but five or six years after and about twenty years after Daniel's receiving the Vision that pretty Congruity of the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings commencing with the destruction of the literal Babylon and ending in the final desolation of the Mystical Babylon and so of the rebuilding the literal Jerusalem and the mystical is quite spoiled Fourthly And as for the seventy five years commencing from the Epocha of the Evening-Mornings and reaching to the seventy Weeks this first Collateral Line as he manages the business is rather the imagination of a Line than a real Line as himself seems in a manner to confess pag. 16. For he derives it from just so many years as are named of the Persian Monarchy in the Scriptures Which is a pretty phancy but precarious to leave out the rest of the years unmentioned and the whole Reign of Cambyses and Darius Hystaspis Besides the one and twenty days of Daniel's fasting Chap. 10.2 are drawn in to make up the Number as if they were Prophetick days whenas it is expresly said three weeks of days to distinguish them from Daniel's seventy Weeks of years which they signifie the mention of days being not added to them nor is it to be thought that Daniel fasted so for twenty one years together But pag. 17. he attempts a more real Account of the seventy five years which he will have commence with Cyrus his Monarchy and end with the seventh of Artaxerxes Longimanus But he differs in his Compute from Petavius by two years from Calvisius by five from Ptolemy's Canon by six and from Thomas Lydiat by three years over besides that he places the beginning of the seventy Weeks in the seventh of Artaxerxes whenas that Epocha is to be placed in the twentieth of his Reign as I hope I have sufficiently proved in the sixteen first Chapters of this Book Besides that we are to remember that the ending of the two thousand three hundred Evening Mornings being according to him in the Year of our Lord 1772. that is Anno Periodi Julianae 6485. reckoning thence backward the Epocha of the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings will be Anno Periodi Julianae 4186. that is in the second year of Cambyses which quite spoils this placing of the Epocha of this first Collateral Line seventy five in the beginning of Cyrus his Monarchy We pass to the second Collateral Line the seventy Weeks of Daniel Fifthly therefore There seems to be a palpable flaw in that Line forasmuch as the ingenious Computer is fain to lop off four days of the last Week of the seventy and make them end but with that defect in the Resurrection of Christ whenas that whole last Week is dedicated in the Prophecy to the making of a Covenant with many And besides they are not seventy complete weeks unless these four days be taken in which are left out only to make the Collateral Lines just end with the principal Line of the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings This therefore I conceive is a flaw in the Compute Sixthly As for the third Colluteral Line four hundred and four which begins in the year of the Resurrection of Christ and reaches to the commencement of the Reign of the Beast the forty two months or twelve hundred and sixty days Prophetical The pitching upon this number is admirably pretty and surprising I mean the Invention thereof pag. 43. of the Calendar upon Apoc. 6.6 which is thus 1 There is says he besides the usual Voice Come and see an extraordinary Note of Attention not by but to or in the midst of the four living Creatures A measure of Wheat c. to move extraordinary Enquiry after the meaning 2 By Enquiry into History it fits none as Alexander Severus so just a Prince 3 By Enquiry into the Time he died two hundred and two years after our Lord's Resurrection which doubled reaches to the Empire torn on all sides by the Barbarians and the Ten Kings Rising 4 By compare on our principal Line four hundred and four years neither more nor less from the Resurrection are necessary to adjust the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings to the last of Daniel's thirteen hundred thirty five days What then can we conclude but the Balances divide the Time as it were by exact weight one half against the other and so exactly define the time of the Beast's Rising or of the beginning of his forty two months Reign And again pag. 83. in his Postscript he says the purity of the Church was weighed as it were in the Scales in the two hundred and second year after the Resurrection or last year of Alexander Severus and was found just at that time doublted too light viz. at the four hundred and four years end or Anno vulgari 437. And what other account or meaning says he can be given of this place Apoc. 6.6 I desire any one to give I have not found its sense yet attempted by any Interpreter In answer to this I grant that Alexander Severus died Anno Dom. 235. according to Petavius or Anno P. J. 4948. and consequently that he died the year after the Resurrection 202. But that that Voice in the midst of the four Beasts A measure of wheat for a penny c. was to raise our attention and quicken our search into any such mystical meaning of the Balances as the Author would infer I utterly deny there being a pertinent sense so plain and material that belongs to that Cry and to the Balance in common that is of a just and provident administration of affairs in the Empire under the third Seal and the Voice in the midst of the four Beasts is the Fame of it and Joy at it amongst the People who then had so just and careful Emperours over them especially Alexander Severus Mammeae F. This therefore only signifies the special Character of the third Seal that the Church might compute their progress toward the sixth under which they were to have their deliverance from the Persecutions of the Red Dragon And to this sense the ingenious Author of the Calendar might have read in Mr. Mede upon the place To which we may add If the said Author had not violently torn off four days of the last week of the seventy but begun this third Collateral Line at the end of the seventieth week the two hundred and two years of this third Collateral Line would fall out four years after Severus his Death so that this quaint device of dividing this Line into two equal parts weighed as it were in a pair of Scales would be quite spoiled But if beginning this third Line four years later you will yet make the year of the Death of Severus half the time thereof viz. an hundred ninety eight then will this Collateral Line fall four years short of such an Epocha of the Reign of the Beast as from whence Daniel's thirteen hundred thirty five days may expire with the two thousand three hundred
other Victor in the seven Churches And now I hope by this time it is plain that though there be a pretty speciousness of Wit and quickness of Invention in the seven Arguments of the ingenious Objector yet there is no real strength in any of them to prove that the Intervals of the seven Churches do not reach to the End of the World I will only add from the same ingenious Hand what is objected against our Interpretation of Apoc. 4. v. 6. in the Notes In the midst of the Throne and round about the Throne c. and briefly answer thereto and then conclude We suppose the Perimeter of the Throne to be square Let the square Area be divided into four equal Squares by two Lines cutting themselves ad angulos rectos in the Center of the said large square Area on which the Throne stands and let each Line at both ends be produced something beyond the Perimeter of this Area Now according to the order of the Narration of the Text as well as the order of the Camp of Israel let these twenty four crowned Elders six on a side three on one fide of the decussant Line and three on the other side on each side of the Perimeter be so equidistantly placed that every six Elders will take up a whole side thus plainly environing the whole Perimeter of the Throne and so properly to be said to be round about it This answers to what is declared Chap. 4.4 And round about the Throne were four and twenty Seats c. But now let us conceive the four Beasts which in the Vision are but single Beasts placed on those produced decussant Lines which divide each side of the Perimeter in the midst a little more removed from the Perimeter than the Seats of the Elders Here it cannot be said so roundly because there is but a single Beast on each side of the Perimeter of the Throne that they were round about it in the same sense the Elders are said to be But they standing on these Lines that divide each side of the Perimeter of the Throne in the midst they are said to be in the midst of the Throne and round about the Throne In the Midst for the reason abovesaid and round about it because every side of the Perimeter has a Beast just against the midst thereof This is the clear and liquid reason why Mr. Mede interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it signifying no more than that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they were in the midst of each side of the Perimeter round about no side excepted But this Explication says the ingenious Objector is encumbred with these two difficulties One is that by this account the Elders will be in the midst of the Throne too whose place is only said to have been round about the Throne The other is that it will not be easily granted that any thing can be said to be in the midst of the circumference of any figure which is neither in it nor within it But to the first I answer That none of the equidistant Seats of the Elders can be said to be in the midst of the Perimeter of the Throne in that exact sense that the Beasts may be said so to be And besides they so perfectly surrounding the Throne there was no occasion touching them to use any such expression of being in the midst of any thing And to the second I briefly answer That as the Elders are easily conceived to sit round about the exteriour Perimeter of the Throne so the four Beasts to stand at the midst of each side of the said Perimeter For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 need signifie no more than so The Prepositions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie not only In but Propter or Prope as our learned Objector cannot but know very well And thus I hope this something perplexing passage of the Apocalypse is fully cleared and the right of Precedency in the crowned Elders before the four Beasts the Body of the People justly retrieved and confirmed CHAP. L. A brief Method of demonstrating how there may be three and no more than three real Hypostases or Persons in the One Divine Substance or Essence FOR the more clearly proceeding in this Argument we are first to define the Terms thereof viz. what is meant by Hypostasis or Person what by the Divine Substance or Essence what by being One. As touching the first we are to observe That Individuum Suppositum Hypostasis or Persona taken in the Abstract are mere Logical Notions applicable the first to any singular Being whether Substance or Accident The second to any complete Substance at least The third viz. Hypostasis or Persona to any intelligent Essence or Substance And therefore where these Logical Notions are applied there is some singular Thing Accident Substance or intelligent Substance to which they are applied or else they remain no more than mere Logical Notions such as they were before the Application Now for the Divine Essence or Substance Whatever Substance exists eternally necessarily and independently of the Will of another and is infinitely wise good and powerful and from whom the whole Creation does exist and by whom it does continue and subsist this is assuredly an Essence or Substance truly Divine and such as deserves all Religious Worship and Adoration from the whole Creation that are capable of rendring it And now thirdly and lastly for the Vnity of the Divine Essence or Substance Whatever Substance whether Divine or not Divine is Ens unum per se non per aliud is as much one Substance as to Substance as any Substance can be For such a Substance has no composition at all of integrant parts and can no more be discerped and dissevered one part from another than a mere Physical or Metaphysical Monad if there be any such but is one inseparably and indivisibly And such an Vnity or Oneness as this we affirm to be in that Singular Divine Essence or Substance of whom the whole Creation of things visible and invisible doth depend We proceed from the Definition of Terms to the proposing of some few Axioms such as no unprejudiced Understanding will easily deny The first That there is but one God and that the same is a Substance or Essence infinitely or most absolutely perfect The second That this Oneness of the Deity and absolute Perfection thereof does forbid The former that any Multiplicity should be admitted that did not consist with or were not in order to the discovery of the most absolute Perfection in the Deity The latter forbids that any Multiplicity be rejected that makes for that absolute and consummate Perfection in the Deity provided that it does consist with that Vnity of the Divine Substance or Essence described in the third Definition The third That God cannot be infinitely or absolutely perfect without the perception of himself and that Joy and
I have above declared Chap. 40. And thirdly and lastly How the Earthly Church helped the Apostolick Church the Woman by proselyting the Barbarians to a Pagano-Christianity I see not For from hence was the Man of Sin more strongly armed to fight against the Witnesses and bring upon the Evangelical Church all that Misery and Calamity that either History records or Prophecy did prefigure In pag. 50. he asserts that from the first moment of the Time and Times and half a Time the daily Sacrifice is to be dated as taken away But if this be true how can we handsomly come off from making this the Epocha also of the 2300 Evening-Mornings Typically or Mystically understood And so the Sanctuary the Christian Church will not be cleansed from all Antichristian Pollutions till more than a thousand years hence as was noted before In pag. 57. here he says That Apoc. 10. the roaring of the Lion ceased of a sudden and the Thunders were sealed up I suppose he means of a sudden I only take notice that this is said without any the least intimation from the Text. But the roaring of the Lion supplying the place of the sounding of the seventh Trumpet this Roaring must be understood to reach from the sixth Trumpet to the end of all And the seventh Trumpet comprehending the seven Thunders as the seventh Seal the seven Trumpets these seven Thunders must reach to the end of all So that neither the ceasing of the roaring of the Lion nor sealing up the Thunders could be of a sudden In pag. 58 59. he here affirms That the three first Churches run out their just Intervals and then cease from their being any longer Prophetick Types but the three last Thyatira Sardis and Philadelphia run their course together to the New Jerusalem and he supposes none of these three to begin before the last Semi-time at the end whereof they pass into the New Jerusalem And that the seventh of the seven Churches Laodicea comes not into play till after the thousand years Ligation of Satan or blessed Millennium pag. 77. This to me seems a marvellous Invention but his chief pretence to this surprizing Innovation is this pag. 59. The three first says he have their Promises so general that they do not imply a Conjunction betwixt their time and the New Jerusalem The three last have in their promises such Clauses as do necessarily suppose their Contact as I may so speak with that Jerusalem But to this his main or rather only Reason so far as I can discover I briefly answer That the Promises neither to Thyatira nor to Sardis imply any Contact with the New Jerusalem Not Thyatira for the promise to the Victor is only this That he shall have power over the Nations He does not say over all Nations And this was performed in the Rising of the Witnesses at the Reformation when the Popish Power in those Principalities and Kingdoms that were reformed was broken apieces like a Potters vessel To such a measure is Power given to the Victor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Christ Where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an Adverb of Proportion and is as much as if he should have said So far as I have received of my Father Which he explains by adding And I will give him the Morning-Star not the bright Morning-Star as Christ is called in reference to his Empire in the Millennium or New Jerusalem-state So that the very Promise implies rather a great distance from the Jerusalem-state than a Contact with it And for the promise to the few Names in Sardis viz. to the Victor there it is only that he shall be cloathed in white raiment which signifies their prosperous success and that their Name shall not be blotted out of the Book of life that is that their Seed shall continue for ever Christ will so effectually recommend them to his Father and to the Ministry of his Holy Angels But he does not say that the state of these few while such shall be contiguous to the New Jerusalem-state which is the full and ample Millennial Empire of Christ but there being but a few such Names in Sardis it is an Evidence rather that Sardis cannot be contiguous to the state of the New Jerusalem and therefore there must be a larger increase of these few Names under the next Interval before they can be contiguous to the New Jerusalem And therefore as for the third of these three Philadelphia I will allow more to the ingenious Calendarist than he requires viz. that Philadelphia in the forepart thereof is not only contiguous to the New Jerusalem but continuous thereto a due increase of these few Sardian Names emerging into the Appearance of Philadelphia and such a door of success being opened to Philadelphia that at last she emerges into the New Jerusalem-state that state being nothing else but the fulness of the Philadelphian This is so plain in the Promise to the Philadelphian Victor that I wonder that any one can wink so hard as not to see it whether he will or no. Note only here by the bye That if the Jerusalem-state of the Church be not part of the Philadelphian it must be a Church by it self and so there will be eight Churches not seven only which is contrary to the Vision See what the Answerer says to S. E. his Remarks on this place and it must be full satisfaction Thus invalid is the Calendarist's ground for making Thyatira Sardis and Philadelphia all three of them contiguous to the commencement of the New Jerusalem But now let us briefly consider the Incongruity of the Position it self For indeed it seems to me to clash with one of the first Principles of rightly interpreting the Apocalypse viz. the right meaning of the Septenary or Number Seven into which when any thing is divided it denotes that all those parts are there and no more nor fewer Wherefore we are necessarily to understand the succession of the Church in this Prophetick Vision thereof being cast into seven parts that these are adequately the parts of this Succession from the beginning of the Church to the end of all and that all the Succession must be contained in these and no more than these Whence it is plain that these seven Churches are to succeed one another in one Line from the beginning of the Church to the end because it is a Line of Succession But the Calendarist contrary to this making Sardis and Philadelphia Synchronal to Thyatira makes but five Successions in one Line instead of seven viz. Ephesus Smyrna Pergamus Thyatira and Laodicea leaving a gap betwixt Thyatira and Laodicea of no less than a thousand years Which besides the dry Logical Repugnancy in it looks as desormedly as if in a row of teeth in some Animal two viz. the fifth and sixth were struck out and yet to make it still more unsightly two gobber teeth were set in one on this side the other on the inner side of the fourth answering to
them I have done already enough if not more than enough in Answer to the Objector's fourth and last Allegation CHAP. XLV Some brief strictures upon the Calendar of Prophetick Time touching the Vision of the 2300 Evening-Mornings The six Collateral Lines adjusted to the Principal Line of the 2300 Evening-Mornings from whence it would follow that the Papacy and Turkish Tyranny will be broken so that the Witnesses universally will put off their Sack-cloth about twelve years hence and about eighty eight years hence the glory of the New Jerusalem will appear descended from Heaven An Examination of this Hypothesis That it fails in the placing the Epocha of the 2300 Evening-Mornings The first Collateral Line of seventy five years examined The Examination of the second Collateral Line or seventy Weeks of Daniel Of the third Collateral Line four hundred and four years and the marvellous Invention thereof Of the fourth Line the forty two months Reign of the Beast or 1260 days of the Mourning of the Witnesses The fifth Line or the thirty days which added make Daniel 's 1290 days Of his sixth Collateral Line forty five days which added to his former Number make Daniel 's 1335 days The chief ground on which his Hypothesis depends examined and confuted which concerns the Epocha of the 2300 Evening-Mornings drawn from the Text. The right Epocha of the 2300 Evening-Mornings and of Daniel 's 1290 and 1335 days is to be fixt in Antiochus his Pollution of the Sanctuary No hopes from the Compute of Daniel 's 2300 Evening-Mornings of the Papacy and Turkish Tyranny being broken within twelve years c. THE ingenious Author of the Calendar of Prophetick Time when he had carried on his Principal Line of Compute to the end of the seventy years Captivity from which the Jews were delivered by Cyrus pag. 10. which I am not concerned to examine the next generally acknowledged Line of Time that occurred to his mind was the seventy Weeks of Daniel but considering with himself that betwixt the seventy years ending and seventy weeks beginning there must be a middle space of Time that is not to be void he therefore to continue the Principal Line of his Calendar thorough that space also and supposing Daniel to receive the Vision of the 2300 Evening-Mornings at the close of the seventy years Captivity interprets these 2300 Evening-Mornings to be so many Prophetical Days viz. 2300 years and places their Epocha at the expiration of the seventy years Captivity namely from the year wherein Daniel received the Vision And this Principal Line of Time he recommends to us upon several accounts it reaching so handsomly from the destruction of the Literal Babylon to the utter destruction of the Mystical from the rebuilding again of the Literal Jerusalem to the raising of the New Jerusalem or Jerusalem Mystical and for that it is commensurate or equal to seventy five years from its Epocha to the seventy Weeks to the four hundred and ninety years of those Weeks to four hundred and four years from the Resurrection of Christ to the Reign of the Beast to his forty two months or twelve hundred and sixty days Reign to the thirty days that make Daniel's twelve hundred and ninety days and to forty five days which added to the former number make the thirteen hundred and thirty five days of Daniel the Principal Line two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings is commensurate or equal to all these Collateral Lines put together So that the thirteen hundred and thirty five days reach as the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings do to the utter destruction of Babylon and the glory of the New Jerusalem This is to fall out in the Year 1772. viz. eighty eight years hence upon the pouring out of the Vials begun in the Year 1727. the space of their pouring out being the forty five days added to the twelve hundred and ninety days in Daniel the beginning therefore of their pouring forth is forty three years hence In the thirty which added to the twelve hundred and sixty make Daniel's twelve hundred and ninety days are the seven Ministerial Voices of the unsealed seven Thunders uttered which begin with the Sound of the seventh Trumpet pag. 68. and reach to the beginning of the Vials The beginning of these thirty days is thirteen years hence upon the expiration of the twelve hundred and sixty days when will be the complete Rising of the Witnesses when the Papacy and Turkish Tyranny will be so broken that the Witnesses will universally put off their Sackcloth they being rid of the oppression of their Persecutors And lastly the four hundred and four years is the time of the Purity of the Church from the Resurrection of Christ till the commencing of the forty two months of the Reign of the Beast or twelve hundred and sixty days mournful condition of the Witnesses The contrivance is witty and inventive as indeed the whole Book must be the effect of a mind notably much exercised in the study of Scripture and Prophecies and eagerly set to find some grounds and hopes therefrom that in a very short time the oppression of God's Church will be hugely abated or taken quite off from their shoulders But let us now and that very briefly examine the grounds of these so great hopes and how firm this frame and contrivance is And first here he takes for granted that the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings are so many years though the Text says expresly That the Vision of the Evening and Morning is true that is plain not Aenigmatical whence they must signifie so many days literally not years But because several intelligent persons have a propension to think these days may be also Typical of years Antiochus being so notable a Type of Antichrist I will not much gainsay the ingenious Author of the Calendar in this but rather suppose that it is said that the Vision of the Evening and Morning is true that is to say plain that the literal sense of the Prophecy may be as well assured as the mystical and symbolical But now in the second place let us see how his Account will agree with approved Chronologers These two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings end in the Year 1772. which is the 6485. year of the Julian Period Now count back from this year the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings and their Epocha will be in the 4186. of the Julian Period which according to Helvicus is the second year of Cambyses as also according to Seth Calvisius and Petavius we may add also Thomas Lydiat But the Vision of the Evening-Mornings was exhibited to Daniel in the third year of Belshazzar who reigned fourteen years after that as you may see in Thomas Lydiat Thirdly therefore The Epocha of the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings not being found in the year when Cyrus took Babylon nor in the year after when he gave the Jews leave to return into their own Country to rebuild the Temple c.
Evening-Mornings So that this third Collateral Line as it is framed does but unjustly enjoy the fruit of the violence done to the seventieth week which is a sore blemish derived not only upon it but the residue of the Collateral Lines The weighing also of the purity of the Church two hundred and two years before it could be justly pronounced light upon the Balance and rejectaneous has something of harshness in it Wherefore we see there is no solid Reason to leave Mr. Mede's way of computing the space of the pure State of the Church from the proportion of the outer Court to the inner and betake our selves to this though otherwise witty yet lubricous and groundless device of the Balance Seventhly therefore I conceive That the Epocha of the Apostasie of the Church or Reign of the Beast which is the beginning of this fourth Collateral Line is not rightly fixed the grounds thereof thus failing There is some forty four years difference betwixt it and the true Epocha collected by the true Method of the proportion of the outer Court to the inner according to which this fourth Collateral Line or twelve hundred and sixty days expired above thirty years ago Eighthly This fifth Collateral Line thirty which added to the former twelve hundred and sixty days makes Daniel's twelve hundred and ninety days this also is already expired without any such seven Ministerial Voices of the seven unsealed Thunders that any one could discern Which seven Voices of the Thunders are connex with the Thunders themselves And that the Thunders occupy the space of the whole seventh Trumpet I have irrefutably demonstrated in more places than one See the Answer to S. E. the Remarker on Apoc. Chap. 10. Wherefore the Voices of the Thunders being stretched from the beginning to the end of the seventh Trumpet how can they be compressed into the space of 30 years Besides that Calend. pag. 68 69. the seven Ministerial Voices there pitched upon cannot belong to the Collateral Line of thirty after the twelve hundred and sixty For that Song of the 144000 is the description of the Evangelici all along the six Trumpets The Angel Preacher of the Everlasting Gospel respects the fifth and sixth Wo-Trumpets so that his Voice cannot be the second as being not come to the seventh Trumpet And the Voice that declares the Fall of Babylon that it is fallen is also before the seventh Trumpet as being coincident with the Rising of the Witnesses But the Author of the Calendar makes his Collateral Line of thirty years commence with the beginning of the seventh Trumpet and to end before the pouring out of the Vials But the four next Voices as he would have them do plainly fall into the time of the Vials as is sufficiently proved in the Answer to the Remarker on the Apology So that this Conceit of the seven Ministerial Voices antecedent to the seven Vials is as I conceive quite out of doors And now ninthly and lastly His sixth and last Collateral Line which added to Daniel's 1290 days makes his 1335 days which expire with the 2300 Evening-Mornings this last Collateral Line of forty five days especially if the Reign of the Beast were reckoned from the right Epocha seems too short a time for the seven Vials to discharge themselves in For then all those great things which the Vials portend would be accomplished within these forty years or thereabout which to cooler and calmer Spirits must seem a thing incredible His Interpretation of the four last Vials pag. 70 71. is correspondent enough to Mr. Mede and for ought I know credibly true But the three first Vials which he conceives yet to come their fulfilling has been manifestly already Nor is the first Vial a Representation of the loathsomness of the marked Slaves of the Beast but of their dementative Anger and Rage of this those angry Boils are a Symbol so obvious that scarce any Interpreters miss of it and it plainly answers to And the Nations were angry Chap. 11.18 Which passage as is demonstrated in the Answer to the Remarker on the Apology respects the times of the Vials And for the second Vial it is not the Innavigableness of the blood of a dead man for so much blood as to sail upon is a monstrous Phancy hugely out of the way but it is the dead fishes there that are intimated wherein the stress of the Symbol lies And Artemidorus tells us that dead fishes in the Sea signifie disappointment of hope which came to pass to the Pontifician Fishermen after the full settlement of the Reformation in the Kingdoms cut quite off from the Pope and grown as cold as the Cruor of a dead man to her Idolatries and Superstitions And lastly for the third Vial that he interprets Rivers of Aquaeducts of Doctrine rather than of Emissary Agents from the Roman See no man will see Reason who considers what I have wrote in my Alphabet of Iconisms in the Iconism River But however the fulfilling of these three first Vials has been already since the Rising of the Witnesses in the Reformation whenas the Author of the Calendar phansies them yet to come which is no slight evidence against his Hypothesis But now besides all these Allegations against his six Collateral Lines the sixing of the Epocha of his principal Line the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings in the year when Daniel received that Vision viz. in the third year of Belshazzar as if because no more than three years is mentioned of Belshazzar in Scripture he was slain in that very year and then Babylon taken that so the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings might commence from the taking Literal Babylon to the utter destruction of the Mystical Babylon and from Cyrus his Grant for the building the Temple of the Literal Jerusalem to the appearing of the Mystical or New Jerusalem or its descending from Heaven upon the Earth I say his fixing the Epocha thus has no ground from the Text of the Prophecy Dan. 8.13 14. How long shall be the Vision concerning the daily Sacrifice It is answered Vnto two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings then shall the Sanctuary be cleansed Here the Author of the Calendar glosses thus The Vision and not so much the things contained in it is dated hereby the Vision of the Sacrifice taken away shall be two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings not the taking away the Sacrifice c. but the Vision shall extend to two thousand three hundred Prophetick days pag. 12. And to the same sense again pag. 80. he saith It is not said How long shall be the time of the taking away the daily Sacrifice but how long the Vision This Gloss is the main ground of his Epocha of the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings which he fixes from hence in the third year of Belshazzar phansying that the year of the Fall of the Literal Babylon But by Vision most certainly is understood not the Prophetical Exhibition of the things