daniel,) how it should be accomplished.