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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27617	A memorial of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ near approaching declaring according to prophecy, and advising upon the state of princes and nations, and of these nations in particular, what our Israel ought to do, in order to it, most humbly, and yet with the authority of sacred prophecy, presented to the King, and to the Queen, and to the high court of Parliament, and to all the judges of the nation / by T. Beverley ...	Beverley, Thomas.	1696 (1696)	Wing B2162; ESTC R37110	11,245	13

of the Morning Star to the Day of the Kingdom of Christ in Succession from whence I conclude Their Deliverance is very near and They shall Break their Papal Oppressors as with a Rod of Iron in their Last Works 3. Seeing there is an Extraordinary Concurrence of Gracious Signatures of God upon our present Soveraign There is Great Hope God will stir Him up to Appear at this Time in so Honourable a Service as Scripture styles it as of Helping the Lord against Those Mighties And if God be pleas'd to stir Him up He will undoubted●y Appear with Him For I am Bold in our God to say I shall not be mistaken in our King as to some Extraordinary Service God hath to do by Him the Time being so near although Mr. Mede of a most Honourable Memory for his Apocalyptic Key was in that ever Noble Gustavus Adolphus the time being then so much further off and that on these Great Reasons 1. That He is the Third Descendent of that Great Prince of Orange by whom God was pleas'd in the Vnited Provinces to propagate the Protestancy and to give that Curbe to the grasp of that Time after the Vniversal Monarchy And because He Fell a Martyr in it and Receiv'd no Recompence from the Bounty of God Equal after the General Estimate of Providence to that Service I doubt not God hath Reserv'd it for his Posterity and for the Prince that He hath Rais'd at this Time to be so Serviceable to the Protestant Religion and Inspir'd with so much Zeal and Courage for it 2. Our King as Prince of Orange but now under Greater styles is One of the Princes and Nobles of France that as the First Works of those Churches were principally by Princes and Nobles proceeding of Themselves In the same manner shall their Last Greater Works be done In which Regard our King Appears an Instrument fitted by God as a Prince and Noble proceeding from Themselves 3. God made England a Help and a Succour by Queen Elizabeth to those Afflicted Churches though still the Greatest Effects were from Themselves so It is to be both Hoped and Prayed that as their Refugees have by a Superior Providence working for them Found even in the Former Reign however of contrary Sentiments Sanctuary here So much more Vigorous and Potent shall their Assistances be under not only a Protestant Prince but of so Eminent Love to and Zeal for the Protestant Religion As Already there are Great Evidences of the Love Zeal and Forwardness of the Supreme Councel of the Nation and their Unanimity herein and Greatest Effects are Hop'd and Pray'd for from thence 4. That very Oracle The Last Works of the Church of Thyatyra shall be Greater then the First is to me an Account why the Confederate Armies have had so low effects of their Confederacy Because their Princes and Nobles of whom our King is one shall proceed of Themselves 5. Above All I persevere that within the Six next Summers viz. in 97. The Kingdom of Christ shall be in its Succession the Antichristian and Turkish Tyranny shall Fall and a Great Re-Reformation Ensue And now it These Things shall seem of value to so Soveraign an Authority and to be every way Revered most Honourable an Assembly Let it please them to take Care that Consideration may be had whether upon Just Grounds what is or hath been offer'd can be Refus'd viz. on due Debates according to Records of Scripture Chronology History Reason and Experience without any other Reflexions then what enter into the Merits of the Cause For I Take to Witness the Searcher of Hearts that as what I have now written is not in Flattery or Dissimulation so what I have formerly presented with Relation to the Church of England hath not been from any undervalue of the Personal Holiness and Learning of any of Eminency or Lowest Name therein for whom I have all possible Love and Honour but on both sides from most Assured Grounds in Prophecy That God will in an Extraordinary manner be present with the King if He calls Him to Greater Services for His own Approaching Kingdom as It is most Earnestly to be pray●d He may His Honour and His Safety being therein Complicated and that those in Highest Stations in the Church of England may know The State of it and their present manner of State in it hath but few Years more of duration and that the Great Senate of this Nation may by understanding the Times and the Signs of Them know what They ought to do a Revolution so Great indeed being so near as 97. My most Humble Petition therefore is That if to the most Dread Soveraigns and to the High Court of Parliament It shall not be made to Appear That what hath been publickly offer'd as a Table of Scripture Prophecy and its Calendar of Time is upon Foundations either Inconsistent with Themselves or Contradictory to Scripture Chronology History or Reason There may be an Eye Had in all Consultations and Actions thereunto as to the Testimony of Jesus and so to the Spirit of Prophecy Seeing It is most Agreeable to all Christian and Protestant Reason God should give to so Illustrious a Soveraign Power Senate and to so Great Protestant Nations some signs of so Great and so near an Approaching Time And that Your most Self Abased Minister of Jesus Christ in these Prophesies may be supported and enabled to Revise Perfect and Publish his whole Table and present it together to so Supreme Powers as a Volumn that will within Six next ensuing Summers Justifie it self and further our Accounts at the Kingdom and Appearing of our Infinitely Paramount Lord Jesus Christ. And if This Petition Receive Favour let also the Councel of so Humble a Minister of and according to the Prophesies of Jesus Christ be Accepted to so Great Estates In which I Appeal to God I most Humbly and Earnestly pray I may speak as and only as the Oracles of God in these Four Moments of Advice from Prophecy Advice 1. That the Arms of the Protestant Refugees of France of the Vaudois of Protestants in general be more valued and under God more Relyed upon then mixed Confederacies with Kingdoms and States that yet Give their Power to the Roman Beast Give leave therefore to Weigh in the Ballance of the Sanctuary each part First shewing the disadvantages to be Feared in mixed Confederacies in Two Things 1. It ought to be well pondered that at this very Time All Princes and States who yet Give their Kingdom to the Beast are therein as yet in a State of War with the Lamb that is with Jesus Christ now about to Reprize wholly and perfectly his Kingdom from that Antichrist Now seeing the Main Cause of Dispute at this Time betwixt this Nation and France is a Protestant Government and indeed the Protestant Religion in general in the World Whether the Lamb will Accept the Service of Them who are in Actual War is much to be doubted

the King safe as through a thick Wood of Deaths to Cover His Head as by Miracle in the Day of Battle So to Poize the Motion of that Messenger of Death That it came so near as it were to Tell Him and All that Heard of it It could Go so far and no farther And as to the Success of the Expedition It is such as that the Principal City and therewith the Supreme Civil Power was immediately and so continues de Facto vested in the King And as a Seal of it the Former Prince God Remov'd from that Nation even as from this to declare Him the Second Time Intolerable to Prophecy And as to the delay of a perfect Conquest over the Irish though Ireland be in a daily Motion of Self Restitution under the Freest and Fullest Protestant Government since the Reformation Yet It is to be considered as under another Position of Prophecy then England or Scotland the Natives having been so devoted always to the Papacy until nearer the Great Revolution the Kingdom of Christ in Succession at 97. that it will be in a less entire Settlement 3. It was Affirm'd according to Prophecy That God would Secure the King's Interests in this Nation during his Absence And How even to Amazement was this done in the most Peaceable and even most Serene Administration of the Supreme Government by the Queen and in sending that Enemy upon the Coasts back again even after some Success and Insolencies of Appearance without effect in the main and notwithstanding a design lay'd so sure that it was thought Impossible by the Designers as some express'd Themselves without Miracle The Government should not Revolve on King James And in all this I have often declar'd God working for His own Names sake that is for the Kingdom of Christ's sake would pass over the mighty Provocatians of the Nation as is well known to us He hath done in all He hath done for us 3. A Third Great Event which gives me Assurance God hath vouchsafed me a True Judgment in Prophecy is That in the Beginning of the Summer in 87. When the Turkish Affairs gave such a Prospect of the Ruin of that Empire and as I express'd it the Turkish Fall seem'd to be on the Wing yet I did with all Freedom and yet with due Modesty in Honour to the Christian Name Declare and Publish as is yet to be seen That That Ruin or Fall could not be till the Tenth or Ten King'd Supremacy of the Great City of Rome should fall that the Turkish Woe might pass away so as that the Antichristian Apostasie on which it was and is a Judgment might be first so Animadverted upon by God that the Sinful demeritorious Cause and the Judicial Effect might pass off together Now how strangely that Turkish State hath been Repriev'd from Ruin notwithstanding the so many Stupendious Imperial Victories and its Intestine Confusions and how God hath given it the dreadful Face of a Woe again is worthy the Consideration of All that Bear the Name of Christians whether Roman or Reform'd And till the Forty Two Months granted to the Beast shall be at an End viz. 97. It s Constantinoplitan PORT shall not be DE-PORTED Although this Just now Re-Appearance of that Mahometan Force as a Woe and with Terror is very contrary to the declared Judgment of an Apocalyptic Interpreter of our own Nation so Venerable and so Learned that I defer every Thing to Him but only this That in many very Great Points He hath mist the True Key of that Prophecy Now seeing in All Great Predictions against which there are Confident Prejudices that They shall not come to pass Those prejudices are as shutting the Mouth of the Prophet that He shall not be so much heeded even in his General Discourses but styl'd a Fanatical or Brainsick person As God told Ezekiel when he was to foretell the Destruction of Jerusalem which the Jews thought imposible They should lay Bands upon Him as on a Mad-Man c. 3.25 c. 33.22 And this Generally continues till the Great Event Fullfill'd as it also Befell Ezekiel till the City Taken as in Symbol So possibly I must wait for that Great Opening my Mouth with Authority untill 97 or near it if God should please so Long to sustain me But yet as Ezekiel Prophesied at God's Opening his Mouth even all along as we find till the City taken And he that would might Hear and He that would Forbear might untill then Forbear So upon God's thus far Opening my Mouth by Ratifying my Predictions with so very notable Events I look upon it as my duty to present to the Supreme Authority and Councel of the Nation these Assurances beyond what I have assured upon the same Grounds 1. That the Aspiring of any of the Ten Kings of this Formerly Western-Roman-Empire to an Vniversal Monarchy contrary to that variety of Supreme Kingdoms God hath fixed in It under the Emblem of Ten Toes in Nebuchadnezzar's Image Dan. 2. c. 7. Rev. 13.1 and Ten Horns on the Head of the Fourth Beast viz. The Roman Monarchy in his Vision of the Four Beasts and which the Apostle John saw Crowned This Tenfold division is so settled by God that It cannot be changed until As They in Ten such Supremacies have Given their Power and their Kingdom to the Papal Beast as a Spiritual Vniversal Monarch that is an Vniversal Monarch in an Image as the Prophecy expresses it So in the same Ten Kingdoms as some have already They All shall Hate the Whore or Roman Church and so Recall their Power from the Beast As therefore the House of Austria Aspir'd and Fell Low in Power and Reputation in this Thirst after an Vniversal Monarchy Even so shall France And as the dissipation of the Spanish Armada against England was one very Remarkable Turn of the Scale with Relation to the House of Austria even so shall the French Attempts against England be Remark'd 2. The French Protestant Churches cannot be long without some Redress because the Time of the Antichristian Apostasie is now so near its end From whence and not from the Three Years and half of the Witnesses lying dead I collect this Assurance For I always look'd upon that as a mistaken Interpretation however espous'd by the Two so Learned and Reverend Persons Monsieur Jurieu and the Foremention'd Interpreter of our own Country Revel 2.18 c. But I look upon the Church of Thyatyra as the Emblem of those Churches of the Protestation that lye in the Bowels of Princes who yet own Antichristian Rome of which there is none so eminent and conspicuous as the French Protestant Churches either for the Greatness of their Body or for their Former Vindications of Themselves or for their Great Sufferings with whom the Vaudois are Allyed Now it is said Their Last Works shall be Greater then their First and as their Sufferings so shall Their Vindication be and They shall see the First Rising

especially when He hath been and is still giving such mighty Demonstrations of his Presence with us and of his Arm made Bare in this very Protestant Cause It may be very dangerous to over-value the Arm of Flesh in such a Confederacy In this Case we should be as much Ashamed as Ezra of Persian Assistances Seeing that the Hand of our God is for Good on all Them that seek Him and His Wrath is against All Them that Forsake Him at this Time as to the great Cause of Protestancy For this God hath now written in this Nation with a Sun Beam 2. The Success that hath hitherto Attended this Confederacy is not such as to give any Hopes God will manifest Himself with it He hath suffer'd all the Motions of it to be Clogg'd and Heavy to prove Ineffectual and on the Loosing Hand as it were to declare The Principals in it are not yet Instruments fitted for his Service in the Prosecution of that Interest He is now pursuing in the World and so particularly in these Nations 3. We know the most Native Administration of Government in the Grand Confederates is Persecution of the Protestant Religion and Inquisition upon it What Wonder then if such Blended Interests are un-successful And it is now the more considerable that the Wheels of Providence where Things are Right set will be as we have seen with a Divine speed But I do Freely Acknowledge There are Two Things that seem to Countersway and Incline to the Confederacy on the other side 1. That as it hath been said the State of the Western Christendom as It may be call'd but is indeed in the Greater parts of it Antichristendom is by Prophecy determined into Ten or a Multiplicity of Kingdoms On this Account Any of the Ten though if not Revuls'd from the Beast they are in Prophetic Language Horns of the Papacy may yet be us'd by God as heretofore to hold that Multiplicity Equal and Firm and so may serve to Reduce any one that would swell beyond its due Scituation and Proportion of Room on that Head And this is indeed the Highest Amount of what hath been and very Hardly hath been done by the Confederacy as yet God having suffer'd for great Reasons as will ere long Appear so dangerous an Extravasation of the French Power even as if It were the Beastian Power and in its 666. as some Learned Men have Thought among us but will soon so Retrench it as to shew that opinion to be meer mistake and I am assur'd especially by Those I have Just now declar'd 2. How far the Confederacy of Protestants with Papal Powers may be of use to Encline them to the Reformation God having made use of outward Force not so much in Enclining Princes to Fall off from Rome in the Beginning Reformation as of more Evangelical Methods Rational and Free Communications of Truth Providential and Friendly Obligations much more now But I fear the Time of the great Re-Reformation though so near is not near enough at this Time to hope yet for so Blessed a Fruit of the Confederacy nor does any Thing Appear like it Adv. 2. I would most Humbly Advise that there might be under so Great an Authority and Influence an Assembly of Men Learned and Loving the Kingdom of our Lard Jesus Christ who might discover so Admirable a part Hitherto it may be call'd a Terra Incognita of Scripture even the Stupendious Prophesies of it First by Single and then Compared and Joyned endeavours For They now are big and ready to Travel in their Completion The Ignorance of which is a greater Reproach of Theologers then some Diseases of Physicians and is a Judiciary Blindness on all Christians during the Apostasie The Affairs of Nations are more concern'd therein then in Forming Armies and Equipping Navys which are but Subordinate to those Completions and often not so much as that as we have seen I am bold to say if I had as now God hath vouchsafed me understood Prophecy in the Years 48 50 and so onward in the very Top of Those Powers over the Nation and kept close and steddy to the Guidance of it I should certainly have Foreseen the Re-enstating the Church of England that lay then in the Dust and so of the Royal Family that should do it And as according to Prophecy even in the Full Tyde of the Imperial Victories I declar'd the Impossibility of the Turks being dismounted from the Constantinoplitan Heighths Even so and much more might by such Compared Researches the Affairs of Nations and Churches be so understood as to be Conducted with greater Judgment and Resolution And what could so great a Protestant Assembly take with more Sageness and Honour under their Care and Patronage of more Honour then Ptolemy's 70 Particularly the State of the present Government in the Assurance of its Stability rests on the Resolution of one Illustrious Point of Prophecy viz. The Slaying of the Witnesses whether It be past or not For if it were not seeing the True Sense of it is a Suppression of All Protestant Churches for a Time It is not I but the Thing it self speaks This Revolution must of necessity Revolve For as in Rescue of these Nations from the Return of Popery This Revolution came even miraculously to pass much more by the Fullfilling of Prophecy then by Humane Sagesse or Power So if such a Slaying of the Witnesses were ye to be There would certainly to serve Providence therein be a Return of Romish Power which must of necessity Roll back this Revolution But although the mention of the Three days and a Half as the most Immediate Precedent of their Rising and its Great Concomitants seem to Favour such an Apprehension Although the Sense of many excellent Persons and very understanding in Prophecy particularly if Truly His that Prophecy of A. B. Usher encline that way and Lastly Although the usual manner of God Introducing his great Deliverances by very dark Prefaces would much perswade it Yet as I am most Assured the main Sense as I have already published of the Three Days and a Half Intends a much Longer Time even the whole Deep Time of the Antichristian Reign parallel to the Lying of Christ in the Grave so there are great Considerations that assure me There cannot be so much as an Epitome or Compendious Slaying of the Witnesses or so dark a State upon Protestancy yet to come 1. Because the Time of the Witnesses Full and Total Rising is so near that there cannot possibly be Time for the Operation of the Instruments of their suppression or Slaying of their Lying Dead and then for their Rising 2. Because there is a State of Protestant Churches that are so secur'd as by a Divine Determination That They cannot from their First Settlement in the Reformation be any more Reduced under Popish Slavery of which sort one of the Principal is the Church of England as Appear'd by the sudden Jealousie that awoke at those

Essays of Popery to Re-Invade it and the universal Zeal of the Nation to Stemm that Tyde that was offering to Flow in was a most undoubted Impression from Heaven upon so many that have too little Sense of the Power of that profession upon Them to be otherwise mov'd And if It should seem to be any Objection that the Church of England lay so long suppress'd as from 42 to 60. I have no desire to say it but Truth obliges me to say that even that Judgment upon it was for its so Voluntary Returns to more in the Synagogue of Sathan under the pretence of Antiquity then could be Allowed by its very own Standard of Reformation and as a Sample of the perfect Removal of that its very Standard as not Seal'd in the Sanctuary nor of Ezekiel's Just Temple-Weights Measures and so to be by the great Re-Reformation Broken 3. Those Suffering Reformed Churches have but Time before the Full Rising of the Witnesses to do their Last Greater Works then their First and to see the Dawns of the Morning Star in their Vindication from and Victory over their Oppressors Adv. 3. Let it please so great Princes and Councels to set before Them the Late Doings of God by the Turkish again prevailing Force and judge whether It does not as in a Mirrour shew such a Lengthning out of that Woe on the so called Christian World while the Idolatrous Worship of Wood and Stone the Thefts the Sorceries and Fornications of the Romish Communion still continue And that this very Thing might be and hath been predicted according to Prophecy and therefore of how great Moment Judgment according to Prophecy is even beyond Victory it self It being predicted in the midst of Imperial Victories And therefore the whole Council of God as to the Powers of these Nations cannot be declar'd by Preaching without Research of Prophecy especially Concerning the Kingdom of Christ and continual regard had to it Let the Reason or Rethorick of Such discourses be otherwise never so Great Adv. 4. Let it please the King and the Queen and the Nobles and the Commons in Parliament Assembled that the most Powerful Scripture-way of Preaching and Prayer may have All Advantages of Encouragement given to spread abroad in Cities Towns and Countreys and most Eminently in Camps and Navies that the Spirit of Debauchery Prophaness and Atheisticness that is so Prodigiously abroad may be quench'd And that Choice of Persons who are to Adventure their Lives may be made so far as is possible of such who have a Knowledge of that Excellent Cause Protestancy for which They so adventure For though with very Un-Reform'd Protestants as once He said with Wounded Men God hath and will still work for his Names sake for a while Yet nearer the Kingdom of Christ He will not endure such Persons Let us therefore prepare a High way for our God and make His Paths streight And They who thus Honour God He will honour but They who despise him shall be Lightly esteemed Let us not therefore to Conclude Hope their Hope not Fear their Fear who measure All safety and Success by a Confederacy tho' mixed on one side and Slavishly Fear a Papal Confederacy on the other But let us Sanctifie the Lord of Hosts Himself with an Emphasis as we are commanded and let Him be our Fear and our Dread Isa 8.13 Let us know God Alarms the King and these Nations to serve Him in France And it is to he hop'd and pray●d rather then that we should not He will necessitate us For if we do not it is most certain the Government will Fall into Dishonour first and then into Confusion Lastly into Ruin Now if These Things be despised disbelieved or Ridicul'd It is but what Reception Prophecy however Administred hath always Found in the World But it cannot be Judged by Mans day I count therefore nothing dear to Fulfill this Ministery and I shall always Rejoyce in its Acceptance so as may abound to the Account of the Accepters Especialiy in Yours to me Most Awful Supreme Powers For whom I dayly bow my Knees as a Minister of Jesus Christ to so great Principalities Ministring to you the Divine Prophesies and that Your not to say mine Offering up Your selves according to them may be a Sacrifice Acceptable to God being Sanctified by the Holy Ghost FINIS