A. No, he gave two affaults more; the firft was in heaven, where he accused the elect of God day and night.

Q. What was his fuccefs?

A. He was thrown down from thence, by the power of Michael i. e. of CHRIST JESUS.

Q. Where was his fecond affault?

A. Upon earth, upon the mother of the child, upon the church of the Jews, and upon the church of the gentiles, afterwards gathered together in Christ.

Q. How did the mother i. e. the church of the Jews, elcape in this affault?

A. She was carried by the power of God, as by the wings of an eagle, into a place of refuge, namely Pella, a town feated on the other fide of Jordan, in a defart country; but fatan pursued her with a flood of water caft out of his mouth.

Q. What understand you by the flood of water? A. The Romans, who deftroyed Jerufalem and the fanctuary, that was therein.

Q. Who drank up that flood of water, that it did not hurt the church?

A. The earth, i. e, the wicked fort of the Jews; whofe bloody maffacre fatisfied the fury of the Romans, fo that the elect had liberty to escape. Q. When fatan faw himself again prevented, how did he take it?

A. He was wroth and made war upon the rest

of the feed of the woman, i. e. upon the christian catholick church.

Q. How many principal things are we to note in the hiftory of the chriftian catholick church? A. Three; her combats, her victory, and her glory.

Q. With whom were her combats ?

A. With two kind of beafts, the one whereof had feven heads, and came out of the fea; the other had two heads, and sprang out of the earth, chap. xiii.

Q. What do you understand by the first beast? A. The tyranny inflicted upon the church, by the evil government of the Roman empire. Q. What by the second beast?

A. The perfecution of the Papistical Hierarchy, by the fucceffion of Popes.

Q. How did this beast arise?

A. By little and little, out of the earth.

Q. What is to be understood by the two horns of the beaft?

A. Two fwords and two keys, temporal and fpiritual power.

Q. What by his fpeaking like a dragon?

A. Subtlety and falfhood, like the old ferpent. Q. What by their taking of the mark, in their right hands and foreheads?

A. The perfect obedience and allegiance of all to the beaft; which otherwife fuffers not to buy and fell, i. e. civil commerce.

Against whom doth the church obtain her

victory?

A. Against the two beafts and the dragon before spoken of, and against the whore of the fpiritual Babylon, described in the 17th chapter.

Q. What is understood by the whore of Baby

lon ?

A. The great city of Rome, which reigneth over the kings of the earth, chap. xvii. 18.

Q. Shall the undoubtedly fall to fhame and ruin* ?

*After the hatred of the ten horns, their eating her flesh, and burning her with fire, and another angel very glorious and powerful, proclaims the utter deftruction of the Popedom by two falls, Babylon is fallen is fallen, chap. xviii. 2. Her plagues fhall come in one day, death, and mourning and famine, and fhe fhall be utterly burnt with fire, ver. 8. And a mighty angel took up a mill-ftone and caft it into the fea as the prophet Jeremy had predicted, chap. 51. 63, 64. ver. 21. Thus with violence fhall that great city Babylon be caft down, and fhall be found no more at all.

This fecond fall must come from fome foreign invasion of the Mahometans, as is defcribed in the fybiline oracles, they will utterly deftroy her, as the ftone caft into the fea intimates that invafion by fea. The fate of the Roman empire was evidently defcribed by the Sibyls; and that was a

A. She fhall; the fpirit hath spoken it expreflly, and it will be accomplished by the power of ten kings, formerly her favourites, into whose hearts GOD fhall put it, to execute the fury of his wrath upon her.

Q. How fhall her lovers take it?

A. They fhall ftand afar off for fear, faying, alas! alas! that great city Babylon, that mighty city, in one hour she is made defolate.

Q. Shall the not rife again and be restored? A. She shall not; the fhall fink into deftruction, as a ftone caft into the fea, chap. xviii. 21.

fufficient reason for their frequent confulting of them, and keeping them in private ; and they were well known to Conftantine. This angel gives the reafon of this deftruction of Rome. She was become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul fpiirt, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird, chap. viii. 2. For all nations have drank of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her (in their image worship) her fins have reached to heaven; the faith, I fit a queen, and am no widow, and fhall fee no forrow. This is the pride of the clergy, and the corruption of religion in all nations, fubject to the Popedom. The Papacy is reprefented by the city of Rome where it governs. A voice from heaven calls the people out of her, that they partake not of her fins

Q. By what means doth the church get victory over her enemies?

A. By the affiftance of Chrift, her head and cap

tain.

Q. Into how many parts doth his affiftance spread?

A. Into four; the preaching of his word, and the works of faith, patience, obedience, fet down in the 14th chapter; and alfo threatnings and judgments, proceeding frnm his divine juftice, declared in the 15th and 16th chapters.

Q. Wherein confifteth the glory of the church*?

and plagues. ver. 14. The apostles and prophets are commanded to rejoice at the deftruction, by which God avenged their bloodshed in Rome, and for her forceries, by which all nations were deceived, i. e. pretence of miracles wrought by their faints reliques, and images.

* The honourable and reverend Mr. Camphel proves from the 11th chapter, 16, 17, and 18 verses of this book, that all the righteous of whatever clafs or denomination, or in whatever age of the world they lived, whether before the flood, or after it; whether before the law, under the law, or under the gospel, even the Patriarchs, the prophets, and the apoftles themselves, are in a ftate of Hades, or middle ftate, and are not to receive their reward till after Chrift's fecond com