the beginning of the Fourth or Roman At the last of these Weeks there is that so Glorious Exaltation of … me to its Fulness in the Appearance of our true Messiah and in the midst of it His Death and Resurrection Greater things then which all his Glorious Appearance the Fulness of Times or of all Time Time cannot contain In the other Half the Loud Publication of the Gospel of these Things as by the Heraldry of Thunder 〈◊〉 in the First Seal Opened by the Apostles In the Next Four Hundred the First Seal is continued and the 〈◊〉 Three Seals are Opened in very Great and New Productions the Roman Empire till in that Conclusive Persecution of the … stians within the Fifth Seal under Dioclesian and the Con … porary Pagan Emperors In the Sixth Seal That so indeed â—â—st Revolution of the Roman Empire from Pagan to Christian begun by Constantine in the Sixth Seal continued Julian's short Reign Excepted till Vindicated and Statuminated by Theodosius the Great in the Seventh Seal a Great Precursory Emblem of the Glorious Kingdom of Christ But Early under Constantine and so Going on That Appearance of the Kingdom of Christ began to be Eclips'd And the Barbarous Nations Rushed in on the Empire in the Just Revenges of Christ upon Antichristian Supplantation who yet after United as his People and as Ten Kingdoms under his Ecclesiastick Empire and Undermine by the Interposal of the Antichristian Moon so soon that Prophecy gives the Notice of it as Immediate in the Sealing the Servants of God against both the Antichristianism and the Vengeance in those Trumpets of Vengeance Given into the Hands of the Angelick Ministers of it the Witnesses Entring into Sackcloth and the Churches Flight into the Wilderness or being so Hidden that it was hard to be Discovered before the Reformation These Early Notices do beyond All Reasonable Contradiction Assure the Times and Hair Sworn to Antichrist must needs be now upon the Expiration which as before Noted are cast into Fifteens in the 1260 Days into which they are Expounded to shew their Nearness to Constantine's Time and because so Determinate a Time and Short Compared with the Glory to follow is styl'd a Short Time in Godâ— Answer to the Souls under the Altar And the Devil considering it Reflected on it as a Short Time not as the Father of Lyes but as it was Extorted from him by God shew it near Ending At the End of 400 Years from the Weeks of 404. from the Resurrection and 437. from the Incarnation Begin the Time Times and Half with the High Sounds of the Four First Trump … Of which That Year was not without its Answerableness to this Prophetick Character by reason of the Incursions of the Barbarous Nations as a Storm of Hail and Fire mingled with Blood who because They were to Become the Subjects of the Antichristian Papacy are call'd The Gentiles Entring into the Outward Court And their 42 Moons Commence being Solemnly as it were Inaugurated into Them by Cyril Bishop of Abexandria the very Year so Earnest in Adjusting Lunar Time to Solar At the same Time began that Apostacy the Apostle Paul speaks of in Delay of the Kingdom of Christ And in such Corruptions of the Doctrine Worship and Conversation of Christianity the True Church was Hidden under the Publick Profession so Corrupted as to be the Church as in a Wilderness and on which the Witnesses Prophecy That is Declare Chrsts Kingdom in Delay as in Sackcloth of which That Year there was a Sample in a Persecution Rais'd by Gensericus a Vandal Prince against the Servant of God Holding the Testimony of Jesus Christ the Eternal Son of God and It was continued against Those who Kept the Commandments of God and Held the Testimony of Jeâ—us Christ by the Papal Tyranny Within the Four First Trum … t s Fall the so often Burning and Sacking Rome the utter Cessation of the Name of Emperor of Rome in the West and even of Consular Dignity At that very Time of the Cessation of Empire begin the Moons of the Papal Antichristian Power which Prophecy styles The Beast as a Preparation to which the Hierarchy as the Historian Sozomen Relates had been Rising stilly as Feet of Clay from the Earth and crept silently Forward into a Dynasty styl'd therefore The Other Beast which procurated for the Grand Beast thus Came in the Succession of the Beast Dated to this very Year 476 and so its Succession is Given as the 7th Head and Eighth King Rev. 17. For it is in Immediate Succession to the Seventh King no Head which was the Christian Emperor in the West Then the Bestian Anti-christian Power grew up to its height or Supremacy at 606 as the Star Fallen to the Earth within his First Time and pursued by God with the First Woe or the Maâ—ometan Imposture at 622 and so to 797 Arm'd in the Saracenick Inrodes upon the Western Parts of the Empire This continued along â—e Second Time or First of the Two Times of his settled or consistent Power till the Second Turkish Woe starts out in the Third Time or Second of the Two Times where His stint or the Bounds of his Power were set Till it came down to the Reformation at the Beginning of his Half Time at the Year 1517. Where it hath continued an 180 Years down to the present 1697 a declined and decayed but not a Fallen Power according to the very Importance of Two Times degraded to a Half Time Now I would Appeal to all the Reason and Understanding 〈◊〉 Man whether when all the Prophetical Images are so expressive of these Events And that the Line of Time that Prophecy hath proportion'd to them when laid to them is so fairly every way Adjustable Viz. From Cyrus before the Weeks Since the Weeks to the Death and Resurrection of Christ After the Death and Resurrection of Christ and the Preaching of the Apostles at the End of the Weeks in 400 Years of the Seales and the Greater Cantons of Time Times-Half Time dividing and distributing 1260 Years into 360 720 180 and All so according with the very Years we Vulgarly Account to 1697. I would I say appeal to all Sense and Understanding whether this â—ccount can be the Creature of Fancy and Imagination or so much as of Accident Except they think such a Conspiration of so many things of so great Concernment to the World and to the Churches of Christ be below the Notice of the Divine Spirit or its Care to make them known For that the very things themselves cannot be contriv'd into such Representations cannot be once said when it is so Experimental that the things if not so Design'd by the All-seeing Spirit must by Accident be so subject to the Elaboration of Fancy and Imagination or rather of J … ment and Understanding Seeing this Threefold Respect is found in Reality and Substance of Scripture-Emblems of Scripture-Numbers of Correspondent Events in History
or Punishment of the House of Judah clasps Fast with the 390 of Bearing Israel's Sin because God commanded Ezekiel when He bad Born the sin of Israel on the Left side without any Intermission to Turn on the Other side and to Bear the sin of the House of Judah on the Right side and the Bearing the Sin of the House of Israel goes back to the Division of the Tribes into Two Houses at Solomon's Death In the Last Place I dare Appeal to the Greatest Chronologers â—â— Historians whether our General Accounts do not within â—ome Fair Proportion Allow the Years of the Papacy of the Paâ—â— Power of the Roman Empire of the Grecian Persian Babyâ—â—sh Kingdoms to serve these Prophetical Accounts and so â—â—ward by the Kings of Israel and Judah to the Death of â—â—lomon Now all these Things were there Room to Represent Them clearly particularly and in Full would Give such certainty â—â— these Points according to the Exactness of Scripture-Time as â—ould amount to the Justification of the Great Hope I so pubâ—â—ly make Offer of and against which in every minute Parâ—â—ar I Humbly Pledge my self to be Ready to Receive Exceptions and to Return Due Satisfaction and therefore shall â—ow Return to the more General Objections This way of Endeavour to Justify every Thing by Plain â—â—counts and Arguments of Reason Approachable by every â—â— Reason and Subject to the Examination of every Man â—oever will take so much Thought and Care of Tryal and â—â— Judgment upon Himself may take off much of that Exceâ—â— Why should All This be Reveal'd to you more than to Any â—er For The Answer I would give is Because God hath â—ngaged my Heart and Thoughts to this Inquiry And it hath been the Principal Subject of my Intellectual Inquiries though I hope not in a Neglect of other Points of Theology and Scripture-Knowledge But by this means I have been looking every way into All the Advertisements of Scripture-Prophecy comparing Prophetical Things with Prophetical and any of the most Accurate Memoirs of History and Chronology I could Attain And This is no other than what Any Other Studious in these Things might have Attained and much Higher according to the Advantages of Learning more enlarged Capacities of Mind Clearness of Expression as is most experimental in that Excellent Person The Annotator on the Reâ—elation and his Annotations Published about Four Years ago The Only Thing that I pretend to of Peculiar Favour herein from the Most High is That he hath thus engaged my Heart and Thoughts to separate my self and to Intermeddle with this Wisdom and Assisted me so far therein When any one vouches any Immediate Revelation that cannot be disprov'd by its plain Disagreeableness to other Sealed Parts of Divine Revelation though indeed from God Hâ— and his Revelation are Inaccessible but by the same Spirit of Revelation in some suitable Efficacy of the same Spirit enabling to discern or to feel the Vertue of it As in the Apostles Days When the Prophets spake one by one 1 Cor. 14. 29. Then the Rest Judged that is Discern'd the Divineness of the Revelation by the Participations of the same Spirit in themselves But when Any offer the Interpretation of written Prophecies or Prophecies of Scripture by the Assistance of the same Spirit that gave them this Interpretation if Just and True and according to the Sense of the Divine Spirit is the Spirit of Proâ—â—cy Because it is the Testimony of Jesus which is the very Essence of the Spirit of Prophecy Now this is plainly Approvable by All who wait upon the same Word of God by the Assistance of the same Spirit I do not therefore in Any of these Prophetical Discourses offer at any such thing as in which the Spirit of the Lord passing by others should have spoken to me but what every one hath the same Right and Open Door to and Freedom of and what every one hath a Riight to Examine and Accept or Reject according to the Evidence he sinds of an Agreeableness with the Sure Word of Prophecy or not That onely I stand up for is That He Judges as a Prophet according to the measure of that Dispensation of the Blessed Spirit now vouchsefed to his Servants That is that he Judge by the Due Compare of Prophecy with Prophecy by Attendance to every Hint and Indication of the Prophetical Mind Flowing from that Spirit and that he lay this First as a Foundation that the Prophecies of Scripture ought to be Given Heed to and that they may be understood as a Light shining in a dark place And whoever doth not thus address himself can no more Judge then any one could of the Revelations then made by the Spirit to the Prophets of those First Times when they met in those Prophetical Exercises without the Communication of the same Spirit to themselves or then an Illitterate or unknowing Person in any Science or Art Can Judge of the Exercitations of the most knowing Persons or Artists when they meet together for the Communication of their most Elaborate Exercitations therein And so I do indeed Claim and Insist on this Priviledge That none undertake to Judge of what I have offered in these things but by such Prophetical Preparations and Attendances upon Scription Prophesies that are indeed open to every one that Desires to â—nter by the Key of Scripture Prophetical Knowledge and shut to others And this is no more Presumption then what every one thinks his Priviledge that no one Judge of his Art but He that Understands it first Himself And this I hope Vindicates from any undue Assumption of any more then the Gracious Direction of my Heart and Thoughts to that Book of Scripture Prophecy that Lies open to every one that draws nigh with due Preparation And that every one may Judge of by the same Preparation It may be further Objected that yet it is very hard if not Impossible to attain the Sense of the Divine Spirit to a Year or any such Precise Definitive Account of Time To this I Answer It will easily be allowed that the Divine Spirit hath Determin'd and knows according to that its Expression of it self to the very Self same Day And therefore seeing it hath given Numbers of Time it must be to the very Self same Day For the end of every Number is so Precise and Definite That It must needs be to the very Self same Year and even Day if we could have as Punctual Account of Days as of Years But I find not the Holy Spirit ordinarily is more particular then Years By therefore a due Poize of that Trine Aspect of Prophetick Emblems Prophetick Numbers and Providential Effects in Event and Matters of Fact of the Records of which It hath taken Care by General History and Chronology we may come to know to a Year And of this Besides several other Assurances that Require more Discourse There is that Time of the Reformation more Easy and Immediate to every
Observation wherein Divine Super-Intendencies upon all Historians concerning it to Fix the Beginnings of it in 1517. does so assure the Beginning of Half Time as to assure also the End of Half Time as of an 180 Years and so of Time and Times at 1697. and therefore the Beginning of Times or the Two Times at 797. and of the First Time at 437. The Times and Half are contrived therefore into such Large Cantons of Time as One Time Two Times and Half a Time that They may be seen in so Large Spaces and so much together and yet in such Minute Exact Divisions as Days of Years especially and on purpose that they might be fully known and exactly understood all along and at the End which with so many Concurrences before-nam'd and of which I should be most Ready to Give the particular State more at large to a Free and Desirous and a Judicious Recipient does not make it strange to determine so particularly upon 97. and may free from that Objection But what is there of Preparation to so great a Change or what Instruments in view for such Effects may it be said To which this Answer is to be given That when we have to do with Him who Planted the Heavens and Laid the Foundations of the Earth who telleth the Number of the Stars and calleth them All by their Names and appoints them every one their Course to Fight in Nothing is Hard. Or how wonderful soever it be in our Eyes can it be so in His Who works his signs and his wonders in Heavenâ— and on Earth and none can stay his Hand or say unto him what doest thou who works and none can let it Hath he spoken and shall he not do it Is Any Thing too hard for me sath our Jehovah And as to Means and Instruments altho he could raise them if he pleas'd Yet His Word of Propheby so expresses the doing of it as if he would make use of No Hand but his own The Stone cut out of the Mountain is not in Hands That Power that stands up against the Prince of Princes shall be broken without Hand Now this without Hand is a manner of speaking the Spirit of God is pleased as by the Translation of it from Daniel into the New Testament to Apply a Tabernacle made without Hands the Circumcision without Hands the House not made with Hands Eternal in the Heavens appears to be an Expression of God working by an Immediate Power of his own and by Himself It is by a Spirit of Life from God and by a Voice from Heaven The Four Wheels â—f the Four Monarchies are brought into the Temple under the Cheâ—â—bims and without any more ado It was cried concerning them in â—y Hearing the Hearing of the Servants of God Oh Revolution It immediately pass'd upon them All and there were Loud Voices â—â— Heaven upon it proclaiming that Revolution The Kingdoms of this World are bocome the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ And this is done at Half Time Ending which signifies Suddenness and Sâ—rprise When this is done He who does it Comes with strong Hand His Arm Rules for Him He understands his own Work In the midst â—f All the Perplexities of it His work is before him He understands â—â— perfectly and throughout Every Spring every Wheel to be moâ—ed Every Pin of Connexion But that which may much indeed Terrify and Discourage is the Great Unworthinefs of All Sorts and Degrees of Men of Nations and even of Churches so that some very Sweeping Judgment â—â—d Desolation rather or at least is first to be expected The Hope yet is That when God works for his Kingdom and seems â— be Lifting up his Hand to Destroy He will work for his own Names 〈◊〉 in a Deliverance He will consider He to whom the Kingdom â— to be Given is worthy And when the Lord Jesus Christ the Anâ—â— of the Covenant comes into his Temple He does not expect to â—â—d Refinement ready to his Hand but He comes to Refine He hath â—â—ven an Example in the Apostle Paul of All Long-suffering and Paâ—â—ce especially prepared for that very Time Those who shall Hereafter in a great distance of Time Believe on Him His Reward â—â—â—th Him He expects it only from Himself when his work ie so â—â—re him And even to Impenitents there is first a time of Warning â—â—d Testimony and then the Day that will Burn as an Ouen and the â—iâ—ked are as Ashes under the Soles of the Feet After this warning is â—he perdition of ungodly Men reserv'd for punishment I know very well Notwithstanding all this Assurance and â—e Reason of it I have given It will be said yet to me Seeing â—â—is Year â—7 is in so near on Approach and there are no Appearâ—â—ces of such a Succession or opening of the Kingdom of Christ â—ght it not therefore to shake your Confidence and put a diffiâ—ence upon such a continued Affirmation of such a Kingdom to â—ake any Entrance at this Time In Answer to this I would make this Humble Profession or Confession in these Three things First I cannot be shaken in my assurance Because I find my Grounds in the Word of God unshakable and unmoveable A False Witness that hath no Foundation Perisheth in this Sense He cannot Bear up to nor continue in his Testimony But He that Heareth and knows on what Grounds He speaks Affirmeth constantly He that hath seen nothing as the Ground of his Prophecy is like a Reed shaken with the Wind But they that have the Word of the Lord Continue to speak it While I am so certain The Kingdom of Christ Enters its Succession without any delay whenever the Last of the Four Kingdoms Ends That the Third Woe of the Seventh Angel that Sounds the Kingdom of Christ Cometh quickly I look to see therefore what assurances there are this Last Kingdom even its Last State is upon giving up I find then the Times and Half Which are the Term of the Last State of the Last Kingdom By the Time since Constantine By the Time since the Christian Empire Demised By the Time since Mahometanism and more Particularly the Ottoman Empire hath entred the World By the Time since the Reformation first entred by Luther just ending All these have such Lively Sculpture and Engravings in the Sure word of Prophecy and their Times so Delineated I do not better know the Course of the Months in the Year the Days in the Month or the Hours in the Day then I know the very Last Year of the 1260 Days of Years is now entring and to Run its Circle and that within its Circle the Kingdom of Christ will come into its Succession The Second thing that I most Humbly desire to be Stedfast Unmoveable Unshaken in and upon is the Exceeding Râ—â—s of the Grace and Loving Kindness of God in Jesus Christ â—e Great High Priest and Apostle of my Profession That Shepherd of the Sheep that is to Shine
and Chronology To say which Undermines All Rationality of Inference from the Greatest Correspondency of Effects in Creation and Providence with the Wisdom and Power of the Supreme Creator and Governour of All Vâ—â— If we may not Reason from these to the Intention of Divine Spirit Now from hence reach the Additional 75 to the Thousand Years of the Blessed State Viz. From the Kingdom of Christ in Succession in Thirty years of the Sealed Thunders opened in Rev. c. 14. Making the 1260 1290. Wherein First there is a Glorious shini … out of the Gospel and the Glory of Christianity for the Conversion and bringing Multitudes to Christ and for a Testimony against those who remain obstinate the Filthy being Filthy still And then the Vials poured out that Time of Trouble such as never was since Man was upon Earth Through the Forty Five Additional to the 1290 and making them 1335 to the Glorious and Blessed State and the Lots of the New Jerusalem in the End of these Days Dan. 12. 11 12 13. And in the same way of Evidence and Assurance I find mâ—self through the Gracious Assistance of God able to go backward in the Analytical or Retrograde method to the very Death of Solomon where I began and find the Connexion of one thing to another so Just so True so Stedfast and so Unmoveable that they cannot be dislocated nor Disjoynted And the Numbers of Scripture-Time so Lock'd one within another That they cannot be Wrench'd or Forced asunder All which I have in Readiness to offer to every Judicious Considerer and of which I would give the Briefest Specimen in this following Scheme that I can Contrive The Thousand Years are by all the Wonders of it the most undoubted End or Finishing of Wonders And the very same with the Mystery of God to be Finish'd by the Seventh Angel sounding according as he hath spoken in Gospel to and by his Servants the Prophets This being the Fullness of Times all Times Center or flow down and rest in it Here rest the 45 Last of the 2300 Eves Morns as is exprest in Daniel The 45 take such hold of the 30 that all the force in the World can't divide them As is Apparent by 1290 made 1335 the Thirty take the same hold of the 1260 Which are the Times and Half That they can no more be separated then the others The 1260 in the Three Divisions Viz. The Half Time takes hold of the 720 or the two Times And the two Times of the First Time or 360 And they can endure no distance Because they are together one 1260. The 1260 necessarily take hold of whatever Time went before and lay between the 490 of the Weeks and the 1260 This can be no way contested Because the Weeks by Express Scripture End Three Years and Half or Half a Week from the Death of Christ And then we know a Time there must be from the Beginning of the 1260 â—f some distance of Space from the End of the Weeks Because him the Three Years and Half after the Death of Christ so many more Years then 1260 are now passed and yet the Great Events at the End of the 1260 not yet come to pass and therefore not the 1260 themselves And yet that space must take hold of the End of the Weeks Because the Half Week Ends a Three Years and a Half Half a Week from the Death of Christ The Seventy Weeks Notwithstanding They are divided to Joynts yet are as close as the Joynted parts of any the same Member of the Body being together the Seventy Weeks The Seventy Weeks lay an Indisputed Claim to whatever Time went before to â—rus And every part must be Joyned Each to other Because all the several Portions of Time stand United in the 2300 Aâ—â— seeâ—â—g so much Time hath already passed since the End of the Weeks as leaves no more then 75 before the Weeks of the 2300 to Cyrus we are sure there can be no more I confess there may be Fewer and so more of the 1260 to Run out then to 97 But so far as we can be sure there can be no more than 400 before the 1335. We may be sure there can be no Fewer than 75 before the Weeks From Cyrus backward must be the 40 of Judah's Sin Bâ—â—n Lying Close to the End of the 390 Days of Israel's Sin Born which Bring back to the Division of the Tribes into the Two Houses of Israel and Judah All which Things have been and are Ready to be Fully made out to any who Desire it in particular The Undoubted Emblems of Scripture Answering to these Numbers of Time may be Accounted for with the same Evidence in this Retrospective Motion as in the Progression For the very End of the Wonders is plac'd in the Beastâ— â—â—d the False Prophet cast alive into the Lake And the Glory oâ— Christ's Appearance and the Armies of Heaven for whom Throâ—â— were Set and They Sate upon Them and They Lived and â—igâ—ed with Christ a Thousand Years were such as did not Worship the Beast nor Receive his Mark c. The Vials that Brought in the Thousand Years are Noted to Fall on the Beast 〈◊〉 them that Worshipp'd the Beast and had Receiv'd his Mark. â—â—e Voices that prepar'd for the Vials and at the End of which thâ— Vials Began were also upon the Beast and the Witnesses coming out of the Death the Beast had laid them under plainly Entwist the Vials and the Voices with the Beast and the Witnesses and â—â— their Times one with another viz. with the 1260 Days 〈◊〉 42 Moons the Times and Days and Half And in this 〈◊〉 manner the Dragon and they that were Beheaded for the Word of God and for the Testimony of Jesus and the Dragon cast down and the Martyrs of Christ Overcoming by the Blood of the Lâ—â— and the Word of his Testimony and not Loving their Livâ— unto Death Seeing the Dragon Gave his Power and his Seat unâ— the Beast shew very Evidently that the Moons of the Gentilâ—â— and of the Beast Began at the End of the Seals Even 〈◊〉 is most clear in a Progressive Motion the Seals Issue into â—â— Trumpets by the Seventh Seal conveying to them The Trumpets into the Voices by the Seventh Trumpet the Voices by the Seventh Voice into â—he Vials the Vials by the Seventh Vial into the Thousand Years The Seals Run plainly Back into the Weeks Beginning in the Confirmation of the Covenant by that Preaching of the Gospel by the Apostles Emblem'd by Christ Riding out on his White Horse conquering and to conquer at the Ending of the Weeks The Weeks Run back into the Time of the Word Going forth for the Restoring Judah and Jerusalem from whence they are Dated The Going forth of the Word into the Babylonish Captivity which gave Occasion to the going forth of that Word and the Last Forty Years of the Babylonish Captivity which was the Ground of Bearing the Iniquity