e true one. For as the many
false Gospels, false Acts, and false Epistles were occasioned by true ones;
and the writing many false _Apocalypses_, and ascribing them to Apostles
and Prophets, argues that there was a true Apostolic one in great request
with the first _Christians_: so this true one may well be suppos'd to have
been written early, that there may be room in the Apostolic age for the
writing of so many false ones afterwards, and fathering them upon _Peter_,
_Paul_, _Thomas_ and others, who were dead before _John_. _Caius_, who was
contemporary with _Tertullian_, [7] tells us that _Cerinthus_ wrote his
Revelations as a great Apostle, and pretended the visions were shewn him by
Angels, asserting a _millennium_ of carnal pleasures at _Jerusalem_ after
the resurrection; so that his _Apocalypse_ was plainly written in imitation
of _John_'s: and yet he lived so early, that [8] he resisted the Apostles
at _Jerusalem_ in or before the first year of _Claudius_, that is, 26 years
before the death of _Nero_, and [9] died before _John_.

These reasons may suffice for determining the time; and yet there is one
more, which to considering men may seem a good reason, to others not. I'll
propound it, and leave it to every man's judgment. The _Apocalypse_ seems
to be alluded to in the Epistles of _Peter_ and that to the _Hebrews_ and
therefore to have been written before them. Such allusions in the Epistle
to the _Hebrews_, I take to be the discourses concerning the High-Priest in
the heavenly Tabernacle, who is both Priest and King, as was _Melchisedec_;
and those concerning the _word of God_, with the _sharp two-edged sword_,
the [Greek: sabbatismos], or _millennial_ rest, the _earth whose end is to
be burned_, suppose by the lake of fire, _the judgment and fiery
indignation which shall devour the adversaries_, the _heavenly City which
hath foundations whose builder and maker is God_, the _cloud of witnesses,
mount _Sion_, heavenly _Jerusalem_, general assembly, spirits of just men
made perfect_, viz. by the resurrection, and _the shaking of heaven and
earth, and removing them, that the new heaven, new earth and new kingdom
which cannot be shaken, may remain_. In the first of _Peter_ occur these:
[10] _The Revelation of Jesus Christ_, twice or thrice repeated; [11] the
_blood of _Christ_ as of a Lamb foreordained before the foundation of the
world_; [12] the _spiritual building_ in heaven, 1 Pet. ii. 5. _an
inheritance incorru