be no Vacuity Rex nunquam moritur where God holds the Succession and its Law firm and so it is to the very Kingdom of Christ Just then when the Christian Emperour deceas'd tht Bestian Emperour succeeded and that was indisputably at 475 and then his forty two Months of Duration succeeded and it was a large Time as Prophecy draws them out and they are still current they must have been yet a long time ago begun for there was the sixth King in Being when the Apostle wrote signifying his Time then in spending The seventh had no long time That end of things the Apostle declares Ch. 18. c. 19. c. 20. c. 21. is beyond all Controversie upon due yea but small Consideration not yet come Therefore this eighth King must have been long upon the Throne and now near the end of his forty two months For he came at the very first of them He came then though as an Infant Prince a Prince as in the Cradle yet then he came Humane History is not more competent to declare the Time when Antichrist was born than the Jews could pronounce aright when the Christ was born yet some chosen Observers there were of the one and of the other some or alarming Indications The Father Jerom sounded it aloud or rather by Inspiration before hand proclaim'd it but God hath judg'd it he hath declar'd it and there can be no incertainty in it When the short-liv'd Christian Emperours and their Empire dyed in the West then it was The true Seat of the Roman Empire being at seven headed seven hill'd Rome was by a wonderful Operation of Providence quitted by the Dragon to be the Seat of the Beast the Christian Emperours resided elsewhere most for still that was the Metropolis of the Bestian Empire Constantinople did but borrow the Name by a secret of Providence of Nova Roma as useful for some Types of Prophecy when the Christian Western Empire was cessated then the Eighth King succeeded his Fourty two Months then began I come now to the second Head of this Discourse The Head 2 Kingdom of Christ must come immediately after the Beasts Fourty two months ended The Law of the Succession requires it it must be then immediately proclaim'd It does not appear all at once no Kingdom does so But its Preparations are seventy five Years So great so glorious an Empire so just so even and cubical in its Thousand Years must have an honourable Preparation And it is but short in comparison During this time all sorts of warnings are given by the seven Thunders unseal'd Revel 14. all kind of Justice done upon Offenders by the Vials c. 16. The Beast hath a kind of dying Life as an outdated Usurper not yet executed but that hath lost his usurped Empire and then Lak'd for Ever This Succession of the Kingdom of Christ is dated by Prophecy to the end of the 1260 Days For then the Witnesses rise go out of their Sackcloth are array'd in a white Cloud Ascend to Heaven they cannot Ascend in Sackcloth but for 1260 Days Sackcloth was their Shrowd it is then certain the 1260 Days End It is certain also the Kingdom of Christ is then proclaim'd for when the second woe past away the third comes quickly No delay and the third woe Trumpet brought it and the first Sound or Report is The Kingdoms of this World are become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ therefore lastly the forty two months must end with the 1260 days for Christ abated nothing of them by his Kingdom overhastily as is to be shewn and the Beast was to have so many for his Reign The 1260 days and the forty two months ending together Head 3 and the forty two Months beginning at 475 they must be adjusted one to the other as one being Time of the Sun the other as Time of the Moon For as in all Languages and parts of the World Days must and do signifie most properly the Time measured by the Sun so in the eastern and most especially the Jewish and Scripture Language Months signifie only and solely the Time as measured by the Moon and are call'd Novitates Newnesses or Times measured by each new Congress of the Moon with the Sun or new Moons so that however another way of speaking hath prevailed with us a Month of the Sun is as improper as a day of the night or a day measured by the Moon so that if words can signifie as they are always in Scripture us'd to signifie Months must signifie Time according to the motion of the Moon And further as hath been already shewn the Symbol is of the peculiar use in this Prophecy to semble Time of the Night of the Moon that the True Church hath under its Feet and as shall be more seen in a great Remarque upon the Mahometan Moon Because therefore days months years as they are within this Line of Time must all lye within Time Times half Time and equal 1260 days or years There are twice Forty two Months that knitting one within another will supply the shortness to 1260 Days or Years of the Forty two Months either of the Gentiles ending thirty eight years sooner or those of the Beast beginning thirty eight years later than those 1260 Days And as the Moon could be no Moon if there were no Sun to lend it Light so the Sun on a body prepared and moving to it as the Moon casts a Light like that of the Moon certainly and without fail In the same manner there could be no Antichristian months or Church if there were not a true Church and its Seed the Witnesses cloth'd with the Sun of Righteousness all those 1260 Years which cast those Months And if there be such a body as the Antichristian Church moving to the Christian Church as that does it must needs derive Months from its Days equal one to the other And it is most apparent that waving Scriptures round Number Unto the exactness of considerably less than a Years difference the Time of Forty two prophetical months adjusted by the strictest Accountant to the time of 1260 prophetical Days measured by the Moon 's motion from one new Conjunction with the Sun to another will be as 1222 Years to 1260 Years so that if the forty two months of the Beast begin at 475 the 1260 days beginning at 437 they will both end necessarily at 1697 which is the thing that ought to be shewn so great an Exactness so surely arguing the true Calculalation of this Line I hope all will agree cannot be bychance I request then I say a strictness of Account which to avoid both longsomness and perplexity in this Discourse I do not give but by so strict Account two mistakes will be escaped which may arise from a general apprehension of this Matter For it will then be found the Calculation is not to be made by accounting the Time of a Synodical Month to twenty nine days so many hours c.
a Line of Time in the Cypher of Time Times half a c. 7. Time applyed to a little Horn of the fourth Beast The third pourtrays Three Beasts and makes a little Horn of the Third of them a Type to the little Horn of the fourth Beast of the c. 8. former Vision and the Veil of a Type being thrown over There is a Line of 2302 Days drawn out by the Action of the Type * Antiochus Epiphanes bearing some Resemblance both in Action and Duration of Time naturally and not prophetically understood to that Anti typical little Horn It is drawn I say to the Kingdom of Christ rising on that little Horns Ruine at the End of the 2300 Ev. Mor. The State of the four Monarchies in the fourth of which the Kingdom of Christ breaks the whole Image is much the same in the main in this Vision as in the former The Antichristian King is guilty of the same Blasphemy against the God of Gods or the Lord of Lords and King of Kings as in the former Visions against the Prince of Princes and the most high and lastly the same Date of Time Times half a Time is applied to him yet notwithstanding there are some peculiar Things which this Vision carries all along upon the whole Line of the 2300 Ev. Morn by way of farther Explication as also of the excellent Vision of the seventy weeks and of the Word going forth before it which Vision of the seventy weeks most resembles this Vision in this that it is rather a prophetical History than Imagery The prefatory Description of Christ hath several Magnificencies of Presence like those Revel 1. and also Dan. 7. wherein the Divine Nature of Christ appears in his Mediatorship But in this they differ from the Majesty of Christ as on his Throne wherein Ezekiel's Visions exceed and for the sake of which He is so often honour'd with the Title Son of Man so peculiar to Christ's Kingdom and wherein Daniel came nearest in the Vision of the Sanctuary cleans'd and the Corrival to Christ's Princedome broken without hand at the end of the 2300 Ev Morn All which shall be then fulfill'd in the State of the Jews restor'd of the New Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Christ Rev. 20. 4. and therefore there he is peculiarly call'd Son of Man as before noted To shew it measures the same Time as that of the Ev. Mor. Daniel is much in the same manner affected It begins in its very Date near the Beginning of the Persian Monarchy it runs most evidently to the same End And having now made these general Remarks upon it I come to observe what is most particular in it in the way of a short Elenchus or Table of it 1. It is peculiar to this Vision that tho Christ calls to mind in it His supreme Assistance to His at the first Year of Darius who to distinguish him is call'd Darius the Mede and of the Seed of the Medes at the very Entrance of Cyrus's Persian Monarchy yet his third Year is the critical and precise Date of it for then that wonderful and unexpected stop upon so Royal a Decree by the divine Permission was made Ezr. c. 3. compar'd with c. 4. shewing the leisurely Progresses of the divine Kingdom and as is most probably conceiv'd Cyrus in his third Year making foreign Expeditions Cambyses or Artaxerxes his Son was left Viceroy upon whom the Enemies of the Jews gain'd so far that though they could not plainly command a Cessation yet by Sleights and Artifices They eluded the Decree and frustrated the Work all the days of Cyrus But Cyrus being dead in the days of the proper Reign of Artaxerxes or Cambyses the Son of Cyrus the Adversaries of the Jews writ to him and obtain'd his Edict against the Progress of the Building And in the Reign of Ahasuerus in the beginning of his Reign wrote they also an Accusation and still prevail'd Now by Ahasuerus I understand the Counterfeit Smerdis Ezr. 4. v. 5 6 7. whose Reign being very short it is said In the beginning of his Reign And by Artaxerxes I understand Cambyses who reign'd indeed before Ahasuerus yet the Sacred History intending a fuller Account of the whole matter gives first the general Account that all the days of Cyrus the Work was frustrated then takes in Ahasuerus first because his Reign was short and then gives the true Series of Things in Artaxerxes who was first in the days of Cyrus possess'd against the Jews and suffer'd an artificial Impedition of them When he came to Reign he laid a Prohibition on their Building When Ahasuerus began to Reign after the Death of Artaxerxes the Jews upon that change attempted to revive their Work but on Letters to Ahasuerus by their Enemies were still prohibited At the Reign of Darius being twice discouraged they lay still till arous'd by Haggai and Zechariah the Prophets and confirm'd by Darius in a new Enterprise they begin the Work again That which justifies this as the True Order is That the History expresly tells us upon the Letter to Artaxerxes The work ceas'd and that it ceas'd till the second Year of Darius the Persian all the Days of Artaxerxes Cambyses all the short Reign of Ahasuerus or the Counterfeit Smerdis Under Artaxerxes then it began to cease and till then the Cessation continued And thus often Sacred Story postpones that on which it intends to place the full and largest Accounts and therein directs the true Order yet As here Artaxerxes is postpond to Ahasuerus although before him And of this Delay of the Building the Space otherwise unknown is made known in this Vision by the one and twenty days Resistance Christ found from the Angel-Prince of Persia against whom Michael the Angel-Prince of the Jews stood with Christ Now these twenty one days viz. days for years for what could twenty one days Resistance signifie to such a stop of the Building if naturally taken Daniel observ'd a symbolical Fast three weeks of days a day for a year as Ezekiel observ'd on each side so that it is true The weeks of days do distinguish those weeks of days from the seventy weeks of years and yet they are a Type of twenty one days for years also so that here we have an Explanation of so much Time as the stop of the Building amounted to as so many years of the Persian Time as was before explain'd of the Word going forth and it justifies that Account so far towards 75 where it is possibly most needed 2. Here we have also the Intimation of the whole History of Esther as pertaining to the Decree of the Jews Destruction and Deliverance compris'd in the short Note of Christ's speedy dispatch of this Vision to Daniel and returning to sight for the Jews with the same Angel prince of Persia who Zec. 3. 1. as Sathan stood at their right-hand to resist them and this Reason to believe That Ahasuerus was Xerxes
the beginning of this Line which is one great Confirmation that we are upon the true Time of it for to declare this as it were with Industry there are even thirty joyn'd to the 1260 and more openly Three Fifteens or Forty Five to the 1290 that we may thereby be engag'd to look back upon the whole Line and find it throughout so compacted as may be easily computed and hath been before observ'd on Daniel's Vision 3. Each Community hath its just share in the intimate and full extended Time of this Line and each twice given The Beast hath first his intimate Time twice given in Daniel and by two forty two months given first to his Gentiles till his own rising and then forty two Months to himself he hath the utmost extent of Time Times half time as before declared and drawn out of the 2300 Evenings In just correspondence with which the Servants of God as collected and congregated in the Woman the Church that they might not be accused as having Relation to no Church and single in the Witnesses and the Seed who have the Witness that Apo. 12. 17. the Church might not seem a Notion onely have each one and the same 1260 da. drawn out of the 2300 mornings assign'd to them and the Witnesses three dayes and a half and the Woman three times and a half or season or intimate Time answering the Beasts intimate Time who must have the Servants of God as a subject to work upon while his Tyranny lasts Now that the Time at large or the Twice 1260 Days must needs be the same and differ only in notion as the Church and the Witnesses or the Seed that have the Witness of Jesus do is most evident because lying within the same Continent of Time Times Semi Time and being both of the longest reach and exactly of the same size it is not possible they should begin or end sooner one than another as we have found it possible the Gentiles and the Beasts months may do For neither are they so united as the Woman and the Witnesses And their months though of the same size one with another are yet not of an equal extent to time times half time at their full length nor to the 1260 dayes the just measure of the three times and half although both the Forty two months uniting as we have said are neither longer nor shorter than the 1260 dayes nor than the Three Times and half the common Womb of all And even so the three Times and half of the Woman and the three dayes and half of the Witnesses must be the same also seeing the Witnesses and the Woman are the same and the 1260 dayes the same and no difference but only notional as was explain'd For if they were different the Woman should have no parallel to the three dayes and half of the Witnesses nor the Witnesses have any parallel with the three times and half of the Witnesses which as most unbecoming so Uniform a Type are impossible also in such a sameness Thus the Marches or Out-lying Borders as well as the Intimate Time are full on the side of both Communities the Beasts Tyranny and the Sufferings of the Servants of God The last Seventy five years by the Voices Revel 14. and by the Vials Rev. 16. move on to the two utmost Pillars of Time It is done It is done Rev. 16. 17. Rev. 21. 6. Object In the former or after Parts of this Discourse I offer as I hope most Convictive Proofs of all these things in particular and answer all Objections I shall only at this time remove this one viz. There seems no more reason to understand the forty two Months as Lunar Months than the days of Years as Lunar Years Answ There is very great difference for if we look throughout the Scripture and the whole manner of Jewish Computation of Time we shall find They always understood Months Lunar Months and the very Solemnity of their New Moons absolutely requir'd it so that to understand them otherwise must needs be to understand against that constant use of Scripture and the Importance of the Name of their Months Scripture uses But now their Years were so necessarily Solar Years for there can indeed be no Year but strictly Solar that they most industriously provided to Adequate their Lunar Time to their Solar by Intercalations and Inserted Months or a double Adar which was their last Month of the Year we every Leap-Year by a double Twenty Eighth of February As may be seen by the Learned in that Excellent Tract of Maimonides of Intercalations which gives great light to this whole Matter As shall be farther taken notice of in the after Management of this Discourse Having given this general View of this Grand Prophetical Line of Time which appears to be of sovereign Use to the Church of God by the so often Repetition of it I think it necessary to make these Practical Remarks upon it for the universal profit of all that read it It ought to administer no Scandal to us that Christianity Remark 1 hath yet had no greater Effect in the Universe upon Jews Mahometans Pagans That it hath not won upon the world to an universal Conversion to it That it hath not prevail'd upon Christians themselves to higher degrees of Religious and Holy Affections and Actions That it hath not reconcil'd Men more to one another and made the Wolf and the Lamb to lye down together That it hath not fill'd the Earth with the knowledge of God as the Waters cover the Sea That it hath not deriv'd down a more universal state of outward Blessing Prosperity Peace and Happiness For these are the great Promises and Pretentions of the Kingdom Christ design'd to erect in the World now an Enemy hath done all this in the Wisdom of God and Christ the old Dragon the Serpent Satan hath inhabited and acted a Bestian Empire first as Pagan and in the very appearance of a Dragon watching to devour the manly Birth of Christianity and since That Empire became Christian in a Bestian Kingdom of Apostasie and this hath surpris'd and cut off the blessed Emanations of Christianity and the Gospel and made the Christian World except in some small chosen Parts of it like the Wilderness like Heathen Pagan Nations and Kingdoms full of Scandals to the great hinderance of the other parts of the World from submission to the Scepter of Christ or taking upon them his Name and Profession and made ineffectual this Profession to the very Professors of it And this hath been lo these twelve hundred and fifty years wait only till the ten are run out also and you shall see a greater change in the World than ever yet it hath known Christianity shall then prevail more in a little time than it hath done ever yet The Light of one day shall be as the Light of seven till it grows brighter and brighter to the perfect Day of Christs Kingdom the first
or sell that hath not the Mark or Name on his Right-hand or on his Fore-head or the Name or the Number of the Name nor so much as live if he doth not worship the Image The end of which intimate Time is by Proportion 1517 and so on Rev. 13. 15. to the end But now besides this measure of intimate Time because the Beast is Lord of Time Times Half a Time and so constituted by God his Forty two Months are an exact Measure also of the whole Line beginning at that most famous Epoch so well known to History the Cessation of the Western Empire 475 whence his Forty two Months to be set as Lunar Time to the 1260 Days of Solar Time must be 1222 and so beginning at 475 must end at 1697 with the 1260 Days beginning 437 thirty eight Years before them with the Gentiles Forty two Months according to the Laws of this Line of Time and of the Sun 's and Moon 's Motion collated one with another And to confirm the right Calculation of this whole Time to us Imperial Time is adjusted to it by the Emblems of the falling Empire in the West till the vulgar 606 when the Beast as a Star falling to the Earth enlightned that Western Empire so darkned before that neither Sun nor Moon or Stars shined in its third part and presently after arose the Mahometan Hegira or Account of Time at 626 the which Imperial Time is accounted till the Fall of the Eastern Empire under the same Emblem of the third part of Men which also is to be cleared within seventy Years of which intimate Time ceases and that Change we call the Reformation ensu'd at 1517 represented by its most significant Emblems and the Mahometan Power still continued and yet is to continue to the end of the whole Line 1260 which goes to 1290 and so to 1335 the happy end of all the 2300 Ev. Morn All which I cannot but hope will be acknowledg'd a rational and clear Account of this admirable Line Now of every of these particulars I undertake particularly to discourse and although I confess the Order of Nature is first to speak of the Kernel of Time or the intimate Time to which the Fore-going Time at large is but a Preparation and After-Time but an Accomplishment yet because I must follow as the Divine Spirit hath gone before I begin with the Ambient Time of the Gentiles Forty two Months and of the Witnesses twelve hundred sixty Days in Sack-cloth and of the Woman in the Wilderness that first appear and are plac'd as in Complex one with another before the Inner Time or Season In beginning with which Sacred Prophecy is pleas'd to make the way plainer to us To begin then first with the Gentiles Treading the Holy Court and City which as hath been declared does not run as a principal Character but at farthest to the first part of the intimate State or Season and there is supported by the latter Forty two Months of the Beast to the very end of the whole 1260 dayes Now the knowledge of this either State or Character of Time is peculiarly given by the Apocalypse and hath no other Intimation in Daniel than what is common to the Time Times Semi-Time and to the Twelve hundred sixty joyn'd with the Thirty more and so making Twelve hundred ninety at the taking away the Daily and yet because it is of very great Use and Necessity in this Account of Time therefore is given so distinct and express in this excellent Apocalyptick Prophecy which surpasses Daniel even as the New Testament exceeds the Old and as Revelation however mystical excells Type and Figure of an older date Now the great Use of this Character is this When the Beast does neither in the Account of Prophecy nor Accord of History rise till some years after the Twelve hundred sixty years began nor reach his State especially design'd to be set out by Daniels Prophecy till many years after the 1260 years began viz. the very beginning of his most intimate State at his so often mentioned 666 in prevision of which it is said The Saints Times and Laws are given into his hand Season Seasons Dan. 7. 25 and half a Season meaning this intimate Time Upon all this it may well be ask'd How came the Daily to be Taken so early away what is the occasion of the Witnesses putting on Sack-cloth or the Womans flying into the wilderness seeing all these belong to the Beasts Tyranny who did not yet exist nor till so long after appear'd Regnant or why are the Twelve hundred sixty days made to begin so much sooner than the Beasts Forty two months Now in Answer to this The Gentiles treading under foot the holy Court and City appears timely to give cause to all these things and to shew the Agreement of Prophecy herein with it self These Gentiles are no other than they that are said Revel 13. to dwell on the Earth whose Names are not written from the foundation of the world in the Lambs Book of Life whom that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that other Beast ver 11. of whose two Horns like a Lamb was spoken before and who is hereafter further to be explain'd instructed to worship the Grand Apocalyptick Beast as one with the Pagan Roman Empire in its Idolatrous Universality call'd therefore the First Beast and to make an Image to it viz. an Image unto its Idolatry and to its Monarchy which Things are hereafter to be explain'd upon the Beast but at present it is easie to be understood The newly Christianiz'd Pagans of the Roman Empire were under the Change of the Emperours to Christians violently chang'd to the Profession of Christianity and yet at the same time fond of their Ancient Pagan Rites and Customs as also of the Glory of their Vniversal Empire East and West Now meeting with that Two-horn'd Lamb-like Beast fond of the same Sensual Religion but in another sort of Imagery as also of the Earthly Universality and Glory but of it in another Appearance also it may very readily be conceiv'd how complyant they were one with the other in both these things so as immediately to fill up the Outward Court and to Take away the true Datly Publick Worship of God and so to prepare for the Bestian Kingdom under the Seventh Head before his Existence in his own Forty two months and much more before his Regnancy to which he himself as a principal or chief Member of the other Beast though not yet the Grand Beast and after in his own Infancy when his 42 Months began as that Grand Beast was never wanting in his Contributions All which rightly conceiv'd does wonderfully conciliate the Prophecy to the History especially when I come to clear all Doubts upon those two Beasts Apoc. 13. For thus according to Daniel All these things were negotiating for the Beast who was the Prince design'd and on whom all redounded in the Issue and these Gentiles under
same time aggress'd were all taken from the Maccabean Words we mention'd before although it is evident they have their Ground of Allusion chiefly from Sacred Writ it self yet by way of Argument ad Homines to the Men themselves this is no unworthy Observation nor can it seem undesign'd by Providence 4. There is in this very Epoch of the wonderful Line we are upon such a Concurrence of Prophetical Notes both of the States and of the Times adjusted that it is as if the Holy Spirit of Prophecy had said to us Observe it This is the Beginning the Era and Epoch of it For first the treading the Holy City and the Court is in words the very same with the place of the Sanctuary cast down and the Sanctuary and the Host given to be trodden under foot Dan. 8. v. 11. 13. in the Vision of the Daily taken away and of the 2300 Ev. Morn From whence is to be concluded that the Forty two Months must as was before asserted be detach'd from the 2300 Even and that there the Daily taken away begins The 1260 Days immediately following in Account as concurrent with the 42 Months shew They are taken out of the 2300 Morn and confirm this to be the Time of the Daily taken away because the Daily taken away is the Character of the first Point of Time to the Twelve hundred ninety of which Twelve hundred sixty must needs be part seeing they go on to 1335 at the end of all and so many cannot be found in the 2300 which is the Date of the whole Vision of the daily taken away or in so great a Number but in these 1290 joyn'd with 1335. The twelve hundred sixty being joyn'd and the same twelve hundred sixty with those of the Womans dwelling in the Wilderness do both set the Era or beginning of that State to be even with the Daily taken away and do also shew the Equality of Time Times half a Time with the twelve hundred sixty days if taken at their full extent for they are joyn'd Dan. 12. with the scattering the Power of the Holy People which scattering was 1260 Days Revel 12. 6. * And Time Times half Time compare v. 14. there being not a plainer Expression of the Wilderness-state in an Old Testament mystical Prophecy than scattering and that Word accomplishing to scatter does subindicate some Power that began this scattering which was this of the Gentiles and then that the Antichristian Prince accomplish'd this scattering both to the highest degree and to the utmost moment it was to last and because he as hath been said is Lord of the Time Times Half Time the very naming them is naming of him And now if all this be not demonstrative of the Epoch or Beginning of these 1260 Days I shall be bold to say Nothing in Prophetical Scripture is capable of being demonstrated so much as by and within Prophetick Scripture it self which to assert must needs weaken the Evidence of Scripture by and from it self throughout I confess it may seem the Church is sooner in the Wilderness than the Witnesses are in Sackcloth for assoon as the Woman brought forth the Man-child it was caught up to the Throne of God which Bringing forth and Enthroning was certainly when the Empire became Christian in Constantine and that was long before 437 when the Witnesses put on Sackcloth as I assert But to clear this it is to be consider'd there are three synchronous Descriptions of the very Beginning of this Line of Time or of the Apostacy The first is bottom'd upon the substantial and sensible Foundations of Imperial History under prophetick Figures viz. Of the blasted Western Empire embellish'd with very curious Types of the Apostacy then beginning as shall be shewn upon the first Trumpet sounding when we come to it The second is by the more Scriptural Images of the Witnesses putting on Sackcloth on account of the Gentiles treading the Holy City or Court And the third by the parallel Shade of the Woman flying into the Wilderness The First hath a plain distinct Indication of things preparing to the Apostate State in the Declaration of a new Roll of Martyrs * Revel 6. 11. c. 7. c. 8. v. 1. in the sealing the 144000 Sufferings after the Christian Empire in the Silence in Heaven for only half an Hour in the Angels preparing to sound all which were so many distinct Steps towards the Apostacy This is the most full and clear The Second hath one like it in the Reed given to John with a Command to measure the Temple which was parallel and contemporary to the Sealing by all Rules of Proportion as we shall see The Third is the Womans flying into the Wilderness where indeed there is no open mention of a Preparation but the Event is given in one view viz. The Woman flying into the Wilderness yet in that the Woman having been first spoken of her History as to the utmost extended Time of the Apostacy is given together so as to make it evident the so sudden Assignation of the 1260 Days in the Wilderness is given both to match the Preparation of the two former Types to the Apostacy as also to joyn the Witnesses and the Womans twelve hundred sixty Days into one and the true Order both of that Preparation and Vergency as also of the 1260 Days beginning is given in the second giving of the Womans Times and Half Time as shall be made most clear when we come to parallel these three synchronous Descriptions in their Events at the First Trumpet Now as to the Involution of these Three States and Characters as necessarily contemporizing one with another it is even self-demonstrative for when the Daily Service of God is taken away and the Bestian Gentiles delay the Kingdom of Christ in Preparation to the Antichristian Prince the Witnesses must if there be such a prophetick Type prophecy in Sackcloth and retire to the Altar of Incense as to private Worship and if the Woman be the same with the Witnesses or her Seed if They are hid in Sackcloth and there be such a Type as of her self in the Wilderness fed with hidden Manna how can both be but at the same Time And if the Witnesses be in Sackcloth and the VVoman in the VVilderness and there be such a Type as of the Gentiles treading the Holy Court That and That only being then in view the Beast being not risen must be the occasion of it And if there be such a Type as Sealing which signifies Secrecy Retirement and Delay the efficacy of that must be at the same Time with the parallel Symbols for this ought to be a Standard throughout The Gentiles and the Beast causing the Sufferings of God's Servants and the Servants of God the Sufferers must in all things parallel one another according to the Degrees of Elevation for the Action of the one necessarily produces Sufferings the State of the other receives Sufferings as necessarily so
their several Symbols require there must be the Efficients to work there must be the Subjects to work upon Both at the same Time There are yet two Symbols more Tangents or immedidiately joyn'd with the beginning of this Line that come in to our Assistance and they are the true Worshippers retiring within the Temple enfolded with the Gentiles entring the outer Court and the Servants of God under the efficacy of their Seal at the first Trumpet That we may make all things then most clear with relation to this Epoch let us more distinctly compare all the Symbols of this Prophecy that immediately touch it and pierce as far as we can into their sense and meaning and joyn therewith that their immediate Touch of this Epoch For if by all these we can well fix it it is an absolute and undoubted foundation of the whole Time Now there are four Symbols all meeting to begin this Time upon each of which we may either Recollect the Substance of what hath been already spoken upon any of them or dilate our Thoughts upon what in any of them hath not yet been explain'd and see how any Intimations or Notes of Compare among themselves reflect Light from one to another 1. That which comes first in the order of the Prophecy as also in order of nature is the sealing the hundred forty four thousand into a Secresie and close Retirement For a Seal on their Foreheads and the Name of the Lambs Father written on their Foreheads differ as a Writing seal'd and a Title open and in Capital Letters compare Revel 7. v. 1. c. and Revel 14. v. 1. c. 2. The Temple the Altar and the Worshippers therein Reduc'd within close and confin'd measures is the next given Symbol And here it is necessary to inquire what is meant by the Temple and the Altar because the Temple sometimes is taken for the whole Area or ground upon which it self and all its Courts and Avenues stood yea even the whole City Jerusalem was reputed a Court to it and the Holy City thereupon we find it styl'd But the Temple at other times is taken strictly for that retyr'd part of it that was under covert and into which the Priests only came There were also two Altars one in the Outer Court which was the Altar of Burnt-offering and Sacrifice in approach to which the Congregation came and the Altar of Incense within the Temple to which the Priests only drew near and the People stood without Luke 1. 9 10. 2. 22. Now it may be a Doubt what Temple and what Altar are here intended and the deciding of the Altar will much contribute to the deciding of the Temple And that the Altar of Incense is alone intended and the Inward Cover'd Temple in which it stood before the Vail or the Holy of Holies these three things do enough assure us 1. The Altar of Incense is brought into view and observation just before this Time of the measuring the Temple as shall be prov'd and in distinction from that Altar under which the Souls lay as Sacrifices compare Revel 6. ver 9. ca. 8. v. 5. c as it were to intimate that the Daily Publick Worship under the Type of Sacrifice was near its Taking away and the private close Worship at the Altar of Incense succeeding and within the Temple with both which the silence agrees 2. The Cry for the loosing the four Angels bound in Euphrates sounds from this Golden Altar of Incense whither the True Worshippers had been long retir'd before the Time of that Cry and were close within the Temple c. 9. 13. 3. The very Symbol it self speaks an inwardest Retirement within the Temple and to the Altar enclosed within that For whatsoever was outward viz. the Outward Court and City was cast out to the Gentiles who trode under foot the Sanctuary and Holy place of Publick Sacrifice viz. the Court where the Sacrifices and People had place and so make up this Symbol For the Gentiles having the Outward Court of Sacrifice under their Feet the Daily Service became taken away so the True Worshippers retir'd to secret Service at the Altar of Incense the Apocalyptick Type of Prayers c. 8. v. 3. 3. The third Symbol is the Witnesses in Sackcloth that as hath been said is a mournful Habit and covers that Glory and Excellency wherewith they were endued by the great Powers committed to them and their Prophecy imports a Delay of some admirable Things they declar'd which till Twelve hundred sixty dayes past could not come to pass 4. The Woman in the wilderness yet in a place prepared by God where she shall be Fed as Elijah in the wilderness in a high and wonderful manner 1 Kings c. 19. v. 5. 6. makes the fourth and last Symbol Revel 12. 6. Now a Wilderness condition is out of view seemingly lost and forlorn the Church therefore in the wilderness fed like Elijah couples the Church with the Witnesses who are so eminently resembled to Elijah and shews they are the same in substance Revel 11. 6. with the Woman under onely the different Notions of single and collected as was before explain'd Now all these Symbols are of nearest Importance for all speak Invisibility Secresie and a State out of view and sight and which conceales its true Excellency within it self so does being Sealed so does worshipping at the Altar of Incense and within the Temple so does the Sackcloth of two so great Prophets so does a Church or Woman in the wilderness and all these are upon Personages of the same Character For so are the Servants of God so are the true worshippers at the Altar in the Temple so are the Martyrs or Witnesses so is the Woman that brought forth the manly Child and whose Seed keep the Commandments of God and hold the Martyry or Testimony of Jesus And then all these we shall find cope and bind with the Gentiles Months in some or other Prophetical Point and Regard All these so closely coordinated Symbols would of themselves much incline us to suppose that they all begin together especially when two of them have the same measure of Time viz. 1260 d. But because there can be no proof so great of the Beginning of these Twelve hundred sixty dayes nor of their whole full and entire length and the several other Notes of Time that will fall in each in their due place as the Beasts forty two months His Number 666 within his Season Seasons half Season of intimate Time the Five months and Five months granted to the Locusts Revel 9. v. 5. 10. the Hour Day Month and Year given to the two hundred thousand thousand Horsemen v. 15. 19 and that great Period at which Christ swore Time should be no more but that in the days of the 7th Trumpet c. Revel 10. 6 7. Because I say all these things can no way be so satisfactorily prov'd as by subtending or stretching out under them and applying to
them the course of historical Time and its Events all along so curiously painted out in this Prophecy I propose this Method of Progress 1. To apply to the sealing to the Altar of Incense and the Temple-worshipers to the Witnesses in Sack-cloth and to the Woman in the Wilderness the Notes of History correspondent to their Beginning according to the Prophetical Symbols and beginning together with the Gentiles forty two Months 2. From this Epoch or beginning to pass by the Prophetical Symbols in agreement with the historical Records to the Beasts forty two Months and to demonstrate their Epoch Continuance and Period 3. By the same supports from Prophecy and History to pass to the beginning of the five and five Months and the space of Time thereby denoted granted to the Locusts Revel 9. 5. 10. 4. Within which space the beginning of intimate Time the reason of it and its whole duration will fall under Examination and its 666 by Prophecy and History 5. About the midst of intimate Time the Hour Day Month and Year of that vast Army of the Horsemen will encounter our Enquiry and the whole Duration require to be stated from their beginning to the killing the third part of men or the end of that space of Time but not of that Power figured by them nor of the Woe they brought 6. At the end of intimate Time and after the killing the third part of men we shall be brought upon the Time of the aforesaid solemn Oath that Time shall be no more which will carry us to the end of this whole Line and wind us up with its self and by every one of these we shall find the Line of this black Time must end at 1697 as it began 437. All which by the guidance of the Prophecy it self and the assistance of the Holy Spirit of it will assure us by the most illustrious and stately products of that whole Time and of greatest Concernment to the Christian World that these 1260 years are a most definite space of so many and no fewer nor more in number and that seeing they must be either Natural or Prophetical Time according to the Standard of a day for a year for the Scripture-Register knows no other sort of Time nor can any instance be given of any other therefore they must be prophetical days or days of years and months of years since the Events destin'd by God to them are so much too great and large for natural Time in their own Nature and in the prophetical descyphar that no more then a year can be a year and yet be crowded up within a Month a Day or Hour no more can those long Tracts of Time-some Action be fettered within three years and a half the highest amount of those Characters of Time if naturally understood without a Contradiction in the very Nature of things SECT V. WHerein it is proved the sealing so intermatched with the inner Temple and Altar measured with the Witnesses in Sack-cloth and with the Woman in the Wilderness and the three first Trumpets in which the Efficacy of the sealing entered intermatched with the Gentiles treading the outer Court with the Dragons persecution of the Woman at her first flight into the Wilderness must according to History begin the whole Time Times half Time the Gentiles forty two Months the 1260 of the 1290 Days when the daily Service Dan 12. 11. was taken away and the Witnesses and the Womans 1260 Days altogether at 437 and so move forward till the fourth Trumpet when the Beasts forty two months began at 475. THat I may settle the beginning of the 1260 Days c. aright the Contents of this Section must be answered and made good in the Body of the Discourse within it I must endeavour these five things then to attain that End by these Enquiries 1. How far the seven Seals had brought down Time from Enquiry 1 our Lord's Resurrection to the first of the seven Trumpets must be diligently enquir'd and settled seeing one follow on the other 2. The Importance of the sealing the Sevants of God after the seven Seals open'd and the conspiring of that Symbol with the Retirement of the Worshippers within the Temple the Witnesses under Sackcloth and the Woman into the Wilderness must be determin'd and settled for the Sealing's Efficacy begins All even the very Trumpets which could not sound till the sealing over 3. The Scope and Intention of the Trumpets is to be carefully estimated in the strict Attention to the Emblem it self and seeing the first four and the sixth display upon third part of Men what third part of Men it is they play upon must be found for the Trumpets play upon that Third of Men runs along the whole Line we are upon and why all this Play upon a Christian Empire 4. It must be duely research'd what the Symbols of the three first Trumpets convey to our notice to what Time History directs us that we may find their Effects 5. It must be justly stated what the Dragon means and how his Persecution of the Woman can agree with the Explanation of the Trumpets seeing both must be at the beginning of the Line because then was the Womans first Flight into the Wilderness which was at the first of the 1260 Days Now if all these can be rationally according to this Prophecy and the Argument of History resolv'd so as to unite with the Gentiles forty two Months and all of them to determine the beginning of this Line to be at the beginning of the Trumpets sounding and both to be at Ann. Dom. 437 and to reach in the three first Trumpets to the Beasts rising at 475 then that will be done which ought to be done for by necessary Consequence the Line must end at 1697. I begin with the first viz. to enquire How far the seven Seals open'd had brought down Time from our Lord's Resurrection to the first of the Trumpets sounding for the Trumpets must needs follow upon the Seals as is most apparent Now since it is very evident the Resurrection of Christ begins the whole course of Apocalyptical Time I know not what can be more demonstrative of any point of Time than to find the Prophecy by the most lively Pictures and Emblems to draw the course of Events from a Time given as from the Resurrection Ann. Dom Vul. 33 to a Time given viz. to the Trumpets suppos'd to be Ann. Dom. Vul. 437. that is from the Resurrection the Apocalyptical Epoch or Time beginning 404 Years Now what could more congruously and even undeniably follow the Resurrection than Christ riding out in his Majesty and Glory in the universal preaching of the Gospel by an Apostolical Ministry and thereby claiming his Kingdom according to the first Seal opened What follows more uninterruptedly upon that than that warlike sett of Emperours and upon the red Horse of War arm'd with a great Sword given them viz. Vespasian Titus Trajan Hadrian respecting especially
did not appear to be hurt during the time times half a time according to the Oath of Christ immediately therefore in pursuance of the former Symbol the Servants of God are seal'd the Worshippers worship not in an open but reserv'd Temple the Witnesses do not enjoy but prophecy and that in Sackcloth the Woman flies to her close Receptacle in the Wilderness and even in pursuance of this same Symbol the seven thunders are seal'd as we shall see Cap. 10. And all this to that very purpose that the Beast may have his time times till the Morning of the half-time when in Declaration of the Right of Christ even then to take the Kingdom because the half-time was entred as the third Day was in the Morning of Christ's Resurrection the Thunders began But that the Beast might have his whole half-time also the Thunders were again seal'd down For were not the Kingdom of Christ thus under Seal its Brightness would immediately consume the man of Sin and his Bestian Kingdom as will be seen at the end of the 1260 Days viz. Ann. 1697 in the first appearance of Christ's Kingdom and more fully at the Appearance it self 75 Years after Let us now inquire when this sealing had its Efficacy and we shall find it hath its Efficacy distinguishingly as to the fixing its Epoch or Beginning at the first of the first Trumpet and so on during the whole Time of the first and second Trumpets until the falling of the Star in the third Trumpet So that the Trumpets and the sealing necessarily begin together as they ought For we find it is thus expresly determin'd to the first of the first two Trumpets for nothing that was hurt in those two first Trumpets viz. the Earth nor the Sea nor any Tree was to be hurt till the sealing past And why was it so but that the Seal might have its defensive Vertue on the sealed which Defence was certainly as early as the hurt else it could not defend It is expresly continu'd all the first and second Trumpet by naming the Earth Sea and Trees for all these were hurt in the two first Trumpets But the Fountains are not nam'd nor the Sun c. not because the sealing did not continue for we find the express mention of it rising within the Time of the first woe Trumpet Revel 9. 4. as of a thing suppos'd to have continued all along But because the Spirit of God would lead us to the new date of Time viz. the Beasts forty two Months negotiated by the event of the third Trumpet or the Imperial Star falling which Star as all History knows fell at 475 immediately on which the Beast in prophetical Account succeeded as the eighth King So that then in the very space of the third Trumpet those Months began and the fourth Trumpet ran upon that new Line of the forty two Months concurrent with the 1260 Days and so forward till Both end at 1697 the one as Time of the Moon or Months the other as Time of the Sun or Days by which we know also when the 1260 days began viz. by computing and adjusting the Lunar Time of forty two months to the Solar Time 1260 days If the months began so famously at 475 The days that both may end together within time times half a time must begin thirty eight Years before or at 437 as hath been before intimated so as to be plainly understood but shall be fully proved Now because of all this the Spirit of God comprehends only what pertain'd to the first two Trumpets within the express security of not being hurt viz. the Earth and Trees of the first Trumpet and the Sea of the second Trumpet till the Servants of God were seal'd Revel 7. 2 3. shewing plainly that then the Efficacy of the sealing began where first the Earth and all green things were hurt in the first and the Sea in the second Trumpet and as it were to hint the Beasts forty two months falling within the third Trumpet and so going on in the fourth There is no mention of the securing the Fountains nor the Lights of Heaven until the Servants of God were seal'd which the Beast could not yet surrogate for being in his Infancy till a Star fell to the Earth Revel 9. 1. which by all Count was at the Time Phocas gave Universality to the Bishop of Rome Then Rome seems to be again enlightned not long before the Mahometan Hegire when the Locusts came forth and therefore then Divine Judgment pursues by three woe Trumpets because then the surprise of the Kingdom of Christ by the cheat of Antichrist reigning more appear'd But after another concurrent date of Time viz. the Five and five Months of the Locusts Revel 9. 15. 10. given new in the fifth Trumpet the sealing is there mention'd again and in the sixth Trumpet where the Hour Day Month and Year of the Horsemen began there is a parallel Symbol of Secresie and Security with the sealing viz. the true Worshippers crying out from the Altar of Incense where they were hid Revel 9. 13. within the first of which viz. of the Locusts fell in the Beasts intimate Time or Season with his Number 666 as shall be shewn Revel 13. ult Now by all these the Spirit of God does interpoint and distinguish the beginning of the Lines of several Times that fall in with the great entire Line of the 1260 Days and notes when they began which new Lines do some way or other note when that great Line began and when it shall end viz. by the Proportion those other Lines however beginning after hold to it all joyning with it when they are once begun and by that Proportion The Beginning must be 437 and the end of it 1697 as shall be shewn upon all of them Wherein also the Time remark'd with the Voices of the seven Thunders seal'd will admirably shew it self at 1517 when the last 180 Years or Half-time began at which Time the Division of so many States from Rome first appear'd also And the End of all at 1697 will declare it self So strongly although requiring strict Attention and Observation hath God secur'd the fixing of this Line both in its Beginning and End as shall be all along by Gods gracious permission to proceed made evident I shall but just salute the Third Enquiry and finish the first Point discours'd viz. its Beginning And because it joyns in assuring this Beginning I must as I say salute it And this Third Enquiry is to Research what is the meaning Enquiry 3 of this Grand Apocalyptical Symbol the Trumpets Now from the general Use and universal Signification of a Trumpet as an Alarm to War and the dismal consequences of it these Trumpets certainly signifie the same as appears by the course of the Trumpets for every Trumpet calls to some War and the seventh to the Battel of Armageddon They are therefore so many loud Sounds of the Indignation of God upon those
Time and therefore by the constant care of God in preserving a Seed that is accovnted to the Lord for a Generation and particularly by the Types of this Prophecy we are most assured there must be such Witnesses and such must be their Testimony SECT VIII Wherein The Forty Two Months are measur'd by the exactest Rules of Prophecy and found by express Concurrencies of those Prophecies to begin at the Cessation of the Christian Western Empire and to end whenever the 1260 Days end the Date of the Kingdom of Christ immediately ensuing and therefore to begin at 475 and by compare with the 1260 Days to end at 1697. According to which the State of the Empire of the Administration of the First Beast and of the Witnesses during the Fourth Trumpet viz. from 475 to 606 is represented THE Point of Time I am now entring upon hath had a just Approach made to it according to its Importance which is very great I shall now through the Assistance of the Divine Spirit duely consider the most weighty sense of it self there being no Line of Time whose Bounds are so definitive the Beginning so uncontestably evident in History the End so illustrious as this must be to sense it self in the very nature of the thing That I may therefore discourse hereof most regularly I propose these four Heads to fix the Intendment upon 1. To shew That the Apostle Paul hath affirm'd the coming of the Man of Sin or Beast whose End is according to all Prophecies concerning him Destruction by the immediate Appearance of Christ's Kingdom at that his end hath an unmoveable Bar to his Manifestation till his own Time and that the Apostle John declares that Bar to be an indefeisable Succession of a seventh King not come in his Time to a sixth King then in Being in his Time and that seventh King to endure a short time and that then the Beast the eighth King should succeed and that he could succeed neither sooner nor later When therefore it will appear that such a seventh King did succeed the sixth and that that seventh did decease at 475 if it shall also appear as it will that this is the very same Beast to whom forty two months are determin'd it will then be most evident his forty two months must begin at 475. 2. To shew That the Kingdom of the Beast must last till the Kingdom of Christ according to the same Laws of Succession can succeed and it can last no longer as also that the Kingdom of Christ must succeed when that Kingdom ends and it can succeed no sooner if then it is expresly said the Kingdom of Christ shall immediately succeed the 1260 Days and that according to this Law of Succession and the course of all Prophecy it must also succeed the forty two months it then will plainly follow the 42 Months and the 1260 Days end together 3. To shew That the 1260 Days must be Time of the Sun and the forty two months must be Time of the Moon and seeing they must be adjusted to one another as ending together and lying both within one common Womb of Time Times Half Time The forty two months by the most exact compare of Lunar and Solar Time can be but 1222 Years and therefore besides all Advantages of Scripture-use of round Number beginning at 475 they most exactly and most necessarily must end at 1697. 4. To shew That the Beast indeed must have every way the Seminal fundamental Nature of such a Beast as he is describ'd to be at the very beginning of his forty two Months as the Infant hath of a Man but need not nor cannot be suppos'd to attain full prophetical Proportions till long after which Time Prophecy hath also dated to him by his Number 666. So that the description of the Empire according to the Fourth Trumpet the Administration of the other Beast and the State of the Witnesses may continue many Years after as they stood at the forty two Months entring and so Prophecy determines of them To begin then with the first of these I find this Order and Head 1 Concert of the Parts of it will be most convictive and demonstrative 1. That Daniel the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John speak all of one and the same Beast 2. That this one and the same Beast hath forty two months determin'd upon him as the just State of his Duration 3. That the Apostle John hath declared that peremptory positive Law of Succession that was the Let of the coming of the Beast into his forty two months For the first Although a multitude of Proofs from the Concert of all Prophecy which either have been or will be farther taken notice of may be given yet That which I will rest upon alone at this time shall be that most convictive one That his End is Destruction by the glorious Appearance of the Kingdom of Christ so that his eminent Character is Son of Perdition in Conformity to that Apostate Apostle Judas so near the Glory of Christ's Resurrection so the Apostle John twice describes him by his going into Perdition Apoc. 17. v. 8. v. 11. and his Destruction is solemnly declared c. 19. and then the Kingdom of Christ succeeds c. 20. c. 21. Thus Daniel in every Vision The great Image was smitten by the Stone cut out of the Mountains without hands growing to a great Mountain filling the Earth by a Kingdom never ending in its ten-toed feet part of Iron and part of Clay so exactly compounded of the Beast out of the Sea with his ten crowned Horns inseparably united with his false Prophetism a Beast out of the Earth Revel 13. The little Horn is a Beast deliver'd to the Flames and the Kingdom under the whole Heaven given to the Saints The King standing up against the Prince of Princes shall be broken without hand At the Accomplishing to scatter the Holy People viz. by this Beast as hath been made to appear All the Wonders of Christ's Kingdom shall be finished Dan. c. 2. v. 24. c. compar'd with Dan. c. 7. 11. c. c. 8. 24 25. c. 12. 7. The Apostle Paul 2 Thess 2 3. c. stiles him the Son of Perdition and foretels his being consumed with the Brightness of the Lords viz. Christ's coming and the Glory of his Appearance Whoever then considers the most notable and notorious Destruction always affix'd to one and the same kind of Power so even in all its manners of Description and such a kind of Destruction as is always declar'd to issue and flow out from the Glory of Christ at his coming to his Kingdom will find It must be one and the same Beast since Christ hath but one such Coming and one such Kingdom as these are describ'd to be nor indeed is there any more than one such Beast so scituated in Time Place and Succession as this will appear to be It is in the second place to be made out that this is the same
which makes the Lunar year 354 days so many Hours and Scruples nor by rating the 1260 days as three Years and half which wants about five days of the true Solar Year and then proportioning the Lunar Year of 364 Days odd Hours and Scruples to a Year of only 360 days But the true Scale of Time between the Sun and Moons motion in that which is call'd the middle course of each respecting their Conjunction one with another is to be taken and I affirm to the most rigid Arithmetician concerning it it will prove exact to about half a years distance That 1260 years of the Sun will exceed forty two Months space of the Moon prophetically understood thirty eight years For as Maimonides the most learned accountant of Jewish Time settles this matter in his severe computation of Time in order to their new moons Solemnities There is eleven days within some hours difference betwixt the lunar year and the solar naturally given as 365 days judge then how little can the want of the five days to make up the solar year 365 days alter the account of 11 days difference in a year betwixt the Sun and Moon which rises from above 72 five days in a year to make them nearer equal one to the other than eleven days difference carries with it of inequality But I fear to be over tedious in this matter although the wonderful exactness of the account does detain my Thoughts assuring a Line of Time confirmed so many ways besides to have its Epoch at 437 and its Period at 1697 by even so unexpected an agreement of the Beasts forty two months certainly beginning at 475 and therefore the Witnesses twelve hundred sixty days thirty eight years before them while the Gentiles forty two months are ready to set out with those 1260 days that so the time of the Bestian Tyranny and the sufferings of the Servants of God may begin and end together as they ought to do I come therefore to the fourth head to consider the state of the Empire of the Beast at his first rising or his forty two Months beginning thus at 475 and to compare therewith the Administration of the other Beast and the Prophecy of the Witnesses as they stood in the interval from 475 to 606 For indeed there is very little of a new scene of things opening till then and therefore the great business of this head will be to settle the essential Lineaments of the grand Apocalyptical Beast according to the prophetical Iconismes of chap. 11. c. 13. c. 17. of the Revel and to compare therewith the Imagery given Dan. c. 2. c. 7. c. 8. c. 11. and the Apostle Paul's Prediction 2. Thes 2. and the Apostle John's short Accounts of Antichrist in his Epistles wherein I do not yet so much intend to display the Quality and Action of the Beast which will be more advantagiously done hereafter for at this time they were but seminal and so not discoverable nor open and there was an accidental Variableness therein But I design those invariable and unalterable Essentials which are unmoveable although they appear each in their just Seasons and which are fundamental to the Beast Now herein I do solemnly avow I will bring no preconceiv'd Idea or Shape of the Beast to the Prophecy but search for that true one Prophecy gives and receive it from its hand as wholly unpossess'd of any Notions of Him before-hand and then referr to general and uncontroverted History as to an Umpirage most impartial the Agreement of Things with Prophecy Nor do I design to prove any Name or kind of Power in the World to be this Beast but only to prove That there hath been and must be such a one to sustain the Prophetick Characters during these forty two Months and what will necessarily follow I can't Fore-Fend To this Purpose I must make these three Premisals 1. That when Prophecy gives an entire prophetical Scheme of a Monarchy or this Bestianism it represents as entire and essential to that Scheme Things that did not fill it first as History giving the Character of an Empire gives it at full or so of any Prince and not as things were in their mere Infancy Thus those things are given into the Possession of the Beast at his forty two Months beginning which were not compleat till many Years after as his Ten Horns his Great Power and Authority c. Now this ought to be no prejudice to the Prophetick Scheme no more than that the Picture of Charles the Great as a Man or an Emperour would not fit his Infancy especially when Prophecy defines the Time when he shall attain that Image viz. 666. 2. When Prophecy gives the Portraicture of a particular last state of a Monarchy that had a variety of States before it it unites that last State as so one with the former and especially with that just before it as that they are spoken of as one common State just at one Time for this belongs to the Glory of Prophecies Prescience and Omniscience to which past and present and to come are one to give things thus entire in one Thus Prophecy gives the Dragon the sixth Head in the Beast of seven Heads seven Heads when it wanted one as to present Event and if it had to do with any of the five fallen Heads in the Time of the Apocalypse given it had done the same undoubtedly because the Scheme is but one although it be at several Times filled up so the Scheme has always 7 Heads And thus it gives the grand Apocalyptick Beast whatever was before it the five fallen Heads in the Lump that they make a Character of it nay the whole Image Dan. 2. in the three Beasts Dan. 7. the Grecian Leopard the Persian Bear and the Babylonian Lyon are united to this last State of the Rev. 13. 2. fourth Monarchy and even whole entire Bestianism because in it that Image was to be beaten to Powder Dan. 2. 34 35. and the Lyon the Bear and the Leopard who had their Lives prolonged Time at large and intimate Time or Season were now to be kill'd with the Sword of Christ's Mouth when the Beast the Little Horn is given to the consuming Flames or to the Lake Dan. 7. 11 12. with Apoc. 19. v. 21. So that it is no wonder it is called the Beast wounded in one of its Heads viz. the sixth Head before it came unto its Succession or forty two months that it is called in the same manner the first Beast twice Revel 13. 12. for all Bestianism is so totally his that the Dragon with whom he is more especially united as his immediate Predecessor that hath the seven Heads and ten Horns because it was the Roman Beast under the sixth Head yet is carefully forepriz'd from the Name Beast that it might not derogate from the Universal Bestianism of this grand Beast yea though it is he in whom this Beast was wounded There is only a short
be the State of Christian Religion if roll'd back into the same Womb of Antiquity not keeping close to the absolute measure of the Word of Jesus Christ It would prove a renewed Womb of Apostacy it would grow up to a second Six hundred sixty six SECT 12. In which is given an Explication of the Woe of the sixth Trumpet especially to the taking of Constantinople and by Proportion to the Reformation and the end of that Woe and an adjustment of the Hour Day Month and Year to the whole Time upon Revel 9. 12 13 14 c. HAving now settled the whole space of Intimate Time by the number 666 as it reaches from 725 to 1517 and also the Times of the first Woe Trumpet by the Reign and Ravage of the Mahometan Locusts or Saracens I come now to the second Woe or of the Turkish Horsemen and to observe the prophetical Gauge of Time or that most notorious Period they made by taking Constantinople styl'd as we have prov'd killing the third part of Men at 1453 and so to judge of their Gourse of Time running down to 1697 which they complete there with the ending of the Witnesses 1260 days and of this whole Line of Time in all its Denominations and joyn in the proof that then it must end Now that this Trumpet is the Symbol of the Turkish Horsemen I shall first by the compare of the universal Knowledge that not only History but even common Experience gives of them with the prophetical Scheme make it most credible they are here intended 1. They are describ'd as four Angels bound in the River Euphrates that is according to this mystick Prophecy wherein the invisible angelical Powers represented the Powers of this World as guided and conducted by them like the Spirit of Ezekiels four living Creatures in the Wheeles of worldly Events Ezek. 10. 13. and Mutations so various so full of Revolution that it is cry'd to them Oh Whele Oh World 2. A People they were near the River Euphrates both in their Original and their after Potentacy always ready to overflow but that they were bound till their due Time appointed by God and four either as a number of Universality or that they eminently appeared in four Branches till the Ottoman surmounted them all and strengthen'd it self into Glory and Power 3. They were loosed at the Voice that sounded from the Altar of Incense from the Prayers of the Servants of God worshiping there while the Gentiles trod the holy Court and City of outward Profession There was a cry of the souls under the Altar of Sacrifice in the fifth Seal while the Church Revel 6. 9. Revel 8. 5. was in a State of Purity though declining On which followed the first desolation of Heathenism by Constantine there was much Incense offered with the Prayers of all Saints under the seventh Seal and by Coales taken from the Altar of Incense while the Church was retiring hither as at its last Gaspes of general Purity the Effect of all was the final Desolation of Heathenism by Theodosius's Victory over Eugenius and Argobastes as before expounded at the measuring the Temple the Altar viz. of Incense within it and casting Revel 11. 19. out the outward Court and its Altar of Sacrifice to be us'd by the Gentile-professors of Christianity which was the taking away the daily Sacrifice the Servants of God retired to the Altar of Incense as in a Temple shut and not opened till the seventh Trumpet and from hence as in the deepth of their retired State the Voice came as the Effect of their Prayers and the Vengeance of the Temple upon the profane Gentiles treading the holy Court under their bestian Princes Protection 4. The vast number of Horses agrees to the huge numbers of Horsemen the Turkish Princes have by general Custom brought into the Field and used in all their warlike Expeditions and Assaults and as this Prophecy when it would have any point of Truth made both most certain and most remarkable it uses some such vehement Remark as this I Revel 7. 4. heard their number and saw their Horses in a Vision as I heard the number of the sealed I John saw the New Jerusalem c. 21. 2. c. so here I heard their Number 5. Their excellent polished Armor like Brest-plates of Jacinct and Fire or the blue and livid Flame of Brimstone Their insolent and terrifying Grand loquence Their false and serpentine tayl'd Religion or imposture which with its Success was become Head of Policy pretended Argument and Reason of Imperial Power and Grandeur on pretence of which they claim'd universal Power and with which they made so loud a noise in Disdain of Christianity that with their Mouths and Tails they were so hurtful and which is most critical of the Time near the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet the Great those Guns and great Pieces formerly unknown Engines vomiting out Brimstone or the sulphurean Powder Fire and Smoak were of signal use in the taking Constantinople or killing the third of men All these agree 6. That monumental period it self determines all for what so great as the final desolation of the Grecian Imperialism call'd the killing the third part of men And herein is the difference most remarkable betwixt Casting Rome as a burning Mountain into the Sea and smiting the third of the Lights of Heaven Then Rome reviv'd and the Bestian Glory inlight'nd it But this third of men are kill'd and shall n'ere revive to be an Antichristian Empire 7. Now to all these so lively Emblems and Pictures of this Ottomanick Power in which the Turkish Dynasties both centred and ascended their height let us adjust the Assignation of the Time The Day the Month the Year make in prophetical Account 395 years and they both ascertain joyn'd with the former years from the Mahometan Hegira so great a space as 830 years of the 1260 they parallel the days of years the Month of years the year of years us'd in descyphering the Times of the sufferings of Gods Servants and of the Beasts Tyranny and are therefore compounded of lunar and solar Time and as in signification of the cleaving and parting the Bestian Night-piece there is most of solar Time The Hour is of most particular and signal Importance both as it is set as it were on purpose to answer the one Hour of the ten Kings receiving Power with the Beast and also as an Hour signifying an intire Season at the setting out of the Turkish Time and when the Day the Month the Year are run out the Hour remains an Hour still and makes a just season to the passing away of this second Woe at the end of the 1260 days which long Time of Duration seems imported in that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or hereafter signifying a liesurely Motion but the seventh Trumpets Motion is as we shall find very sudden quick and dispatchful The Hour the Day the Month the Year reaches then
his mighty ones according to Rev. 19. comes down and the whole Air is full of Divine Judgments so that this Battel just before the Kingdom v. 17. of Christ is with Burning and Fewel of Fire and not Garments roll'd in Blood of which all the immediate Judgments from Heaven as on Midian as on the Assyrians Esa 9. 5. are Types which last is joyn'd to a clear Prophecy of this Glorious Kingdom of Christ. I can give no fitter Remark upon so unfathomable a course Remark of Judgments than the recording that Song of Moses the Servant of God at the final Overthrow of the Egpptians in the Red Sea and of the Lamb c. 15. 9. Great and marvellous are thy Works Lord God Almighty just and true are thy ways oh King of Saints Who shall not fear thee Oh Lord and glorifie thy Name for thou only art Holy and all Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy Judgments are made manifest And this course of Judgments comprehends all the Dead both small and great to that very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 IT IS DONE and at last to these Dead at the seventh Vial are gathered All whose Names are not found written in the Book of Life and are cast with Death it self into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone which is the second Death SECT XVI Wherein is given in a most brief Account the state of the thousand Years both as to Time and Excellency On c. 20. THE Time of the Duration of the Kingdom which is the Sabbath of Time when all Anti-sabbatical Time shall be at an end and NO MORE is a thousand Years Now it may be a great doubt How this Time is to be understood whether literally or mystically if literally How then will it agree with the whole Frame of the Prophecy which hath very little that is not mystical and of a typical Signification and most particularly all the Lines of Time But if the thousand Years be mystical either they shall express no definite Time or they shall if mystically multiplied set the State of Eternity at incomputable Distances yet from the last Time and Ends of the World we are now subsisting upon contrary to all the Reason and Faith of Christians and the whole Analogy of the Scriptures Now that which I would reconcile the Thoughts of all the serious Considerers of Prophecy in this matter by is That here The literal and the mystical Sense conspire and closely embrace one another The literal 1000 Years comprises highest Mystery in it for besides that in round Number as we compute Time it comes in as the sabbatical thousand for which I perceive there is a general Favour of all Christians if not Jews that have any Estimation of mystick Types of Prophecy Besides this and that the millenary Number hath great Reputation in Pythagorick mystick Numbers as a cubical Number rising from 10 and filling up the Perfection of Number even as the millenary State is the perfectest State of Conformity to the Law of Creation given by God in the 10 Words we call the Decalogue in which Sabbatism hath so great Place and Reason It is also the Time wherein Sathan is bound chain'd and seal'd up the Sanctuary is cleans'd in the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or IT IS DONE in the New Jerusalem Besides all this It is the great Emblem God hath chosen to represent his own and his Servants blessed Eternity in This thousand Years is as one day to him to represent his and his SECT VIII Wherein the 42 Months are measur'd by the exactest Rule of Prophecy and found to begin at the Cessation of the Christian Western Empire and to end whenever the 1260 Days end the Date of the Kingdom of Christ immediately ensuing and by compare with the 1260 Days at 1697. Page 90. SECT IX In which the Time from the 42 Months beginning is set out till 622 or the Mahometan Hegira by Rome's dark State in the fourth Trumpet by the Angels proclaiming the three Woe Trumpets by the Beast becoming a fallen Star at 606 and the Key of the Abyss given him viz. in the universal Pastorship by Phocas and the Ministry of the other Beast to him herein and the State of the Witnesses are also declar'd Revel c. 8. v. 12. c. c. 9. v. 1. c. Page 114. SECT X. Wherein is undertaken to be proved That the Mahometan Saracens are the Locusts design'd in the fifth Apocalyptical Trumpet and that the 25 Months given to them comprehend 435 Years from the Mahometan Hegire at 622 and so reach â—o 1057. Vpon Rev. c. 9. v. 1. c. Page 124. SECT XI Of the Number 666 shewing the Certainty it gives to the whole Line of Time both as to the Nature and Time of the Beast upon a true and right Explanation of it Rev. 13. v. 15 16 17 18. Page 132. SECT XII In which is given an Explication of the Woe of the sixth Trumpet especially to the taking of Constantinople and by proportion to the Reformation and to the End of that Woe and an Adjustment of the Hour Day Month and Year to the whole Time Vpon Revel 9. 12 13 14 c. Page 149. SECT XIII This Section enters into the Half-time of the Reformation and by the Agreement of Prophecy with the Event demonstrates the Beginning and End of that Time On Rev. c. 10. Page 155. SECT XIV Wherein is contained a brief Disquisition upon the seven Voices as they run along Apoc. c. 14. Page 177. SECT XV. VVherein is given a very brief Display on the Vials Page 185. SECT XVI VVherein is given in most brief Account the Time of the 1000 Years both as to Time and Excellency Page 189. FINIS
come But now the next Vision of the Four Beasts gives us in Prophetick Cypher the very measure of the Beast's Duration as that Beast is symboll'd by the little Horn viz. Time Times and half a Time But because this does not assure us when those Days begin nor consequently where they end the Vision we are now entring upon will teach us that And it hath a threefold Aspect upon Time to this end 1. It continues the principal Line of Time from Creation which because there will not be Scripture History to maintain it and also because and especially because the Times of the Gentiles in whose History Scripture little concerns it self are drawn by it without lesser Periods but as the Accounts of the Churches Case in relation to them after requires it they are given in one entire Line or Sum 2300 Days beginning contiguously from Ezekiel's 430 Days and continuously also to so many Days for Years uniting with the former parcel-lines and with the 430 as the last given Line and so one whole Line from the Creation is constituted by uniting these several Parcels by a divine Certainty 2. It determines the particular Time from the beginning of the Persian Monarchy at literal Babylon fallen to mystical Babylon falling as also at literal Jerusalem restor'd to new Jerusalem appearing for Antichrist broken intends the former and the Sanctuary cleans'd the latter 3. It is a measure of the length of particular Lines given after this from Time to Time as they are given in Scripture that as it self is distinguish'd into several Periods by them so it is a Boundary to them when to begin and end that together they may be symmetral to this whole Line neither longer nor shorter and therein be justly proportion'd to one another even till this Line call'd most emphatically by our Lord the Times of the Gentiles Luc. 21. 24. be fulfill'd That the Vision then and the Line of Time it carries away be rightly understood these things are necessary to be premised 1. That the principal thing in these Visions of Daniel except that single Vision next in order to that we are upon that centers in Messiah's Coming and Death is the glorious Kingdom of Christ and of his Saints having the Dominion throughout the Earth and the Destruction of that peculiar Enemy of his Kingdom who is justly call'd Antichrist immediately preceeding his Kingdom and before which it could not appear Upon the Account of this Kingdom of Christ having its way made by the Destruction of Antichrist there are so many Representations of the other Monarchies of which else we may conceive the Holy Spirit had no more touch'd their Prophecy than it does their History which it never does but in relation to the Church or to set out God's Government Universal over the World and his Judgment on sinful Nations We find therefore in these Visions of the Monarchies Antichrist next to the Kingdom of Christ is the greatest Subject and more Words laid out upon him than upon all the rest so it is in Nebuchadnezzar's Dream The Feet and Toes Dan. 2. v. 34. 41. c. take up a greater Proportion of the Dream and Exposition than all the rest and then the Kingdom of Christ flows out upon the Image broken in the Feet So in the Vision of the four Beasts the fourth Beast and in that the little Horn imploys the greatest part of the whole Vision in its Description and Judgment and the Kingdom of Christ then breaks out upon it so proportionably in this Vision He then that would understand it must be arm'd with this Rule as preparatory 2. It must be worthy our Advertency that the Antichristian State in these Prophecies and in the Revelation is rank'd with Heathenism and Gentilism and treated with much less regard than even Idolatrous Israel or Judah God not taking any notice of them as his People but as mere Gentiles so that I do not remember any Parallelism of them with the People of Israel even in their Apostacy but altogether with those that were Aliens as Balaam Jezebel the Daughter of Elth Baal King of the Sydonians with Sodom Egypt and most notoriously Babylon and so is represented by the Gentiles treading the outward Court And thus the Corruptions of Divine Worship among the Jews were express'd by entertaining the manners of the Gentiles defiling themselves with them falling in love with them bringing them into the Sanctuary The Beast united with the heathen idolatrous Monarchy coming into the Seat of the Dragon is the grand Apocalyptick Figure for Antichrist and nothing of Christ allow'd him except to the other Beast having borns as a Lamb while he spake as a Dragon nor of the Jews to the Antichristian Rev. 13. 11. Gentiles but that in the Beginning of the Apostacy within the prophetical Church of Smyrna Rev. 2. 9. They said They were Jews but were not but lyed and were the Synagogue of Sathan nor any thing of Jerusalem to the Seat of Antichrist except one only allusion to the City where Our Lord was crucified where a Heathen Power presided in Revel 11. 8. his Condemnation and that a Roman too to signifie its extream Hate to the True Christ It s deep dye in Blood and its irrecoverable Destruction for which Jerusalem was so infamous and for which the Roman Church like the Jewish Church was broken off from the true Olive and all consider'd as a Church in Conjunction with it as the Apostle had foretold Rom. 11. 6. make the Allusion On the other side The True Christianity and Worship of it are symboliz'd by the pure Jewish Worship The Temple its Measures Ordinances as they stood in Israels best Estate are the Ichnography of the Perfect Pure Christian Church But the drawing men from True Christianity to Antichristianism the Persecution of Men for it the last Deliverance from Anti-Christianism and its Persecutions are continually given out in Parallellismes betwixt the same Things heretofore between the Jews and the Gentiles and unite with the Jews great Deliverance and the New Jerusalem at last These two things are most necessary to be premonish'd for the true Interpretation of this Vision and other Visions also as we shall see as we pass along to preserve all clear and free from Confusion And upon this Premonition I say this Vision beginning with the Persian Reign goes on through the Grecian and so passes through the whole Roman Monarchy first and last and describes a Line running parallel with the whole Times of the Gentiles after the Babylonish Empire at the end of which Ezekiels 430 Days ended as hath been made to appear And they being the last Joynt of the Line from Creation this Line of 230 Days joyns with it and continues the whole Acts. 3. 21. Line from Creation to the Restitution of all Things Upon this Premonition I say further That Antiochus as the most Infamous Heathen Prince for treading down the holy and pure Jewish Worship from
is summ'd up in Ev. and Mor. And all this we may conceive least the 2300 Ev. Mor. should be misapplied to that part viz. of the Daily which is proper only to the whole So then if the Line be commensurate with the Vision it must begin with the Persian Monarchy and not with the daily taken away for That in whatever sense expounded was not till long after in the same manner If the Vision goes on to the great visional End in Daniel viz. the breaking of all the Monarchies in Antichrist and the Kingdom of Christ appearing in the Sanctuary cleans'd it cannot be applied to any taking that was begun and ended long before that End as all takings away of what kind soever that have been thought of did and most particularly that of Antiochus except that taking away by Antichrist which therefore is the only taking away here to be understood And from every Particular of this Discourse it undeniably appears These Ev. and Mor. are not mere Natural Nycthemers but 2300 Ev. and Mor. importing so many Years for a less space of Time could not contain so great a Vision and its Charge If a Line of Time were given applicable only to the Time Argu. 3 of the daily Sacrifice taken away there would be some certain Time fix'd when that taking away was to begin according to all Usage in this Prophecy The 70 Weeks are dated from the going forth of the Word the 1335 from the taking away of the daily And in the Apocalyptick Prophecy we shall find some certain Epoch of each numeral Line but there being no Epoch to these 2300 Ev. Mor. but the general Epoch of the Vision one and the same as we shall find with the seventy Weeks That must be the Epoch Seeing the Answer And the Sanctuary shall ba cleans'd Argu. 4 and the Exposition of the Vision touching the King exercising the Tyranny Broken without hand gives the full End of all Tyranny on the Saints and of all taking away their daily Worship as it was under Babylon continued to be taken away at that Time and after by Antiochus last of all by Antichrist it is plain according to Scripture-Usage The End is principally intended which such a course of Time is to attain As the complemental End of the 70 Weeks making an end of Sin c. is chiefly pursued in the next Vision The end of Wonders and the State of Blessedness in the 1335 Days of the last Vision and here the Sanctuary cleans'd and Antichrist broken is the main Intention and from the present Vision at that NOW given to those Ends there would be 2300 Ev. and Mor. So that the taking away the daily does not spread it self upon the whole 2300 Ev. Mor. and so end with them but e're all such Things as a tyrannous taking away the daily Worship of the Saints would be at an end it would be so many for the Vision indeed spreads it self upon all the 2300 being for those many days but the taking away begun but at its own Time as we shall see and ended at the 2300 ending so many from the Time of the Vision and so was unto them that is whenever it began it reached to the end of the 2300 of the whole Vision e're the Sanctuary was cleans'd That these 2300 Ev. Mor. are a Line of Time of so great Argu. 5 comprehension as from Literal to Mystical Babylon's Fall from the Restoration of Literal Jerusalem to the New Jerusalem may be argued from several extraordinary Notes of Honour upon this Line and the Vision of it 1. The very drawing it out to so great and unusual a length is unparallel'd in all the Scripture so that if it were not great in its Beginning as that State of Things would admit great in the End as that State of Things imports and great in its subordinate Lines it could no ways answer the Magnificence of so great a Number especially when the prophetical Abbreviation of Time was come into use by so peculiar an Ordination of God in Ezekiel Even this does sufficiently argue where it begins whither it tends what space of Time it spans Cypher or short-hand was of Old in prophetick use a Week for seven Years Gen. 29. 27. c. 41. v. 26. Numb 14. 34. fourty Days for forty Years in the Wilderness seven Ears of Corn for seven Years seven Times for seven Years Dan. 4. 22. But God declar'd and promulg'd it as the Law of Interpretation of prophetick Time Ezek. 4. So we understand seventy Weeks Weeks of Years without controul or 490 Years Dan. 9. 24. Now if contrary to so many Instances of the prophetical Usage of such Abbreviatures it should draw out Years into their full Length or Number of Days How could we understand the Divine Mind in it especially on no greater occasion than Antiochus's Tyranny as shall be after argued Prophecy that amasses Time by giving Years in Days cannot rationally be suppos'd to wiredraw Years into Days But this is not All There are fourty Days for fourty Years 390 and 40 Days for so many Years seventy Weeks for 490 Years 1260 Days for so many Years and Months proportionable But 2300 Ev. Mor. taken for so many Years is very august and speaks a divine Zeal to grasp that great End of putting down all Rule and Authority and Power and Christ taking his Power to himself and Reigning yet not so as to diminish from Government but to perfect it to its highest Ends under himself and his Supreme and Universal Monarchy To grasp this I say within so great a Line given from the very Time in which it was given This great Number is given by the divine Numberer 2. For Jesus Christ the Lord of this Prophecy hath the peculiar Title of Palmoni to which whatever sense we give it Dan. 8. 13. admonishes us to enquire for something extraordinary and if we rest in what is every way nearest The wonderful Numberer it comes exactly to the wonderful Line and the great Secrets to be found in it 3. Gabriel the heavenly Envoy upon all Declarations of the Kingdom of Christ as Dan. 9. Luc. 1. is employ'd in its Exposition 4. Daniel's extraordinary Title Son of Man allowed him only in this Vision as bringing to him the glorious Appearance of Christ of which Glory Ezekiel being more often an Eye-witness Cap. 1. Cap. 10. Cap. 43. 2 3. is more often call'd Son of Man For if the Learned Dr. Lightfoot's Account of this Title as a Chaldaism were good Daniel who was the more eminent Chaldean should be oftnest invested with it On the contrary He only in this Vision is so stiled but Ezekiel often and they alone enjoy it under the supreme Son of Man of all the Prophets and Daniel never but here shewing the high pitch this Vision makes and its close approach to Christ's Kingdom from which his other Visions do but derive or are but preparatory to it Nor is Daniel's Attention and
Story betwixt these Visions and the Messiah But the so strange the so unaccountable foul longsome Apostacy of Antichrist lying so long on the so excellent Religion of the Gospel ecclipsing the Kingdom of Christ Full of all the most pernicious Effects is deservedly Astonishing to Angels and Men and captivating the Many the Wise and the Great against all Scripture Reason and even common Sense and were it not for that Captivation as unworthy Confutation as the Alchoran The very History of Antiochus as it were proper to Antichrist is only to be found in the Antichristian Canon of Scripture and only Typically given in Daniels Prophecy shewing it of no great Account with God The Time The understanding dark Sentences the growing great not by his own Power are no way applicable to any historical Memoirs of Antiochus A Prince furious active enterprising at the Head of his warlike Affairs Lastly the very Ev. Mor. of this Line a manner of Speech not used in Scripture from the very first of Genesis till now lead us to the new Creation to the Restitution of all things to the bright Mornings Stars display of his Beams and in the mean time even as Days compounded of Ev. and Mor. so these Ev. Mor. with equal Fitness and Naturalness sustain the prophetical Type of Time Days for Years Of all which let this be the applicatory Remark to lead Remark us with Confidence Assurance due Preparation Faith Prayer and earnest Desire to him who saith Behold I make all things new and immediately after as it were in remembrance Dan. 8. 26. compar'd with Rev. 21. 5. of his Declarative Amen upon the Vision of the Ev. and Mor. It is true imposes his perfectory Finitive Amen When he says no longer Seal but write in Capital Letters These Sayings are faithful and true Whoso then by following the Lamb whithersoever he goes overcomes shall inherit all Things Christ will be his Father He shall be the Son of God and of Christ. But the Fearful who are frighted into Antichristian Cympliances the Abominable c. sunk down into the Defilements of all sorts proper to the foul State Falshood and the great Lye of the Apostacy shall have their part in the Lake that burns with Fire and Brimstone where the Beast and the False Prophet are Let us then live by Faith and not draw back for He that shall come will come and will not tarry Even so Come Lord Jesus Come quickly Amen SECT III. In which a Line of Seventy Five Years precedent to the seventy Weeks is asserted and endeavour'd to be prov'd Dan. 9. HAving in the precedent Sections establish'd the Grand Line of 2300 Ev. Mor. and their Determination to the Kingdom of Christ I now proceed to the Distribution of this Line and first to the Line that must however subordinate and collateral yet set out at the very same instant with the 2300 Ev. Mor. and that is of the Word going forth Now of this It is most evident by Scripture that it must begin at the Persian Monarchy or the Monarchy of Cyrus for at Darius the Mede to whom Scripture allows only one Dan. 9. Year it did not begin for in that Year Daniel prayed and had this Vision in Return of Prayer as appears enough throughout this Chap. At Cyrus's first year it did begin for so Ezra assures us chap. 1. For must not that most necessarily be the going forth of the Word when Cyrus sent forth his Proclamation and put it in Writing v. 1 2. c But although the Word began here to go forth yet it is most manifest It did not here attain its effect for then would it not have rested and ceased to go forth any farther But we find it stop'd after the Altar set up and the Foundations laid all the Reign of Ahasuerus and in the Days of Artaxerxes which two as we shall after reason must be Cambyses Ezra c. 4. 24. the Son of Cyrus and the Counterfeit Smerdis so that it as plainly went forth again in the Reign of Darius known in common History by the Name of Darius Hystaspis After that although it came much nearer its Perfection yet it was contradicted in the Days of Xerxes Ahasuerus by so severe a Decree for the Destruction of the Jews throughout all the Provinces so that Artaxerxes call'd by Historians Longimanus Esth 3. 8. illustrated his seventh Year with the Word compleatly going forth The Eccho of which for the building of the Wall was in his twentieth and in his thirty second the Quavers of that same Word in leave to Nehemiah to restore Jerusalem into its perfect Order and Polity which plainly argue the Word gone forth in his seventh Year Now although the great Perplexities of the Persian Chronology are no way to my main Intention to be concern'd in yet the making it Evident that the Going forth of the Word must take up such a Time as 75 Years is of very deep behoof in that Intention both as it gives great Assurance to the former principal Line of 2300 Years shewing how seventy five of them were spent and also as it will inlighten some Concernments of the Kingdom of Christ to which all Accounts of Time tend Upon this whole Consideration I shall endeavour the proof of such a space implied in the word going forth And first I shall observe that which I do not look upon so considerable as to call it an Argument The very Phrase of going forth implies some protracted and prolonged going Mich. 5 2. forth by the Word The same Word is us'd of him whose goings forth are from everlasting But more enforcingly to press this I thus argue It is impossible to spare any of those great Decrees we have Argu. 1 so specially recorded Ezra 1. c. 1. c. 6. c. 7. from the words going forth Not the first because it was the first so much foretold of formerly by the Prophet Esay of so famous Memory and that first broke the Bonds of the Jewish Captivity Who can with possible Reason suppose That had no Interest in the words going forth in which Prophecy gloried so long before-hand that was even pointed upon by Gabriel and from which the other Decrees were deriv'd as is expresly mention'd in Darius's Decree Ezra c. 6. compar'd with Dan. 9. 21 Nor can the second Decree of Darius be denied a place in it which so united it self with Cyrus's Decree that if either was the word going forth both must be so for tho they were distant in Time they were one in Substance and by it the Temple was built And least of all can the Decree of Artaxerxes in his seventh Ezra 7. year be impeached as to this Right for it was the perfective Decree so liberal and ample with such Peculiarities in it all along that there is not a word in the whole but yields an Argument It excells all that went before and leaves no Room for any to come after It
can never else be determin'd it is necessary some space must be determin'd and no Number so fit 2 Pet. 1. 19. as this Number to make that Word of Prophecy so sure as to be more sure than Eye-witness it self This principal Line so satisfied compleats all proof It is not unworthy Observation That when the whole Argu. 4 space of the Words going forth before the seventy weeks for the restoring of that eminent State of Jerusalem its Temple and VVorship and the first seven of the seventy for building the VVall full of Clefts and Breaches justly to be accounted restoring Jerusalem the first by solemn Decrees the second by some last sounds of those words of Decree The Years of the Persian Monarchy for the Transaction of this whole Matter are just seventy five as may be accounted Cyrus before the stop on Dan. 10. 1. v. 13. the Building 3 years The Time of the Estoppage 21 years Darius to the Temples Ez. 6. 15. first Finiture 6 years Ahasuerus Xerxes of giving Esth 3. 7. Esth 6. 15. and reversing his Massacring Decree 13 years To Artaxerxes his Decree in Ezr. 7. 8. his seventh year 7 years To his Leave to Nehemiah Neh. 13. 6. 25 years When therefore They have done the symbolical Service of accounting the seventy five years not otherwise accounted The Time from the Weeks Beginning pointed out to seven Weeks or 49 Years in the Vision hath a Room allowed for it in the Story viz. 25 years from the Decree in Artaxerxes his seventh throughout his Reign which by all Historians is agreed to be near forty six and from thence Lett into the Reign of Darius Nothus which seems on purpose nam'd to continue the 49 years current for which there had been space more than enough if the Weeks had begun sooner then Artaxerxes his seventh and not enough if they then begun without being Lett into the Reign of Darius Nothus nor Nehem. 12. 22. enough if they did not then begin but at his 20th only Now it is enough known Scripture thus improves its mention or not mention of Things it s so much mention and no more into symbolismes and so may very well be suppos'd to do on these Persian years For it minds not Heathen Chronology but to some great purposes I shall give one Instance among others and it is that most visible one of Melchisedec who in Shem standing at the Head of the second Roll of Patriarks without Father Mother Beginning of Days or End of Life is so represented by vertue of this Symbolism Hebr. 7. 3. Compare with Gen. 11. 10. Arg. 4. There is nothing more evident then that the Restoring Jerusalem in its Temple and the BVILDING of the Wall are two most distinct Things both in Daniels Prophecy and in the History of Ezra and Nehemiah so that they cannot be confounded either in the valuableness of their Character or in their Time One viz. of the Temple is most distinctly recorded by Ezra Ez. 1. c. Neham 2. c. Ezr. 9. 9. the other by Nehemiah The one is call'd a Reviving to lift up the House of our Lord and to repair the Desolations thereof and this he calls giving a Wall in Judah and Jerusalem The other is call'd by Nehemiah repairing the City of his Fathers Sepultures which was no Dissimulation of the Intention in more acceptable Words as some have thought for no such needed to him who had given so munificent a Decree for the Temple of the God of Heaven at Jerusalem That of the Word going forth for the Temple is before the Weeks That of the Wall is within the Weeks and so of Nehemiahs leave to settle the Order And yet all these are so united in the common Interests of Jerusalem and in some Air of the Word going forth for them so that there may be most fitly from the real Line of the forty nine years for building the Wall so far as it is given in Number a Communication of a symbolical Line according to the Years of the Persian Monarchy so as that 75 may be collected from the whole Number even as the word going forth that is proper especially to the Restoring the Temple is communicated also to the Royal Letter for Timber to build the Wall and the word of Princely leave for Nehemiahs going up to settle the Order so that from the words first going forth to the Time within the Reign of Darius Nothus may be conceived a Line of the whole word going forth before the Weeks and to the end of the seven weeks viz. of 75 and 49 years which is the Point to be made good SECT V. Of the Seventy Weeks themselves in brief On Dan. 9. 20. THis Line of the seventy Weeks is not only so generally allowed and agreed by all Christian Interpreters but also insisted upon as a most fundamental demonstrative and undeniable Proof of Jesus Christ the true Messiah come in the Flesh against the perverse Obstinacy of the Jews that I shall not levy any Argument for the proof of it nor say more for the Definitiveness of it to 490 Years than that the distribution of it into seven weeks sixty two weeks one week and that one week into a half week and a half week cannot possibly stand but in a most certain Determination of Time to greatest exactness Nor is it possible to be disputed when those Years end or what Situation they have in Time since they run so undoubtedly in the first half of the last Week to Messiah being cut off and to the causing Sacrifice to cease by the Sacrifice of himself and in the last half Week to the confirming the Gospel Covenant with many at the end of which the Jewish Nation was rejected and their former Desolations in Babylon reflow upon them and cover them with the Ten Tribes in a general Cessation of being God's People or a Holy City any longer The seventy Weeks then are divided into the seven Weeks of building the Wall after the Temple restor'd * And viz. from Building the Wall Times with Straightness or in Trouble v. 25. sixty two Weeks of Troubles allowing fome lucid Intervals of which Antiochus's Tyranny must be allowed a principal Instance on which as a Type is founded the prophetical Symbol of Antichristianism Then comes the half week of Messiah of finishing Transgression making an end of Sin making Reconciliation for Iniquity bringing in everlasting Righteousness All which Expressions I look upon as an exuberant setting forth the Absoluteness Perfection and highest Effect of that one Sacrifice which Christ offer'd once for All by which he hath for ever perfected them who are sanctified by which Jewish Sacrifice and Oblation was made to cease even by the offering of himself by the Eternal Spirit as a Lamb without spot effectively purging the Conscience from Guilt of dead Works to serve the Living God which Sacrifice in the Revelation is translated into that Propriety and
that so in the Mouth of not only two or three but many Witnesses every word might be establish'd yet it appertains to the Glory of the New Testament the Gospel and Kingdom of the Mediator there should be so great and stupendious a Prophecy peculiar to it as that of the Revelation wherein God and Jesus Christ are for ever to be ador'd and had in reverence of all that approach the Profession of Christianity I say It must be of necessity agreeable to the Excellency of the New Testament there should be besides many Incidental Prophecies so divinely majestick a Prophecy as this of the Apocalyps such a Temple of Prophecies whose Symbols should be so high and lofty its Light more clear and full its Lines of Time in what it pleas'd to give more evident and certain the Doctrines intermingled more spiritual the Promises more heavenly and explain'd the Threats more dreadful and more open that in every thing there may be a Becomingness of All to the Old Testament unveil'd fulfill'd and excell'd in the New And accordingly we shall find all these to the very height taken care of and adjusted we shall see this all along the Iconisms and Figures of Things in the Churches in the several Visions in the Doctrines in the solemn mentions of the Lamb of his Blood so often memorializ'd as an Antidote against the Poison of Antichrist as also the Ministeries of Angels and their most peremptory Abhorrence of all Worship offer'd to them It s only numbred Line of Time till the 1000 Years is so often repeated and ascertain'd that it does in all things illustriously shew it self to be that grand Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to shew to his Servants to the transcendent Honour of the Son by whom he thus spake last of all Who is the Heir of all things especially of the World to Heb. 1. 1. come of which this Prophecy speaks So that to ravish this from the Search and Enquiry of his Church or by Imputations of immodest Presumption to bar from it the utmost Endeavours of his Servants to compare so great a Prophecy and its Events is to take from them one of the principal Props of Christian Faith and Obedience and to devest the New Testament of so high a Glory as this sure Word of Prophecy to which we ought to take heed as to a Light that shineth in the obscure and even squalid Ayr of the Apostasie till the Bright Morning-Star appear and therefore notwithstanding all Prejudices the Apostacy hath rais'd against Researches into it Blessed is he that Readeth and they who hear the Words of this Prophecy That which this Prophecy reveals is the glorious Restitution of all things in the Kingdom of Christ and his Reign with his Saints the Destruction and Consumption of all the wicked so as to be no more as they have been in God's Creation and Earth Psal 104. 35. The Sense in which it reveals is not only Prophetical Doctrinal and Verbal but Real and Eventual and that immediately from the very Beginning of it All the Visions in their own Order each in their Season come quickly or shortly to pass that is begin to come to pass and so go on to their End according to the Types wherein they are imprinted This Revelation begins justly at the Resurrection of Christ conjoyn'd as in one entire Act and Time with his Ascension when all power in Heaven and Earth was given to him at the Lord's Day dedicated by himself to the Glory of his Rising and the Publication of his Anointing by the coming down of Act. 1. c. 2. the Holy Spirit Then could he say Behold I was dead am alive and live for evermore Then he was brought near to the Ancient of Days and receiv'd the Assurance of his Kingdom Then had he Right to be the Prince of the Kings of the Earth though he was pleas'd to stay and to joyn Patience to and with his Kingdom And this was as in the middle Rev. 1. 9. of the Five hundred sixty second Ev. Mor. from Cyrus and in the middle of the last of the seventieth of the seventy Weeks and at the Time the Roman Empire was come to Maturity in the AUTONOMY of Augustus and Tiberius in the Time of which the first Right of his Kingdom began and e're that Empire in its last State ends it shall be set up in Glory For though the Apocalytical Prophecy was not actually given to the Apostle John till some years after yet as Prophecy calls the future so that which is past to the present Time and represents in an entire Frame both together a Priviledge as to that which is past necessarily allowed to History and to a prophetick Frame much more when it hath occasion for it The Period of the Revelation till the thousand years is most evidently those two Apocalyptical Pillars bearing the two answering Inscriptions IT IS DONE IT IS DONE Apoc. 16. 17. c. 22. 6. from whence the Kingdom begins So that this Book of the Revelation is justly to be styl'd the Book of the Kingdom of Christ in its several Offers of Appearance and rending the very Clouds to shew it self in the Acts 1. 7. Dan. 12. 7. Justice of its Claim and yet retiring it self till the very moments appointed by the Father and sworn by himself In which Regards this Prophecy is call'd A Book both in Daniel and here in the Apocalyps on all occasions So that the thousand Years are properly within this Book as the Book of the Kingdom There is also beyond the thousand Years a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a little Space as it were the Revel 20. Hour of the thousand-years-day of the Lord or of the Son of Man in which the natural Apostacy of Humane Nature shews it self in the lukewarm Laodicean Church and in Gog and Magog as at a blush but the whole of any State either 1 Cor. 15. of Church or Nation below immediately is swallow'd up in Flames and Death and Hell with their whole Propriety shut up within themselves and the Kingdom resign'd to God ALL in ALL. The Passage or Conveyance of this Apocalyptical Time is through the seven Churches comprehending the whole Time within themselves as also Symbols proper to the Prophecy as peculiar to the Christian Church and then the whole Time begins again and runs in seven Seals seven Trumpets seven Voices as unseal'd Thunders seven Vials as so many Conduits Tubes or Pipes of the whole Prophecy under the Conduct and Government of the Lamb with seven eyes and the guiding Operations of the seven Lamps the seven Spirits of God that is of the Divine Spirit in its sevenfold Operations And in all I understand the sabbatical Number deriv'd from the first Sabbath and terminating in the last great Sabbatism of Christ's Kingdom continued with the Sabbatism of Eternity Thus the Prophecy is divided into two Systemes or Complexes of Visions The Systeme of the
we would understand them of natural Angels as few or none do But the meaning is The seven Churches contain a very great Mystery throughout the Vision of the Churches Even as upon the forehead of the Woman Rev. 17. 5. was a Title written Mystery Babylon the Great c. that is Understand that whole Inscription in a mystical Sense or to carry the Mystery of the Apostate Church in all Successions so Understand the seven Churches carrying the Mystery of the Christian Church throughout And it is observable the word Mystery is expresly applyed to the True and False Church As it is said here The Mystery of the seven Churches and their Stars or Angels So there I will tell thee the Mystery of the Woman and of the Beast the Fallen Star with the Key of the bottomless Pit that carries her And proportionably this whole Prophecy of the Kingdom draws down into it self the Great Mystery of that Kingdom spoken of by all the Prophets since the World began viz. THE TRUE CHURCH IN GLORY The particularizing upon the Churches the so Apocalyptick Argu. 2 number Seven assures us It will bear its proportion to all the other Sevens And seeing there are no sevens to introduce them nor to receive them and carry them on They must themselves by their own Time Sevens and Symbols embrace the whole Apocalyptical Time and its Sevens For the Book of it is the Book of the Kingdom the Kingdom is the Mystery of God The Churches are the true Kingdoms when they come to their Glory and so a Mystery The Apostate Church is a Mock Kingdom the Kingdom of Antichrist foisted into the place of Christs Kingdom and so a Mystery but a Mystery of Iniquity The Kingdom of Christ and his universal Monarchy is an Empire in a Church of which He is the Head The last State of the Roman Monarchy is an Imperialism by vertue of an Ecclesiastical Image made to it which is a false Christship that is an Empire in an Apostate Church of which Antichrist is the Head How fitly therefore are these Things displayed in the Symbolisms of Churches It is certain There hath been a Christian Church in all Argu. 3 Ages from the Resurrection of Christ to this Day and shall be to the New Jerusalem and to the End of the World This is grounded upon those two Places Matt. 16. 18. Vpon this Rock will I build my Church and the Gates of Hell either of Hell as it signifies the Grave Mortality and Death or the Powers of Darkness shall not prevail against it and Matt. 28. ult Lo I am with you always unto the end of the World Nor is this controverted among any Christians From hence it follows we cannot be Time-bound or straitned in space of Time to place these Successions in For there must necessarily be a Succession of this Christian Church in several Ages and States and so must continue till the End which must as necessarily run a long Apocalyptical Time and so give a bottom to found such Symbols upon if it pleas'd as we suppose it did the Prophetick Spirit to give them As there must necessarily have been a Variety of States of Arg. 4 this one Church so the first of them must needs have been settled and founded in Doctrine Worship Rules of Life Order and Discipline by immediate Inspiration divine Authority and Institution through the Ministry of the Apostles This is most evident from that Book of Scripture written to that purpose The Acts of the Apostles as also from all the Apostolical Epistles From hence it follows the Apostolical Church in its Apostolical State was first in order whether therefore we will allow it to be symbollically represented or not in that first Church of Ephesus it is certain that Labour and Patience twice repeated that trying them which said they were Apostles and were not and finding them Lyars importing the exact consigning all Apostolical Truths and Rules into an authentick Canon of Scripture does most admirably represent that truly Primitive Apostolical State Besides the daily or every days Miscarriages from this excellent Arg. 5 State by Heresies Errors and bad Practises to which degenerate and deeply corrupted Humane Nature is so subject and of which Apostolical Writings take so continual notice there was foretold an eminent visible and notorious Apostacy fix'd and settled upon its own Base out of which Antichrist was to come and so very fit to be taken notice of in this Book of the Kingdom Now this Apostacy was declar'd expresly by the Apostle Paul to be at work in a mystery of Iniquity and the Spirit saith expresly that in the latter Times which latter Times as we have before affirm'd were then begun though every day more and more latter Some that is not a few but a certain sort of men that should make a Body or Species of Men should depart from the Faith If then it had begun so 1 Tim. 4. 1. Written to Timothy as then at Ephesus early in some Lineaments of it although not in that of Nicolaitanism and that it daily proceeded and grew much higher after the Apostles Departure or Death ravening Wolves and Men teaching perverse things arising from Christians themselves Act. 20. 28. c. remonstrated also to this very Church of Ephesus Their leaving their first Love the removing this Candlestick out of the Superiority and Excellency of Primo-geniture and conferring it on Smyrna in the Crown of Life and Philadelphia in the Scepter of the New Jerusalem are most lively Symbols to such a purpose though yet the Overcomers of this protoplast Church are assur'd to eat of the Tree of Life in the midst of the Paradise of God This Apostacy being to become so grand an Apostacy it Arg. 6 must needs proceed and work on by degrees so as that some Church and its Bishop deriving it self from the Apostles should very elderly vere towards a Synagogue of Satan and there should be such an Assumption by it and Deference of Advantages to it by many in the whole Christian Church tending towards and preparing for such an Apostacy that it gain'd Pretensions undesign'd yet to it particularly to intitle it self to such a blooming Antichristian Power as was foretold to come out of the Apostacy for if it could not derive high from Antiquity it could not rise to that Grandeur of Apostacy under the Profession of Christianity And yet in the mean time the Vniversal publick Christian Church may not only remain pure but be first in deep Sufferings for Christ and so fill up the Number of Martyrs dying under the Pagan Draconick Empire but also receive the Crown of Life and of the Glory of the New Jerusalem in a Figure by the Empire becoming Christian as it did in Constantine Now what Type of such a State of the Church could be more express in all this than the Church of Smyrna For whether it was so design'd by the Spirit or not it is certain in
by which they are all kept in a close successional Connexion one with another and the seventh Seal hath its Hold upon the whole even to the last Day of Judgment when the whole Book of the Kingdom is resign'd back into the Hand of God out of whose Hand it was received by Christ seal'd 1 Cor. 15. 24. c. I am therefore now and in the first place to speak of the first part of this second giving of the Line of Time and that as in the Seals before it came to the Trumpets 1. And because there is one general Preface to this whole Repetition of the Line of Time I shall first consider how adequate it is to the whole Line and to the great Administrations of it in a brief or summary Survey of it For to assure us The Preface was to the whole Apocalyptical Book or Time adorn'd with new Figures and Sculptures John heard the first Voice that spake to him and it was as it were of a Trumpet saying to him I will shew thee Things that must be hereafter Rev. 4. v. 1 2. and immediately he was the second time in the Spirit where the Distinction of things hereafter from the things that are as Rev. 1. 19. was made only as the Types of the Churches had a real Existence at that Time as Types in the then begun Christian Church but the following were deriv'd from things to come And after this there was no more any such Voice of a Trumpet speaking to John no more being in the Spirit except a being carried in the Spirit into the Wilderness to see the Apostate Church and then to a Mountain to behold the Holy City The Voice speaking again c. 10. v. 8. evidently relates to the first Voice in that chap. saying seal and write not v. 4. and then take the Book and eat c. and c. 1. 10. c. 4. 1 2. not to these Trumpet-Voices 2. At this second Apocalyptical Volume we have the great Theatre of the Throne and the whole Grandeur of it and adorn'd every way suitable to the Doctrine of the Gospel and as it were in the first Apostolical Church settled first in God as the Doctrine of the One God made known in the Father the Son and the Spirit is the Foundation of Christianity For the Father the Word and the Spirit bear Record of it in Heaven and these three are one in that Record as they are in themselves ONE 3. About this Throne at each Angle or at each of the four Points of it are four Living Creatures so I choose to translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not Beasts properly and distinguishingly in this Prophecy call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and these four Living Creatures represent the Apostolical Church of the New Testament as in four Ternaries or Threes of the twelve Apostles in perpetual Action and therein as it were encircling the twenty four Elders of the pure Israelitish Church The Elders are upon Seats round about the Throne and with Crowns on their Heads as being of old a Kingdom of Priests and they are in this Prophecy introduc'd in Service to the Kingdom of Christ that shall be at the New Jerusalem together with and as by the Apostolick Church who shall be Kings and Priests together with them represented by these four and twenty Elders Heads of the priestly Courses who are first plac'd as leading the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his Kingdom by Prophecy but yet in the very first Action the Order is revers'd and the living Creatures are first in giving Glory First there is the particular Song to the Divine Nature on the Throne as the absolute Creator and Lord of all ending in this For thy Pleasure all things are and were created and so are absolutely under his Dominion and Dispose before whom they cast their Crowns 4. The grand Symbol of the whole Apocalyptical Time and its Events and of the supreme Conduct and Government till they issue into the Kingdom of Christ is the seal'd Book in the Hand of Him that sat on the Throne seal d with the seven Seals which Seals have under them the whole Course of preparatory Events to this Kingdom and the Kingdom it self till it be resign'd back to God Thus Daniel saw Prophecy and Vision seal'd up Dan. 9. and the Book seal'd Chap. 12. 5. There is Proclamation made by the loud Voice of a strong Angel for the finding out a worthy Person to open the Book and loose its Seals And none in Heaven or Earth was found worthy to open the Seals or so much as look thereon All which is certainly as Divine a Symbol to set out the supream and sole Excellency of the Lord Jesus Christ as far above all Principalities and Powers and every Name in Heaven or Earth as could be found out and surpassing all Understanding or Invention finite and is in surprize of any Admissions of Angels or Saints into any parts of his Mediatory Office the very least so much as an Ability to look thereon as also to foreclose that grand Antichristian Assumption of the man of Sin for his very Supremacy is hereby plainly declar'd to be Antichristianism who undertakes not only to look upon this Book but to open the Seals and herein he shews himself in the Temple of God as God 6. The much weeping of John that none was found worthy to open the Book does most exactly and critically point to the time of the Death of Christ or his lying in the Grave when there seem'd a Despair upon all the Creation in that dark Interval and a suspension of the Consolation of Israel and when all the Apostles had given up as it were the hopes of it of which the Apostle John was here a Symbol and represented all the Apostles 7. The same Article of Time is farther assur'd and confirm'd by the one of the Elders as a Representative of the whole Israelitish Church who lead to Christ Thus Christ open'd the Scriptures of the Old Testament especially of Daniel That Christ was thus to suffer and to enter into his Glory viz. of sitting first at the Right-hand of God till his Foes should be made his Footstool He sate down on his Fathers Throne in his Father's Kingdom He shall have a Throne and Kingdom properly his own 8. Christ hereupon exactly as in the Time according to the History of the Gospel appears as on the sudden and unexpectedly in the midst of the Throne of the Elders and the living Creatures a Lamb as it had been newly slain and now risen and ascended and so the Epoch of the Apocalyptical Time is most strictly defin'd and fully assur'd And at this Point of Time he receives the Book which is the very same with sitting on God's Right-hand till his Foes shall be made his Footstool for when the Book is unseal'd and the thousand Years begin Then there is a putting down all Rule and Authority At the End of the thousand Year and the Day of
Originals of the Old or New Testament and according to the very Design of Prophecy it is Appointed Time Appointed Times Appointed Half Time or Season Seasons half a Season and so in that first Distribution of Time according to the Motion of the Sun and the Moon the great Luminaries of Heaven it is used Genes 1. 14. for Design'd and Appointed Times and this is very necessary to be layd in the Foundation For accordingly it will follow The measures of this Season Seasons half a Season must be found out by observing the measures of the other Notes of Time wherewith they are joyned for that Character of Season it self speaks high and notorious Designation of this Time Times Half a Time and that most remarkable Season of which after-use is to be made arises from such a Designation and not an immediate Definition of the Space But then secondarily Because a Year and a Day are the most natural and ready Measures of designed Time and so may in that forenam'd Scripture be the Explanation of Seasons Gen. 1. 14. or remarkable and signaliz'd Times as they are immediately added to Seasons and because in all probability seven Times passing over Nebuchadnezzar under his Delirium Dan 4. 23. mean seven Years since they cannot mean Days or Months or less than Years nor more we may first consider Time Times Half a Time as three Years and a half and that with Authority because they are diversifyed into other such Extents of Time or Spaces as we shall see that point to so much So then the signification of Time Times Half a Time is taken from that first most known and honourable Account of Time the Suns Motion from Point to Point in its annual Circle This is a more honourable Circulation than that of a Day because the Sun more knownly varies every day from the Point from which and the Point to which it daily moves which makes the change of the Year to those several Seasons so that although as Solomon tells us The Sun riseth and goeth down and hasteth to the place where he arose distributing Day and Night to the World yet he neither sets nor rises two Days together at the same exact Point but veres towards one of the Tropicks although therefore a Day of the Suns being with us is the most noble measure of Time next to the Year yet it cannot deserve the Name of a Time of a signaliz'd Time as a Year doth both because it is not so exact to a Point of Revolution and because it is not so full a Year excelling a Day in being the greater and ampler and so the most perfect known and generally observ'd Circle for a Season comprehending that of a Day above three hundred sixty five times within it self and is the Suns perfect Emensuration of its way from one end to the other end of the Heavens and of its Visitation of the whole Earth with its Beams A Year must yet more excel a Month than it does a Day because the Sun hath the Government of the Day and of the Year but the Moon the much more ignoble Planet and Governess only of the Night gives to the Months their Character and Measure and tho there are twelve Points of the Space the Sun emensurates in a Year viz. the twelve Signs in the Zodiack and the Suns first Touch upon Aries to its gliding off from it to the next Sign may be call'd a Solar Month yet neither is it the proper Month which is defin'd by Lunations nor is it any Circulation of the Sun with it self or with its own Motion or with its great end of encompassing the World with its enlivening Beams there is no space therefore that can properly merit the Name of a Time or Season in the first place but a Year first and then a Day Times absolutely so call'd must needs also be most properly two Times for the first Plurality or more than one is two and the more so because it is set betwixt one Time and half a time for that Number which exceeds and removes from Unity first is two and that which is bounded by half a Time in its remove from one Time can be no more than two for if it had proceeded to more than two and had not been stop'd or cut off as the Hebrew significantly It had been three Times Half a Time therefore as it refers to the Beasts Time must be Time decurtated or cut off at the middle as the Garments and Beards of David's Servants half'd by Hanun in Disgrace and Dishonour to the Beasts eternal Infamy and in recompence to his surprise of the Churches Peace and Purity at its half Hour as shall be noted Apoc. 8. 1. Time then as One denotes Beginning as One is the beginning of Number Times as Two denotes Increase and Consistency as it is a progress of Time from One and settles in the first even Number Half speaks an endeavour of Motion to be continued but surpris'd and cut off at its middle Now these Time Times Half a Time might signifie only the three Years and a half they first import but that they must signifie more we shall find very full assurance when therefore we shall have reason'd that it must be more than three Years and a half it will then appear most reasonable that each Time should have its most perfect Circle And if a Year be the perfectest Circle of Time then a Year of Years must be the most perfect and full Circle beyond which there can be nothing but a Repetition or Multiplication of the same again and again so then the Time must be a Year of Years the two Times must be the same Circle twice told and the Half Time the same Circle attempted the third Time and clip'd off at the Semicircle which is the Account of this Character of Time Times Half a Time and which is the first and as will appear the most comprehensive of the Characters of this Line and tho there may be other Revolutions of the Heavens and of the Sun particularly known to learned Astronomers containing greater numbers of Years and there is a more perfect Number also of Years viz. the thousand Years given us in this Prophecy as we shall see afterwards yet there is none so fit to the present Purpose as Days and Years nor so full as a Year of Days and then a Year of Years or of prophetical Days most agreeable to Prophecy every way I come now to the second Character of Days A Day then Character the Second is the first most known and observable date of Time as it was first in use to measure Time by The Evening and the Morning were the first Day assoon as Time began A Day Gen. 1. 5. c. then is the Time in which the Sun performs his Motion speaking as the Scripture does to general Apprehension without regard to strictnesses of Philosophy whether the Motion be of the Sun or of
regard of which or as referring to that Season they are call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Seasons We shall find the States suited to that Character viz. Time within Time or to Season which is a more pregnant intimate Time within a larger Time so that they may both fill the Character at its utmost breadth and length of Twelve hundred sixty Years and twice Forty two Months and yet more fruitfully Impregnate it with Season within its more intimate space Every part therefore of this Character time times semi-time hath the full extent of Twelve hundred and sixty dayes and yet a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or an intimate Kernel of Time within it And that we may be led to this Observation not only the words Season Seasons half a Season but those other words in place of them viz. three dayes and a half are on purpose chosen as we shall see when we compare the States viz. of the Beasts Tyranny and the Churches Sufferings with each Character of Time which I come next to do in the Third General SECT III. Of the matching each Character of Time with each of those States as in a General View THat the States of the Beasts Tyranny and the Churches Third General Sufferings may then be beheld at nearer Lights in their Implication with the Characters of Time Let us in the next place Remark each Character of Time match'd with its State and the Order wherein the Characters are given and then collect their certain Enfoldedness within one another and how justly inferrible the Sameness and Oneness of the whole space is although given under so many various Characters in the Union of the States Each of which hath yet its singular Use For they are not vain Repetitions or mere Flourishes of Symbolical Prophecy but each Character and each Repetition of each Character hath its great particular Service First then after the Real Line of Time given as it were in Substance in four Successive Monarchies and those represented in an Image or Immense Statue Dan. 2. and then under the Iconisme of four Beasts Dan. 7. The Regnancy of a Prince under the Type of a Little Horn is made the principal Aim of Prophecy and hath the first Character of Time set upon his duration viz. time times half a time and these are made so proper to him that whenever these are nam'd He as the Proprietor or Lessee of them from God is to be understood For changing Laws and Times and wearing out the Saints of the most High are so long given into his Hand Furthermore because any fixed Limits of Time could not be known by Time Times Semi Time being Hieroglyphical and a Number Vague and Floating in the vast Compass of four Monarchies There is therefore a Third Vision in which the Babylonian Monarchy as having no farther Place in Time is cut off altogether Dan. 8. 1. c. For it had been accounted in a Former Scripture-Line of Time viz. the 390 and forty five Days for Years Ezeck 4. 5 6. And therefore if it had not been cut off when a new Line of Time was to be given it must needs have disturbed that Line and all Account by it The Persian therefore the Grecian and the Roman Monarchies are given in new Symbols and a Line of twenty three hundred Even Morn of Prophetical Time till the Cleansing of the Sanctuary and the Breaking of that Prince so Insolent against Christ the Prince of Princes broken without Hand fitted to them And still to shew the principal drift of Prophecy at the Little Horn it is first particularly and notably pourtraied in Antiochus as a Type and therefore call'd a Little Horn and his principal Action is recorded to be the taking away the daily For so I translate it exactly according to the Hebrew Verity the Divine Spirit seeming to have design'd a Liberty for the supplying the Sense either with Sacrifice before the Death of Christ or with Service or daily Worship after Christ according to the Rules of the Gospel And it is Remarkable except in this Place and its parallels Dan. 11. and Dan. 12. there is not any Example of Tammith or the Continual without the Addition of Sacrifice so that I cannot but suppose it so plac'd for an especial significancy Now for the sake of Taking away the Daily the Vision is call'd the Vision of the Daily even as in regard of the 2300 Even Morn It is called the Vision of the Evening and of the Morning although it is most evident the Vision contains much more matter than just of the Daily taken away viz. of the Persian Monarchy and the former parts of the Grecian and the 2300 Even Morn embrace much more Time than the mere duration of the Daily taken away by Antiochus as a Type or even by the Antichristian taking away as is made to appear upon that Vision For in the Explanation of that Type when Daniel was made to understand the Vision in the Explanation of that Type I say All is so expounded as to be most agreeable to the little Horn and his Action in the former Vision Dan. 7. and to his Bestian Apocaliptick Tyranny Now this taking away first by the Gentiles begun then continued by the Beast lays a Foundation for the beginning this Line of Time we are upon For by reason of the length of a Line of Twenty three hundred Years seeing no particular Time can be ascertain'd by it Therefore the next Visions either explicitely in the 70 weeks of years viz. 490 till the end of the half Week or three years and a half after Messiah cut off and in the 1335 in which the Antitypical Antichristian taking away of the Daily begins and endures these very 1260 Days which we are upon or implicitly viz. 75 years during the Words going forth to restore and build Jerusalem first by Cyrus though immediately interrupted by Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes till the second of Darius then by the same Darius and after him by Artaxerxes called Longimanus completed All which is fully expounded on the Vision Dan. 9. And implicitly also in 400 years from the last half week after the Resurrection which is plainly the Epoch of Apocalyptical Time as is also made good on that part during the Time of the Seals opened till the Trumpets began and with the very first of them the 1260 dayes All which make up together the 2300 Even morning the 1260 leaving 75 for the finishing all things to the blessed and happy State which is Daniel's end of wonders Dan. 12. and the State of the New Jerusalem after the destruction of the Beast Revel chap. 19. chap. 20 c. even as it is the cleansing of the Sanctuary and breaking that proud Prince without hand Dan. 8. All these things being so fix'd that they cannot be otherwise for a Time there must be for the word going forth by a full Evidence of Sacred Prophecy in Daniel and History in Ezra Nehemiah and Esther
be a Prince without a People so that though the Gentiles forty two months are necessary before the Beasts forty two months yet they are not necessary to be a distinct time after for the Beasts Power necessarily supposes them they serve therefore not only the Grace of the Type as was said but the Secresie of the Prophesie both which require these numbers should be given entire and parallel even as Adams years of Life ran along to his Death with the common Line of Time to the Flood though it was necessary only until the Time of his Begetting and after that the Line was set upon a succeeding Patriarke and so in the whole Roll every ones Life though it did not support the Line yet corroborated it after the Paidogony or Begetting and so concurred with it to the last even thus the Gentiles Fourty two months support the Bestial Line till the Beasts rising and concurr in it with the Beast while they last and when they are ended there is no alteration because the Bestian Times include to the very last of them the gross Gentilisme of them that dwell on the Earth and the false Prophetisme into which the other Beast sunk down as into a proper Character after the Beasts 666 as Apoc. 19. v. 20. He is called and c. 20. v. 10. But further than this the Beasts forty two months have a certain Epoch viz. at the Year of our Lord 475 in the cessation of the Christian Empire in Augustulus Compare 2 Thess 2. with Revel 17. 10 11. For the Christian Emperours being the sixth King but none of the seven Heads was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or he that letted or with-held as the Empire was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the thing that letted or with-held that the eighth King that was yet of the seven Heads could not succeed for an after King cannot succeed till the former is gone off the Stage especially where God holds the Line of Succession firm so that by adjusting the forty two Months of the Beast as lunar Time to the 1260 Days of solar Time we find thirty eight Years difference and seeing All the whole Line must end with the 1260 the Time of the Beasts forty two Months beginning exactly agrees with 475 thirty eight Years after the 1260 Years of the Witnesses Sackcloath at 437 and All end at 1697. And because we have spoke much of the Intimate Time of the Beast or of his Season Seasons Half-season within time times half a time we have the Pillar of that Time erected Revel 13. 17 18. when his first Season was well or about eighteen Years enter'd viz. at 666 when his Name or Nature was come to his Number and when he was come to his Age of 666 from his Conception which by searching the Root and as the Vnderstanding and Reason of a Man searches Number we find to be Twenty Five by the consent of all Arithmetick as the Time of his Conception when the Mystery of Iniquity like a Womb was at work for him who as a man of those Characters 2 Thess 2. was indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Beast and from Twenty Five after the Resurrection or Apocalyptical Epoch the first visible Variation from the Apostolical Twelve both in Time and Nature when it became the Base of another Doctrine Kingdom the Root of another Name the Apostacy conceiv'd and wrought within the Mystery of Iniquity not openly but secretly and as in the lower parts of the Abyss out of which the Beast comes as a Womb at 725 when the War concerning Images began and continued till all that refus'd that Worship were anathematiz'd by the second Council of Nice I say to that 725 when Leo Conon the Grecian Emperour was struck by the Thunderbolt of Excommunication interceeded just 666 Years from twenty five Years after the Resurrection and if by the three days and a half by themselves as also by many other Circumstances leading us to the three days of our Lord's Death we ballance Time we shall find the Proportions for as Christ died in the last fourth part of the first day and rose in the first fourth of the third day so was the Condition of the Witnesses Begin their 1260 days at 437 and at 707 began the last fourth part of the first Day or Time viz. the last 90 of the first 360 as Christ's Death began at the sixth Hour or at twelve the last fourth part of the Nycthemer and was perfected by the end of it to his Burial so the Witnesses from 707 to 797 the end of the first day lay dead in the Street of the great City But it did not become the Type they should be buried and so to 1517 then their first motion to a Resurrection began and their compleat Resurrection at 1697 even to admiration answering the last half day And lastly because Imperial Revolutions as being under the eye of all History most livelily represented by their Emblems and fixed upon their just Rests of Time must needs strengthen Prophecy concerning the Church of God when one joyn Hand in Hand with the other there is therefore the Fall of the Western Empire given by the Divine Apocalyptical Prophecy to the Fall of the Eastern Empire or the taking of Constantinople by such wonderful Types and Figures of the gradual Impressions on the Western Empire Apoc. 8. v. 7. to the end by such Images of the Mahometan Saracens as Locusts c. 9. to v. 13. and of the Turkish Horsemen to the end of the Chap. and with such a Relation to the Antichristian Idolatries and their Impenitency therein adorn'd with such Notes of Time as the five months and five months to the Locusts and the hour the day the month and the year to the Horse-men call'd for by the Voice from the Golden Altar of Incense within the measur'd Temple when the Daily of publick Worship was taken away as makes the Line out of measure excellent and adorable as given by the Holy Spirit to the killing the third part of men or taking Constantinople 1453. Behold then as at a Review the admirable Structure of it and the great Instructions arising from its order of Repetitions upon these short Particulars 1. The intimate Time of this Line is especially most solemnly appointed and design'd and the whole as united with it for it is made and constituted not without an Oath Dan. 12. 7. to be Time Times half a Time and therein Season Seasons half a Season and it is cut off not without an Oath at the end of intimate Time though the whole of the Time Times half time be first supposed to run out at large and the whole both of Time at large and intimate Time also cut off for ever at that end Apoc. 10. 6. 2. The whole of this Line and of the last seventy five Years is measured by even Indictions or Fifteens of Years the use of which Rising in the Reign of Constantine became well known by
against whom the Sounds are Directed These two first Trumpets then as beginning at 437 summon the Barbarian Nations to fall on on all parts of the Empire as they had began to do by the vertue of the Angels preparing themselves to sound About this time Gensericus the Vandal-King took Carthage the Hunns over-ran the upper and lower Pannonia now called Hungary Thrace and Illyricum the Brittish Provinces soon after fell into the Hands of Strangers and Barbarians Thus the Glory and Greenness the Flourish and Verdure of the Roman Empire was universally blasted by the Hail and Fire mingled with Blood of the first Trumpet running every way At the same time no Green of true Christianity was unblasted by the Apostacy and Rome it self as a great Mountain burning with Fire was thrown into the Sea that is it had been indeed taken under Honorius in the preparation to Sound and immediately recover'd But now at the Second Trumpet it was made the Ball of War in a continual Taking and Retaking for many years after so that the Flames of War from several Parts of the World and the People of it compar'd to a Sea congregated about it and in the midst of the fearful Broil the Imperial Starr Augustulus the last Emperour fell From hence therefore we obtain the clear Agreement of Time with the Symbol of the First three Trumpets as their Blast fell upon the third part of men the Figure of the Roman Empire in Agreement with the Dragon or Roman Emperours drawing down the third part of the Starrs with his Tayl. Revel 12. 14. Where all Interpreters understand that Imperial Power Now at the very time of the Barbarous Nations coming like the Gentiles into the chief Residences of the Christian Religion is the Symbol of the Apostacy of the Gentiles treading the Holy City and Court and the Dragon Rev. 11. 2. c. 12. 13. 14. persecuting the Woman just now taking her flight into the Wilderness fairly made out both as to Similitude and Time But that the Ministration of the Trumpets may answer the Ministration by the Servants of God in his Church at the Seals opened besides this Semblance of the Trumpets with War Holy Writing leads us to another viz. the Sacred use of Trumpets in the giving of the Law Exod. 19. And they were instituted by God to call the Congregation of the Servants of God together which was now not into Publick but in Private at the Altar of Incense There was also the Feast of Trumpets on the First Day of the Seventh Month joyn'd with the Reading of that Law upon which follow'd the Solemn Fast on the Tenth Day Levit. 23. 23 c. and Numb 29. 2. Thus by these Trumpets the Witnesses began their Prophecy and Testimony for the Commandments of God and Doctrine of Jesus and in Sackcloth and Fasting These Prophets and Watchmen blew the Trumpet according to the charge laid upon them Ezek. 32. v. 1 c. And according to this Blowing the trumpets the Camp the Congregation the Woman the Church made its motions in the Wilderness according to Numb 10. v. 1 c. So admirably does this Symbol agree with the Gentiles forty two Months of treading the Holy Court with the Worshippers at the Altar of Incense with the Witnesses Prophecy in Sackcloth and the Womans Flight into the Wilderness as on Eagles wings in regard of Divine Providence as well as of the Roman Eastern and Western Empire Apostatizing And how fitly does the whole Apocalyptical Time answer the Jews Feast of the Passover at the Resurrection of Christ united with the Feast of Weeks at the giving of the Spirit and John's being in the Spirit when he receiv'd the Revelation and then follows the Interval of the Seals opened like that Interval of Feasts till the day of blowing the Trumpets and the Fast or Sackcloth after which follows the Triumphant Feast of Tabernacles so celebrated Numb 29. by the Ennumeration of every Day 's Services like the cleansing of the Sanctuary by the solemn Observation of it at the restoring Jerusalem Ezra 3. 4. in Image of the New Jerusalem and Nehemiah 8. after the Feast of Trumpets with Olive-branches Pine Myrrh Palm-branches ver 15. like dwelling in a Garden of Eden and in Resemblance of the Palms Revel 7. 9. and as a prophetical Emblem of the Paradise of God Revel 2. 7. c. 22. 2. compar'd according to all which the Prophet Zechar. so distinguishly proclaims in that wonderful Prophecy of the Glory of Christ's Kingdom Zech. 14. this Feast of Tabernacles v. 16. and as if it were the entring a Caution against understanding that as the True Feast of Tabernacles Nehem. 8. 4. A solemn Fast follows as it were irregularly upon it Nehem. 9. to shew the True Feast of Tabernacles was not yet come but a long Mourning to intervene And how excellently do the seven Thunders uttering their Voices agree with the Trumpets sounding so long For towards the latter Time of the sixth Trumpet and at the last 180 Days beginning the Gospel Law was given in these Thunders like those of the Law Exodus 20. v. 28. Thus all things concurring even to Miracle or a Demonstration of the Almighty Wisdom and Power of God I cannot doubt I have fix'd upon the true Epoch or Beginning of the Line of 1260 days at 437 and so upon the end of it at 1697. Let it then be certainly apprehended by all that love Christs Remark on the whole Kingdom what God hath so determin'd shall come to pass and that He the Lord will hasten it in its own Time He will work and none shall let it The Israelites went out of Egypt to a Day at the 430 years end of their sojourning and no sinful Exod. 12. 41. unsensibleness that God would deliver them by Moses or their other sins could interpose Christ wrought Redemption at the very night of the Fulness of Time viz. at the middle of the last half Week and no unworthiness of the Age could Dan. 9. 27. hinder it though never so great so nothing shall hinder the Rising of the Witnesses and their Ascension at the 1260 days Revel 11. 9. Ten years hence no though there should be Three dayes and a half not only signifying the intimate Time as hath been declared but a Blush a Recollection a drawing the whole Time past again in little at the end For no Appearances how great soever shall surprise the Divine Decrees upon Time Nullum tempus occurrit Regi There may be a deep Reshrouding Christianity at least in some Parts The Israelites slavery sate closest upon them when their Redemption was so nigh We see what a change was begun 1517 by those seven Thunders when all was one Night piece and the Voice so little from Man and wholly from Heaven much more at 1697. We see how at this day the Turkish Power that hath been so long the Terrour Scourge and Woe of the World call'd Christian Falls when
Lords Ministry and also a part of the three days of his Death was an intimate Time within the three days at large of his state of Death or dying According then to these paralels but especially that of our Lords three days of Death to which the Death of the Witnesses is more eminently paralel'd we may find the intimate part of Time Times half a Time we are upon Observing then our Lords three days we find the half Matt. 28. 1. Marc. 15. 1. Luc. 22. 66. day of the first of the three began early in the Morning with Proceedings against him which were as Legal Judiciary Proceedings by the Priests and Elders in Council they had by a private way examined him in the Night in the Morning as soon as it way Day they held the Council Ecclesiastick and proper to themselves and condemned him as guilty of Death About the third Hour they led him to Pilate that he might be legally and juridically condemned by him as the Roman Governour like delivering over to the secular Power At the sixth hour they began the actual Crucifixion viz. about twelve but after the ninth hour that is our three in Matt. 27. 46. Marc. 19. 34. the Afternoon our Lord died as a Sacrifice between the two Evenings and before that day ended which was the first of the three he was laid in the Earth and there he continued the whole second Night and the Day following which was the Jewish Sabbath and till within the Night of the third Day Matt. 28. 1. Mar. 16. 2. Luc. 24. 1. which was the first part of it and was our Christian Sabbath or Lords day and the first of the Week This is now the Scripture-sense of the three Days of our Matt. 12. 40. Lords being in the Grave or Heart of the Earth and so by Proportion we are taught to understand the three days and half of the Witnesses lying dead viz. a part of each first and last and the whole of the middle The very precise Time of the Night at which Christ arose is not indeed revealed but it was a part of the Third Day ' ere he rose For it is well known the Night going before and the Day or Light coming after according to the order of Creation made the Jewish day although therefore we know not the very Moment yet it is most agreeable to believe In the very first part of the Night as soon as Christ had lain long enough to fulfill the Prediction He arose for early in the Morning while it was yet dark the Women coming John 20. 1. to embalm him found him risen It is very plain then the intimate time of the dying sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ entred at the second half or the Morning of the first of the three days and grew more intimate and was more fill'd with that transaction by the second fourth part of that half for the Evangelist Mark says it was Marc. 15. v. 25. the third hour viz. our nine of the Clock and the Jews crucified him intending the whole proceeding before Pilate to his Crucifixion at the third fourth part or the sixth hour which is our Noon after some short debate with Pilate They led him away bearing the Cross to Golgotha and then he was lift John 19. 49. Matt. 27. 45. v. 46. Marc. 13. 34. up to the Cross and the Heavens were cover'd with blacks as at his Crucifixion soon after the last fourth part or the ninth hour which is our three of the Clock He gave up his Spirit and was speedily after entombed I do not intend to pursue this Paralel too close or too minutely nor to rely too hard on History to give the motions of time exactly enough but I rest securely on Prophecy that there was a sufficient agreement between that and the Event at every just Time The Idolatry and Tyranny or Usurpation of the Beast was risen by the Morning of the second 180 of the first 360 about 617 eleven years after the Vniversality given by Phocas when the Star fell and received the Key of the bottomless Pit It was further advanc'd and strengthned by the first Council of Lateran 649 against the second fourth of this 180 years viz. 659 To answer the third fourth viz. 717 it was promoted so much further that God who justly weighs all such Motions sets up 18 years after viz. at 725 or 726 the Pillar of intimate Time 666. Between the two Evenings or within the last fourth part viz. 787 at the second Councel of Nice the Beast overcame the Witnesses were slain and so they lay dead for two whole Days or twice 360 years till 1517 when after the half day begun The first motion to a Resurrection manifested it self which could not be till they had continued dead such a part of this last half day as suffic'd to fulfill the Prophecy that says their dead Bodies should lye three days and a half in the street of the great City And without laying too much weight upon Particles of Time it is out of measure certain the Power of the Beast the Idolatry and Tyranny of the Man of Sin within due distance of the time signified by this Prophecy and of which History near enough to Time gives some very remarkable watch-word or rather loud Voice were at an elevation every way adequate to the suffering dying state of the Witnesses according to the Predictions that went before concerning both in this Symbol or Exemplar of that great Proto-Martyr the chief and supream Witness the faithful Martyr Jesus Christ and those Gradations or Steps of his dying and rising again so exactly measured out in time within his three days and their three days and a half abating only for the difference of the Paralels our Lord was buried they were not to be so as we shall presently observe Now for the further proving these things I thus Argue Whenever the Beasts Name and the number of his Name began Arg. 1 the Receiving the Name and the number of the Name began also For these are so essentially joyned together as not to be divided and indeed the Name and the Number do not come into Record but for the receivings sake of them and then the Worship of the Image the receiving a Mark in the Forehead or the right Hand began also For all these are here of equivalent Satisfaction to the Beast and they are all along through the after Prophecy joyn'd as of equal Guilt Sin and Danger however then they may denote several Posts and Stations in the service of the Beast as it is indeed a great and wonderful Court and hath a most stupendious diversity of Offices Ministrations Subordinations and Dependencies and as vast a Populace yet all these speak the same Devotion Subjection Vassalage to the Beast in one kind or other and therefore the Priviledge of those who abjure any of these as therein abjuring all is allowed equal by Christ so that
they are all indifferently and promiscuously by this Prophecy used in all Cases as we may see If then the Number of the Name co-eval with the Number of the Beast was at 725 all the rest must be also at that Time Seeing then it is evident All must begin together If by Evidence from History one was at 725 or as between 725 and 726 we may conclude All the rest were so too But that one was viz. the Worship of the Image we have that so illustrious Icono-Clastick History at that Time Now besides the force of the Allusion between Worship of Images and the worshipping the Beasts Image if we examine it well we shall find both united For as in the worship of Nebuchadnezzar's Image to which pattern the Prophecy undoubtedly refers It seems the Worship of an Image made to his Glory even of that Image he saw in a Dream of which he was the Head of Gold or however most certainly his universal Power and Monarchy commanding all Nations was celebrated by the Worship of the Image he had made and therefore the Edict runs in that Imperial Style Unto you it is commanded O People Nations Tongues and Languages But besides this The worshipping this Image is call'd both by Nebuchadnezzar himself and by the Servants of the true Dan. 3. 14. 18. God The serving of his Gods Even thus The worshipping the Image made to the Beast was both a Worship of the Beast as part of that old Image made up of Idolatry and Tyranny a Worship of his Universal Power commanding Nations Tongues and People and also justly call'd a Worship of his Gods represented by Images As worshipping his Image in the last Time of the fourth Beast or Monarchy gives so significant an Allusion to the Worship of Images set up at that time by his exorbitant Power in whom the whole Image and Bestianism shall perish Of all this Leo Conon Isaurus and after him his Son Constantine Copronymus and the Successors of them from 725 or 726 the Beasts 666 until the second Council of Nice are a notable Indication for although we read not of any precedent Decree by the Beast commanding the Worship of Images yet the general usage of so doing made Image-worship as an Idolatrous Colossus to which every one in obedience to this Bestian Monarch paid Devotion And when the Emperour denied thus to worship it was an Offence as high as against that express Lyon-mouth'd Command of that King of Babylon Vnto You c. And in that these Emperours were out of Rome's Diocese and Jurisdiction it was a style like that Vnto you it is commanded O Tongues People and Languages And the Disobedience a Denial to worship the Image of Vniversality made to the Beast in a Monarchy so universal as to be above Emperours And if things were thus with so great Personages as Emperours how must they prevail in general upon Nations Tongues and Languages of an inferiour Character and what must the Rage be against them Whenever the Number was compleat the War so often Arg. 2 foretold that the Beast should make with the Witnesses with the Seed with the Saints must needs be also for then was the Obligation to worship and to receive a mark the Name or the number of the Name carrying the Nature But the 144000 sealed who had not defiled themselves with Women of a Virgin-worship and obedience to the Lamb distinct from the Beast and his Woman of Fornications he carries The Seed who keep the Commandments of God and hold the Testimony of Jesus The Saints and Holy Worshippers in the Temple must certainly remonstrate to this Idolatrous Tyranny and abominate it They are those who neither worship'd the Beast nor his Image nor receiv'd his Mark Name nor Number as is after the mention of this Number often recorded to their Honour Upon this the Beast risen out of the bottomless Pit who was to make War with all these and into whose hand they were given would in his Rage and his Fury make the War that was given to him to make with them And by wonderful Providence without which a Hairfalls not to the ground The Name of the high Feud in this matter is in all Historical Records call'd a War From 725 or 726 or the Beasts 666 Icono-Machia or Bellum Iconoclasticum The War of destroying Images Loade's History And though Leo the Emperour may seem to be the Aggressor and to have begun the War yet because the Cause on his side was just it is in Prophetical Censure the Beast that made the War and Leo Canon is herein a Representative of all the Witnesses Speedily after the War must follow the dying of the Witnesses Arg. 4 for whenever the War began it was given to the Beast to overcome and to kill and this was as was said solemnly declar'd by the second Council of Nice as also by the Excommunication of the Emperour and violating his Rights in Italy from him as in Capital Letters Greek and Latin as it were like the Jews Superscription on Christ All that worship not the Beast nor Received c. are damned Hereticks And this according to the known Blast of Excommunication was both a religious a civil and also a natural Death as often as the Tyranny of the Beast could make it so This Interdict Proscription and Outlawry upon men joyn'd with the Anathema or Curse of Excommunication like casting into the fiery Furnace was the very dying of the Witnesses the dispiriting and invalidating their Testimony so that it was esteem'd not only dangerous as to worldly Concerns but a deadly Sin to hold with them They were cursed even as he was that was hanged on a Tree All detested and abhorr'd them as damned Hereticks hated of God and Men. And when the Beast had this Victory They then cried out Who is like the Beast Who is able to make War with him They then in token of Triumph sent Gifts one to another rejoyced and made merry because of these Prophets who tormented them that dwell on the Antichristian Earth But tho' they died As their Lord did they could not as he be buried His Death was to be so assur'd by Burial but these Witnesses being a successive Body were to continue dying and prophecying as Christ did at his Death viz. in their continual Successions Part of this first day the whole two following days or twice 360 Years joyn'd therefore as two Times till within 1517 the last half day or 180 Years then the first motion to a Resurrection began and could not begin sooner So that when that Resurrection began we may know assuredly Intimate Time was expir'd The last 180 Years on which it was to make an Impression was come and that therefore the twice 360 days were past or the two Times and that some part of the first 360 days or first Time had also past since Intimate Time began so as to come from thence forward to 1517 and so to 1697 which is the
Period to be prov'd Till that 1517 then They lay dead in the Street or Breadth of that Great City which extended it self over Nations Tongues People as the old City Rome did The Sons of the Church-Rome were as the Burgesses and Citizens of that City every where This spiritual Sodom and Egypt is for the sake of this very Type call'd the City where our Lord was crucified and lay dead three days as the three Witnesses three and a half and is the very same City and Church But the Nations Tongues and People furnishing new Successions of them suffer'd them not to be buried that their Prophecy might continue 1260 Years for the finishing their Testimony was not the finishing their Prophecy which was to last the 1260 Days but their Testimony as it was Testimony without Martyrdom was finish'd and the Testimony of Martyrdom and dying begun which from its Beginning was to continue three days and a half or the inward season part of Time Times Half a Time viz. to 1697. And to shew when it began Prophecy besides killing makes use of the Propriety of the Interdict Proscription or Outlawry of Excommunication That none should buy or sell who did not receive c. whether Great Rich or Free pointing on the Emperours on whom the Interdict so conspicuously fell then on Small Poor Bond signifying the universal Death of the Witnesses by the extent of the Nicean Anathema's at 787. All which is so clear a notice of the Time that one would think it impossible to be denied Now that the Beast might be every way mounted to the height to compleat his Number 666 at 725 or 26 and that the Divine Prophecy is cautious in not setting it too hastily may be easily believ'd when we consider the early aspirings of the Bishop of Rome who before the Year 200 in the Controversie concerning the time of celebrating Easter had by Victor otherwise a good man and Martyr by way of Presage began to mannage the Key of the bottomless Pit in the Excommunication of the Eastern Churches or if we consider what Accounts Ammianus Marcellinus a grave Heathen Historian in the Time of Julian the Apostate about 360 gives of the State and Grandeur of that Bishop in his Time insomuch that he does profess the secular Glory Richess and Splendour of it might tempt him to embrace Christianity if that Bishoprick might be the Reward of his Conversion And although this Greatness must needs in the calamitous State of Rome be much depress'd yet it is plain it waited all opportunities of lifting up its Head and at this Time to that height that by infallible Judgment of this Prophecy the Beast was come to his Number at 725. And to conclude this matter from all that hath been spoken of this Number It cannot except by accident predict the end of the Beasts Time for however that Denunciation Revel 14. 9. intimates the possibility of worshipping the Beast and his Image and receiving his Mark viz. by impenitent Perseverance in that Apostacy even after not only his intimate Time expir'd but even after the end of his 1260 Days as I expound that Voice of the Angel yet it is not to be suppos'd that the Holy Spirit would give the Number of the Name that was to be receiv'd as a Test of Subjection to the Beast as a Hieroglyphick of his End For what service were it to the Beast or what dishonour to Christ to carry the Hieroglyphick of the Time God had determin'd to the Beast's Destruction Seeing the Mark the Name the Number of the Name and of the Beast are as hath been declar'd all substantially wreath'd and wrought one into another and import close and deep Subjection to the Beast When we compare intimate Time in its beginning and Arg. 5 ending with the other Symbol of the Witnesses shutting Heaven that it should not rain in the days of their Prophecy it is a very visible Resemblance of that Time with the Apostacy of the ten Tribes through the Seduction of Jezebel in the days of Elijah and of that Drought of three Years and six Months at his Word As then the Seducements of a spiritual Jezebel that maketh her self a Prophetess led away those that by the Profession of Christ should be his Servants to Idolatry and Fornication even so the same Jezebel Rev. 17. is plainly declar'd as in the Church of Thyatyra so the Witnesses contemporary with Rev. 2. 20. this Jezebel have a power to shut Heaven that it should not rain in the twelve hundred sixty Days of their Prophecy but at their Word But then as we have shewed Elijah's three Years and six Months comprehended such an Intimate Time that a part of the first year and a part also of the last six months and the two years whole comprehended the whole Time And thus in the Parallel of the Witnesses we may begin the first Year near the Time of the Star falling when the Heaven became shut as to any Rain or Dew of pure Evangelical truth but we most certainly know that when there was a great sound of Rain as of the seven Thunders viz. from 1517. Although it was but a Cloud as big as a man's hand that then appear'd we know I say that Intimate Time was past and that there could be from thence but 180 Years which must end at 1697. Then it was Thou O God didst send a plentiful Rain whereby Psal 68. 9. thou didst renew thy Inheritance when it seem'd as it were quite lost and become perfect Heath and Wilnerness And had not the Thunders been seal'd the Rain had been by this time as the great Ocean swelling with the Knowledge of the Lord as the Waters cover the Sea but at the prefix'd Time the seventh Trumpet shall sound as the seventh Look of Elijah's Servant 1 King 18. 33 34. and the Rain shall be so great as to put a final stop to the spiritual Ahab the great Antichristian King How much farther this Pillar erected within Intimate Time may guide us upon the Periods of Time remarkable after the Reformation we shall have opportunity to research upon that Juncture as also concerning the due Application of the Number of the Beast upon both that and the next distribution of the Line we are to entreat upon I conclude then this great Character of Time viz. 666. under the Apprehension of its Root at 25 from the Resurrection to 725 with this short Remark By this sure Word of Prophecy we may see the danger of returning Remark to Antiquity Antiquity not Cannoniz'd Antiquity without the Assurance of the Word of God and solid Reason to bear it up in all its Behests It would be to repeat over again the steps of the Apostacy and to produce the Number of the Beast a second Time it would be no better than Nicodemus's returning to his Mothers Womb to be born from whence he would certainly come with the same Corruption double Even such would
although they are as overflowings of the Prophecy beyond its Conduct of things within the Trumpets yet it is most demonstrable They must all return within the Trumpets and Time at large begin with the Trumpets and intimate Time be guided by the Pillar of Time erected within the fifth Trumpet For seeing the Woman and the Witnesses 1260 days must needs be equal in their Beginning and Ending and the Beasts Intimate Time must be plac'd where the Witnesses Vanquishment and Death are and that these must be within the Trumpets nay in that all Time must be before the seventh Trumpet and end at it All Time therefore from thence in account recoyls backward so as to find room for it self even to the first of the 1260 Days within the first Trumpet which beginning at 437 ends with 42 the Concent of all Periods at 1697. All which ought to be evinc'd all along and I do more then hope hath been so evinc'd I have already prevented my self in the Remarques of this whole Line by placing them early in the first Views of it and therefore now make only these short ones as a Conclusion We may be heal'd of any dangerous Wonder that an Remark 1 Apostacy from Christian Religion so foul and thick as to need no Confutation of its Figments and Fables the very Title his Holiness Vicar of Christ do so loudly proclaim Antichrist That such a one hath endur'd so long a Time hath captivated the Wise the Learned the Politick the Noble the Royal the Imperial we see in this Prophecy It was to do so and by this Oath of Christ it was and is to last Time Times half Time even till the end of it It is to do so e're its Decem Principality It s ten horn'd Kingdom Fall And although it began by degrees yet it hath two most sudden Downfalls one at the Reformation as but in preparation and beginning the other at the end of that Half time then begun viz. at 1697 when His Fall shall be exceeding great Seeing it is most impossible Intimate time should return Remark 2 whatever Sufferings there may be of the Church of Thyatyra how great how dismal soever yet there cannot be a slaying of the Witnesses any more for Christ hath sworn with the Rainbow cap. 10. 1. on his Head It shall be as the Waters of Noah to him Isa 54. 9. There shall be no such Return for ever nor can I apprehend the Church of Sardis can in any parts of the Reform'd Nations Rev. 3. 3. v. 9. lose its State by a Return of that Apostacy its only danger is its shame that without Repentance will befall it at the more glorious Appearance of Christ's Kingdom and especially those Parts of it that have relapsed to a Synagogue of Sathan shall with double shame be forc'd to come and worship at Philadelphia's Feet and to know Christ hath lov'd it who endeavour'd to shut its Door Seeing we are compassed about with so great a Cloud of Witnesses Remark 3 let us with great Confidence wait hope expect pray for the great Glory that is to be brought unto us at that great Appearance that will be made of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ at the end of the half time or half day or at the last of the last 180 of 1260 Days viz. at 1697 so often memorializ'd although but in preparation to that Kingdom it self 75 Years after And if we shall not live to it in this World yet we shall lose nothing by it for in Heaven and with the Lamb on Mount Zion we shall with the other Witnesses rejoyce in Rev. 14. 1. so happy a Change as will even then be made and so rejoyce for ever each in our Lot of the Land of Promise or the New Jerusalem The end of the second Point of this Line of Time or its Period SECT XIV Wherein is contained a brief Disquisition upon the seven Voices as they run along Apoc. ch 14. THE last Line of Time upon the grand Line of Daniel's 2300 Ev. Mor. stretches out it self beyond the so often repeated Prophetical Line we have been upon and yet it is most justly and according to the Reason of the Line to be joyned with it because the holy Spirit hath in Daniel so joyned to 1260 30 more making 1290 and then 45 making 1335 as hath been so often observ'd so that from hence however joyn'd rises a distinct Line of 75 Years consisting of its lesser Distinctions 30 and 45. And with great Wisdom and Design they are undoubtedly thus joyn'd and yet distinguish'd for hereby is shewn 1. That it is the same principal Line of 2300 Ev. Mor. thus protended 2. That the managements of Divine Power as to the Divine Kingdom are of a distinct nature from what they were any part even the last and best part that is the Half-time of the 1260 Days or since the Reformation and yet that there is an Agreement too so that the Kingdom is distinctly advanc'd in the first 30 above the State of it along the Half-time and still farther and higher advanc'd in the last Distinction or the forty five and yet that the Kingdom does not appear in Glory until the End of the 1335 all which appears very plainly both in Daniel and this Apocalyptick Prophecy where seeing the Voices and the Vials come after the 1260 Days we may conclude by the Union and by the Distinction together That the latter end of the sixth Trumpet adheres close to the seventh and then by the Voices first and the Vials after them both of the seventh Trumpet following so close one upon another and by the Blessed State coming upon all we may be most assur'd the Voices and the Vials answer to the Thirty and the Forty five Years of Surplusage to the 1260 Days so distinguish'd and so conjoyn'd Now that these Voices and Vials of the seventh Trumpet are yet to come and to come in the Order laid down and within the Time laid down these six Things may indubitably convince us 1. We may be fully assur'd nothing so great as the seven Thunders could be heard before the Reformation so high so loud for the Kingdom of Christ so they must be with the Reformation beginning 2. There is most apparently a space allowed for the Thunders remaining seal'd after their Voices uttered which space hath so great reason as hath been given to be rated at a Half-time or 180 Years and so cannot be run out yet since the Reformation 3. Nothing so eminent since the Reformation as the Fall of the Tenth of the Great City or the Turkish Woe ceasing whatever hopes now appear nor of the seventh Trumpet so closely lynck'd with both hath yet been seen 4. The Oath of Christ that Time should be no more cannot possibly allow such a space of Time or Delay as the Half-time after Time Times Half-Time within the seventh Trumpet or indeed any Time at all wherein every thing should not be in
with the false Prophet and cast into the Lake with him He is consumed with the Spirit of Christs Mouth and disappears vanishes as a counterfeit at the sight of the true Christ himself being a false Christ an Antichrist comprehending and embracing false Prophetism within his Tyranny of changing Laws and Times and doing after his own Will Now whether such a Tyranny in the Image of Pseudo Prophetism hath been in the World gradually rising according to Prophecy since the decease of the Christian Emperour and supporting the forty two months for above these last twelve hundred years and especially from 606 and 725 that hath been no Fantom Ghost or Mormo but Flesh and Bones hard substantial Tyranny Let all the Christian World judge And thus I have settled every way the forty two months as Bestianism lyes under them without any new Distinction of Time under which nothing so remarkably transcendent to the former account of the other Beast and the Witnesses appears as will come into consideration in the Progress of things to which therefore I adjoyn the farther Treaty of them and close this part of Discourse with these few short Remarks Let the Prophetick Symbols be laid either to Ecclesiastick or Remark 1 General History and we shall find History hath nothing relating to things Prophecy hath been suppos'd to have design'd its Symbols to and for but that both in the Frame and Structure of the whole Prophecy in its Series and Notes of Time there is a most exact and wonderful Co-ordination of one to and with the other I mean in Cardinal Points To ascribe them then to Chance or Fancy what does it speak but an Obstinacy semblable to that of the Atheist against all proof of a Divine Being or to the Pharisaick Despightful accounting to the Prince of Devils what was too evident to be denied and too great to be devolv'd upon natural Causes If the Mystery of Iniquity began in the very Time of the Remark 2 Apostles if the Apostacy began at 437 and that then the Gentiles had invaded the outward Court of the Christian Profession as within their forty two months so to do if the Beast was at 475 in his forty two months under the Guardianship of the other Beast with the two Horns of East and West however pretending to the Lamb What Dependance can there be upon Antiquity not supported by Divine Authority of Scripture or firm solid Reason How much better are close Researches into this Divine Prophecy to determine those Controversies than Search into Antiquity only As certainly as the Gentiles Power of entring the Holy Remark 3 Ground and treading it down with unhallowed Feet as certainly as the Beast came into his forty two Months at the due time so certainly shall the Kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ succeed at the end of these forty two Months for it is not only so according to the Word of the Watchers and Demand of the Holy ones but according to the solemn Oath of Christ with hands lifted up to Heaven That after Time Times Half a Time Time shall be no more but of the seventh Trumpet finishing All and the Beast going into Perdition There is no Injury done to Persons of Royal Dignity or Remark 4 of any other Character of Dominion by deriving upon them what Divine Prophecy hath affix'd to them their Persons their Places may receive all due Honour and Christian Subjection notwithstanding Prayers may be made for them as any way deputed by God their personal Vertues and worthy Actions may be had in due esteem even as the Princes of the Heathen by Daniel Ezra Nehemiah or of the Caesars by the Apostles SECT IX In which the Time from the Forty two Months beginning is set out till 622 or the Mahometan Hegira by Rome 's dark State in the Fourth Trumpet by the Angel proclaiming the three Woe Trumpets by the Beast becoming a fallen Star at 606 and the Key of the Abyss given him viz. in the Universal Pastorship by Phocas and the Ministry of the other Beast to him herein and the state of the Witnesses are also declar'd Revel c. 8. v. 12. c. c. 9. v. 1. c. I Have in the former Section settled that so considerable Period of the Beast's Forty two Months and settled them upon their own Base the Beast in his most essential and fundamental Delineation but this Part rested upon the Point of Time that was even with his Succession His Rising out of the Sea that Sea into which Rome was thrown into which those Fountains ran where into the Imperial Star Wormwood fell and imbitter'd them This gave opportunity to the Beasts Succession to his rising out of that very Sea as hath been argued for when Augustulus thus fell the Name and Head into which the Beast succeeded was in the midst of the Tumults of the Winds striving upon the Great Sea the Winds rais'd by the three first Trumpets left supreme so He succeeded The Judgment of God upon the apostatiz'd Christian Empire made way for him to rise to a supreme Apostate God took away that apostatiz'd indeed Imperial King but no Head and gave the Apostacy a proper both Head and King in his Wrath. But he was at this time and long after a Beast that Was and yet Is not There being therefore no other Name of Potency and Augustness Rome the Absolute Rome for Constantinople was but a mutuatitious Rome it borrowed in Emulation the Name Rome only because I say there was no other Name but that of the Bestian Succession in the time when he was under the Inscription Is not Rome was very dark All other Names not only of Supremacy but even of Subordinacy by degrees were ecclips'd yea the Ecclipse was total ' ere the Light returned no Emperour no Senate no Kings under the Denomination of Rome no Consuls And Rome it self became a Provincial City under the Exarchat of Ravenna as low a State as the Mistress of the World could be depress'd into more inglorious than an utter Extinction Thus it was from 475 beginning to about 550 under Justinian the Emperour Herein all History is at Peace at one with it self and so things continued some time And how elegantly does Prophecy represent this under the symbolical Account of the fourth Trumpet The fourth Angel sounded and the third part of the Sun of the Moon and of the Stars were smitten and the Day shined not for a third part thereof and the Night likewise The Bestian Name being as yet in a Peerage and out of that very Peerage to come in an Image into its lustre and the Image not yet made could not inlighten this great Orb for its Name however the only Name of Supremacy was not yet known in its Bestian Supremacy but was yet as of another Order and Claim But now at the end of the fourth and in the beginning of the fifth Trumpet it began to dawn and so Prophecy will by its Dawn
convey us upon this Line this wonderful Line we have discoursed so long upon the Line of the 1260 Days with which the forty two Months of the Beast are now combin'd Prophecy will I say very speedily in the fifth Trumpet convey and set us upon a new Line of the Mahometan Hegira or Computation of Time so that we shall run upon it for the space of eight hundred and thirty Years together with the 1260 Days and with the Bestian Line comprehending in short the most Oecumenical and illustrious Points of History at that Time in the Universe viz. of the Bestian and the Mahometan Grassation or Invasion into the same kind of Universal Power and both upon the Account of Pseudo-Prophetism the due Observation of which will persuade us of the Divineness of this Prophecy and that we are upon the true Explication of it As it were then between the ending of the Time of the fourth and the beginning of the Time of the fifth Trumpet there was a loud Voice as of an Angels flying through the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that upper Region like the Voice of Thunder reaching down to the Earth and saying Woe Woe Woe to the Inhabiters of the Earth because of the Voices of the Angels that are yet to sound Now it were wonderful if merely by the chance of Imagination running such a Path so great and remarkable Configurations both of Prophecy and History should meet it so often just where it would choose and desire to be so met For at this very Time Gregory call'd the Great Bishop of Rome a Personage of so great Eminence for Vertue Learning and Eloquence declar'd aloud in his Epistles to the Emperour Mauricius and to John the Bishop of Constantinople So also to the Bishops of Alexand. and Antioch That Antichrist was near That the Title of Vniversal Bishop was a certain Indication of him That it was Pride to assume such a Title It was like Lucifer Son of the Morning ascending the heights of the Stars setting his Throne above the other Angels above the other Stars affecting to be like the Most High Now seeing no such could be fix'd in the Firmament or Heaven of the Gospel he must needs Fall How close then is this to the prophetick Language I saw a Star fall from Heaven or as Christ in a like case speaks I saw Satan fall as Lightning from Heaven as the Dragon fell but found in the Beast a Kingdom on Earth as before said Just as when Satan fell from Heaven he had a Kingdom assign'd him by the Divine Permission and Decree viz. God of this World Ruler of the Darkness of this World This Star who is the Son of Perdition whose coming is after the manner of Satan had the same in Proportion the Key of the bottomless pit is given to him that is permitted to him given judiciarily into his hand by God's wise and holy sufferance and over-rule of all things to his Glory This Fall then of this Star is like the Angels leaving their own Habitation their first Estate or true original Principality Jude v. 6. a Fall not like that of the Stars the Dragon swept down with his Tail or of the Star Wormwood an involuntary Fall a Fall from the Heaven of a political Order and Supremacy to a low State without Power but a Fall of Apostacy from his due Station a planetary Defection from his own Orb v. 16. into a Kingdom of the bottomless Pit to which Darkness is reserv'd for ever And whenever the Antichrist came the Beast rose out of the bottomless pit or which is the same this Star had fallen there must be then Woe Woe Woe for the Vengeance of God at the same time made him way and pursued him every Trumpet sounded against him The first was to hurt only the Revel 9. 4. Men that were not seal'd of which he was the Prince the second was upon those who were guilty of Murthers Sorceries v. 20. Thefts Idolatries The Woman whom the Beast carried was guilty of all these was impenitent in them although c. 11. v. 15. compar'd with c. 14. c. 15. c. 16. God gave her space to repent The Third Woe-Trumpet brought with it the Kingdom of Christ and the Destruction of Antichrist or the Bestian Kingdom so there was Woe Woe Woe on the Bestian Earth whenever Antichrist came Immediately after this Remonstrance of the Bishop Gregory the Bishop Boniface accepts from the parricidick Emperour Phocas this Vniversality so that in his sense Antichrist then came and the first Woe-Trumpet according to Prophecy is dated from his Fall What can be more wonderful as Gregory was at all a good Man his Prediction must be own'd to a better Spirit and to the Knowledge Divine Prophecy gave him and to the Impression it had made upon him As he was himself part of that Body upon which his own Prediction ran it was like Nebuchadnezzar's prophetick Dream of Dan. 2. the Ruine of that Image by the Stone of which he was the head of Gold or like the Prophecy of Caiaphas a very bad Joh. 11. 51. part of which himself was concern'd in however his eminent Station gave the Rebound of his Prediction as through the World And the time of Rome lying so low is noted most emphatically by Prophecy viz. Rome without any eminent Light of Government and then follows such an immediate Appearance of Antichrist according to the Signal given of him by that Bishop of Rome and according to Prophecy the Star Fell. This is in some sense I may say but too remarkable in so plainly declaring who is Antichrist and that his Kingdom holds by the Key of the bottomless Pit It is true the Beast had been in his forty two months above a hundred Years yet as a Tyrant prophetically declar'd to be a Tyrant is not yet so in his Infancy or Under-state no more than Hazael was a Tyrant when Elisha told him what 1 Kin. 8. 11. he as such a Tyrant should do no more was the Beast such a Beast while he was under the Inscription Is not So that though he was a Beast by way of Succession and some presagious Actions He might yet not be a falling Star till he now fell and receiv'd this Key for the whole Bestian Body or Succession is consider'd in the whole Beast not in its several Ages nor in the single Persons making it some better some worse all that enter its Composition are consider'd as one Beast in the prophetick Scheme in any Age in any Bestian Qualities more or less yea though so moderate as that they should only bear up the Title and maintain the Succession And this removes all possible Objection as thus Was he that had been a Beast so long a Star yet to Fall You see he might be so while he was the Beast Is not and yet not a falling Star for this fall prepar'd his rising out of the bottomless Pit and so