Of the relation which the Prophecy of John hath to those of Daniel*; and of the Subject of the Prophecy*.
The whole scene of sacred Prophecy is composed of three principal parts: the regions beyond Euphrates, represented by the two first Beasts of Daniel; the Empire of the Greeks on this side of Euphrates, represented by the Leopard and by the He-Goat; and the Empire of the Latins on this side of Greece, represented by the Beast with ten horns. And to these three parts, the phrases of the third part of the earth, sea, rivers, trees, ships, stars, sun, and moon, relate. I place the body of the fourth Beast on this side of Greece, because the three first of the four Beasts had their lives prolonged after their dominion was taken away, and therefore belong not to the body of the fourth. He only stamped them with his feet.
By the earth, the Jews understood the great continent of all Asia and Africa, to which they had access by land: and by the Isles of the sea, they understood the places to which they sailed by sea, particularly all Europe: and hence in this Prophecy, the earth and sea are put for the nations of the Greek and Latin Empires.
The third and fourth Beasts of Daniel are the same with the Dragon and ten-horned Beast of John, but with this difference: John puts the Dragon for the whole Roman Empire while it continued entire, because it was entire when that Prophecy was given; and the Beast he considers not till the Empire became divided: and then he puts the Dragon for the Empire of the Greeks, and the Beast for the Empire of the Latins. Hence it is that the Dragon and Beast have common heads and common horns: but the Dragon hath crowns only upon his heads, and the Beast only upon his horns; because the Beast and his horns reigned not before they were divided from the Dragon: and when the Dragon gave the Beast his throne, the ten horns received power as Kings, the same hour with the Beast. The heads are seven successive Kings. Four of them were the four horsemen which appeared at the opening of the first four seals. In the latter end of the sixth head, or seal, considered as present in the visions, it is said, five of the seven Kings are fallen, and one is, and another is not yet come; and the Beast that was and is not, being wounded to death with a sword, he is the eighth, and of the seven: he was therefore a collateral part of the seventh. The horns are the same with those of Daniel’s fourth Beast, described above.
The four horsemen which appear at the opening of the first four seals, have been well explained by Mr. Mede; excepting that I had rather continue the third to the end of the reign of the three Gordians and Philip the Arabian, those being Kings from the South, and begin the fourth with the reign of Decius, and continue it till the reign of Dioclesian. For the fourth horseman sat upon a pale horse, and his name was Death; and hell followed with him; and power was given them to kill unto the fourth part of the earth, with the sword, and with famine, and with the plague, and with the Beasts of the earth, or armies of invaders and rebels: and as such were the times during all this interval. Hitherto the Roman Empire continued in an undivided monarchical form, except rebellions; and such it is represented by the four horsemen. But Dioclesian divided it between himself and Maximianus, A.C. 285; and it continued in that divided state, till the victory of Constantine the great over Licinius, A.C. 323, which put an end to the heathen persecutions set on foot by Dioclesian and Maximianus, and described at the opening of the fifth seal. But this division of the Empire was imperfect, the whole being still under one and the same Senate. The same victory of Constantine over Licinius a heathen persecutor, began the fall of the heathen Empire, described at the opening of the sixth seal: and the visions of this seal continue till after the reign of Julian the Apostate, he being a heathen Emperor, and reigning over the whole Roman Empire.
The affairs of the Church begin to be considered at the opening of the fifth seal, as was said above. Then she is represented by a woman in the Temple of heaven, clothed with the sun of righteousness, and the moon of Jewish ceremonies under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars relating to the twelve Apostles and to the twelve tribes of Israel. When she fled from the Temple into the wilderness, she left in the Temple a remnant of her seed, who kept the commandments of God, and had the testimony of Jesus Christ; and therefore before her flight she represented the true primitive Church of God, tho afterwards she degenerated like Aholah and Aholibah. In Diocesian’s persecution she cried, travelling in birth, and pained to be delivered. And in the end of that persecution, by the victory of Constantine over Maxentius A.C. 312, she brought forth a man-child, such a child as was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, a Christian Empire. And her child, by the victory of Constantine over Licinius, A.C. 323, was caught up unto God and to his throne. And the woman, by the division of the Roman Empire into the Greek and Latin Empires, fled from the first Temple into the wilderness, or spiritually barren Empire of the Latins, where she is found afterwards sitting upon the Beast and upon the seven mountains; and is called the great city which reigneth over the Kings of the earth, that is, over the ten Kings who give their kingdom to her Beast.