there to be understood being wounded to death in one of his Heads in that fight and healed so that all wondred after him I would demand of Grotius which of these Emperours was wounded to death in a fight with Michael and was then revived again to the wonder of the world Again there are but seven Kings in the Thirteenth Chapter how come there to be eight in the Seventeenth Thirdly The eight Kings in the Seventeenth Chapter are all Idolatrous according to him but the Inscription of Idolatry is onely upon seven Heads in the Thirteenth which implies the Beast had no more then so Of which things there can be no sense unless according to such an Explication as I have already exhibited Furthermore If the Beast in the Seventeenth Chapter be the Roman Pagan Idolatry how comes it to continue but fourty two months in Grotius his sense for that is the continuance of the Seven-headed Beast in the Thirteenth Himself also acknowledges the Ten Horns of one Beast not to be the same with the Ten Horns of the other I omit to note that Dominatio Romana which he says is the Babylonish Whore in the Seventeenth Chapter is not the same with Magia in the other Chapter whenas notwithstanding I think it clear enough that the Whore of Babylon and the Two-horned Beast are the Types of one and the same thing But this I confess may well seem too Magisterial to make my own Exposition though never so true a Rule for others Wherefore I shall wholly release Grotius from any such unequal terms and examine his Interpretations of these two Chapters of the Apocalyps upon free and common Principles such as all men do appeal to 3. And that first in a more general way searching into the solidity of two main Grounds which he supposes The one That S. John begins the reckoning of the seven Heads of the Beast from Claudius the other That this Vision of the Whore of Babylon and the Beast that was and is not was wrote by S. John in Vespasian 's time Which Grounds are so necessary for his Interpretation that without them it is not onely incongruous but impossible forasmuch as Five are said to be fallen and one to be c. which therefore this Interpretation necessarily requires and implies to be Vespasian and that he then was when this Vision was either seen or wrote Wherefore his Reasons for these Grounds deserve a more diligent Examination For the first of which he alledges these two First That Claudius was the first persecuting Emperour I mean that persecuted the Christians Which yet is contrary to the whole stream of Antiquity who fix the first Persecution upon Nero omitting that expulsion of the Jews from Rome as a thing either inconsiderable or as not properly appertaining to the Christians as such but as they were Jews But so far as I see Caius the Predecessor of Claudius afflicted both Jew and Christian more by his enormous Extravagancies then ever Claudius did concerning which Grotius himself has wrote in his Notes upon 2 Thess. 2. Moeror metúsque maximus Judaeorum Christianorum plenum habuit effectum So that the Epoche might have begun at Caligula as well as Claudius according to this rate which shews the Exposition to be but arbitrarious Besides if the Epoche begin at Claudius because a Persecutor why did not the account break off where Persecution ceased For Galba Otho Vitellius Titus and Vespasian are none of them infamous for any persecution The other reason why this Epoche is fix'd on Claudius is because S. John himself was banished into Patmos in Claudius his time and therefore S. John accounts from the time of his Banishment as Ezekiel from the Epoche of his Captivity But this is a very weak Allegation For Ezekiel did not compute the time from his particular Captivity but from the Captivity of Jeconiah as you may see again and again in Gaspar Sanctius upon Ezekiel Besides that it is one thing for a man to compute what happened to himself as Ezekiel did from the time of his private Captivity and another to reckon the succession of Kings or Emperours from so private an Epoche And then which is still worse it is not at all probable that S. John was banished into Patmos in the reign of Claudius not onely because he suffered not as a Jew but as he was a witness of Jesus but also because he has not set down that Epoche which had been very necessary and but ill omitted if there were any such great stress lay upon it as to assure us of the truth of the main Visions of the Apocalyps Adde to this that S. John was not at Rome and therefore unconcerned in this Edict of Claudius and if he had been there or where-ever else he was there is no mention made of any confinement to places in these Expulsions And we see that Act. 18. Aquila and Priscilla that were expelled from Rome abode securely enough in Corinth to whom S. Paul joyned himself and wrought on his Trade with them And lastly it is against the whole current of Antiquity Irenaeus Origen Tertullian Eusebius Hieronymus Nicephorus Victorinus Primasius Andreas and Aretas and against the universal suffrage of both Papists and Protestants who with one voice declare that S. John's Exile into Patmos was under Domitian But I need not insist on these things so much for the present sith the confutation of his second Ground will make this vanish also 4. Which second Ground is That the Vision of the Whore and the Beast was wrote by S. John in Vespasian 's time But unless it was seen then it will not serve the turn forasmuch as it is not the voice of S. John but of the Angel that says Five are fallen and one is and therefore the Vision as well as the writing thereof must be in Vespasian's time And also in the Island Patmos because once and for all at the beginning of this Book of Visions he saith they happened to him in the Isle of Patmos and never gives any other intimation throughout the whole Book whence it is incredible but that they all befell him in that Retirement Which things I note to meet with Grotius his supposition in his De Antichristo That though S. John was banished into Patmos under Claudius yet he was out of the Island in Vespasian's time From whence I would infer that the Vision of the Whore and the Beast was not seen by John in Vespasian's time Which is the utter destruction of Grotius his Exposition as I noted before 5. And this alone of his own concession were enough to put an end to this Debate but it being a matter of such great consequence I shall insist a little larger upon it and no less then demonstrate the utter insufficiency and weakness of this Ground of Grotius Wherefore sticking close to the Catholick suffrage of Antiquity and of all Writers as well Protestants as Papists let us again consider what
and which the Church of Rome does most of all stick to and applaud herself in I mean Ribera and Grotius and shew plainly how fond how forced and indeed how impossible their Expositions are that even prejudiced men themselves may be ashamed hereafter to take shelter in such wretched subterfuges 2. Ribera's Exposition of the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns that was and is not and yet is and of the Whore of Babylon that rides on him is briefly this The Beast is the Devil considered in reference to his condition of reigning or not reigning in the world In Bestia non Diabolus intelligitur sed Diabolus regnans Wherefore whereas it is said The Beast which thou sawest was and is not he interprets it thus The Devil in the foregoing Ages before Christ was Diabolus regnans but in S. John's time he was not Diabolus regnans because then the Prince of this world was cast out And therefore in this sense he is said to be the Beast that was and is not but will be Diabolus regnans again in Antichrist which is the Seventh Head in whose reign he comes up again out of the bottomless pit 3. The Seven Kings are the wicked Kings of the Seven Ages of the world from Adam to the last Judgement The first Age is from Adam to Noe in which Cain and the Giants are particularly taxed The second from Noe to Abraham wherein Nimrod is perstringed The third from Abraham to David wherein the Kings of Aegypt and other people are noted for Persecutours and Opposers of the People of God The fourth from David to the Captivity of Babylon wherein the people of the Jews were much afflicted by the Kings of Assyria The fifth from the Captivity of Babylon to the coming of Christ wherein they were much afflicted by the Chaldeans and Greeks The sixth from the coming of Christ to the coming of Antichrist wherein the Church has been much persecuted by the Roman Emperours and by the Turks and Saracens and may be still more by such as may arise hereafter The seventh from the coming of Antichrist to the last Judgment wherein Antichrist with his ten Horns that is ten Kings shall persecute the Church worse then ever 4. Five of these Heads that is of these Ages with their wicked Kings were gone over in S. John's time one Age was then and still continues the other that is the Seventh and Last is not yet come but when it is once come it must continue but a little while that is to say three years and an half or fourty two months Antichrist being that Beast in the thirteenth Chapter according as he interprets it And lastly for the Whore that rides this Beast that was and is not he says it is Rome Heathen This is a clear and faithfull Proposall of Ribera's Exposition as any one may see that will have recourse to him upon the place Let us now see how much or rather how little truth there is in it 5. In the Examination whereof as also of the following Exposition we may discern the Usefulness of our demonstrating so plainly That one and the same thing absolutely is understood by the Seven-headed Beast in the Thirteenth Chapter and by the Seven-headed Beast in the Seventeenth as also by the Whore of Babylon and the Two-horned Beast For this even of it self will easily detect the Trivialities and Faulterings of these Expositions 6. That the Beast that was and is not cannot be Regnum Diaboli as Ribera speaks vel Diabolus regnans in mundo per sua membra qui ab initio fere mundi regnare capit in hominibus is demonstrable from the Beast with seven Heads in the thirteenth Chapter which is the same Beast and whose time of continuance is but fourty two months Which is a sign that Ribera is quite out of the story For the same numericall Beast must have the same duration of time Again he makes the Beast in the Thirteenth Chapter to be Antichrist but this the Devil which is another faultering in his narration But further whenas the Beast in the Thirteenth Chapter is said to come out of the Sea it is plain according to the usual meaning of that Type in the Prophetick style that it is a Body Politick consisting of Men But how can the Devil be such with his dark Legions they are not Men but Devils nor to be led captive nor to be killed with the sword as it is said of the Beast there mentioned Moreover the Dragon that is the Devil is said to deliver his forces to the Seven-headed Beast in that Chapter how then can the Beast be the Devil To all which you may adde That the Sixth Head of the Beast in that Chapter is wounded to death not to be healed till the Revival of the Beast and the Recovery of him in the Seventh Head But how can the wicked Kings of the Sixth Age be said to be wounded to death or the Beast not to revive till the Seventh Head when the Church of Christ has been so dreadfully persecuted in the Primitive Times and is to this very day so cruelly infested by the Turks as heretofore by the Saracens These actions are no signs of the Sixth Head being wounded to death more then the foregoing Heads nor so much neither Lastly how can the Devil in this Seventeenth Chapter be the Image of the restored Beast that had received the deadly wound For the Devil when he is again regnant will not Pagano-christianize as I may so speak but grosly Paganize or Judaize as our Adversaries confess and therefore will not be an Image but either the Thing it self or not so much as an Image but a Thing quite different 7. And for the Whore that rides on the Beast I might demand in what sense Rome Heathen has two Horns like a Lamb with other such enquiries which for brevity sake I omit I will rather take notice how indecorous it is to phansy Rome Heathen to ride the Devil whenas it is more proper to conceive her rid that is to say guided and acted and instigated by him 8. But that the Beast that was and is not is not the Devil we shall now evince by other arguments without relation to the Thirteenth Chapter As first If the Devil be a Beast that which makes him so is the wickedness of his nature his persecutiveness of the Church of God and his endeavour of erecting against him a Kingdom of Idolaters Now the Devil has never ceased to be such from the beginning of the world to this very day This is the very nature of the Beast and his nature is not yet slain in him nor ever was nor ever will be Wherefore it never was nor ever will be true of him That he is the Beast that was and is not For to be regnant and then cease to be regnant does not make him to be a Beast and then no Beast but onely no regnant Beast But that also is false that
of Armenia Thracia Galatia Pontus Judaea Arabia Adiabena Suevia Alpes Cottiae and Alpes Idionni From which account notwithstanding he varies in his second Notations And concerning which I will omit to note any thing farther then that such 1 petty Kings as some of them are in comparison of the Roman Empire especially could not well deserve the name of the Horns thereof and that in reference to Idolatry 2 as if they were so peculiar Defenders of it For there is no History that mentions their goring any one so particularly and considerably in the behalf thereof and Judaea is an unsutable Horn for an Idolatrous Head to wear Besides that their 3 wearing of Crowns seems too magnificent an ornament for them that are acknowledged besides the scantness of the Territories of some of them to be Tributaries to the Roman State So that the Invention seems something faint touching these Ten Kings and the Prophecy useless they tending to no notice of any thing to the Church that might at any time be useful for them But now concerning the Beast it self Besides that it is 4 not according to the Prophetick style to interpret a Beast to be a Vice but a Body Politick how can the 5 Roman Idolatry be represented thereby sith it is said to ascend out of the Sea which Grotius confesses to signifie ortum habere But the Roman Idolatry could not be prefigured to S. John as a thing to arise hereafter since it had been in the world so many Ages agoe and did still continue Wherefore it was not to 6 begin with the fourty two moneths to come nor was to end with them in Grotius his sense Nor did the Deifying of their Caesars make a new Idolatry no more then taking other Deities into their worship Nor did that Idolatry 7 continue but fourty two moneths as Grotius expounds moneths in this place I say neither the Roman Idolatry nor Cruelty continued but fourty two moneths and therefore the Beast here described cannot be Idololatria ferino more saeviens in that meaning Grotius would have it Adde to all this That the making the Seven Heads to be the Seven Hills of Rome is a very unlikely Exposition here both because in the foregoing Chapter these Heads are said to be 8 crowned which is not proper for Hills and one of them in this Chapter to be 9 wounded and healed again which is as little proper to these dead Heaps of Earth as also it is very harsh to 10 clap on seven Heads and ten Horns in a Concrete sense upon a Beast that is an Abstract Which is as harsh as to make the body of a Bull Redness in the Abstract and then to set a solid Head and Horns upon him of hard bone and flesh c. If a man will be so curious as to count he will finde Grotius his Interpretation guilty of at least nine or ten Weaknesses or Incongruities in this very first verse But we proceed 2. In the second he makes Claudius the Body of this Beast which is Panther-like and Domitian the Mouth thereof then which nothing can be more extravagant For this Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns he acknowledges to be the Roman Idolatry in the 17 th Chapter also Whence it will follow 1 That Claudius is both the Body of the Beast and one of the Heads and 2 Domitian both Body Head and Mouth as may appear from what was noted in the foregoing Chapter And also which is as harsh as any thing Claudius being the Body of the Beast and Domitian the Mouth 3 the Body will be without a Mouth for as many years as there are betwixt Claudius and Domitian's reign which was about fourty years The 4 Dragon also giving his power to the Beast and his Throne can be no Prophecy of the Roman Idolatrie's receiving of it because that was done many Ages before 3. In the third he makes the Head of the Beast wounded to death to be the Capitol and the healing thereof the building of it up again by Vespasian upon whose Coin was stamped Roma resurges 1 Now first I say that it is an hard Metaphor to say an Edifice of wood or stone is wounded to death and then healed But suppose the Capitol wounded 2 the Hill was not hurt at least not wounded to death so that unless there were seven Capitols as well as seven Hills the Conceit will come off very hardly but if you leave the Capitol and take to the Hill the Hill can no more be said to be wounded then a mans Head whose Hat is onely cut Again the main thing aimed at by Grotius in interpreting this wounded Head of the fall of the Capitol is not true 3 For Idolatry was not at all lessened by the fall of the Capitol nor the fear of the Romans that the worship of Idols would fall after it but that the Empire would be ruined by the incursion of the Northern Nations and upon this account is that Omen inscribed upon Vespasian's Coin Roma resurges And lastly whereas it is said that all the world wondered after the Beast upon the healing of his deadly wound it is manifest that some 4 stranger thing then the building up the Capitol must be understood thereby For was it any wonder to strike all the world that the Capitol should be built up again by so rich a City and the Lady of the world Truly the great wonder had been if they had not re-built it 4. In the fourth he interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idololatriae inservierunt which is as if it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 they worshipped Idolatry Which is a very hard phrase In the fifth here Domitian is made the Mouth of the Beast as was said before and by attributing the reign of the Beast to him 2 the whole Beast and this because Domitian's Persecution is supposed to be but three years an half for he began to persecute saith Grotius in the thirteenth year of his Reign and was slain in the sixteenth 3 But this does not prove that his Persecution was just three years and an half and Baronius and other Chronologers place the beginning of that Persecution in the tenth year of his Reign Besides 4 the Text does not say He shall persecute three years and an half but continue so long But Domitian continued above three years and an half for he reigned sixteen years according to Grotius his own confession 5. In the sixth and seventh he makes Domitian still the Beast and expounds And there was power given him over every Tribe and People and Language of the power of his Example to a more impudent exercise of Idolatry That 's one shift Another is this That in his reign the Dacae Catti and Sarmatae were overcome and the Roman Idolatry propagated thereby as if it were a worse Idolatry then that of those Barbarians But let any one judge if such a lank and improper sense as this can fill out the meaning