Revelation 1:11 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last; I, who speak unto thee, am the eternal, immutable God. What thou seest, write in a book; what thou shalt presently see, write in a book, not in loose papers. Whence we may observe, that this book is not only the revelation of the will of Christ, but written by his direction. And send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; not to all that lived within the jurisdiction or compass of these cities, but only to those Christians who lived in or near these places, which are all cities in the Lesser Asia. Ephesus was the most famous, where Paul preached, Acts 19:10, &c., and stayed three years, Acts 20:31. It was a noble city in that part of Greece which was called Ionia. Smyrna was a sea-port city in the same country. Pergamos was a city of Troas, or Phrygia. Thyatira was a city in Lydia, or Mysia. Sardis also was a city in Lydia, near the mountain Tmolus. Philadelphia was a city in Lydia, next Mysia. Laodicea was a city in Asia, near the river Lycus. In all these cities there were congregations of Christians formed into churches, to whom God here ordereth St. John to send these visions, when he had written them in a book. Our countryman, Mr. Brightman, asks: Where Rome was all this while? And how it came to pass God directed not these mysteries to be sent, and kept in their archives, especially if (as the papists say) the bishop there be Christ's successive vicar? And considering, too, how great friends Peter and John were wont to be? But the forementioned author tartly replies to his own question: That that church, it seems, could never err, and therefore needed not any correptory or monitory epistle.