The works of the Reverend and learned John Lightfoot D. D., late Master of Katherine Hall in Cambridge such as were, and such as never before were printed : in two volumes : with the authors life and large and useful tables to each volume : also three maps : one of the temple drawn by the author himself, the others of Jervsalem and the Holy Land drawn according to the author's chorography, with a description collected out of his writings.

REVEL. CHAP. VI.

THE opening of the six Seals in this Chapter, speaks the ruine and rejection of the Jewish Nation, and the desolation of their City; which is now very near at hand.

The first Seal opened, ver. 2. shews Christ setting forth in Battel array and avengement against them, as Psal. 45. 4, 5. And this the New Testament speaketh very much and very highly of, one while calling it his coming in clouds, another while his coming in his King∣dom, and sometime his coming in Power and great Glory, and the like. Because his plague∣ing and destroying of the Nation that crucisied him, that so much opposed and wrought mischief against the Gospel, was the first evidence that he gave in sight of all the world of his being Christ: for till then, he and his Gospel had been in humility, as I may say, as to the eyes of men, he persecuted whilest he was on Earth, and they perse∣cuted after him, and no course taken with them that so used both, but now he awakes, shews himself, and makes himself known by the Judgement that he exe∣cuteth.

The three next Seals opening, shew the means by which he did destroy, namely those three sad plagues that had been threatned so oft and so sore by the Prophets, Sword, Fa∣mine and Pestilence. For

The second Seal opened sends out one upon a red Horse to take Peace from the Earth, and that men should destroy one another; he carried a great Sword, ver. 4.

The third Seals opening speaks of Famine, when Corn for scarcity should be weighed like spicery in a pair of ballances, ver. 5, 6.

The fourth Seal sends out one on a pale Horse whose name was Death [the Chaldee very often expresseth the Plague or Pestilence by that word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉: and so it is to be taken Revel. 2. 22.] and Hell or Hades comes after him, ver. 8.

The opening of the fifth Seal reveals a main cause of the vengeance, namely the blood of the Saints which had been shed, crying, and which was to be required of that genera∣tion, Matth. 23. 35, 36. These souls are said to cry from under the Altar, either in al∣lusion to the blood of creatures sacrificed, poured at the foot of the Altar, or according to the Jews tenet, That all just souls departed are under the Throne of Glory. Answer to their cry is given, that the number of their Brethren that were to be slain was not yet fulfilled, and they must rest till that should be, and then avengement in their be∣half should come. This speaks sutable to that which we observed lately, that now times were begun of bitter persecution, an hour of temptation, Rev. 2. 10. & 3. 10. the Jews and Devil raging, till the Lord should something cool that fury by the ruine of that people.

The opening of the sixth Seal, ver. 12, 13. shews the destruction it self in those bor∣rowed terms that the Scripture useth to express it by, namely as if it were the destruction of the whole world: as Matth. 24. 29, 30. The Sun darkned, the Stars falling, the Hea∣ven departing and the Earth dissolved, and that conclusion ver. 16. They shall say to the rocks fall on us, &c. doth not only warrant, but even inforce us to understand and con∣strue these things in the sense that we do: for Christ applies these very words to the very same thing, Luke 23. 30. And here is another, and, to me, a very satisfactory reason, why to place the shewing of these visions to John, and his writing of this Book before the desolation of Jerusalem.