A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of…

Many of the princes of Germany soon fell in with the Reformed religion, and many other states and kingdoms in Europe, as Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, great part of France, Poland, Lithuania, Switzerland and the Low Countries. So that it is thought, that heretofore about half Christendom were of the Protestant religion; though, since, the Papists have gained ground; so that the Protestants now have not so great a proportion.

Many of the princes of Germany soon fell in with the Reformed religion, and many other states and kingdoms in Europe, as Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, great part of France, Poland, Lithuania, Switzerland and the Low Countries. So that it is thought, that heretofore about half Christendom were of the Protestant religion; though, since, the Papists have gained ground; so that the Protestants now have not so •great a proportion.

Thus God began gloriously to revive his church again, and advance the kingdom of his Son, after such a dismal night of darkness as had been before from the rise of Antichrist to that time. There had been many endeavours used by the witnesses for the truth for a reformation before. But now, when God's appointed time was come, his work was begun, and went on with a swift and wonderful progress; and Antichrist, who had been rising •igher and higher from his very first beginning till that time, was swiftly and suddenly brought down, and fell halfway toward• utter ruin, and never has been able to rise again to his former height. A certain very late expositor (Mr. Lowman)▪ who explains the five first vials in the 16th chapter of Revelation, with greater probability perhaps than any who went before him, explains the fifth vial, which was p•ured out on the seat of the beast, of what came to pass in the Reformation; explaining the four proceeding vials of certain great judgements God brought on the Popish dominions before the Reformation. It is said, R•v. xvi.10 that "the fifth angel poured out his vial on the seat of the beast;" in the original, it is the throne of the beast; "and his kingdom was full of darkness, and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds." He poured out his vial upon the throne of the beast, i. e. on the authority and dominion of the Ppe: so the word throne is often used in scripture; so