of the Church begin to be considered at the opening of the fifth seal; and in the Interpretation, they begin at the same time with the vision of the Church in the form of a woman in heaven:  there she is persecuted, and here she is pained in travail.  The Interpretation proceeds down first to the sealing of the servants of God, and marking the rest with the mark of the Beast; and then to the day of judgment, represented by a harvest and vintage.  Then it returns back to the times of opening the seventh seal, and interprets the Prophecy of the seven trumpets by the pouring out of seven vials of wrath.  The Angels who pour them out, come out of the Temple of the Tabernacle; that is, out of the second Temple, for the Tabernacle had no outward court.  Then it returns back again to the times of measuring the Temple and Altar, and of the Gentiles worshiping in the outward court, and of the Beast killing the witnesses in the streets of the great city; and interprets these things by the vision of a woman sitting on the Beast, drunken with the blood of the Saints; and proceeds in the interpretation downwards to the fall of the great city and the day of judgment.

The whole Prophecy of the book, represented by the book of the Law, is therefore repeated, and interpreted in the visions which follow those of sounding the seventh trumpet, and begin with that of the Temple of God opened in heaven.  Only the things, which the seven thunders uttered, were not written down, and therefore not interpreted.

Notes to Chap.  II.

[1] Isa. vi.

[2] Apoc. v.

[3] Apoc. vii

[4] Buxtorf in Synogoga Judaica, c. 18, 21.

[5] Ezek. ix.

* * * * *

CHAP.  III.

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.