Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/208

24 opened, Chap. vi. 5 to 8. Also by the beast rising out of the bottomless pit, which made war with the two witnesses and slew them, Chap. xi. 7, and likewise by the dragon which stood before the woman that was about to be delivered, to devour her child, and pursued her into the wilderness, and there cast out from his mouth water as a flood after her, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood, Chap. xii. and likewise by the beasts of the dragon, one rising out of the sea, and another rising out of the earth, Chap. xiii. Also by the three spirits like frogs which came forth from the mouth of the dragon, from the mouth of the beast, and from the mouth of the false prophet, Chap, xvi. 13, and farther by this, that after the seven angels had poured out the vials of the wrath of God, in which were the seven last plagues, upon the earth, upon the sea, upon the fountains and rivers, upon the sun, upon the throne of the beast, upon the river Euphrates, and lastly upon the air, there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, Chap, xvi. An earthquake signifieth the overthrow of the church, which is effected by falses and the falsifications of truth, and which is signified also by the great tribulation such as was not from the beginning of the world, Matt. xxiv. 21. The same is understood also by these words, And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great wine-press of the wrath of God, and the wine-press was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the wine-press even to the horses' bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs, Rev. xiv. 19, 20, where blood signifieth truth falsified; not to mention other passages in those seven chapters.

In the Evangelists, Matt, xxiv, Mark xiii, and Luke xxi, are described the successive declensions and corruptions of the Christian church; and in those