which was during the Time of the Christian Emperour who as we have seen was to come betwixt the sixth and the seventh Heads and had not the eighth Head been to Succeed and had He not actually Succeeded after no long space in the style of Prophecy The Beast had indeed Dyed That is the Roman Empire as Idolatrous and Bloody in its Persecutions had expir'd But because the whole of that Time Heathenish Idolatry and Persecution was Fashioning into Antichristian the Beast liv'd though deadly Wounded and the Dragon gave his Power and Seat as by Will to the Beast The Pope was long er'e he arose to such Supremacy as would Object 3. Answer the Prophetic Types And so Prophecy Represents it The Gentiles or Antichristianizing Answer Layty the Inhabitants of the Earth under the other Beast or Antichristianizing Hierarchy of Bishops their Dignified and Inferior Clergy Horn'd like a Lamb among which the Pope of Rome was Principal and ever aspiring were a Protecterian Supremacy during the Wound of the First Beast or Roman Empire as Idolatrous which under the Christian Emperours was Wounded deadly in One of viz. the sixth of its Heads or the Pagan Emperours and Powers subdu'd by the Christian Emperours During that Time therefore of the Wound and also during the Infancy of the Kingship of the Seventh Head and Eighth King That Hierarchy hath the High though Infamous Title of the Other Beast conferr'd upon it and accordingly Forty two Months were assign'd to the Gentiles as a Signification of such a Bestial Power under the Aristocracy of the Other Beast and to note its time And thus Things continu'd till the Grand * Call'd Beast tho' but a Head in Imitation of the little horn among the Ten another Emblem of this Beast call'd the Beast and deliver'd to the Flames Dan. 7. 11. Beast had an Image made to Him to be Worshipped and All Sware Fealty to him by Receiving his Mark which was the perfect Healing the Wound and the Infant Kingship of the Seventh Head Then He came to his Number 666 which was not till An. Dom. 725 or 6 during the Christian Emperours many Years after his Succession which the Infancy of a King does not Prejudice Then the Other Beast though undivided from the Grand Beast submitted to be his False Prophet and the Months of the Gentiles naturally merg'd into those of the Beast having till then supply'd what was wanting in the time of the Night although the Beast's Infant Succession as Eighth King and his Fourty Two Months commenc'd against the Twelve hundred sixty Days as the Moon 's Nights against the Sun's Days Thus it is no Objection against Prophecy but according to Prophecy that the Beast was so long Rising to his Exercise of Supremacy as seventh Head and eighth King. For He is the Beast that was in its Six Heads but deadly Wounded in the sixth of them by the seventh King no Head and so was as Not in any Appearance till the seventh Head and eighth King was grown up to his Number and the Wound healed by an Image made to Him And Great and Small Rich and Poor Bond and Free received His Mark. 2. But this Objection will be more fully answer'd by a further settlement of the very Beginning and Epoch of these Forty Two Months of the Beast For whenever the Beast Rose those Months Rose also Now the Beast's Rising is fix'd to an Hour For the Ten Kings receive Power or Authority at One Hour viz. the very same Hour with the Beast And they receive Authority as Kings that same Hour For here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be Interpreted at one Hour as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the Ninth Hour Acts 10. 30. And they receive at that One Hour Authority as Kings They had no Kingdom in the Apostles Time although then they were as Ten Horns to the Roman Empire but uncrowned Horns For the Beast or Idolatrous Roman Empire consisting of its Seven Heads and Ten Horns and of the Body of the People were always alike pourtray'd in Prophecy yet with some regard to the variety of Times that pass'd over it The Heads are therefore in the Roman Dragon or Heathen Imperial State first represented Crowned for they always imported Supreme Power and then in the Beast the Heads having been already Crowned the Horns are presented Crown'd shewing at the one and the same Hour the Seventh Head of the Beast came to the Exercise of Sovereignty The Ten Horns also received Power as Kings And in this Vision c. 17. Neither the Heads nor the Horns are presented as Crown'd having been both Crown'd in the former Vision and explain'd in this But let us Examine when could these Ten Kings receive Authority as Kings and be justly own'd as such for the Prophecy says they had received no Kingdom as yet And it was at One and the same Hour with the Beast viz. when He succeeded the Seventh King or when the Roman Christian Empire ceased For when their Vniversal Monarch their Lawful Prince renounced Empire as Augustulus did Then had the Beast Authority to begin His Months and then these Ten Kings received Authority as Kings which could not according to the Law of Kingdoms to which Law the Prophecy yields Deference be while the Lawful Sovereign was in Being But he ceasing to be a King their Obligation ceas'd ahd then they Rise up as Kings whatever they had had done before towards being Kings was till then but Usurpation and not Authority Which Consideration absolutely fixes the Succession and the Time of it And they are call'd Ten not to raise a Scruple about their exact Number Ten neither more nor less but being several into which the One Empire sprouted against its will as All History well knows that at that Time the Empire was so Torn into Pieces But they are called Ten to preserve Regard to that First Image in which this Roman Empire came down to the Feet and was divided into the Ten Toes And this being the State of that Empire under its Seventh Head the Horns or Kings seated in it are called Ten with respect to that First Statue given of the Four Empires and of the last Form of the Last Empire And they are call'd Horns because notwithstanding They were Absolute Independent Kings Yet as Horns give offensive and defensive force to the Head and that hath Supreme Mannagement of them so these Horns gave their Power to the Seventh Head. So making Him an Universal Monarch or eighth King till the Words of God are fulfill'd Now I know not how a firmer Settlement of the Beginning of these Months just at the Cessation of the Christian Imperialism can be made than is now made by this last Addition But because it may be said the Name of Pope is no Kingly or Object 1. Imperial Name It seems to overthrow the whole Frame laid It is Admirable the Care Prophecy hath taken to tell us The Answer Beast of
than the Discyphar and Explication he hath given of the Community we are now to treat of and the Recommendation of it to the Minds that have Wisdom to observe For having first given it under the Emblem of a Woman sitting on a Beast of seven Heads and ten Horns he unriddles the Heads to be seven Mountains and seven Kings and the ten Horns to be ten Kings and the Woman to be that City that at that time Reign'd over the Kings of the Earth which is as plain an Interpretation he meant Rome as if any one in these days should first draw London in an Emblem or Device and then say It is the City that is at this time the Capital City of the Nation I doubt not any one that understands common Sense would think it plain enough London was the City and if the Emblem were Treasonable the Innuendo would be thought sufficient to take away his Life And That It is the present Papal Rome the Procedure of the Argument is even as easie For if the Emblem of London were given with the Succession of Kings from the Conquest under which it hath been the Capital City till it came down to our present Soveraign whom God long preserve and let our King live for ever it would be a sure Character the present London was intended even so sure may the present Papal Rome be known to be intended by this Prophecy These two things I look upon as indubitably certain the Discourse of which runs to Pag. 17. And as to the Calculation of Time I fix upon I think it as clear certain and easie as by the Ballance of the Time of the Moon with the Time of the Sun It would be to a skilful Astronomer to tell us how many Lunar Years or Years of the Moon have pass'd from the Conquest when we are agreed how many Years of the Sun it is as is endeavoured to be made out to Pag. 32. However the Two first That Rome and the present Papal Rome are design'd by the Prophecy are as certain as plainest Words of the Prophecy expounded by it self can make them On which I throw down the Glove to all Gainsayers And if so they are sufficient to Found well the ensuing Inferential Corollaries to the End and to build an earnest Persuasive to come out of that * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Communion as the very Force of the Prophetical Word implies as well as the Vogue of Language and if we are Come out by no means to look back nor so much as to make any Terms with it For it can give us no Equivalent to incline us to yield it but a Toleration to its re-seating it self into a possibility to make publick Offers of its Golden Cup to the Nation No Indulgence can be a valuable Price for this For The Glory of Christ and of his Kingdom which that Eclipses is of more value than our Liberty and yet God forbid but that all due regards of the most Christian Evangelick Spirit should be born to all the Persons from the highest to the lowest who are of it much more to all Protestant Dissenters But to suffer so far as it is in our Power legally and in our Places to hinder this Prophetess from Seducing whoever reads these Seventeenth and Eighteenth Chapters of the Revelation and what is to follow to the End of the Prophecy which cannot come before the Fall of this Babylon and finds as I am not afraid to say I have proved It is the present Papal Rome that the Prophecy intends will see Argument sufficient against it if he be a Christian and a Protestant and the more zealous he is of Christian Protestancy still the more Reason And as for all Ambidexters Two-handed Achitophelians or Judasses who think to find it in their Account to be on both sides as they are now the private Scorn and Despisal of the Age so in future Records and not long hence they will stand Pillars of Salt. Pag. 27. Line 24. read after Wound During the Christian Emperour lin 27. blot During the Christian Emperour REVEL 18. 4. And I heard another Voice from Heaven saying Come out of her my People that ye be not partaker of her Sins and receive not of her Plagues THIS Voice is Another For it succeeds the mighty Cry of the strong Voice of an Illustrious Angel which had gone just before and proclaim'd Babylon the Great is Fallen is Fallen Now although these Two Voices are prepar'd for a particular Time and that is still to come yet they sound backward from that Time wherein they are to have so perfect an Elevation to the Times before and so consequently to all Time forward from that very Time wherein these Voices were Heard and Recorded by the Apostle John the Apocalyptical Amanuensis or Scribe that so from that very Time the Execution of the Things declar'd may be expected and prepar'd for as in their proper Time to be executed But more especially since the Time of the Reformation and so onwards the nearer we approach the Time for which it is prepar'd the more the Voice with which we have now to do is to be attended as if it sounded louder and louder And it shall most sensibly do so when the Fourty two Months of the Beast are expir'd which we shall find will be at the farthest Nine years hence Let us then consider the Importance of this Voice and it is plainly the Separation of the People of God and so of every Person among us if we are of his People from any Communion with that City or Community concerning which we shall by the Light of this Prophecy duly weigh'd and consider'd be convinc'd that It is the City symboliz'd or set out by this Mystical Woman And our Separation must be proportionable to the danger of being tainted or struck with the Contagion of its Sins or Apprehended and Reachd by the Thunder-shaft of its Plagues For so is the Charge Come out of her my People And so is the Enforcement Lest ye be partaker of her Sins and lest ye Receive of her Plagues Now that we may do this It is highly Expedient at least to use the utmost Enquiry into this Prophecy that we may know by the Characters of it What and what manner of City the Spirit of God in it doth signifie and what or what manner of Time also It hath denoted or else we cannot so well judge what is 1 Pet. 1. 11. our Duty or what our Danger For though I would allow with as much Largeness of mind as can be desir'd that by the General Rules of Universal Scripture we may without the particular Understanding of this Prophecy be secur'd from both the Impurities and from the Judgments of this City by Adhering to the Truth and Purity and Mercy of the Christian Religion in Doctrine Discipline Worship and Practise according to the just measures of the Word of God yet we cannot do it with those
of it as the Vision of the c. 17. does For He as King having Power of Life and Death those whom He Kills lye in the Street of his Great Emperial City So then the City and the Beast are here first so nearly conjoyn'd and so again c. 17. How then comes the Tenth of this Great City to Fall whatever we understand by it for I will not now dispute that How comes it to Fall I say when It sits on the Beast It could not be if the Beast Himself did not Sink and how could He Sink if His Fourty two Months were not out For so long was given Him by Prophecy which in another Character is call'd Time Times and Half a Time and as apply'd to the Witnesses Three Days and a Half in Imitation of our Lord 's three Days in the Grave Till the Morning then of the Half Time and Day there could be no such Alteration in his Kingdom as the Reformation made and till that Time of the Forty two Months fully exhausted when the Twelve hundred sixty Days End also in the Rising and Glory of the Witnesses There cannot be a Fall of the Tenth of the City which He bears up the Grandeur of And to shew farther that this Beast that Slays the Witnesses is the same with the Beast c. 17. It is made known by that certain Mark of it the Ascending out of the Bottomless Pit and that we may know they are both the same with the Beast who hath the Fourty two Months c. 13. He makes War with the Saints who are the Seed of the Woman and Hold the Testimony of Jesus C. 12. Vlt. or are the Witnesses being thereunto Deputed by the Dragon who gave him his Throne and Great Authority and He that Beast is Taken c. 19. as is foretold also c. 13. He that leadeth into Captivity shall go into Captivity And the Ten Kings who give him their Power who make War with the Lamb and He overcomes them are Kill'd with the Sword of his Mouth c. 19. as was foretold c. 13. He that killeth with the Sword shall be killed with the Sword. All which farther Assure together with what hath been said before That It is one and the same Beast throughout the Prophecy of the Revelation viz. the Seventh Head of the Roman Empire and its Eighth King to whom the Ten Kings as Horns give their Power The second Oracle given us concerning the Period of the Forty two Months is c. 17. God hath put into the Heart of the Ten Kings to Do his Will or execute his Determination and to execute and perform One Determination untill the Words of God shall be fulfilled Now this Counsel Determination and Will of God is that which is explain'd what it is It is even that they should Give their Kingdom and Power to the Beast And how long Vntill the words of God shall be fulfill'd And Those words were declar'd c. 13. Authority was given to Him as a Beast of Ten Horns to continue Forty two Months The great Event therefore at the End of the Forty two Months is That then the Ten Kings shall Hate the Whore and make her Desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and burn her with Fire From whence it is evident how close the Union is between the City call'd the Whore and the Beast For while the Kings give their Power to the Beast they bear up the Beast who bears up the City while they fulfill the Decree of God for the Beasts Forty two Months They are One in giving Him their Kingdom and Power and so long They are drunk with the Wine of the Whores Fornication But when those Words are fulfill'd and those Forty Two Months then They hate the Whore and then this Tenth of the Great City Falls viz. the whole Circle of the Power given by these Ten Horns or Ten Kings who now Recall their Power from the Beast and that Tenthness of Power Falls also For however the Grammar of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will not bear such an Exposition of it as should signifie the Ten King'd Power yet the Prophecy of Daniel in the Ten Toes of the Image the Ten Horns of the Beast and The whole Frame of the Prophecy of the Revelation concerning the Beast his Ten Horns or Ten Kings does forcibly oversway the nicety of Grammar and carries the Prophecy to this Sense and much the rather because as hath been argued The Twelve hundred sixty Days will be then ended and the Words of God fulfilled concerning the Bestian Power which lay so much in its Horns or Ten Kings persecuting the Witnesses Let us now recollect the Summ of this Argument in the Proof it gives The Argument runs thus The Roman City or Church sits on the Beast or Eighth Kimg who hath been in Possession of the Time allotted him by Prophecy so long as from the Seventh other King of a short space after the sixth King that was in the Apost John's Time till now within nine or ten Years of the Expiration of that Time as a Time allowable to remain for the fulfilling of All Events This is the Beast or eighth King bearing up that Rome whether City or Church out of which Gods People are Called But the present City or Church of Rome sitting upon the Pope is and hath been in that Possession so long That Time so allotted is expresly said to be Fourty two Months those Months must be Prophetical Months or Days for Years Those Months must be Time of the Moon and not of the Sun. Those Months being time of the Moon given by Prophecy must be taken and applyed to time of the Sun given by the same prophecy that they may be rated and known what time They contain According to the exactest Computation that can be made Fourty two Months apply'd to Twelve hundred sixty Days for Years must be Twelve hundred twenty two Days for Years that is Twelve hundred twenty two Years The Epoch or Beginning then of these Months fixed at the Cessation of the Christian Emperour the prophetical Seventh King which was in the Year of our Lord 475 must needs reach to the Year 1697. The Twelve hundred sixty Days or Years both of the Witnesses and of the Woman ending necessarily at the same time for the one cannot out-last the other must begin thirty eight Years before the Months viz. 437. But because the Witnesses could not be supposed to put on their Sackcloth without just Occasion given the Gentiles under the other Beast Treading the Holy Court must have begun their Fourty two Months when the Twelve hundred sixty Days of the Witnesses Sackcloth and the Womans Wilderness State began also viz. 437. It is no matter what became of the Gentiles Fourty two Months after the Beast first Risen and grown up to his Image and Power to enforce the Worship of it and the receiving his Mark Name or of the Number of his Name viz. at 725 his Famous 666. For then
particular Evidences of that Divine Reason nor with those vigorous Emotions of Zeal against such an unclean Communion as this Prophecy rightly apprehended would arm us with For certainly The Pen of this Divine Scribe was not made in vain I will therefore use the highest Diligence of Research and close Enquiry into the Prophecy concerning the City and the Times appointed to it and then concerning the Comming out of it and enforce the Charge here given to come out of it and all this as peculiarly deriv'd from this Holy Oracle in comparison of which all the Streams deriv'd from Antiquity are Low and Flat in shewing the Great Abominations of that City But Blessed is he that Readeth and They who Hear the Words of this Prophecy for now the Time is more at hand as to what we are now to Treat of than when the Oracle was first given although each part of this Prophecy was in its own Time and Order at Hand according to the Line wherein each Thing was to come to pass and which Line began in the Things that were first to come to pass and did come to pass from the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ which are but one Time in the Account of Prophecy as we say in Law The whole of each Term is but one Day and from thence the Revelation is dated as from its Epoch or Beginning-Point First therefore concerning the City there are such Characters as undeniably assure us This City can be no other than the City Rome that is here thus describ'd The City resembled by a Woman a not only Imperious but Charact. 1. Imperial whorish Woman is plainly Expounded by the Angel to be a City And it is usual in Prophecy to Figure Cities by that Embleme of a Woman and not only Cities but Churches as Revel c. 17. c. 18. Zion by a Woman grieved in Spirit the True Church in this Prophecy is often Typ'd by a Woman the New Jerusalem by the Bride the Lambs Wife And Adulterous Churches by Adulterous Women as Aholiab and Aholibah are the Pictures of Samaria Ezek. 23. and Jerusalem both as Adulterous Cities and Churches But this Woman this Imperial and Imperious whorish Woman is affirm'd to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with all the Emphasis and Force of Expression that can be The City The Great That hath now saith the Apostle John that I am in writing it at this very present Time the Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth Now a City that had then the Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth undeniably imported a Capital City the Seat of an Vniversal Monarchy at that Time. For as a Monarch hath in the very nature of a Monarch all subordinate Magistrates under him and accountable to Him so an Universal Monarchy hath States and Kingdoms under it that however in their particular Kingdoms They may be over and above all others yet still their Power is Limitable and accountable to and may be Appealed from to the Universal Monarchy and Power When therefore This City is said to be The City The Great Having at that Time a Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth It is to say the City spoken of was at the Time when the Revelation was given the Seat of an Vniversal Monarchy and that some Supreme Power had its Imperial Residence there took its Title from that City exercis'd its Power under that Title and as the then present Head of that City bore up the City by such Title so that it is said to have a Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth because such a Power so related to it had a Kingdom over all other Kingdoms far and near or had such an Universal Monarchy or Kingdom Now what City that was that had then a Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth in the sense now declared besides the Notices of Universal History in that matter it is most evident from Scripture that it must be even that very City Rome for Augustus at that time the Emperour of Rome when our Lord was Born made a Decree that All the World viz. the World of the Roman Empire which Aspir'd as it were to equal the very Habitable Earth in Extent should come under a particular Census Luc. 2. 1. or be describ'd that so an Account of the large Bounds of the Dominion the Numerousness Strength and Riches of the Subjects might be render'd to Him. We read in the History of the Acts of the Apostles how great the Honour was for any City to be accounted a Member of that City that its Natives might be the Free-Born of that City It made such a City no mean City The Immunity of being so Free-born was so great that many purchas'd it at an exceeding Rate who had it not by Birth We find the Apostle Paul though he was a Jew and immediately subject to the Jewish Law yet as it were directed by an Impulse of Providence Appeals to Caesar's Tribunal as the Highest upon Earth These and many other Expressions assure us what City it was that at the Acts 22. 28 Time Reigned over the Kings of the Earth And it was very necessary the Scripture that loves most in all weighty matters to be serv'd by its own Records should take this great Notice of the Roman Empire Because as the Fourth Monarchy it was of the Four the most Remarkable For in it Dan. 7. the Kingdom of Messiah that is to be so Universal a Monarchy indeed began to be set up in its Beginning and will in the End of the same Roman Monarchy be a Dominion under the whole Heaven given to the Saints of the most High the first of which is Accounted for in the History of the New Testament and the Last in this Grand Prophecy of it the Revelation But further to carry on the Certainty of this City being the City Rome at the time the Apostle John wrote the Revelation we may observe what is so well known That there was no Change in the State of the Roman Empire except a greater Enlargement of it from the Days of Christ and the Apostles to the Time of the writing the Revelation by the Apostle John. So that when This City is declar'd to be the City that Reign'd over the Kings of the Earth it is most evident Rome was the City intended It is therefore called the Great City according to the manner Charact. 2. of speaking at that Time Roma Sacra Augusta Aeterna Rome the Sacred the Imperial the Everlasting Rome How often therefore doth the Revelation style it the Great City and Babylon the Great and The City and The Great This Woman is said to sit on Seven Mountains And the Holy Charact. 3. Spirit is so Industrious if I may so speak with Reverence to give this Notice of the Famous Seven-Hill'd Rome that it goes out of its way to give it For whereas the Beast only and not the Woman is Entitled to the Seven Heads Besides the
Seven Heads of the Beast on whom the Woman sitteth the Woman her self is pourtrayed Sitting on Seven Mountains as The names of which are most universally known to be the Capitoline the Palatine the Aventine the Celan the Esquiline the Viminal the Quirinal Seven Heads besides the Beasts Heads I say so that the Divine Wisdom steps as it were aside to fetch in these Seven Mountains as the Cities Heads as an uncontroulable unmoveable Character and Assurance of this City For never was any City in the World so famously known by its Seven Hills as the Seven-Headed City Rome There being then no possibility of Avoiding it the most zealous Partizans of Rome in its present State dare not deny that the Woman here describ'd and expounded by the Angel into a City is the very City Rome and no other They do therefore Acknowledge it There are but Two ways then to rescue Rome in its present State from the Dint of this Prophecy 1. That it was Heathen Rome the Prophecy intended and that therefore it hath had its Accomplishment many Ages ago 2. Or that it may be some State of Rome that is not yet nor hath yet been but is to be some short time before the End of the World. If therefore the Prophecy will not endure either of these that it is past or to come it is then Demonstration that it must be the Present State of Rome that is under the Thunder-stroke of the Prophecy Seeing All that Time enfolds in its whole Nature is either past present or to come Now that the State of Rome here describ'd is not yet past there are these two Evident Reasons 1. That whenever this Prophecy is fulfill'd there must be an utter Destruction Ruine and Desolation of the City for the Woman expounded to be the City Chap. 17. is the same whose Desolation is so amply and finally declar'd chap. 18. so that there can be no possible supposal it can be otherwise And that the Desolation is utter and Final besides the whole Course of it all along is most apparent by the Emblem of the Mill-stone thrown into the Bottom of the Sea as of Babylon of old that is a place of Wild Beasts at this Day Every thing in the whole Prophecy is levied on purpose to express a supreme Abolishment of this City out of the whole Nature of Things Now no such Abolishment of the City Rome hath yet been but it hath out-liv'd the Calamities that it suffer'd at any Time since the Prophecy and hath always so recover'd it self that it is at this day in Grandeur so that the Truth of the Prophecy must be wholly overthrown or not yet fulfill'd and so it must be yet to be destroy'd I say nothing of the Cities of the Nations Falling at the same Time that Great Babylon came in Remembrance before God because I would rest only upon what is most indubitably plain 2. The Glory of the Church and of the Kingdom of Christ the Bride the Lambs Wife making her self ready to the Marriage c. 19. 20. 21. and that whole Blessed change of Things answering the great Types of the Prophecy immediately follow the Desolation of this City Rome So in Daniel after the giving the Beast to the Flames as is here foretold also after the Final Destruction of Babylon the Kingdom under the whole Heaven is given to the Saints of the most High and Sathan chain'd shut up and seal'd into his own bottomless pit that he might deceive the Nations no more But that these Happy Things have not yet come to pass there needs nothing more to convince All that bear the Christian Name than the Imposture and Tyranny of Mahomet that hath rag'd within the very Bowels of the Christian World so long a space The most observant therefore of the Roman Commentators on this Prophecy finding how impossible it is to adjust the Prophecy of these two Chapters to Rome changed from Rome Imperial as Heathen to Rome Imperial as Christian have thought the second Interpretation the safer Refuge from the Terror of its Judgment here foretold and much the rather I doubt not because an Exposition resting on a Futurity can be less Evicted in its Disagreeableness than what bears on Things past and what is to be just at the End of the World can be hardlier confuted by shewing the ill-matching of Consequences especially when the Consequences are so Great as the Day of Judgment only can parallel as they have truly enough consider'd then what was to have been so many Ages ago Attended with such Consequences as have not yet come to pass which every one can plainly charge But yet the due and close Search into this Prophecy will as much Confute this as the other as is now to be made evident which that it may be done I will lay down this Proposition and prove it from the whole Prophetick Table Rome in the present State is that which hath been from the Proposit Time the Imperial Name of the City Rome ceas'd and still continues that Symbolical mystical Woman or City upon which this Prophecy and the whole Designation of it perpendicularly or as we say point-blank Falls and not a Future Rome and Antichrist to be expected Three years and a half only before the Day of Judgment as some Papists would have it To prove this I use this General Argument That which 1 General Argum. gives us the distinguishing States and Times of this City according to this Prophecy and according to the General Reason of Things must be the distinguishing of the Times and States of its Seven Heads and Eight Kings Even as in all States Kingdoms and Cities their Times are given by the Reigns of the Princes and by the Governments over them If then by the computing the Times of these it shall appear the present Rome is this Woman or City the Demonstration will be secure Now Thus is the whole Prophetick Frame This City sits on a Beast of Seven Heads for those Seven Mountain-Heads are by the By and only to give the presumptive Knowledge of this City so fam'd for its Seven Mountains the certain and more accomplish'd assurance even to Plerophory of which is its having at that Time a Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth yet this of the Mountains joyn'd with it establishes it in the Evidence of Two most undoubted Testimonies of it Yet still it is to be consider'd the Woman sits on the Mountains only as a City is describ'd by its Scituation and this City by its Scituation on Seven Mountains which is a very Grand Character of it But the Woman sits on the Beast of Seven Heads as a Man or Woman are carried aloft on the Beast that bears them or on which they Ride so this Woman sits as a City fast seated on Seven Mountains and as an Imperial Woman Riding in State on the Beast that bears as the Prophecy expresly styles it or carries her and offering her Golden
cup of Fornications to the Kings of the Earth intoxicated with the Grandeur and Riches as also with the Sensuality of her Lusts and Adulteries Encircled therefore with these Seven and Seven of Heads for Assuring the City and for the greater flourish of the Type The Woman sits on high and the Two Sevens of Heads are expounded by the Angel to be Seven Hills or Mountains unmoveable Heads And They viz. the Heads not There as the English Translation too Low are Seven Kings who are the moving living Heads of the Beast on which she sits and by the Flitting or Remove of the Principality from one Head to another the Times of the Woman or of the City as we shall see are to be dated for though the Heads are always united to the Beast as all one Animal or Bestial living Creature however monstrous it may seem yet the Kingship of the Heads was in a Succession till it came to the last King under which it now is and hath been so long Now among these Seven Heads that were Kings there was a Seventh King cast in that was of another kind as being no Head which is of very great consideration in this prophetical Portraicture as we shall find and He comming in makes the Seventh Head the Eighth King. That we may be therefore guided by this whole Type to the certain knowledge of the present State of this City I will lay down these four Propositions with the proof of each These Seven Heads and Eight Kings are not together Kings or Propos 1. in the Exercise of Sovereignty at one and the same Time but are in a Succession or after one another This is most undeniable for Five had been before the Prophecy given to the Apostle and were Fallen viz. from their Principality or Exercise of Sovereignty else they were not Fallen for they are still represented on the Beast and never part from it as in the Prophetick Image but pertain to the Integrity of the Beast or Roman Imperialism from first to last which always consists of all its Parts They were Fallen then in regard of Principality or Exercise of Sovereignty which they had in their proper Time or Season Their union therefore to the Beast preserves them still their place as Heads in the prophetick Sculpture but not as Kings still in Being Now these Five Fallen Heads are given as in One or as in a Knot and Clamp together the Prophecy being little concern'd in their exact Distinction or Succession it being enough to it that there were before the Prophecy Five Supreme Roman Governments which as we shall see It calls Kings Whether they were just in an order or whether traversing one another it is all one as to the Prophecies Concern in them The Caution therefore in the Prophecy in this matter is very observable knowing what objection might be made concerning the Succession of the Kingly Consular Dictatorian Tribunitial and Decemviral Power the so well known several Governments of the Roman States It gives them in a Heap of Five together Signifying It intended no more than to mark by them the Beasts Heads before the Prophecy as past or Fallen and only Remarks the Succession of the One that then was and that It was not while the Five were and that they had been and were Fallen before the Prophecy was given which sufficiently demonstrates the Succession betwixt the Five and the One then in Being which is all the Prophecy aims at and troubles not it self with the order of the Five among themselves any farther than that Five such were and that they drew along the Times of the City to the Succession of the One then in Being The Seventh was plainly to be a King but was not yet come but was to come and to continue but a short space when He came which farther assures the Succession For seeing He was not come He could not be together with the Sixth King who then was nor could He be at the same Time with the succeeding Eighth in whom the City was to be destroy'd for He was to continue but a short space And then after Him the Eighth King follows the Eighth viz. in strict Order because the short-liv'd Seventh came between Him and the Sixth But the Eighth was of the Seven viz. of the Seven Kings who were also the Seven Heads there must be therefore a Succession between the Seventh short-liv'd and the Eighth because the Seventh and Eighth imply so much the Seventh is to continue a short space The Eighth therefore necessarily is suppos'd not to be so curtailed in Time Both Kings and so not together and the Other Seventh no Head for the Eighth was of the Seven Kings that were Heads From all which it is most impossible but that a Succession must appear most manifestly There is no Appearance of the least of an Hiatus or Gap Propos 2. there is no Interreign no vacuum or empty space in the Succession betwixt the Sixth King then in Being the Seventh and the Eighth in which onely the Prophetick Time is concern'd but all the Caution against it that can be for why was this Seventh King who was no Head put in but that he might stand as an Embolimean or double Seventh King like our Embolimean or double Twenty fourth of February in every Embolimean or Intercalar or as we usually speak Leap-year that there might be no disorder in Time as here no Gap in the Succession For thus only could the Succession of these Kings exactly Lead the Course of the Cities Time So that the Spaces of it might be measur'd thereby But if Those Seven Kings only that were Heads had been nam'd while there was Another between that was no Head and he had not been Nam'd There must have been a Leap of Time from the sixth to the seventh Head and no Account of the Seventh King making the seventh Head the eighth King to have swell'd up that space of the seventh King's Time into Appearance and Notice From whence it is Evident that the Seventh King no Head of the Beast that Carries the Woman and yet A King of the City is cast in to keep the Course and Current of the Prophetic Time strait and tight For if the very exact Pourtraicture of the Beast had been only design'd It had been more Just and Even without any mention of the Seventh King that pertain'd not to the Beast nor to the Woman as carried by the Beast But It was absolutely necessary that King also should be mention'd that the Time of the Prophecy with Relation to the Beast and the City might be under just Computation which it could not have been except the Seventh King being King of the City as before said and Coming between the sixth King and Head and the Eighth King but seventh Head had been plac'd in his Regular Succession however it seem to interrupt the state of the Beast who for that time as we shall see lay wounded and so was to
suffer that Disorder in this his prophetical Representation The King that was no Head can have no room in the Order Proposit 3. of Succession but just in that Seventh Place For the Seven Heads are seven Kings viz. Seven that are also Heads Seeing then there are Eight Kings although but seven Heads There must be one of these Kings who is no Head Else there must be eight Heads which contradicts the Prophecy Which Place then the King No Head holds must be enquir'd It cannot be any of the Five Fallen For they are in Construction of Speech necessarily Heads For those seven Heads are Seven Kings Five of which Kings who were Heads are Fallen So the very Frame of the Words requires But besides the Five are put together and so must be of a Kind and therefore All alike Heads or All alike no Heads if All no Heads where then can be the Seven therefore of necessity All Heads And There is nothing more in the Mind and Design of the Prophecy than to assure us the Eighth King is a Head For whereas He is the Eighth in Number of Kings He is Transpos'd backward and made the Seventh viz. Head. For so he must be when of the Seven Seven Take them either as Kings or Heads both which as together and in one are Sevens and no other are Sevens but they who are both Kings and Heads For the seven Heads are seven Kings And it is plain He is last of the seven and so must be the seventh viz. Head and King. The Dispute then can only lye betwixt the seventh and the sixth Kings which of those Two shall be the King who yet is no Head. Now the very Contexture of the Words necessarily determines us upon the sixth as Head as well as King or at least strongly enclines us For Five Kings that are Heads are Fallen And One is One what but of the Heads who are Kings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Another is not yet Come Another what but King Yet not Head For He is Another For when such a Point of difference is to be decided there is great Reason to give the word Another a greater weight of Sense then only a casual Word of Order but it seems the Spirit of Prophecy chose that word One that the word Another might fall emphatically and yet concealedly as possible to be casually where He would have it just Fall. Further when He Comes He must continue but a short space which is said only of the seventh King and no Head For the Five are put together The Sixth is The Eighth goes indeed into Perdition but after how long Time is here but Intimated Only the seventh is of short space who being no Head of the Beast that Carries the City ought to be of short space only For neither the Beast nor such a City could have survived long if the King no Head had been of long duration But they were to survive long Lastly the Eighth is expresly said to be of the Seven immediately after the Seventh had made an Interruption between the Heads being no Head Himself but if the seventh King had been a Head and the sixth none we might have expected what Falls so on the seventh King would have been fix'd on the sixth King to distinguish it from being a Head and what is set on the Eighth King to assure Him to be a Head would have been in the same measure Communicated to the seventh King to assure Him to be a Head as well as King if the sixth King had made a Chasm or Breach betwixt the Heads whereas All falls fit on the seventh King on all sides to be no Head. But though All This be enough yet we shall have much more to Assure us when we come to know who these Heads are that of all most indisputably the sixth must be a Head and the seventh could be no Head seeing the heads are Full of the Names of Blasphemy These seven Kings are not seven particular Kings or single Proposit 4. Monarchic Persons but seven Governments having each a Number or Succession of such single Kings under them For Kings in Prophetic Scripture signifie Kingdoms and not only single Kings So Dan. 7. 17. what are call'd Four Kings no one doubts Mean Four Kingdoms Accordingly v. 23. the Fourth King is Interpreted to be the Fourth Kingdom In this Prophecy proportionably the Beast with Seven Heads is the whole Roman Empire or Kingdom according to the old Prophetic Emblem of Heathenish Monarchies from its first Foundation and Beginning to its last Overthrow in which Rome the Imperial City hath been always by the Seven Headed Beast Exalted and borne on High. The Heads are the several Governments and Forms of Empire that have each in their several Seasons exercised Supremacy and Sovereign Authority in that Monarchy State or Kingdom Five of which the Prophecy as before nam'd binds up together as uninteressed in their Duration or Succession The Last of these Heads which is the Seventh and Eighth King is eminently styl'd the Beast because His Supremacy is chiefly treated of by this Prophecy and in which the whole City and All goes into Perdition with Him. Now to demonstrate that these Heads and Kings must be Forms of Government let us consider one and the same City the City Rome is Carried upon the Beast of these Seven Heads together with the Cast-in King its whole Time even to its final Desolation For its whole Ichnography or Representation is charg'd upon these Seven Heads in the last of which It is utterly Desolated The Heads therefore cannot be several Monarchies and Kingdoms For They are All the Heads of One Beast or Monarchy and so not several Monarchies or Empires They All bear up the One City Rome and so must be one Roman Supremacy Nor can they be single Kings or Monarchic Persons seeing neither would Seven Lives support the Grandeur of Eternal Rome as It was Call'd nor in Fact have any Seven so supported it from the Apostle John's Time much less Two One of which was then in Being although we cast in the Embolimean seventh King but not Head For since the Writing of the Apostle is above sixteen hundred Years and yet the Judgment Written in this Prophecy is not as yet Executed From the Time then that This City was said to have such an Ascendency as to have the Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth to this time of the Desolation here Foretold the City Rome was to be kept up in Dignity by its sixth King then in Being by its seventh King no Head for a short space by its Eighth King and seventh Head under which it is to sink as a Mill-stone How impossible is it therefore these Kings should be other then Governments or Successions of several Persons or numbers of Persons in each Government Let us now lay together these Four Propositions and consider their Amount to that which we are upon That which we are upon is That the
Present and not a Future Rome or Antichrist Falls under the Thunder-stroke of this Prophecy and that the People of God are call'd out of the present Roman City or Church The general way of proving this must be by finding that the Present Rome is upon the Eighth King and seventh Head Together with which It is to be destroy'd For that is the Rome out of which the People of God are call'd even that Rome that is to be â—hus destroy'd To find this we must consider the Eight Kings and Seven Heads under which Rome passes its whole Time and be able to judge of their Times To which end I have debated these Four Propositions 1. That these are Kings in Succession 2. That the Successions are immediate and without any void Time between 3. That the King that was no Head can have no Room but in the seventh place 4. That the seven and eight Kings are not single Kings but several and a number of Kings under each King. Now let us consider the Amount of these four Propositions and it must needs be that these Things will follow That whatever King or sort of Government carried the City Consequ 1. Rome aloft in the Apostle Johns Time of writing the Revelation must be the sixth King for Five then were fallen with whom the Prophecy had no further to do then to give them as a mark of the City and of the Beasts carrying it One was then in Being which following the Five must needs be the Sixth We know both by History and by Scripture mentioning Augustus Consequ 2. Tiberius Claudius Caesar Emperours of Rome That the Head bearing up Rome in the Apostles Times was the Heathen Imperial Head And seeing there was no Time that Rome was more drunk with the Blood of Saints in universal Acknowledgment nor the Roman Empire more confessedly carryed the Names of Blasphemy then at that Time We know by the same universal Consent that of all others the sixth King must needs be a Head which decides so far the doubt betwixt the sixth and the seventh Kings which should be of them Two the Head seeing both could not and it assures us the sixth must be the Head. And indeed were not the Prophecy so puissantly against it It looked fair to be the Rome and Beast of that Time here meant but for great Reasons that can't be We know by undoubted History the Heathen Imperialism fell Consequ 3. by Constantine in whom the Empire became Christian And seeing there was no Inter-reign or breach in the succession of Kings after the sixth the seventh must immediately succeed And therefore It must be the Christian Empire because that immediately followed that Heathen from whence it appears how admirably agreeable the Prophecy and the Event are For as we have made evident by the words of the Prophecy the seventh King could be no Head carrying the Names of Blasphemy So the Christian Empire acknowledging the One God and the One Mediator the True God in whom is Eternal Life was free from this Brand and by wonderful Wisdom of Providence It was ordered that Constantine and other the Christian Emperours withdrew themselves much from Rome so that they did not as the Heads of the Beast bear Rome so high but It was in an Eclipse Constantine building the City Constantinople as a New Rome to shade the Old And which is wonderful assuring as Prophecy presents the Beast wounded in One of his Heads with a deadly wound so we know by History the Beast as an Idolatrous Empire was wounded in the Christian Victories over the Idolatrous Emperours and Chiefs Thus every way the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Another falls so duly upon the Christian Emperour that It is even to ravishment at the Wisdom of the very prophetical Grammar that so plac'd the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or One that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Another might follow big with Sense and yet veil'd with secresie and lastly This Empire continued but a short space viz. about an hundred and fifty years which was short compared with the five fallen before the Prophecy bundled together shorter by half than the sixth King then in Being but beyond comparison shorter then the eighth King who is plainly aim'd at and for whose sake the seventh King was cut so short in Time that he might have his full Time viz. of forty two prophetick Months as we shall see above twelve hundred years in ordinary account The only Objection I can possibly divine thus far is that because the form of Government was Imperial both under the Heathen and Christian Emperours The Heathen and Christian Emperour cannot be understood to be two forms of Government and so the sixth and the seventh Kings seem confounded into One and thereby this account is overthrown To this I answer first seeing we are sure the Heathen Empire Answ 1. must be the sixth King that then was It will very little alter the case as to the present Rome For It is certain that sixth King must be fallen we are also certain the seventh being to continue but a short space must be fallen also because the space from the sixth King hath been so very long From whence it will follow the Eighth and last King must be and must have been long in play and whoever is and hath been long so must be the eighth King and Rome must be this Rome under him and this Rome and He must be destroyed together and if we will believe the Prophecy all this must be sure And so as I say the difference cannot be great For under whomsoever the City now is He must be the eighth King Rome borne up by Him must be the Rome here described and must be destroyed with Him the Beast and the People of God must come out of it as It is and hath so long been in the eighth King. Although the form of Government under the Heathen and Answ 2. Christian Emperours was alike and the same Imperial Form yet the Spirit and Soul of the Government being so purely Christian in Gods Account It highly merited to be reputed and given as a new Succession of Kings as a distinct seventh King being so much Another so much different from those before and from that after it although It had great Failings even as the Kings of the House of David had and yet were in substance a Line of Honour in the sacred Register By all this we must know the seventh Head but eighth King Conseq 4. must have immediately succeeded at the expiration of the Christian Empire because that continued but a short space after the Heathen Empire in Being in the Apostles Time but a long Time hath now run out and yet Rome is in Grandeur Whatever Name hath therefore carryed the Name of Supremacy derived from the City Rome it self and borne up that in Grandeur above the Kings of the Earth at any Time or at this day and more
especially for a long space together since the Fall of the Heathen Empire and since the Fall of the Christian Empire and of its very Imperial Name must be the eighth King be the Name what It will And Rome sitting upon that Beast as that which hath drunk into it self the Name of the whole Beast must be that Rome and its eighth King from whom the People of God are to separate that they may not partake of their Sins nor receive of their Plagues or else the Prophecy can have no sense or its sense cannot be True. And seeing we know that All This Time Rome hath incorporated the Name of a Church with the Name of a City and that the Bishop or Pope of Rome hath had the Supremacy of that City and Church and carried it on high riding as a Queen in State by Virtue of that Supremacy since the fall of the Imperial Name first as Pagan and then as Christian we must know that He is the Beast the eighth King and seventh Head and that Rome as a Church now more then a City though a City too is that very Rome from which the People of God are to come out because of the foulness of its Antichristian and Idolatrous Fornications and because of the Horror of that Vengeance to be exacted upon it of which the Judgment upon Sodom the Plagues upon Aegypt and the Vengeance on Samaria and Jerusalem were but Types For It is that Edomitish Border of Wickedness against which God will have Indignation for ever For if Rome and no other be the City as we have seen beyond Contest it is the Pillars of its Time from the Prophecy are so high and lofty that they cannot be over-seen The sixth King then in Being when the Apostle John writ is one Pillar the so more than Monumental Destruction of so Imperious a City is the other Pillar Whatever time runs between these Two Pillars by the express Words of the Prophecy are given to the sixth King then in Being to the short space of the seventh King and the whole how long soever after to the seventh Head and Eighth King. It being then sixteen Ages since the Apostle Writ It is undeniable these Kings must be Governments or distinct Supremacies having each many single Persons under them else they could not sustain so long a space and the seventh fewest because the shorttest The Government that was in the Apostles time is long Fallen no one can question suppose then the seventh King were disputable who He is the Eighth must yet be in Action because the Seventh had so short a space Whoever the Eighth is He must be as close united to the City Rome as the Rider is to the Beast on which such Riders sit I appeal therefore to all the the World that can but understand Sense when it is most plainly laid before them who this can be but the Pope of Rome who alone and no other with Him hath been thus united to Rome the City and Church above these last twelve hundred Years From all which it most absolutely follows the Present Rome is the City and Church that is to fall under those Plagues for her Sins out of which therefore the People of God are call'd that they may not partake of their Sins nor receive of its Plagues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which I undertook to demonstrate and is I doubt not in every considering Mans sense demonstrated as far as is necessary by a general Argument But I shall yet give farther Assurance of it and Answer all Objections under the following Arguments which shall be yet more particular If it can be proved that the Beast that carries the Woman and Argu. 2. is that seventh Head and Eighth King of which so much hath been already discoursed hath been in the Possession of the Time expresly design'd by Prophecy to that Beast that carries the Woman as the seventh Head and Eighth King and is now in the Possession of that Time and that it ought to be so long as it hath already is now and must still continue to be This will be yet more particular proof of the Woman that it is the present Rome out of which the People of God are call'd to come For the due management of this Argument Three Points are necessary The Time it self of the Beast must be assign'd by express Point 1. Words of Prophecy that there may be certain Knowledge of that what it is There must be substantial Proof offered that the Time assign'd Point 2. will bear such a Length as will Comport with this Argument Seeing the Event at the End cannot yet as a matter of Fact Point 3. give Evidence that the Time is justly assign'd there must be good Evidence of the well fixing the Epoch or Beginning of that Time according to the Prophecy and according to Event also and the Event that is to be expected at the End must appear to be sufficiently defin'd by Prophecy both as to the City or Woman carried by the Beast and inclusively as to the Beast also I begin with the First Point viz. That the Time of the Point 1. Beast is expresly assign'd by Prophecy For which I Vouch that known Place Revel 13. 6. And Power Right or Authority was given to Him the Beast to continue as the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joyn'd with a Word of Time generally signifies in the New Testament Fourty Two Months Now in that Power or as the Word signifies a Priviledge or Authority was given Him It sets out though not a Lawful Authority that was to be obey'd as is most apparent by every thing pertaining to this Beast yet It imports a signal permission and ordination of God's to that purpose and that He carryed the Woman as a King or Head of the Beast viz. of the Idolatrous Empire and by a Figure or Synechdochically the Beast Himself as Head oft denotes the whole Body For the driving this home to the purpose I am sensible It will be necessary to give Proof That the Beast c. 13. and c. 17. are one and the same Beast For if the Beast were not the same in both Chapters we could indeed have no guidance from the forty two Months assigned to the Beast c. 13. concerning the Time of the Beast c. 17. But if it be one and the same Beast in both Chapters then the forty two Months must needs be the Gauge of the Duration of the Beast c. 17. as It is c. 13. Now besides many Agreements between the Two Representations assuring them one and the same that would require much Discourse and Consideration of the whole Frame of this stupendious Point of the Prophecy I shall as I have endeavour'd all along in each Branch of this Discourse choose One that requires least Discourse and yet is most undeniable that is the Beast in the Beginning of chap. 13. who had one of his Heads Wounded and the Deadly Wound was healed is the
Beast that had the Fourty Two Months limited to Him The very same Beast had by the Ministry and Service of the other Beast of whom I will not now enquire It being unnecessary to the Force of this Argument The very same Beast I say had an Image made to Him with which He is ever after so conjoyn'd that the Beast and his Image go inseparably together the very same Beast had the Number of his Name as also his Mark made particular unto Him All these the Beast that had the Fourty Two Months decreed to Him undeniably had for the Prophecy Affirms it in several express Words Calling the Beast that had these the First Beast the Beast that had a Wound by a Sword and did Live the Beast whose Deadly Wound was healed Now the very same Beast that hath the Image the Mark the Name the Number of the Name and was worshipped is He that is carryed all along with these infallible Characters upon Him through every Chapter of this Prophecy after his Description c. 13. till He is brought together with the Woman the City or Church under the seventh Vial and both utterly destroyed c. 19. And they who had gotten the Victory over his Image Mark Name Number of his Name and would not Worship Him nor his Image celebrate the Judgments of God made manifest upon the Woman the City and upon Him Cast into the Red Sea or Lake of Fire as Moses and the Israelites upon the Brink of the Red Sea of Old sung the Praises of God in casting Pharaoh and all his Host into that Red Sea a kind of Type of this Destruction c. 15. And after all was fully executed upon the City carryed upon the Beast upon the Beast Himself and upon his false Prophet and their whole Party They who are first and most eminent in the first Resurrection are they who had not worshipped the Beast nor his Image nor receiv'd his Mark nor his Name so manifestly referring to the Beast who had All these who is the Beast that had the Forty two Months assign'd to Him. c. 13. And indeed It is so far from two Beasts that there is not except that Beast whom the Prophecy calls the other Beast who had no Image Mark Name nor number of Name any more Beasts then this One Beast who had all these who is kept so distinct as not to be confounded by the special care and caution of the Divine Spirit And that other Beast first ministred to this grand Beast till He came to his Number and after serv'd Him as his false Prophet and they were adjudged both to the Lake together which I hope is full proof that the same Beast who had the forty two Months assigned to Him is the very Beast who bears Rome aloft in this c. 17. and supports its Time at this day And now the Time assign'd is very express in this Prophecy viz. Forty two Months which was the first point to be made out There must be substantial proof that the Time assign'd will Point 2. bear such a length as may comport with the Argument that is to reach from the Expiration of the seventh King above twelve hundred years ago and so onward till the Times of this Eighth King and seventh Head shall end also Now It is at first sight evident Forty two Months are naturally understood a Time so very short and curt that They afford no room nor space for Action that is great and considerable But it is as evident there is a Cyphar or prophetick Short-hand for Time that multiples Days into Years and weeks of days into weeks of years and so consequentially and proportionably Months of Days into Months of Years and so proportionably these Months of Days into Months of Years And this hath been Standard for the Rate of prophetick Time ever since It was first set and seal'd by God Ezek. 4. 6. I have appointed thee each day for a year And that therefore It should be so here there is greatest Reason 1. Because It is eminent stupendious profoundest Prophecy even this whole Book of Revelation and particularly this of the City and of its Prince the Beast and requires deepest search and a Mind that hath Wisdom as is more than once admonished in this very point and part of the Prophecy that concerns the Beast as if it were the most dark misterious and lowest laid of any Thing in this whole Volume of Prophecy so that if ever there be place for such Interpretation of Time here it is 2. The necessity of deferring to the Prophecy it s own Grandeur requires this Interpretation of Time For when it portrays such a Power as the Beastial Power and Principality every stroke of which is great and admirable when It draws such a City or Community sitting upon it so every way wonderful as that John wonder'd with great Admiration and that principally and in a manner solely in relation to this Beast of the seventh Head and Eighth King and at the Woman upon Him. If the whole of this Grandeur Power and Principality both of the City and of the King for both are to be destroyed together were coup'd up within the short space of three years and a half how small and petite must the Prophecy be in describing with so great State and Eloquence of Types and words such a Mushrome City and Prince that should Rise and Fall before they could be known to Live or be warm in that Potency where could the worlds wondering after the Beast and worshipping Him lodg within such straits of Time How would the Acclamations to Him who is like unto the Beast be spent in a Breath How would the ministry of the other Beast to him have any place Where would his War with the Saints and his Power over all Kindreds Tongues and Nations receiving his Mark c. find Room How could the City or mystical Woman arrive to those heights as to offer the Golden Cup of its Fornication to all the Princes and Inhabitants of the World or to rise to those Riches to draw such Confluency as to make its Merchants the Greats of the World Who sees not this Nut-shell of Time cannot contain the Ocean of this Prophecy Besides as we have before at large found the City is to be kept on high by the sixth seventh and eighth Kings from the days of John the Apocalyptical Prophet we know how great a Time hath run out since then we know the King that then was is long and long ago expir'd the seventh King was to endure but a short space and what short space must it then be if the eighth King or Beast was to endure but three years and a half And yet upon this eighth King was the Woman Rome to ride until its utter Desolation But it hath and doth still sit Queen since the Apostles Time to this Day and mostly upon this Beastian King how can then forty two Months if Litteral answer so long a space
of the Seventh Head who is the Eighth King But that It will exactly Comport with the Argument we are upon viz. That it is a time sufficient to the definings of the Time by this propheey is to be seen under the Third Point for the management of the Argument upon which I am now entring There must be good Evidence of the well-fixing the Beginning Point 3. or Epoch of this Time according to the Prophecy and according to the Event also And the Event that is to be fixed at the End must appear to be sufficient defin'd by Prophecy both as to the City or Woman carryed by the Beast and inclusively as to the Beast also This Point divides it self into these two Branches 1. The well-fixing this Epoch or Beginning of these twelve hundred twenty two Years according to Prophecy and according to the Event 2. And in the same manner to fix the Event to be evpected at the End. For the well-fixing the Epoch or Beginning of the Number of Branch 1. these Years according to Prophecy and according to the Event it self 1. I must recollect and enforce what I have before largely insisted upon when there is a Succession of Kings According to that Maxim in Successive Governments The King never Dyes whenever therefore the sixth King that was in the Apostles time expir'd the seventh must needs Succeed For the Succession and Entail is made by God himself and therefore must stand firm and sure And when the Seventh expir'd as necessarily on the same account must the Eighth Succeed who was also the Seventh Head And according to this inviolable Succession the Apostle to this very same purpose speaking of the Man of Sin his being Revealed in his Time declares as a stop upon Him however the Mystery of Iniquity was so early at work however earnest He was to Succeed yet the Succession which was the Thing that held close and strong would Hold its Hold So that the Man of 2 Thes 2. Sin could not be Revealed before his Season or proper Time within his Time Times Half Time For he that Holdeth viz. the Dan. 7. 25. 12. 7. sixth King in his Time the seventh in his Time would Hold his Hold till each King and the last especially was Remov'd out of the way by that supreme dispose of Providence or done out of that middle space determin'd by God And then by due Advances was that Wicked One Revealed Now who that considers that Man of Sin of the Apostle Paul and the Beast of the Apostle John can think of them and not think them the same But that is not the present Business to prove them the same but this Prophecy it self is demonstration enough as before explained Thus far the Matter is determined according to the Prophecy whenever the Seventh King asserted to be the Christian Emperour expir'd viz. by a Civil Death or the Cessation of the Imperial Name and Power immediately the Eighth King according to Prophecy must succeed and bear up the Roman City in Grandeur and whoever hath Borne up that City in Supremacy since that Time must be according to Prophecy that Eighth King the Beast Now I Appeal to all the World what the Year was when the Western Imperial Name Fell and it is known in all History to be the Year of Our Lord according to general Account 475 from whence Time since passed Allows these Forty Two Months their full space of 1222 years within Nine or Ten years as shall be further urged presently I appeal in the same manner also what Name or Power hath Borne up Rome since that Time claiming Supremacy Himself and giving it to that City For He must be the Eighth King or the Beast who hath so born the City or the Prophecy must be False and who knows not it is the very Bishop or Pope of Rome that hath so done For in the wonderful Disposes of God No one hath claim'd a Title of Empire from that City since that Year No one hath Advanc'd that City by Imperial Residence since that year but the Pope of Rome Alone and He hath done it to all Intents and Purposes in the Face of all the World. The Last Roman Emperour left that Title Bishop of Rome in Being when He Fell It hath survived ever since * Their so much vaunted Succession witneseth this Point For little Failures or Interruptions make no difference where the same Title and Supremacy still run on It was then proclaim'd by Jerome Antichrist was Born and ever since he hath been growing up till He came to his Manly Age and to his Consistent Age according to Prophecy But since the Times of Reformation indeed He hath been in a Decay and so He ought to be by Prophecy and however He may summon his whole strength now at last yet it shall be only to Dye and thus the Thing is justifi'd in the Event and thus the Time of His the Beasts and the City Romes Supremacy united to Him as the Rider to the Beast under the Name of a Church hath had so long of its Forty Two Months I know there are some Objections but none can avail against Prophecy so clearly so demonstratively Explain'd I will very briefly pass over them The Bishop of Rome cannot be this Beast of the Seventh Head Object 1. and therefore not the Eighth King nor Rome the City borne up by Him because He owns the True God and Jesus Christ how then can He be a Head full of the Names of Blasphemy or Rome the Famous Church of the World be Babylon the Mother of Harlots Whatever may be the Profession of the True God yet when Answer that Profession is Adulterated with Idolatry and stain'd with the Blood of Saints God accounts of those Powers and People according to what His Word declares Zedechiah was a Profane Wicked Prince and that latter Succession of wicked Princes after Josiah Lyons Idolatrous Israelites are said from the very Beginning to blaspheme God Samaria and Jerusalem are those Infamous Prostitutes or Harlots call'd Aholah and Aholibah This Prophecy Ezek. 20. 27. c. 23. hath therefore determin'd that Doubt what Esteem God hath and All his People are to have of both of the Pope and his Church And there is no Fence against the Divine Oracle The Man of Sin sits in the Temple of God and Exalts Himself as God and shews Himself that He is God which is both Blasphemy and Idolatry and He bears the Name of it in being called Holiness and our Holy Lord. According to the very Explanation of Prophecy given There Object 2. is not a close Succession of Heads though there should be of Kings For between the sixth and the seventh Head was the Christian Emperour who though He was a King was no Head and the seventh Head did not Succeed till the Christian Empire Expir'd The Prophecy expresly tells us the Beast was deadly Wounded in Answer one of his Heads
the Roman Idolatrous Empire is continu'd in Life and is healed of his deadly Wound by making an Image to Him who is the Seventh Head and Eighth King. The Papacy is not a real Martial Civil Sovereignty but it is the Image only of One It is yet nevertheless Haughty for it is Ador'd and Worshipped It Assumes Power over Princes and disposes Kingdoms It is nevertheless Cruel and Enforcive for it Kills All who will not Worship that Image It Causes All to receive its Mark or proscribes them how great or small soever It Arrogates not only a Crown but a Tripple Crown This Beast in an Image is therefore the Beast that is not yet is viz. is not the same yet the same the same in Real Power yet in an Image too viz. Spirituality of Power is an Image of Power but enforcing that Power by its Horns it is a Real Power and so Is not yet Is c. 17. 8. But It may be said it was long er'e these Kings gave their Object 2. Power thus to the Beast It is most true it was so even as It was er'e He came to his Answer Number For therefore Prophecy sets this Beast in View Rising with his Ten Crowned Horns first out of the Sea those Troublesome Commotions in the World when Rome Fell as a Burning Mountain into the Sea. But at the Rising of this Beast out of the Bottomless Pit whither He went down when He became a Fallen Star * When Phocas gave Him the Title of Vniversal An. 606. with the Key of it to Open it and Ascended Rev. 9. 1 2. Then did He Receive the Kingdom and Power of these Horns till He goes into Perdition For the once noting Him to Rise out of the Sea and Twice to Ascend from the Bottomless Pit shews He had a double Rising One by way of meer Providence as out of the tumultuous Sea of worldly Affairs that necessitated the Emperour to abdicate Empire and to leave Him the only Name of Supreme Eminency in Rome but then He was not till after as an Antichristian False Spiritual Power or Vicar of Christ He assum'd a Kingdom an Universal Kingdom as having the Keys of Eternal Damnation in his Hand viz. of the Bottomless Pit. If the Pope be an Eighth King a Roman Supreme Power and Object 3. the Head to whom the Ten Kings give their Power Why is it not then Lawful to acknowledge Him as the Roman Caesar was to be acknowledg'd by Christ's own Command and as the Crowned Horns or Ten Kings are to be acknowledg'd who give Him their Kingdom and Power No Kings or Powers may be acknowledg'd in their Idolatrous Answ 1. or Superstitious Commands No Caesars no Kings and much more no Popes can be so Obey'd 2. But upon this very Account He ought not at all to be acknowledg'd because He is a King only in an Image and in reality a Fallen Star a Corrupted Antichristian False Spiritual Power Undermining and Usurping the Kingdom of Christ and so to be abhorr'd and detested and his Adulterous Idolatrous Church or City to be separated from and to be Come out of And thus I have I Trust evinc'd the Settlement of the Epoch or Beginning of these Fourty Two Months both by the Prophecy and by the Event and come now to fix the latter Branch or what Prophecy hath determin'd concerning the End or Period of these Months although that cannot be declar'd in the Particulars or manner of the Event but must be waited for till He shall shew them who hath Reserved them in his own power till their appointed Season But in the mean time He hath given us the Bulk of the Events which at the end of these Months shall be in their Motion and continual Progress till all be Accomplished and no Iota of the Prophecy Fall to the Ground Now to make this Point as plain as Prophecy hath made it It is to be consider'd in the two Grand Oracles that are given of it and Relate to the very End of the Twelve hundred sixty Days and so consequently to the End of the Months or to the End of the Months themselves implying the End of the 1260 Days As to the End then of the Twelve hundred sixty Days since the Witnesses are to be in Sackcloth during them whenever the Witnesses come into a splendid State It is certain They can be no longer in Sackcloth For such a State and such a Sackcloth can by no possible means Agree And then it will as certainly follow the Twelve hundred sixty Days are at an End when they change their Sackcloth for Garments of Praise For all those Twelve hundred sixty Days they are to be in Sackcloth Although therefore the Prophecy does not positively say the Twelve hundred sixty Days are at an End yet in that It says they were Called up to Heaven in a Cloud and their Enemies beheld Them It must needs be that the Sackcloth must be dropp'd when they are Chariotted in a Cloud and Ascend and so then It does by necessary Implication say that the Twelve hundred sixty Days are at an End For else the Witnesses could not part with their Sackcloth being determin'd to it for so long And so long the Womans the Churches Twelve hundred sixty Days last For as their Times are equal so their States Reciprocate When therefore the Twelve hundred sixty Days are by Consequence absolutely necessary ended the Fourty Two Months are wheeled along with them to their Period And that affects the City the Great Spiritually called Sodom for the Filthiness of its Fornications and dreadful Burnings that it is devoted to And Aegypt first for its Oppression of the Saints with whose Blood it is Drunk Then for the Plagues that will come upon it and lastly for its Pharaoh-like Principality first in the Pagan Dragon and then its Draconick Pope to whom the Dragon consign'd His Power And to follow all the Emblems of the City as on purpose to bring it Home to Rome It it both Resembled to the City where our Lord was Crucified signifying its Whoredom to be like the Whoredom of that Infamous Aholibah or Jerusalem the False Whorish Church and under the Jurisdiction of Rome so much at that Time that not without the most Notorious Sentence of the Roman Judge Pontius Pilate Our Lord was Crucified which was for the very Service of this Prophecy so particularly we may Believe Recorded that in that Sense the very City Rome was the City in which Our Lord was Crucified All this Affects this City so that its Tenth Falls Now this City sits on the Beast For to shew it is the same City that sits on the Beast when the Beast the very same Beast that Ascends out of the Bottomless Pit c. 11. c. 17. Kills the Witnesses Their Dead Bodies lye in the Street of that Great City which plainly joyns the Beast and the City together the City as the Imperial Residence the Beast as the King
So that there is nothing more undeniable then that these forty two Months are to be drawn out by the Prophetical Elaboratory into Months of Years 3. When upon a just and severe Computation we find that these forty two Months prophetically expounded will reach from the very Time where according to Prophecy they were to begin down to this Time and allow for the event that is to be still expected at the end of those forty two Months not yet being come to pass and will indeed exactly touch that very period that by Prophecy is affixed to them all together It is the greatest proof of the forty two Months so to be expounded that can be expected or desired until the event justifie all Let us then proceed to an exact Calculation of the Time given us in these forty two prophetical Months and there see what length they reach The great matter in Question will be whether these Months import Time of the Sun or of the Moon for between Time of the Sun and of the Moon there will in the whole forty two Months be near thirty eight years difference But there are these three great Reasons they must according to the strict propriety of the word and Thing Months be regulated by the Moon and not by the Sun. This was always the Sense of the Scripture where ever It Reas 1. mentions Months it intends Time governed by the Moon which had as all know so great Domination over Jewish Time that the great Solemnities of their New Moons and Feasts received Law from it and It created all the Time the Scripture calls Months and because of those New Moons must necessarily do so So that if It were not so here Scripture must vary from its own use of the word throughout all other places for It hath no word that it expresses Months by but precisely taken from the Moon or the Newness of the Moon Now why It should do so here without any Reason It should do so but much the contrary as will appear what Account can be given There is nothing more evident then that this divine Prophecy Reas 2. keeps a strict and severe Distinction betwixt the Children of the day and of the Night betwixt the Witnesses the Seed of the Woman the Church and the Woman the Church it self who are all of the Day and the Gentiles and the Beasts Times who are of the Night For the Times of the former are signally measured by Days as governed by the Sun wherewith the Church is Cloathed But the Times of the latter are charactered by Months as conducted by the Moon the pale and wan Luminary of the Night which Moon the Church is said not without regard to this very matter to have under its Feet and therefore not fit to give its Character of Time. And seeing this hath been taken notice of by many Interpreters of the Revelation It is much of wonder they have not measured these Months by the Course of the Moon which Rules the Night The Latine word Menses hath made the Confusion and I know not what should mislead them but Inobservance seeing the Hebrew and Greek words exactly translated are Moons not Months which kept to had clear'd all doubts There is a third Reason which is very great and would absolutely Reas 3. determin this Point if it were well Comprehended and that is that the Sun is the great measure of Days and Years and of all Time by its superior Motion and the Moon does but borrow from it as its Light so its power of guiding and denominating any Parts of the Course of Time Even so the Church and its Seed who is Cloathed with the Sun must give Law to the Course of that Time that concernes its self and its Seed And It hath the Moon under its Feet in this respect also that it gives Laws to the Course of the Moon 's Time by its own Time so then these forty two Months of the Gentiles and the forty two Months or rather Moons of the Beast can be no other than Lunar or time of the Moon as they must being call'd Moons And so as time of the Moon must be subordinated to the account of Time by the Sun's Motion So these Months must be subordinated in their measure to the Beginning and Ending of the Twelve Hundred and Sixty Years with which they are always match'd as Correspondents viz. of the Woman the Church in the Wilderness and of its Seed the Witnesses in Sackcloth and therefore must needs be Lunar Time or Time of the Moon For if they were Months of the Sun if we might call time of the Sun Months whose very Name denotes Time of the Moon alone and self-dependent Time the False Church even as the True Church must be Cloathed with the Sun and have the Moon under its Feet which is contrary to this Prophecy But if we should attend the full dimensions of this Argument It would lead us into the whole state of the Characters of Time given in Daniel and this Prophecy which would be too large a Discourse for what is here intended and therefore I referr the searching Reader to the Treatise call'd A Scripture-Line of Time which I have made Publick and satisfie my self with what concerns the Matter in hand That the Forty Two Months of the Beast are Lunar Time and must be measur'd according to the time of the Sun or the Twelve hundred and sixty Years of the Woman in the Wilderness and the Witnesses her Seed in Sackcloth which cannot be deny'd upon the proof given and is enough to our present purpose For upon this Ground-work well laid that these Months are as the very Propriety of the Expression requires Months of the Moon and to be apply'd to Twelve hundred sixty Days of the Sun It is very plain the both Days and Months cast a Countenance or Face of Three Years and a half Prophetically to be Expounded Years of Years for Years of Days But as there is an Abbreviation or shortning of the Solar Year or Year of the Sun into Three hundred sixty for Three hundred sixty five Days So let each Year of the Moon be rated in a Proportion and as five Days and upwards of the Sun's Time are taken off so let as many of the Moon 's Years be taken off also and whereas the Year of the Moon is Accounted by the best Accounts of Time at 354 Days let it be accounted at 349 Days and these Fourty Two Months will be as 1222 Years in answer to 1260 Years as near as Time of the Sun and of the Moon can be proportion'd one to another For which I Appeal to the exactest Accountants of Time. Now by all this Discourse I have undeniably as I hope and cannot but be humbly yet fully perswaded for I allow one Year for Rounding the Number gain'd such a space of time as twelve hundred twenty two Years very little under or over for the Woman to Sit the Beast