Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/114

110 21. Chap. xx. 1,2,3,7,8,9. Chap. xxi. 10. From the passages here referred to, and many others in the book of Revelation, the doctrine of an intermediate state, place, or world, between heaven and hell, is so plainly set forth, as to admit of no reasonable doubt. For the Apostle John first declares, that he was in the spirit, or in spiritual vision; and then that he saw heaven above him, and the bottomless pit beneath him: that he saw a star fall from the one, and smoke ascend from the other: that he saw the souls of martyrs under the altar, who were not as yet elevated into heaven, but were to remain for a season in the place they then occupied, until the number of their brethren should be fulfilled: that he saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth; and another angel standing with his right foot upon the sea, and his left upon the earth, with his hand lifted up towards heaven: that he saw a beast rise up out of the sea, and another from the earth: that the name of one of the places in the intermediate world is called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon, and is the seat of spiritual war between the powers of heaven from above, and the powers of hell from beneath: that he was carried in spirit to another place, called the Wilderness, where the woman, who had brought forth a man-child, and was persecuted by the dragon, was to be nourished for a time, times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent; and where also he saw another woman sitting upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy: that he saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand, who laid hold of the dragon, that old serpent which is the devil and Satan, and cast him into the bottomless pit for a thousand years; after which he was again to come forth out of hell into the intermediate state and