NOTE.

Thus far, O Reader, I have been able to proceed in a detailed species of interpretation. But I can carry it no farther. In the prophecies which remain I only give instances; a part of those, in truth, which three or four years ago, I had privately communicated to my friends, on most of the apocalyptical visions. Those, whatever they are, I commend, O Reader, to thy candour, and beseech thee to interpret favourably; until Almighty God bestow upon me strength and leisure, and the power (unless the judgment of learned and pious men should deter me) of unfolding these prophecies, by a clew 407similar to that by which I expounded the former. Besides, you may see, that in these I cannot preserve the order of the chapter so exactly, since I placed the mystery of Babylon before the vision of the phials, which, however, St. John postponed; whether it was because one of the angels of the phials showed it to him, or whether he wished to subjoin a key, as it were, for unlocking all the preceding visions. Both seem to have been in view. But the same order is not always convenient to the interpreter and the historian.