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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 Battell array and a∣vengement 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 Kingdome, and sometime his coming in Power and great Glory, and the like. Because his plagueing and destroying of the Nation that cru∣cified him, and 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 persecuted 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, Famine 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 requi∣red of that generation, Matth. 23.35, 36. These souls are said to cry from under the Altar, either in allusion to the blood of creatures sacrificed, poured at the foot of the Altar, or according to the Jews tenet, that all just soules depar∣ted 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 behalf should come. This speakes 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 borrowed termes that the Scripture useth to expresse it by, namely as if it were the destruction of the whole world: as Matth. 24.29, 30. The sunne darkened, the starres falling, the heaven departing and the earth dissolved: and that con∣clusion ver. 16. They shall say to the rocks fall on us, &c. doth not only warrant, but even inforce us to understand and construe 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 Iohn, and his wring of this Book before the desolation of Ierusalem.