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I John, who also am your brother; the same mentioned Rev_1:4, the apostle of Jesus Christ, yet he disdaineth not to call those his brethren whom his Lord so called.
And companion in tribulation: the pagan persecutions were now begun. Nero first began them about twenty-three years after Christ was ascended into heaven, but he died within three years’ time after he had began that course. Then the Christians had some rest for twelve years, by reason of the short reigns of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, and the kindness of Flavius and Titus Vespasianus; but about eighty-two years after Christ began Domitian to reign, and to persecute the Christians about the year 90. He lived not long, for he was slain Anno 97, but in those seven years he put to death, imprisoned, and banished many. John is said to have been banished by him, Anno 91, and to have had this revelation, 94 and 95. Domitian lived but four or five years after this. After his death John is said to have come back to Ephesus, and to have died there three years after, about the year 98. But for five years John was the Christians’ companion in tribulation.
And in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ; either the kingdom of grace, a member of the Christian church; or the kingdom of glory, which is to be arrived at both by patient waiting and by patient suffering for Jesus Christ, or waiting for the second appearance of Christ, in order to his glorious kingdom.
Was in the isle that is called Patmos: this island, geographers tell us, was an island in the Icarian or Ægean Sea, about thirty-five miles in compass, one of those fifty-three islands called the Cyclades.
For the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ: he tells us how he came to be in Patmos, viz. for preaching the word of God, and those truths to which Christ had given testimony: he did not voluntarily go thither to preach the gospel, (for those isles have in them few inhabitants), but he was banished thither by the emperor Domitian’s officers. Banishment was a very ordinary punishment amongst the Romans, in case of what they would call sedition. Eusebius tells us, that one Flavia Dometilla, though she was niece to the consul, was banished upon the same account at this time.