Revelation 14

Revelation 14:1

Zion may either denote heaven, or the true church on earth. The saints being marked with God’s name in their foreheads imports their being sealed and set apart as his property, and for his service; and their making an open and honourable profession of him and his gospel, attended with an answerable holiness of life. 4, 5. They were Virgins, i. e. they had not defiled themselves with the whorish idolatries and other abominations of the tempting Antichristians; but, as wholly redeemed from sins and errors, sanctified by, and consecrated to, God, and as a pledge of far greater multitudes afterward, had faithfully and uprightly followed and adhered to Jesus Christ and his cause

Revelation 14:6-13

The witnesses of Christ, especially at the Reformation, plainly and powerfully preached the gospel, and warned men of the approaching ruin of the Papacy, and of the damnable nature of cleaving to it in opposition to the light of the gospel, which then shone forth; and taught that union to Christ by faith, and fellowship with him, only and effectually secured an happiness, an immediate happiness, after death; and that believers’ good works die 1 not merit heaven, but in it received a gracious reward

Revelation 14:14-20

These verses relate to future events, and import that, whenever the Antichristians shall have filled up the measure of their iniquities, Christ and his instruments shall, in answer to the prayers of his ministers and people, cut them off in the most terrible manner, perhaps deluging the Papal territories in Italy, of 200 miles length, with torrents of their blood. '

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XIV.—The cause of Jesus Christ and his faithful followers will triumph at last. And glorious is the appearance of his saints, when they answer their character in qualities and works, and have Christ among them owning and honouring them. Happy they when marked with the Father’s Spirit and image; purified from idolatry and superstition; weaned from the world; and made sincere and upright in their profession of the pure doctrines of the gospel; and steady in their imitation of, and obedience to, Christ. Their consciences are now freed from guilt and condemnation, through faith in his righteousness; and when patience hath had her perfect work, and their prescribed course of holiness is finished, death shall only usher them into the heavenly mansions, to receive their everlasting, but gracious, rewards. What an inestimable mercy was the pure preaching of the gospel at the Reformation, after so long and heavy a night of Popish darkness; and what an humbling stroke to, the Antichristian interest, and sure prelude of its downfall! For certain, dreadful, but righteous and gradual, punishment shall overtake the obstinate abettors of it in this world, much more in hell