A37035:1889
A commentary upon the book of the Revelation Wherein the text is explained, the…A commentarie upon the book of the Revelation Wherein the text is explained, the…
A commentary upon the book of the Revelation Wherein the text is explained, the series of the several prophecies contained in that book, deduced according to their order and dependence on each other; the periods and succession of times, at, or about which, these prophecies, that are already fulfilled, began to be, and were more fully accomplished, fixed and applied according to history; and those that are yet to be fulfilled, modestly, and so far as is warrantable, enquired into. Together with some practical observations, and several digressions, necessary for vindicating, clearing, and confirming many weighty and important truths. Delivered in several lectures, by that learned, laborious, and faithful servant of Jesus Christ, James Durham, late Minister of the Gospel in Glasgow. To which is affixed a brief summary of the whole book, with a twofold index, one of the several digressions, another of the chief and principal purposes and words contained in this treatise.A commentarie upon the book of the Revelation Wherein the text is explained, the series of the several prophecies contained in that book, deduced according to their order and dependance on each other; the periods and succession of times, at, or about which, these prophecies, that are already fulfilled, began to be, and were more fully accomplished, fixed and applied according to history; and those that are yet to be fulfilled, modestly, and so far as is warrantable, enquired into. Together with some practical observations, and several digressions, necessary for vindicating, clearing, and confirming many weighty and important truths. Delivered in several lectures, by that learned, laborious, and faithfull servant of Jesus Christ, James Durham, late Minister of the Gospel in Glasgow. To which is affixed a brief summary of the whole book, with a twofold index, one of the several digressions, another of the chief and principall purposes and words contained in this treatise.
Edinburgh: printed by Christopher Higgins, 1658
AN EXPOSITION Of the BOOK of the REVELATION. › Lecture 1 › Chapter 9
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Vers. 4. The second way how their power is described, it, v. 4. where their Commission ⟨p. 439⟩is bounded and ordered in these two respects, 1. In respect of these they shall not hurt; it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, &c. whereby is understood (as is clear by the opposition following) the Elect or sealed ones. This command cometh not from their immediate superior, to wit, the Angel of the bottomless pit, but proceedeth from the Lords Sovereignty, in order to the fulfilling of what was foretold, Chap. 7. Again, the proper objects unto whom their power reacheth, are set down, to wit, but only these men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads, that is, these who are not elected: here the end of Christs sealing, and the advantage of it doth appear, and also who they are upon whom the delusion of Antichrist hath full victory.
Vers. 4. The second way how their power is described, it, v. 4. where their Commission ⟨p. 439⟩is bounded and ordered in these two respects, 1. In respect of these they shall not hurt; it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grasse of the earth, &c. whereby is understood (as is clear by the opposition following) the Elect or sealed ones. This command cometh not from their immediate superiour, to wit, the Angel of the bottomlesse pit, but proceedeth from the Lords Soveraignity, in order to the fulfilling of what was foretold, Chap. 7. Again, the proper objects unto whom their power reacheth, are set down, to wit, but only these men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads, that is, these who are not elected: here the end of Christs sealing, and the advantage of it doth appear, and also who they are upon whom the delusion of Antichrist hath full victory.
Vers. 5. 3. Their power or Commission is described further in a twofold limitation, v. 5. 1. And it was given to them that they should not kill them, that is, that their plaguing of men should not be directly by taking away the bodily life (as the horse-men under the sixth trumpet have, v. 18.) but must be understood of another sort of plague as afterward. If any say that Antichrist is said to kill, Chap. 11.13.17. and so, how can this be said of him? Answ. We may consider Antichrist in a twofold respect, 1. In respect of the Elect: 2. In respect of hypocritical Professors in the Church. In respect of the first, Antichrist is here limited from killing them spiritually, but in these places he is permitted to kill them bodily. On the contrary again, in respect of the second, Antichrist doth not take away the life bodily of these that submitteth to him, but he proveth a spiritual plague unto them. Now, if we consider him in the first sense, as he corrupteth the Elect, Antichrist is not the plague of the world; but in the second sense, as souls are endangered by him. And therefore this being a threatening of sending him as a plague to the hypocrites of the Church, his proper commission in reference to them is only set down. 2. This limitation may be put in, to show the proper work of these locusts, which should not be professedly to take away bodily lives themselves (from which, as to its act, the Romish Clergy doth superstitiously pretend to abstain, although they be deep in bloody contrivances) but that their native work should be the destroying of souls. The second limitation in this Verse, is in respect of the time; it is not for ever, but for five months. We understand it indefinitely for a considerable long time, yet a time that is bounded by the Lord and will have an end, as (