the other Beast were to be his Subjects and the other Beast his False Prophet zealous of him and of his worship and so the Daily worship was Taken away from before him or out of his way the way of his Rising as Daniel foretold And thus according to the Revel the Gentiles tread the Holy Court and the Witnesses put on Sack-cloth upon it and the Woman flyes into the Wilderness for what these Gentiles do they do by the Conduct of that other Beast who from his Lamb-like Horns yet spake as a Dragon in resemblance of the Pagan Dragon while they convey his Power to the Grand Beast of the Seventh Head How fitly then the Gentiles Forty two months of treading the Holy Court are made the First note of Time will be easily understood if we consider these particulars 1. That the Holy City first and then the Outer-Court of the Temple was the onely due place of Sacrifice of the Jews Daily of Publick Worship after God had plac'd his Name there So that no fitter Type of the Daily Christian Services and Sacrifices than the Holy City and the Outward Court of the Temple 2. That nothing could more express the Taking away the Jews Daily Sacrifice than the Gentiles invading crowding in and filling the City and Court For how great a violation and defilement even according to the Divine Appointment that was appears by the uproar against the Apostle Paul upon a supposition of a Gentile brought by him into the Temple so their Daily Sacrifice must cease of necessity upon the Gentiles coming into the Holy City and Court by an Authoriz'd Violence like a Flood and continuing so to do therefore the Gentiles Treading the Court makes a fit Symbole of the Jewish Daily Service Taken away Proportionably these Gentiles or Paganiz'd Christians taking up the whole room of it as if they were the Church and People of God do as notably answer the Type as can be conceiv'd by defiling the whole Christian Publick Service and thrusting out the true Worshippers These uncircumcised in Heart and in Flesh not inwardly Gracious nor keeping so much as to the outward circumcision of the pure Worship of God break the very Covenant of Sacrifice and Holy Service to God for no such are to enter the true Christian Temple Ezekiel 45. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what placing together can there be of the Temple of God and Idols Of True Christians and Pagan Christians it is a very unequal Yoke 2. Cor. 6. 16. This most admirably also answers the prophetical Type of the daily Sacrifice taken away by Antiochus * Call'd Epiphanes for first the false and revolting Jews would make a Covenant with the Heathen and obtained Licence of the King to do after the Ordinances of the Heathen because the Land had more Peace then whereupon they built a Place of Exercise at Jerusalem according to the Custom of the Heathen and then in Gods Account the daily was taken away from or before that wicked Prince Antiochus Dan. 8. 11. Then he entred Proudly into the Sanctuary and so things went on to the utmost Extremity and height that all should leave their own Laws and the People be one and whoever would not do according to the Commandment of the King should dye and the daily Service was openly forbidden so Jerusalem became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Habitation of Strangers or Gentiles then the Sanctuary became a Desolation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was desolated as a Wilderness and became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an alien to its Off-spring and they to it and then all was turned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the Mourning and squalor of sackcloth at the Appearance of the Abomination that maketh desolate which was set up the fifteenth of the Month Casleu in the 145th year of the Grecian Kingdom and on the five and twentieth day of the same Month they sacrific'd upon the Idolatrous Altar and that this might be done without controul and the true Religion banished they rent in pieces the Books of the Law wherever they were found and wheresoever was found with any the Book of the Testament or if any consented to the Law the Kings Commandment was that they should put him to death Howbeit many in Israel were fully resolved and confirm'd in themselves to keep close to the Divine Law and Rule in all things and accordingly suffer'd But exactly three years after as the History reports the sanctuary was cleans'd and the daily service restored and a year after that Antiochus dyed as a Prince broken without hand This is the sum of the Relation 1 Macc. c. 1. c. 4. cap. 6. Now how admirably this prophetical Type of Antiochus's enacting the taking away the daily Jewish service the way being prepared by the paganiz'd Jews the Methods and Degrees by which all was done the Restoration that followed and then the divine Judgment upon the Tyrannous Prince himself how admirably I say all this Answers the Table of things before us is even amazing as also that the History was not onely preserved by Providence Divine Revelation being then intermitted till Christ which is not without its significancy that it hath not been only I say preserved but inserted however unduely into the sacred Records by those by whomsoever it was done that by a Witness and Prophet of their own a Scripture of their own Canonizing such an Eye of time though much shorter and such a Typical Delinetion allowing for some lesser Disagreements so wonderfully exact should be ratifyed and that this Map of things might be not only extant but so illustrious as to have become in their Account part of the Bible and bound up so generally with it by their Influence who were indeed concern'd it should have been blotted out from under Heaven But that in which we are at present most interessed is That by the Apostacy of the Gentiliz'd Christians the Daily of the publick Worship of Christians first ceas'd and so in God's Account the Mourning or Sackcloth of the Witnesses and the Wilderness-state of the Woman the Church by that Gymnasium that Place of Exercise or Academy for Idolatry to train and school men up to it was brought into the Holy City even thus the remaining Love to Paganism began the Covenant or Composition between Gentilism and false Christianity exchanging the one into the other and on the very same Account because the Land then infested with the barbarous Irruptions needed such Maozzim or Patrons and Defenders as Idols before and the Saints Departed now And so all things went on to the 666 the Number of the Beast his Image Mark Name and the Number of his Name so that one would be prone to think The * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Treading the Holy City under foot by the Gentiles †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Witnesses Sackcloth ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Wilderness of the Woman * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Her Seed at the
still preserv'd on the other side that the Imperial Torch however Flaming yet falling into the Water would be soon quenched while a burning Mountain resisted the contrary Element so Rome liv'd but the Emperour dy'd Rome Burns as a Mountain in the Sea and though it turn'd the Waters into Blood yet it surviv'd to ride aloft upon a new Universality The Flaming Taper did hurt while it flam'd but falling into Water must needs be short-liv'd And it was to dye that another sort of Principality might succeed it upon which Romes Grandeur a City Reigning over the Kings of the Earth might have the Guaranty of Prophecy even as of Providence to secure it for a longer time than by all Computation it had made the Epoch of Vrbs Condita or it had been Built I am yet to state justly and more at large what the Dragon Enquiry 5 means and how his Persecution of the Woman can agree with the Explanation of the Trumpets seeing both must be at the beginning of the Line because then was the Woman's first flight into the Wilderness when the Dragon persecuted her from whence arise these two Doubts How can these Trumpets that are the Alarms of Divine Doubt 1 Judgment and Displeasure upon the Antichristianiz'd Empire as was before declared be the Dragons Persecution of the Woman When the Beast or his Gentiles have the whole Time Doubt 2 Times Half Time and so the 1260 of the Womans Wilderness-state under their Domination and Tyranny does not the Dragons Persecution of the Woman and then of the Seed contradict the Assertion of this Time to the Beast That these two Doubts may be substantially resolved and so as to clear the whole progress of this Time with Relation to the Beast we must understand aright concerning the Dragon for a mistake in that confounds the whole order of the Prophecy The Dragon then as it is presented Revel 12. 3. with Seven Heads and Ten Horns hath a double meaning One proper to it as the sixth or Imperial Head of the Roman Empire which headship is always accounted to the whole Roman Beast in this Prophecy But when the Christian Emperour arose That Head became wounded and by degrees the Power and Conduct of it Transmigrated from the sixth to the seventh Head and Eighth King as is to be shewn upon the Symbols of the Beast But in all this it is of great Influence to the right understanding of this Prophecy to be known there is a more abstract signification of Draconism or of the Dragon viz. the Old Serpent deceiving the Nations into the Worship of himself under the disguise of those many Idol Gods and Demons they sacrificed and did service to when therefore this Idolatry and Demonolatry was demolished by Constantine and the Christian Emperours and the only True God in Jesus Christ and his Kingdom acknowledg'd at the Head of the Roman Empire Satan that Old Serpent was cast down from Heaven and Christ the manly Birth caught up thither Satan therefore as an Intelligence within at the Head and Spring of all is to be understood in this Dragon Revel 12. 7. The Roman Cesars as having the Imperial Monarchick Government of so great a part of the World at the Birth of Christ so along in the first Times of Christianity lay indeed in the midst of Nations and People and watched all the effects of the Kingdom of Christ and were ready to devour the manly Birth that was to rule the Nations with a rod of Iron and who had right to do so at his Resurrection and all along since But at the Time this Cesarian Dragon was acted by that Satan that invisible Spiritual Dragon and his Angels who made War against Christ who carried the Cesarian Dragon in a perpetual Hostility to the Kingdom of Christ and also most devoted to Idolatry While therefore Devils were worshipped under those several Names of Jupiter Mars c. and an Idolatrous Power was at the Head of the Roman Power Satan is accounted in Heaven and the rather so because the Title of Satan is not reckon'd purely of Fraud and Usurpation but By Permission and not only so but even in regard of Justice and divine displeasure against the Apostacy of humane Nature as it were of Commission so that he was overcome and cast down by the Blood of the Lamb as the true meritorious Cause appeasing that Wrath satisfying that Justice expiating the World by the Word of his Testimony as the Grand instrumental Cause and by the Martyrdom of Christians who loved not their Lives unto Death as a subordinate dispose of God in honour to his Justice against the horrible degeneracy of Mankind From hence whatever Power acted by Sathan to an aspiring to a supreme Residency in the Fourth or Roman Monarchy in the days of which Christ's Kingdom was foretold to be set up and of all Right ought to have been so speaking as to the Duty and Obligation of all Mankind because of his Sovereign Resurrection after his Death and Sacrifice of himself for the Life of the World and that then the Roman Monarchy was the Monarchy of the Oecumene or habitable Earth in Symbol of Prophecy whatever Power therefore did not then acknowledge that Kingdom nor that Truth of Christianity any way either seated in or attempting that Monarchy is under a Character of Draconick the Notion of which came into especial date since that Resurrection of Christ and his Right thereby to an universal Monarchy at which Time the Roman Cesareate arisen to that universal Monarchy from the Time of the more publick Notices of the Right of Christ inspir'd by Sathan with a Draconick Subtilty and watchfulness waited to devour that princely Birth of which Pharaoh's Cruelty to Gods typical first-born lying as a Dragon in the Egyptian Nile was a Type and was therefore by the most notable signancy of the Symbol invested with the Draconick Title But when the Acknowledgment of Jesus as Christ and Lord was made by the Christian Roman Emperour Constantine and his Successors Christ was then in eminent Type caught up to the Throne of God never to be dethron'd as we see he is not to this day notwithstanding the Combat of the Dragon and his Angels by Julian Argobastes the Roman Senate and others with Michael and his Angels But for all this the Woman the Church was persecuted by the rolling of the barbarous Nations upon that Empire who were Enemies to the Profession of Christianity at the first and so to the Kingdom of Christ and their Invasion upon the Rights of the Empire as Christs and on the Roman Church as eminent in the Profession of Christianity and having produc'd the Christian Emperour was both as design'd by Satan and reputed by God a Draconick Persecution of the Woman even as after the Mahometan Flood which came out of the Dragon's mouth to have swallowed up Christianity and that Empire together as it were wherever it could be found was on the very
remove any seeming Objection arising from the sudden change from such a Glory into the Apostacy so soon after entring and the Witnesses going into Sackcloth and the Woman into the Wilderness SECT VII In which is given the description of the other Beast and his first Administration of the Witnesses and their first manner of Testimony both before the Beast's forty two Months with the Answer of an Objection and Reflections upon this Interval IN these Enquiries I have now explain'd whatever I can conceive needful from the Beginning of the Trumpets to the forty two Months of the Beast except the Delineation of that which the Prophecy calls the other Beast under whose Conduct the Gentiles were brought into the outer Court and Holy City so far as the Action of that other Beast led to the grand Apocalyptick Beast And to inlighten this Interval of Time the more viz. from the Apostasie beginning in the 1260 Days at 437 unto the Beasts 42 Months 475 I find it most convenient to consider most accurately the State of the Witnesses as Prophecy hath given any Light to the pointing of the Time of their whole Testimony and distinguishing the various States of it which Method I will endeavour to follow through this whole Line of Time viz. to observe the Advances and Declinations of the Bestian Kingdom and to adjust thereunto the Declinations and Descents of the Witnesses into the deepest of their obscure State and their Re-advances till their Resurrection and Ascension for the one and the other States rise and fall alternately whose motion herein the Woman the Church was exactly conform'd to being indeed the very same one with another except the Notion of Single and Collected Single in the Witnesses Collected in the Church as before said But because the Action especially was sustain'd by the Seed or the Witnesses the Line of that Action is most particularly drawn over them the Witnesses I begin then with the other Beast but I will adventure to lay no stress upon the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Another as if it did necessarily imply Another Order or a various Sub-specification of these two Beasts because I find this Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be according to this Prophecy significant of no more than a numerical individuating Difference But yet that these two are so different so solemn and great so momentously different Iconisms as are given of each of them and their Action by the holy Spirit sufficiently argue That we may then have the perfect Pourtracture of this other Beast who manag'd all things from the Beginning of the Apostacy during the wounded State of the Grand Beast in one viz. the sixth of its Heads call'd the Dragon and the Infancy of the Grand Beast viz. as united to its seventh Head call'd in this Prophecy most often The Beast We may thus behold Him the other Beast so far as his Description reaches while the Grand Beast lay wounded which was till the forty two Months began by which great Preparation will be made to understand that Grand Beast 1. This other Beast must as Beast does every where in Prophecy import a Body of Men under some Superiority of Power I must here remember again to except to the Translation of the Four not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 salvage Beasts but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gentle Animals or living Creatures Revel 4. and elsewhere least it should cause any mistake but else both in Daniel and the Apocal. Beast does imply a People under united to some Principality above and because here the Principality was in a Peerage or Aristocracy it resides in the two Horns 2. Because it is a Beast of Continuance as plainly appears by its Action from the very Apostasie to the Number of the Beast viz. from 437 to 725 and after that to the very Destruction of the Beast and false Prophet it must be a fluid successive Body as other Prophetical Beasts are 3. The inward sense of it must be a Body of False Prophets under Chiefs mitred Prophets for all the marks of false Prophetism are upon them this Beast therefore rises low mean feeble stilly out of the Earth without warlike force or noise it works Miracles pretends to call for Fire from Heaven like Elias that is it threatens Men with the Wrath and Judgments of God it deceives it caused men to do by saying or teaching After its Administration as a Beast is past because swallowed up in the Grand Bestianism it is several Times call'd the False Prophet as being expressive of its very Essence and wherein it is most nearly united to the Beast Revel c. 16. 13. c. 19 20. c. 20. 10. 4. It must be Antichristian and seeing Antichristianism is a false mock abused Christianity it must have of Christian also in it else it could not be Antichristian it hath therefore the Resemblance of a Lamb in its two Horns but it is Antichristian specifickly working by Fraud to surprise the Kingdom of Christ ambitious haughty idolatrous persecutory cruel thirsting after blood for it spake as a Dragon altho therefore it hath two Horns like a Lamb yet not the Lamb Christ Jesus for he hath seven Horns Revel 5. 6. agreeable to all the Apocalyptical Sevens except the Dragon 's and the Beast's seven Heads Seven not because They were symbolically but literally seven Successions of Government as the Rev. 17. Womans seven Mountains 5. Seeing the great Subject of the Apocalype is the Roman Empire in its last State when the Kingdom of Christ was begun in the Gospel and to appear in Glory after that last State of the Roman Empire the last of those four Imperial Canales of Time it must therefore be that this pseudo prophetical Beast under its two Horns is compounded of the upper and under the dignified and inferiour False Prophets of the Eastern and Western Empire And seeing we shall find that the Grand Beast is Roman it will thence appear This Beast must be so seeing its whole Ministry is about that Grand Beast which is Roman 6. It must be after the Grand Beast in some prophetical Respect or Notion of that Grand Beast for it is call'd the first Beast in compare with this other Beast yet this other Beast must be before it in regard of Action for it does all for it viz. It is after it as the Grand Beast is one from its very Beginning or Foundation of the Roman Empire under its seven Heads successively it is after it in regard of Procuration of the Cure of its Wound of the Exercise of its Power while it lay wounded all which speak it in being before this other Beast But it is before this very grand Beast as under its seventh Head for it erects it into its Headship by speaking as a Dragon by keeping alive the Bestian Power and in exercise while the sixth Head lay wounded till the VVound was heal'd by the seventh Head succeeding and then
which makes the Lunar year 354 days so many Hours and Scruples nor by rating the 1260 days as three Years and half which wants about five days of the true Solar Year and then proportioning the Lunar Year of 364 Days odd Hours and Scruples to a Year of only 360 days But the true Scale of Time between the Sun and Moons motion in that which is call'd the middle course of each respecting their Conjunction one with another is to be taken and I affirm to the most rigid Arithmetician concerning it it will prove exact to about half a years distance That 1260 years of the Sun will exceed forty two Months space of the Moon prophetically understood thirty eight years For as Maimonides the most learned accountant of Jewish Time settles this matter in his severe computation of Time in order to their new moons Solemnities There is eleven days within some hours difference betwixt the lunar year and the solar naturally given as 365 days judge then how little can the want of the five days to make up the solar year 365 days alter the account of 11 days difference in a year betwixt the Sun and Moon which rises from above 72 five days in a year to make them nearer equal one to the other than eleven days difference carries with it of inequality But I fear to be over tedious in this matter although the wonderful exactness of the account does detain my Thoughts assuring a Line of Time confirmed so many ways besides to have its Epoch at 437 and its Period at 1697 by even so unexpected an agreement of the Beasts forty two months certainly beginning at 475 and therefore the Witnesses twelve hundred sixty days thirty eight years before them while the Gentiles forty two months are ready to set out with those 1260 days that so the time of the Bestian Tyranny and the sufferings of the Servants of God may begin and end together as they ought to do I come therefore to the fourth head to consider the state of the Empire of the Beast at his first rising or his forty two Months beginning thus at 475 and to compare therewith the Administration of the other Beast and the Prophecy of the Witnesses as they stood in the interval from 475 to 606 For indeed there is very little of a new scene of things opening till then and therefore the great business of this head will be to settle the essential Lineaments of the grand Apocalyptical Beast according to the prophetical Iconismes of chap. 11. c. 13. c. 17. of the Revel and to compare therewith the Imagery given Dan. c. 2. c. 7. c. 8. c. 11. and the Apostle Paul's Prediction 2. Thes 2. and the Apostle John's short Accounts of Antichrist in his Epistles wherein I do not yet so much intend to display the Quality and Action of the Beast which will be more advantagiously done hereafter for at this time they were but seminal and so not discoverable nor open and there was an accidental Variableness therein But I design those invariable and unalterable Essentials which are unmoveable although they appear each in their just Seasons and which are fundamental to the Beast Now herein I do solemnly avow I will bring no preconceiv'd Idea or Shape of the Beast to the Prophecy but search for that true one Prophecy gives and receive it from its hand as wholly unpossess'd of any Notions of Him before-hand and then referr to general and uncontroverted History as to an Umpirage most impartial the Agreement of Things with Prophecy Nor do I design to prove any Name or kind of Power in the World to be this Beast but only to prove That there hath been and must be such a one to sustain the Prophetick Characters during these forty two Months and what will necessarily follow I can't Fore-Fend To this Purpose I must make these three Premisals 1. That when Prophecy gives an entire prophetical Scheme of a Monarchy or this Bestianism it represents as entire and essential to that Scheme Things that did not fill it first as History giving the Character of an Empire gives it at full or so of any Prince and not as things were in their mere Infancy Thus those things are given into the Possession of the Beast at his forty two Months beginning which were not compleat till many Years after as his Ten Horns his Great Power and Authority c. Now this ought to be no prejudice to the Prophetick Scheme no more than that the Picture of Charles the Great as a Man or an Emperour would not fit his Infancy especially when Prophecy defines the Time when he shall attain that Image viz. 666. 2. When Prophecy gives the Portraicture of a particular last state of a Monarchy that had a variety of States before it it unites that last State as so one with the former and especially with that just before it as that they are spoken of as one common State just at one Time for this belongs to the Glory of Prophecies Prescience and Omniscience to which past and present and to come are one to give things thus entire in one Thus Prophecy gives the Dragon the sixth Head in the Beast of seven Heads seven Heads when it wanted one as to present Event and if it had to do with any of the five fallen Heads in the Time of the Apocalypse given it had done the same undoubtedly because the Scheme is but one although it be at several Times filled up so the Scheme has always 7 Heads And thus it gives the grand Apocalyptick Beast whatever was before it the five fallen Heads in the Lump that they make a Character of it nay the whole Image Dan. 2. in the three Beasts Dan. 7. the Grecian Leopard the Persian Bear and the Babylonian Lyon are united to this last State of the Rev. 13. 2. fourth Monarchy and even whole entire Bestianism because in it that Image was to be beaten to Powder Dan. 2. 34 35. and the Lyon the Bear and the Leopard who had their Lives prolonged Time at large and intimate Time or Season were now to be kill'd with the Sword of Christ's Mouth when the Beast the Little Horn is given to the consuming Flames or to the Lake Dan. 7. 11 12. with Apoc. 19. v. 21. So that it is no wonder it is called the Beast wounded in one of its Heads viz. the sixth Head before it came unto its Succession or forty two months that it is called in the same manner the first Beast twice Revel 13. 12. for all Bestianism is so totally his that the Dragon with whom he is more especially united as his immediate Predecessor that hath the seven Heads and ten Horns because it was the Roman Beast under the sixth Head yet is carefully forepriz'd from the Name Beast that it might not derogate from the Universal Bestianism of this grand Beast yea though it is he in whom this Beast was wounded There is only a short
Allowance of the Name of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other Beast to him who is erecting this seventh Head into its Supremacy and Dignity because he is so one with him as the false Prophet and but for the time he is so erecting him 3. That the prophetical Scheme may be understood concerning this Beast it is to be duely stated where the Situation of each part of this multiplice Scheme is to be there must be the Trunk or Body of this Beast and that hath its feet of many Nations and People spread far and wide the People of the Ten Horns like the feet of a Bear and by those many sorts of People its Body is variously spotted about like a Leopard this is the Populacy with their subordinate Magistrates There are the seven Heads or supreme crowned Authorities each having successive Dignity and Sovereignty as the Romans had Kings Consuls Decemvirs Tribunes of the People perpetual Dictators all fallen in the Apostles Time and so they signifie no farther than the making a Character of the Monarchy intended In the Apostles Time were the Emperours or the Dragon in the Language of Prophecy and the sixth Head and the Beast the seventh and last whose Mouth speaking as the Lyon Nebuchadnezzar acts the Body and Feet to the Cruelty of the Leopard and Bear by his idolatrous and fiery Decrees There are the ten crowned Horns whose Scite is in this Head absolute independant Monarchs and Princes only as they agree to give their Strength and Power to the Beast Now all these have so close an Union with the Grand Beast that the Body is so his that he is the Beast because he is the Head of the Body the ten Horns are his while they are Horns for their Situation must be in the Head the former Heads are his the five fallen to make him a Character the sixth the Imperial Dragon lives in him is worshipped in him continues to the last in him viz. the Monarchickness the Idolatry the Enmity to Christ's Kingdom especially even as he at the first is wounded in him And the other Beast is his negotiating his Dignity and Supremacy and at that compleat subsiding into his False Prophet the Dragon the Beast the False Prophet sending out each the Spirit of Devils and the False Prophet taken as inseparable one from the other with him and cast into the Lake Thus he is every way the grand Apocalyptick Beast Having laid this Foundation by way of Premisal I come now to define this Grand Apocalyptick Beast according to his certain essential invariable Characters most eminent in Prophecy most conspicuous in History for I dare not adventure so great a weight on History without Prophecy nor suspend it on my Interpretation of Prophecy without observing Divine Providence conducting the Event at every swelling Period into most undoubted History When both meet to such Perfection it is hard to doubt and even sullen Obstinacy to deny The Beast must be the Apostle John's Great Antichrist that Charact. 1. was to come into the World agreeing with the false Christs our Lord prophesied of and the Apostle John's many Antichrists 1 John 4. 2 3. Mat. 24. 24. who would steal the Kingdom of the Messiah from Him by pretending themselves to be Christs and so denying that great Article that Christ was come in the Flesh to which the Kingdom of his Father David is assur'd without end as being his Root and Off-spring Now this can be no way so effectually done as by pretending to be the Vicar of Christ and holding his Kingdom in his Right and as in Honour of him And he that does that is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Opposite to Christ and if it should be disguis'd under Servus Servorum Dei it would not excuse it Now those open bare-fac'd False Christs the Judgment of God immediately seiz'd and gave up to Destruction But of such an Antichrist as this Christ hath sworn There shall be Time Times Half a Time for Him and that Christs Kingdom should not come or the Wonders of it be accomplish'd till these are past and fully past And the Apostle Paul assures us before the Day of Christ can come the Apostacy must bring forth such an Antichrist who must therefore sit in the Temple of God viz. the outward Court and Holy City or the Profession of Christian Religion and in Christendome and there must exalt Himself must usurp above All that is called God viz. Christ even in his humane Nature called and carrying the Name on his Vesture and on his Thigh but not Written or set in publick view till just before the Beast's Ruine King of Kings Lord of Lords whom God Sanctified and sent into the World as Supreme Prince and under him truly Christian Supremes who are also called Gods John 10. 35 36. If then all History and all Knowledge of Time successively for several Ages declare such a pretended Vicar of Christ This is the most essential and original Character of Antichrist without searching farther into his Quality and Action For as whoever should pretend to be deputed to be a Divine God is an Idol so whoever pretends to be a Spiritual Plenipotentiary Lord of Lords and above Princes as Vicar of Christ is Antichrist for whoever says thus of Himself says He is God For Christ can have no Vicar General on Earth any more than God one Universal Deputy of his Power claiming Divine Honour Such an Antichrist must needs Sit at Rome For he must Charact. 2. bear aloft the Woman as a false Church that was a Wilderness to the True Church when it was Hid and yet Fed with hidden Manna a howling Wilderness where the Lyon the Leopard and the Bear Inhabit In this Wilderness John saw sitting on the Beast this Woman under the Name of that City that in the Appocalyptical Time or when that Prophecy was Given sate upon many Waters or People and upon the Seven Mountains or the City so fam'd for being Septi-Collis or seven Hill'd Rome and which Reign'd over the Kings of the Earth as no other City at that Time could be once suppos'd to do so Character'd either by its Hills or being Drunk with the Blood of the Saints and Martyrs of Jesus * Call'd on that Account Sancta Roma as that City in all Ages hath been A City whose Freedom was purchas'd at great rates in all parts of the World and so fitly said to sit on many Waters and to draw the Confluence of People to it to receive Law from it Here therefore for the fulfilling Prophecy the Beast must have his Throne even as under Pontius Pilate the Governour of Judea constituted by the Emperour of Rome Christ suffer'd and Rose again into his Kingdom according to the Prophecy of Daniel That in the Days of those Kings God would set up an everlasting Kingdom the right of which then began so that till Constantine that Roman Empire was a Dragon watching to devour the
the Inhabitants of the Earth wonder whose Names were not written c. When they behold the Beast that was c. This by compare with c. 13. must be when he came to be worshipped and that was not till he came to his number when the Image had Life given to it spoke and caus'd and then it must be answer'd And in this very Inscription the Wisdom of God is much to be ador'd shewing so exactly the gradual rising of the Beast first out of the Sea in his Succession then out of the Abyss or bottomless Pit at his Vniversality then at his number 666 when he came to be worshipped as a Head 4. For in the first he is truly said to be the Beast that was that is subsisted in the general Bestianism of the Roman Monarchy that had been in six heads was to survive forty two months under this seventh head and so in the prophetick Scheme had a Being Is not for the Beast had at this time as little appearance as could possibly consist with his Succession succeed he did because that name of headship under which the Beast was to live so long was left at that Time to Him the supream Name alone in Rome and so continued ever since For after the Cessation of the Christian Emperour neither the Kings of the barbarous Nations nor the Greek Emperour ravish'd the Title of Rome but contented themselves with that of Italy Lombardy Exarchy of Ravenna in which the care of Providence over Prophecy is worthy admiration yet in the Time of the Chasm Interreign or Gap between the sixth Head the Pagan Emperour wounded by the Christian Emperour the seventh King and no Head and the Beast the seventh Head but eighth King It might well be said Is not For this Beastian Head in Prophetical Scheme felt that Wound both by Sympathy as the Beast that having no Head in Dignity was truly Mottoed Is not as also upon himself as seventh Head the Wound fell because he succeeded not being fore Let and when he did succeed he was but in Infancy the Kings of Italy and the Grecian Exarch held him under that it might well be said of him Is not but yet he so Is that he goeth into Perdition that is he is in his forty two months current which end in his Perdition and of which the State under the Christian Emperour was a great Pledge as of Christs Kingdom so of his Perdition In the second place when he riseth out of the bottomless Pit and hath universal Supremacy as Head of Rome he eminently carrieth the Roman Woman aloft in the same Supremacy and yet in the former senses may be said Was Is not but shall ascend at his Time 606 out of the bottomless Pit and as a Character most evident upon him as always inseparable from him goes into Perdition for out of the Abyss he rises into it he is thrown for ever this was after Phocas gave universality to him as is next to be discoursed In the third when the Dragon lives in the Beast who converts Paganism into Antichristianism exercising the same Idolatrous universal Power in the Earth in an Image at 666 as we shall see They worship both the Dragon and wonder after the Beast admiring the artifice when they see the Beast that Was viz. in the Draconick Head Is not the very same Pagan idolatrous or imperial Dragon and yet Is is All. That very same thing is an Antichristian and Pontifical Image at 666. His Perdition is not herein named both for the Grace of the Type at his Inauguration and because it is express'd before and after in this engraving upon him I leave therefore every one to judge how admirably Prophecy and matter of Fact agree in these Inscriptions He must be a Horn in the Seed and Bud at his very Charact. 5. Succession so design'd by Providence so of right as a supreme though but in Infancy and in an Image yet being a small and feeble Horn he could not get up but under the favour and shelter behind and in the midst of the other Horns and then they became his Horns in open view Then he was one among Ten into which the Empire being variously divided fell so as to make that number at any time after its division and Ten as a complemental number is chosen Three were pulled up by him by his Influence and Instance before him by the strength and martial Prowess of others Let History then declare what Three eminent Horns were pull'd up and we shall find the Gothick Horn pull'd up by Justinian the Emperour the Lombards a second and the Greek Exarchy the Third for this little Horn by Charls Martill by Pipin his Son who was made King of France by him Charles the Great Son and Grand-son to the two former invested with the titularity of Western Emperour For let History further declare for whose sake they were pull'd up and whose Patrimony they became Nor let it be any blemish in Prophecy that Daniel does not speak openly of the Headship of this little Horn nor John of the Hornship of this Head for one Type was peculiar to one Prophet the other to the other and could not without manifest Injury to either Type be conjoyn'd or confounded But Daniel subindicates his Headship whom he stiles a little Dan. 7. 8. Dan 8. 23. Dan. 11. 36. c 7. 24. Horn by the Eyes of a Man by a Countenance stout above his Fellows by a Mouth speaking great things by his understanding dark Sentences by his being a King doing after his own Will in all which he was a Horn diverse from all the rest On the other side the Apocaliptick Prophet does not dissemble his being a little Horn while a Head for the Dragon gave him his Seat the Ten Kings agree to give him their Power and Kingdom neither of which he could win by puissance and when the Words of God are fulfilled they resume all with ease and at Pleasure for he prosper'd only by Craft and Serpentine Dan. 8. 24. Subtilty inspir'd into him by Sathan The Beast is always united with false Prophecy that he Charct 6. himself is the Head and principal of it from the first and therein negotiated his own universal Monarchy Within his Purple there lies a rough Garment to deceive he is full of the Spirit of Antichrist and so surprises the Kingdom of the true Prophet Priest and King He is Sathan transform'd into an Angel of Light a false Apostle coming with lying Signs and Wonders his Eyes are as a Seers his Mouth speaketh great things His Efficacy is by the deceivableness of Vnrighteousness in them that perish his Name Son of Perdition is deriv'd from the Traytor Apostle Judas who betrays Christ with the hail Master and a Kiss he Blasphemes he is worshiped by those who are not written in the Lambs Book of Life he is made supreme by calling Fire from Heaven in false Anathemaes he is inseparably united
The great attendance of the Divine Spirit is to the Line of Time which it joyns to the Jewish Lines that went before and particularly to Ezekiels 430 Days or Years which just comprehended and ended with the Babylonish Monarchy which Monarchy in a real Calendar I have before more than once said began the Gentiles Times during which Jerusalem lay and was to lye under Foot but just here the Babylonish Monarchy is no farther given in Type although it remains in the former Types to the last but the Future Line of Time is given in 2300 Evenings Mornings from the Persian Monarchy beginning And this latter could not have been given with Prophetick Secrecy and yet also without Confusion if the former had not been omitted whose Time given before could not enter into this but it must confound Time every way But thus this principal Line reaches from Literal Babylon fallen to mystical Babylon fallen from Literal Jerusalem near to be rebuilt with its Temple to the New Jerusalem which much adorns this Line of Time and sets these two just even from Point to Point It is true The Four as Vniversal Monarchies are together the great Canale of Time till the glorious Kingdom of Christ whatever great States or Kingdoms were coexistent with them or any of them at any Time or have arisen since do not mingle with this Stream which runs strait on to this end nor are any of themselves adopted into it sooner than the just Time of their Succession into Vniversal Monarchy nor do they abide any longer in it as a Calendar of Time after once they are fallen from that Vniversal Monarchy each successive Monarchy subduing the precedent takes it up and in the Roman Monarchy the Dragon resigns his Seat and Power to the Beast the Imperial to the Antichristian without any Conquest to whom as the seventh Roman Head and Vniversal King the ten Kings giving their Power the fourth Beast still survives differently from all the rest of the Successions for each Succession was by Force besides this so in This the whole Line is continued to the Kingdom of Christ But if any of these Kingdoms falls in its order of Succession and becomes great afterwards on another Bottom as the Persian subdued by the Grecian the Grecian by the Roman the one afterwards rising in its own Name the other in Mahomet's yet they disturb not this order nor so much as enter a-new into this Calendar of Time And because of this real substantial Calendar of Time in these Monarchies the first Act of Christ's Kingdom is recorded by the Apostle Paul to be the putting down all Rule Authority 1 Cor. 15. â—6 and Power referring especially to these four Monarchies the great Emblem of such Rule and Power viz. when the Kingdoms of this World become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ Rev. 11. 15. Then all this Calendar of Rule and Power is at an end That therefore which is most considerable in the Explanation of this Course of Time farther to us is That whereas the Gentiles Times viz. this substantial Calendar of the four Monarchies began in the Babylonian so long as that Calendar is in presenting the Babylonian is never omitted but is the Capital in it but when it comes to this Numeral Line or the 2300 Ev. Mor. it is then omitted because the Numeral Line runs not upon any Revolutions of these Monarchies but upon some eminent Providence of God towards his Church either of Mercy towards it or its suffering under the Tyranny of some of these Monarchies especially the Bestian as will be seen all along which is a very clear Reason why the Babylonian is first so chief in the Calendar of the Monarchies for that being one and the first it must be so in the Real But when it comes to the Numeral it is of no use because it had been given in the last numeral Line as then existing it is not given in the following Numeral because it was then past and would disorder the Account The real Calendar is taken from each Vniversal Monarchy that had the Jews particularly the Tribe of Judah in Subjection and so oppress'd Christ's Kingdom here the Babylonian was the first the Persian the second the Grecian the third the fourth the Roman under which as Imperial first the Jews were desolated The manly Birth or Christ as King was watch'd as by a Dragon Christians lay as martyr'd under the Altar and then under it as Antichristian lies subdued the spiritual Israel till both That and the Twelve Tribes are restor'd by Christ's Kingdom So these are the Times of the Gentiles before which neither the twelve Tribes nor the Apostolical Church are fully restor'd or can be From all which it is most evident that though the Vision is not dated from the Persian Monarchy as if it was given for the Persian Monarchy's sake yet the 2300 Ev. Morn begin just when that begins and very fitly because the Persian Cyrus found the Temple fallen and the daily Service of the Jews taken away and proclaims the Restoration which makes the Date as we shall see And this is the first thing that was to be prov'd The second Proposition follows viz. That the twenty Propos 2. three hundred days of this Vision as also the Things contained in it run down and reach to the end of All or to the Glorious Kingdom of Christ. Of this we have many Arguments in the Vision it self which having briefly directed first unto I will endeavour by farther strong Proof from the whole course of Prophecy to establish it Every Vision of Daniel's except the following Vision of the Argu. 1 seventy Weeks which hath the high and noble Subject of the Death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ making an end of Sin and bringing in everlasting Righteousness but else every Vision runs expresly to the last End and Kingdom of Christ. And whether even that does not after the Desolation of Judaism give a Prospect of their Restoration also signified by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or until the Consummation until which their Desolations are to last and no longer I leave to the Learned however It certainly bears its part in carrying on Time to that end But the very Shape and Design of all the other Visions is most apparently That End and therefore I conclude of This also The often mention of the End Three Times the Vision and Argu. 2 the End are conjoyn'd At the time of the End the Vision shall Dan. 8. be and the Exposition of the Vision is to make Daniel know what shall be in the last end of the Indignation and at the Time appointed the End shall be Now what End can be so absolute as to be understood by its naming only except that End of Christ's Kingdom so well known by the former Visions and by the following Vision chap. 11. v. 27. When because of this End to which every thing has led and made no
the whole Series of Visions concerning the Beast deriv'd from the Dragon will be best understood and most fully believ'd even as at the Reformation there was most necessarily an Acknowledgment of a long Apostacy of the cruel Tyranny of the Beast over true Christians and a visible Pledge The Ten Kings on the Head of the Beast that carries the Woman would at length fall from it but the End of that Half-Time will make a farther both Notoriety and Assurance of these things This allowed the Prophecy takes no Freedome but what is due to the gravest History to place by way sometimes of Anticipation sometimes of Recollection the Parts of the History so as may best serve the Purposes of the History And yet we cannot deferr so little to the Majesty of Divine Prophecy as is even challengeable by Humane History For that is justly entitled to a Right of secret and insensible Transitions Connexions Transpositions from one part to another which require leisurely Meditation and thoughtful Pauses to find them and yet are so plac'd as when found they give Light one to another with Vsury Altho therefore I rise up with greatest Reverence and Honour to those great Names who have thought otherwise I can allow no Beginning of Apocalyptical Time anew either at the open Book ch 11. or at ch 12. but only a Recollection of those things after their redundant Swellings out of their Channels one to the first Trumpet the latter to the fifth Seal Only The two Systemes have each one and the same Epoch given particularly to each The Churches are close and evenly cemented and souldered one to another and so the Seals Trumpets c. and their Connexion even hermetically seal'd And Both from the same Epoch the Resurrection of Christ derive themselves And as to the Interpretation of the whole even as it is a Rule of great use in the Interpreting General Scripture that the literal Sense is to be preferr'd where no Analogy of Faith or Scripture-Reason is destroy'd by it so here the mystical sense is rather to be chosen where no such Injury is committed upon the Analogy of Scripture Truth and yet as in the one case a subordinate mystical sense may be allowed so in this a subordinate literal sense may be allowed To give only two or three Instances Hearing and Reading this Prophecy hath first the mystical sense of a close Conformity to the Rules of Faith Worship and Practice according to it which makes All Blessed who so read and so hear tho' they do not interpret nor concern themselves in the Interpretation of this Prophecy and yet there is in the literal sense an Accumulative Honour and Happiness on those who joyn both these Senses in themselves together As on the other side They who add and take away by Antichristianism from the Words of it by breaking its Holy Measures in Faith Worship and Practice shall lose their part in its Promises and have their part in its Plagues altho they neither added nor took away in the litteral sense and yet They shall receive accumulative Plagues who have done the first and then by false and distorted Interpretations added the latter also Thus Opening the Book of this Prophecy and its Seals are principally the several Effects of the Kingdom of Christ and that principal one at the Reformation and not the Exposition of the Book or a new course of Prophecy and yet it is subordinately true There was then a greater Clearness and Illustration of the whole Doctrine of the Christian Religion and a new order as it were of Holy Prophecy and Instruction And this Prophecy did then Recall its own Discovery of Things at that Time after the Apostacy so long darkning it and the Gospel and enlarge its former brief Notes And so Coming quickly to pass hath the literal sense That then immediately began Apocalyptical Events each in their own order to come speedily and immediately to pass altho' so many hundred years run out ' ere all come to pass As an Army may be said to come presently when the Avaunt Corriers first appear altho' the Rere may be long in coming because of the numerous Body coming on orderly and in just Files Thus every Apocalyptical Event was on the Wing and darted it self into Existence without the least of slumbring or lingring when its Time was to come But the mystical sense is that whereas that sublime Event of the Death and Resurrection of Christ rose up as a Mountain dividing and parting the former World and Time from the latter Time or the last Days and All beyond the Resurrection was as a Book clos'd and seal'd up so as that it could not till the Resurrection make an offer of Appearance Then it did and therefore then properly seal'd down with seven Seals and yet by their opening it was in a daily motion to its Appearance But those two Worlds were of such different Lines of Communications that nothing pass'd in prophetical Account into Existence or Being out of one into the other even as the World on the one and the other side of the Equinoctial Line are remarkably taken notice of as two distinct Parts of the World how near soever they joyn who are on each side next to it Thus nothing on the other side the Line before the Resurrection was so much as coming to pass that was to be after the Resurrection or to have any motion accounted to it But after that Resurrection every thing pertaining to the latter days is describ'd as coming quickly to pass each in its own Order and Time and knowing its Place and marching in its own Distances none as that Army Joel 2. 7 8. thrusting another or breaking rank but all duely plac'd in their Climes as on this side the Line And now having given this general view of the Apocalyptical Prophecy and its Order of Times I will discourse briefly first on the Systeme of the Church-Prophecy or of the seven Churches and observe their Concert with those Lines of Time that rule the Evenings and Mornings or Nights and Days of Apocalyptical Time SECT IX Wherein a Proof is given The seven Churches carry with them a Line of Time contemporizing with whole Apocalyptick Time Apoc. c. 2. c. 3. THat these seven Churches are intended to bear by their Symbolismes a Line of Time equal to the whole Apocalyptick Time I shall at present use no other Argument but these general ones reserving the more particular Treaty upon these Churches to another part of this Discourse These Churches are as the whole Prophecy of a Mystical Argu. 1 Sense and Importance Christ therefore prefixes I will shew you the Mystery of the seven Candlesticks the seven Candlesticks are the seven Churches where the meaning is not that the expounding the Stars into Angels of the Churches and the Candlesticks into Churches is all the Mystery opened For even Angels of the Churches must be acknowledged to be still Mystery or a mystical Expression except
it protected the Infancy or low beginning of that seventh Head as will be seen under the beginning of the forty two Months to which it hath led us From the whole then these two Things arise to our main Purpose 1. That this other Beast must be the whole prophetick Office of the VVestern and Eastern Roman Empire under its Superiors or Hierarchy so far as it was grown Apostatical Antichristian and Pseudo prophetick or into false Prophecy from the very beginning of the Apostacy at 437 to the end of it at 1697 and beyond that in what State soever it shall be till it is cast into the Lake with the Beast With this Exception before the Beasts coming to the Image and Number of it self this Beast hath the Regency and so the Type of a Beast after that it subsides into bare false Prophetism but such as is inseparable from the Beast and the Beast from it so that they rule together but the Supremacy is in the Beast and they fall and are cast into the Lake together 2. The Action of this other Beast till the forty two months is its shaping its own Bestianism both into the Body under it and its Superiority over its own Body It s speaking as a Dragon and governing the Gentiles who are call'd the Earth and them that dwell therein herein exercising the Power of the wounded Beast before him viz. the former Paganish Beast that with all its Heads and Populacy according to the prophetical Emblem liv'd in a wounded State for want of a Bestian Head or Prince from the Empire becoming Christian till the Antichristian King became its Head at the beginning of the forty two Months And this other Beast guided them rul'd and conducted them as paganishly affected to a new Antichristian Paganism in preparation for the seventh Head without whose Succession the Grand Beast had been extinct In all which by Head is meant Head in Power It may be objected against this whole State of Things Object That here is no view of that Arrian Heresie and Persecution which could not be untaken in the Notices of this Prophecy This Prophecy is not to be suppos'd to take notice of All Answer the disorders in the Profession of Christianity any more than of all the Governments or Changes of Government in the World It minds its own Pursuit runs in its own Channel which was the fourth Monarchy and in that the Antichristian Surprisal of the Kingdom of Christ after the Destruction of pure Paganism so that Paganism first under the Pagan Empire Antichristian Paganism punish'd with the Barbarian and Mahometan Inundations from which the True Church was hidden and its Seed persecuted under the Bestian Kingdom is the only Symmetral Even Proportionate Course of this Prophecy till the end of the 1260 Days I come now to the last Thing necessary before the Entry into the Beasts forty two Months that is to settle the State of the Witnesses as in its general view under the whole 1260 Days and more particularly in this Interval from the Apostacy beginning unto the Beasts forty two Months The Witnesses as hath been already declar'd are the Seed of the VVoman the True Church who keep the Commandments of God and hold the Testimony the VVitness the Martyry of Jesus These are in Sackcloth as the best of their State the whole 1260 Days but their Time is distinguish'd by three great Pairs of VVitnesses in the Old Testament whose History explains the varying Types of their Condition Joshua and Zerubbabel Elijah and Elisha Moses and Aaron The first is of Joshua and Zerubbabel who though in mournful Garments as Joshua and in union with him Zerubbabel is represented Zech. 3. 1. c. yet They were as two Olive Branches to the Church of the Jews which was at that Time the Candlestick standing before the God of the whole Earth And this is the first Representation of the VVitnesses for they are also the two Olive Trees and the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the Earth Revel 11. 6. compar'd with Zech. c. 4. And it comprises the certain Assurance and Expectation of the New Jerusalem and its glorious Sanctuary even as the typical Temple and its Jerusalem were so far settled by those two great personages But beyond that They had the Promises of the New Jerusalem State peculiarly made to them to Joshua Zech. 3. 7. places among the Angels standing by in that Vision as Attendants on Christ to Zerubbabel Haggai 2. 21. c. When that Overthrow of Kingdoms should be which could be no other than that at the seventh Vial. Zerubbabel shall be a Signet and to all God's People throughout the Prophecy of Zechar. the same Promises are confirmed and so to these two Witnesses The VVitnesses then at this Time by holy Doctrine pure VVorship unspotted Sanctity begin their Testimony and are truly Christian Prophets or Persons of a magistratical Character and Eminency or truly fit for such a Dignity and as the Sons of Oyl or anointed ones Zech. 4. ult They empty the golden Oyl into the two golden Candlesticks into the Souls of the Servants and People of God the Seed of the VVoman who from the beginning of the Apostacy to the end of it are Members and make up those two Churches Pergamus and Thyatyra which as I have shewn in its Place run parallel in Pergamus at the beginning and Thyatyra in the latter part with the whole Apostacy although the Church of Sardis first and Philadelphia at last do indeed undertake the Line drawn by the Churches through the whole Apocalypse before the Church of Thyatyra in its real Subsistence shall cease to bear that Type of the Christian Church it is appointed to sustain Now how admirably does this agree with the state of the true Christian Witnesses for some considerable space after the Apostacy beginning They did indeed put on Sackcloth in God's Account assoon as the Gentiles came into the holy ground with their unhallowed feet shod with Paganish Superstition But They at first and for some space of time rather emptied the golden Oyl out of themselves than were under Persecution and Sufferings They sent out the Holy Doctrine and chrystal Stream of Evangelical Truth The Worship of God they directed was transparent clear and pure without Paganish Mixtures and Ceremonies and the Conversation they preach'd and gave Example of was not foul ranck fetid but holy gracious pellucid of an excellent Odour and Fragrancy And although History is not just and sincere enough to give account hereof passing through the Feculencies of the beginning Apostacy and suffering under all its particular Injuries more than those of Time and obscur'd as under that cover'd State in which the Church now was yet we are not under a total want of such Monuments of the Witnesses Testimony But for the Corruptions they were to testifie against they are too notorious to be denied as such Beginnings of the Apostacy even at this very joynt of
late Other Parts of the reform'd Church have not pursued the true Principles of the Reformation the Regulation of all Things in Doctrine Worship Conversation and Discipline according to the pure and perfect Rule of the Word of God but that Word in many things is regulated by Antiquity not considering how early the Mystery of Iniquity was at work and where the Foot of the account of the Beast's Number ought to be plac'd even at 25 or 26 from the Resurrection Revel 3. v. 1. c. so that these as in the Church of Sardis affecting too much outward Pomp and Grandieur are to strengthen the Remainders which are ready to dye that are to fill up the Reformation to endeavour to open the Voices of the Thunders among themselves and to prophecy more vigorously before Peoples Nations Tongues and Kings concerning which Things the generality are so asleep That there are but a few Names who have not defiled their Garments but will be in great danger of a shameful Devestiture or Degradation when Christ appears Revel 3. 3. compar'd with Revel 16. 15. The Church of Philadelphia although in a general Zeal to have a perfect Square with pure Evangelical Truth be indeed v. 7. c. in Being yet not come to make the Apocalyptick Line of Time by its proper Interval or space nor can do before the end of the 1260 days as it is drawn upon these Churches to the New Jerusalem which appears in Philadeph and the Right of a Church Their Door of the Profession of Christ according to his Word is endeavoured to be shut although Christ as by immediate Power hath hitherto kept it open yet They of this Church have but a little strength outward Power or Glory Revel 3. 7. c. The Synagogue of Sathan is ready on all Accounts and at all Advantages to Dissinagogue them and cast them out to controul and brow-beat them and that Synagogue must be of the Reformed so the naming them Jews imports as in the Church of Smyrna Jews signified Christians in Profession but becoming Gentiles so here it signifies Reformed but so far relaps'd as to be falsly so call'd who are at the same elevation of Corruption the Apostacy was at in the Church of Smyrna Not long before the 1260 dark days came in so that though they disallow the Apostacy since that time yet they are ready to Cannonize it so far as to that Time it had proceeded and might if they had Time find the same Path to the same End Yet still they escape the Beasts Number 666. Now in regard of all these things it is most evident The Witnesses must be yet in Sack-cloth but they are if they are not wanting to their own Priviledges and Office like Moses and Aaron commission'd to smite with Plagues as often at they will that is to declare the foulness of the Apostacy to Revel 11. 6. remonstrate the Bestianism and Antichristianism of it and to foretel the seventh Trumpet and its Voices and Vials in Ruine of the Kingdom of the Beast and the great Judgments to be executed on his City Church Himself and his false Prophet and all the Impenitents of his Kingdom from first to last and also to declare the Redemption of the whole Israel of God from this spiritual Egypt and its Slavery the opening the Temple that the Ark of the Testament the Tabernacle of Testimony may be seen in Heaven and the Kingdom of Christ appear in the New Jerusalem And this they may do as often as they will That is There is abundant Evidence of Prophetick Truth to do it by There are abundant Promises of Acceptance Favour and Support in the doing of it so that it is a Remisness of Will that is of Zeal not to do it For Blessed is he that heareth and they that read the Words of this Prophecy especially when the Time is so near at Hand The last part of this Time is the most Glorious because Revel 11. 11. c. it issues out into the seventh Trumpet and then those great things will come to pass in Preparation of which all that was at the beginning of that Time was but a shade and semblance Then the Spirit of Life in full and perfect measure shall enter into the Witnesses and set them on their Feet and great fear shall fall on them that see them there will be then so wonderful an appearance of divine Power and Judgment as upon the Apostles Doctrine and Miracles in the very first Times Where if things had gone on with the same Power from Heaven as at first the Kingdom of Christ had then appear'd but the Mystery of Iniquity surpris'd them at 25 or 26. There shall be a Voice calling them up to Heaven and as in the Cloud wherein Christ himself ascended They shall Ascend and whereas only the Servants of Christ beheld Him Their Enemies shall behold them which speaks the publickness of their Ascention and the mighty Influences it will have And in the same Hour the Tenth that is the Decem Principality of the great City viz. most necessarily That great City in which the Witnesses lay dead in the breadth of it fell For when the Ten Horns that give State and Altitude to the Beast fall off from his seventh Head the Woman that sits on the Beast which is this very same City-Church must needs fall from that Height with which the Beast carried it while exalted with his Ten Horns which substantial Reason will recompence for the seeming Impropriety of such a use of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Tenth being both in Dan and this Prophecy so essential to the Beast that carries the Woman The Ascent of the Witnesses into Heaven I understand to be some Exemplification on Earth of the Glory and Triumph The Witnesses of Christ that have gone out of the World suffering for Christ in any degrees of Martyrdome have at this time in Heaven upon this change of the World to Christ's Kingdom as undoubtedly the Saints have on all such Changes even as the Angels joy in the Repentance of Sinners As the Saints in Heaven triumph'd at the Desolation of Heathenism or the casting down of the Dragon The Exemplification then of this on Earth by the exalted state of the true Servants of Christ there is the Importance of these Symbols And in the same Hour oppos'd to the same or one Hour of Revel 17. 12 13. the Ten Kings receiving Power with the Beast and giving then their Kingdom to him and therefore comes now into a fit Counter-parallel There shall be an Earth-quake such a mighty Concussion shake and change of the State of the Christian World that Cities shall be removed as it were and not be the same they were before That great City although it shall remain on its Heap yet its tenthly or Ten Kingdom'd-state shall utterly fall seven thousand not Names only but Names of Men shall be slain They shall be slain in
and this Time is fairly resolved into 75 years and then the 490 years of the 70 Weeks agreed by all Christians after which the 1335 must needs be and they must be the last of the 2300. So there is onely space for 400 necessary which during the Seals opening until the Trumpets sounding viz. from three years and a half or the last half week so long after the Resurrection to the Vulgar Year of our Lord 437. when the Western Empire under Valentinian the Son of Placidia began to be violently shaken by the Wind of the Trumpets and its Flourish blasted by the Fire and Hail of the first Trumpet mingled with Blood by the agreement of all History was four hundred years By all which Account we must needs be in or about the Twelve hundred and fiftieth year of those dark Twelve hundred and sixty and no more of them then about Ten remain when Christianity shall grow much brighter and clearer till the full cleansing of the Sanctuary or the New Jerusalem at 1772. Let us now then proceed to the Apocalyptical Account of this Line and the first Note of the Time is the Forty two Months and that is first given that it might exactly touch the taking away the Daily For whereas the Priests of Jesus Christ even all his pure Worshippers were to come into the Outward Court the Type of Publick Evangelical Worship or Spiritual Sacrifice and to fill it and his Kings under his Universal Kingdom or Monarchy were to Reign They were all seal'd up into a Beginning Retirement immediately after the Christian Empire of Constantine and the desolation of Heathenism by him in signification that that perfectly cleans'd Sanctuary nor that Kingdom should not yet appear in Glory but at the first Trumpet the Paganiz'd Antichristians crowded in under the very Title of Christs Priests or Servants and so took away the Daily and prepar'd the way to the Beasts surprisal of the Kingdom upon which the Witnesses put on Sack-cloth and the Woman or Church fled into the wilderness so that the Forty two months and the twelve hundred sixty dayes began together at the daily taking away as that Divine Person Jesus Christ the man in linnen had declared to the Prophet Daniel Dan. 12. and Apoc. 11. 2 3. And whereas there is in Daniel no mention of the Forty two months of the Gentiles nor of the Beasts forty two months which we shall be to consider in this Line also it is with admirable contrivance of the Divine Prophetick Spirit For in as much as the Time Times Semi-Time are so appropriated to the Beast as that they are never alienated from his Action and the Servants of God suffering under him and are as descriptive of him as the very Name Beast for Times in some cases are as descriptive of Persons and Things as Names as we all know what is meant by our last 41 or 71 apply'd either to Persons or Things Further in that Season Seasons Half-Season are absolutely proper to the Beast and that yet they respect principally the intimate part Time of which hath been spoken therefore Time Times Half Time could not be attributed to the Gentiles or the other Beast Rev. 13. For that had been an Entrenchment upon the Grand Beast And yet because the Beasts time of duration much more of his Regnancy was not so early as the Twelve hundred sixty dayes begun in the Sufferings of the Servants of God and that the Daily Service is no where said to be taken away by him but rather from him or before him and as in preparation to Dan. 8. 11. Marg. his rising there is of necessity some additional Character of Time to coextend the Time Times Semi Time as at large and equal to the 1260 dayes when the Line comes into so distinct a Fixation and none so fit as taken out of the 2300 Even and so declaring their Linage as these Forty two months of the Gentiles under the Influence of him whom the Scripture calls the other Beast both of the Eastern and Western Empire of which two Horns for the sake of that so notorious Dicholomy or Division of the Roman Empire into those two parts and of a Lamb for the pretensions they made to Christ are the Embleme of which Beast more is after to be spoken and whereof the Beast himself was no small part before from the first till his Regnancy Ap◠13. 10. Now these Gentiles and this other Beast which were to be Subjects of the Grand Beast have these Forty two months assign'd to them to prepare for this Grand Beast till his Rising to cause an Image to be made to him and to give Life to the Image that so the Beast that had been wounded in its sixth head might recover and live in its seventh head although it did not appear in his Infancy nor till He came to his Number or manly Age viz. at 666. when He took upon him as Prince and Lord of the intimate part of Time which is most precisely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Season Seasons Half Season All which is a full Answer to any Objection that the Universal Monarchy of the Beast cannot be trac'd so early as the Prophecy supposes Thus therefore the Gentiles tread the Court and Holy City the first Forty two months that is so long of them as till the Beasts Existence especially and indeed till his Time of Regnancy and that as Principals in the Apostacy After that their Forty two months are merg'd in the Beasts forty two months although for the Decorum or Grace of the Type they are given intire Forty two months And because the Beasts intimate Time or Season will be spent and exhausted and the Gentiles forty two months also expired before the 1260 dayes be expir'd He the Beast hath therefore full Forty two months power of duration Revel 13. 5. into which as was said the Gentiles forty two months fall and subside at the Beasts Regnant Time And by these is the Time at large furnished out for his Action to keep the Witnesses in Sack-cloth and the Woman in the Wilderness and also to continue the Gentiles treading the Holy Court and that the Daily Service may remain Taken away and to do many great Acts of Cruelty upon the Servants of God even after his intimate Time and possibly to give in little and as in Epitome a Recollection of the 1260 years in the last three years and half or some such proportion of Time when the Time of the Witnesses Testimony is so near finished and all this by vertue of his large permissory Commission given to him by God above that given to his Gentiles though He cannot expand or spread nor culminate or rise any more to the height of his intimate Time when it is once past And if there be such a Prince whom the Scripture calls a Beast that is a Paganiz'd Idolatrous Monarch the Gentiles must needs be his People and in his Service else he must
be a Prince without a People so that though the Gentiles forty two months are necessary before the Beasts forty two months yet they are not necessary to be a distinct time after for the Beasts Power necessarily supposes them they serve therefore not only the Grace of the Type as was said but the Secresie of the Prophesie both which require these numbers should be given entire and parallel even as Adams years of Life ran along to his Death with the common Line of Time to the Flood though it was necessary only until the Time of his Begetting and after that the Line was set upon a succeeding Patriarke and so in the whole Roll every ones Life though it did not support the Line yet corroborated it after the Paidogony or Begetting and so concurred with it to the last even thus the Gentiles Fourty two months support the Bestial Line till the Beasts rising and concurr in it with the Beast while they last and when they are ended there is no alteration because the Bestian Times include to the very last of them the gross Gentilisme of them that dwell on the Earth and the false Prophetisme into which the other Beast sunk down as into a proper Character after the Beasts 666 as Apoc. 19. v. 20. He is called and c. 20. v. 10. But further than this the Beasts forty two months have a certain Epoch viz. at the Year of our Lord 475 in the cessation of the Christian Empire in Augustulus Compare 2 Thess 2. with Revel 17. 10 11. For the Christian Emperours being the sixth King but none of the seven Heads was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or he that letted or with-held as the Empire was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the thing that letted or with-held that the eighth King that was yet of the seven Heads could not succeed for an after King cannot succeed till the former is gone off the Stage especially where God holds the Line of Succession firm so that by adjusting the forty two Months of the Beast as lunar Time to the 1260 Days of solar Time we find thirty eight Years difference and seeing All the whole Line must end with the 1260 the Time of the Beasts forty two Months beginning exactly agrees with 475 thirty eight Years after the 1260 Years of the Witnesses Sackcloath at 437 and All end at 1697. And because we have spoke much of the Intimate Time of the Beast or of his Season Seasons Half-season within time times half a time we have the Pillar of that Time erected Revel 13. 17 18. when his first Season was well or about eighteen Years enter'd viz. at 666 when his Name or Nature was come to his Number and when he was come to his Age of 666 from his Conception which by searching the Root and as the Vnderstanding and Reason of a Man searches Number we find to be Twenty Five by the consent of all Arithmetick as the Time of his Conception when the Mystery of Iniquity like a Womb was at work for him who as a man of those Characters 2 Thess 2. was indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Beast and from Twenty Five after the Resurrection or Apocalyptical Epoch the first visible Variation from the Apostolical Twelve both in Time and Nature when it became the Base of another Doctrine Kingdom the Root of another Name the Apostacy conceiv'd and wrought within the Mystery of Iniquity not openly but secretly and as in the lower parts of the Abyss out of which the Beast comes as a Womb at 725 when the War concerning Images began and continued till all that refus'd that Worship were anathematiz'd by the second Council of Nice I say to that 725 when Leo Conon the Grecian Emperour was struck by the Thunderbolt of Excommunication interceeded just 666 Years from twenty five Years after the Resurrection and if by the three days and a half by themselves as also by many other Circumstances leading us to the three days of our Lord's Death we ballance Time we shall find the Proportions for as Christ died in the last fourth part of the first day and rose in the first fourth of the third day so was the Condition of the Witnesses Begin their 1260 days at 437 and at 707 began the last fourth part of the first Day or Time viz. the last 90 of the first 360 as Christ's Death began at the sixth Hour or at twelve the last fourth part of the Nycthemer and was perfected by the end of it to his Burial so the Witnesses from 707 to 797 the end of the first day lay dead in the Street of the great City But it did not become the Type they should be buried and so to 1517 then their first motion to a Resurrection began and their compleat Resurrection at 1697 even to admiration answering the last half day And lastly because Imperial Revolutions as being under the eye of all History most livelily represented by their Emblems and fixed upon their just Rests of Time must needs strengthen Prophecy concerning the Church of God when one joyn Hand in Hand with the other there is therefore the Fall of the Western Empire given by the Divine Apocalyptical Prophecy to the Fall of the Eastern Empire or the taking of Constantinople by such wonderful Types and Figures of the gradual Impressions on the Western Empire Apoc. 8. v. 7. to the end by such Images of the Mahometan Saracens as Locusts c. 9. to v. 13. and of the Turkish Horsemen to the end of the Chap. and with such a Relation to the Antichristian Idolatries and their Impenitency therein adorn'd with such Notes of Time as the five months and five months to the Locusts and the hour the day the month and the year to the Horse-men call'd for by the Voice from the Golden Altar of Incense within the measur'd Temple when the Daily of publick Worship was taken away as makes the Line out of measure excellent and adorable as given by the Holy Spirit to the killing the third part of men or taking Constantinople 1453. Behold then as at a Review the admirable Structure of it and the great Instructions arising from its order of Repetitions upon these short Particulars 1. The intimate Time of this Line is especially most solemnly appointed and design'd and the whole as united with it for it is made and constituted not without an Oath Dan. 12. 7. to be Time Times half a Time and therein Season Seasons half a Season and it is cut off not without an Oath at the end of intimate Time though the whole of the Time Times half time be first supposed to run out at large and the whole both of Time at large and intimate Time also cut off for ever at that end Apoc. 10. 6. 2. The whole of this Line and of the last seventy five Years is measured by even Indictions or Fifteens of Years the use of which Rising in the Reign of Constantine became well known by
Usage by Pharaoh argued against their Deliverance by Moses All the Disaffection in the Age to Interpretation of Prophecies or its insensibleness of them can no more disprove them than Christ's coming as a Thief upon Sardis at an Hour it knew not shall be disprov'd by the Sleepiness and Unwatchfulness of that Church Let us then with Resolution Constancy of Obedience Strength of Faith Labour of Love Patience of Hope wait for and come to the end of these ten days and from them to the 1335 Days where Blessedness shall certainly be But if we should say We may dye before those Ten Years are come to their Period and there is no Probability or Possibility we should live to the seventy five beyond or the 1335 of Blessedness I answer The Saints of God living on Earth shall receive their share in all the Glories of his Kingdom and the several degrees of it and they that dye hoping waiting desiring praying shall be rais'd in the very same posture of Soul wherein they died so that they who by a general Faith and Obedience waited and came in Daniel's Time and ever since viz. by earnest Prayers Come Lord Jesus Come quickly shall be blessed even as they who by particular Faith and Obedience wait and come at the Time it self And in the mean time the Souls of Saints above the Spirits of just men who shall be perfected at that time celebrate in Heaven all the Advances of Christ's Kingdom even as they pray for it as the Souls under the Altar cry How long Lord c. so they rejoyce at every Rising of Christ's Kingdom so do the same Souls Rev. 12. 10. So Rev. 14. 3. They that sing that new song harping with their Harps So They Rev. 15. 3. So they Rev. 19 c. Such is the universal Song of Triumph of the Palm-bearing company Revel 7. 10. Let us not therefore despond but be abundant in the work of the Lord knowing our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. Why should it be thought an incredible thing that God Remark 6 should draw in his Word the Plot of Future Time to so great a Period as the Kingdom of Christ That all Futurity is within the Grasp of Infinite Omniscience cannot be doubted Known to God are all his Works from the beginning to the end The Scheme of all that hath been before it was or that shall be is always with Him as if it just now was in all the circumstances and Life of a present Appearance in whose Eternity All present past to come are all one The whole Table of Time is always before Him Does it then pertain to the Prerogative of Omniscience that Future Things should be known only to himself It does so indeed any further than he is pleas'd to reveal them But He that challenges the false Divinities of the Heathen that they could not declare things to come hath certainly given Isa 42. 23. Instances of his own Prescience and Demonstrations of it to his People Hath he not done so in all Ages by his Servants the Prophets Is he not as Liberal to the Ages of Christianity to the state of things under the Gospel of his Son whom he hath constituted Heir of all things and put in subjection to him the World to come of which we speak Or is the Glory of Divine Truth so great that even as immediate Appearances the Power of Miracles and extraordinary Revelations have ceas'd since the full Settlement and Sealing the Volume of Truth in the Gospel so Prophecy needs not now This indeed hath much of Reason yet even as all Truth is compriz'd in that Volume so are the Grand Revolutions pertaining to the Christian Church in the same Volume and therefore whatever God hath done for the former World the very same hath he summ'd up in the New Testament When therefore we have besides the Interspersion of Prophecy in several places of it a Book wholly Dedicated to Prophecy Blessed is he that heareth and readeth the words of this Prophecy Have we not reason then to expect the course of things to the very end in it But does not the Prophecy it self say The Things were shortly to come to pass So that what is to be found in it pertain'd to the primitive Age the Destruction of Jerusalem to the Time when Christianity was well settled and till Pagan Rome became Christian It is true indeed The Divine Revelator Jesus Christ our Lord does say the things were shortly to come to pass that is to begin to come to pass They were then upon motion but as a great Army is said to come immediately when the Avant-Corriers are coming or come although the whole Body and Rear may be considerable distances off so this whole Series and Chain of Events in the Revelation come quickly although the first and the last part differ so many Ages Is it not clear and visible that there is the Beginning of Things and the End of Things in every mans Apprehension plain and evident that is from the Resurrection and to the Day of Judgment and why then should we not believe there is the Middle of Things also Why should we imagine Prophecy hath made such a Leap over the Between Lying Times seeing they were very great Did it not behove his Church and Servants to know of so great and wide spreading an Imposture as Mahometanisme Was it nothing to it Christianity should be in so low and dark a state as it was from the lowest Fall of the Western Empire to the Ruine of the Eastern Empire in both which the principal Residences of it were and so long space as from 666 to 1453. But still it may be said If such a Prophecy be it does not become us to pry into it it is the Ark of secret things that do not belong to us Why then does Christ say Blessed is he that heareth the words of this Prophecy Why doth he command him that hath Wisdom and Vnderstanding to count the Number of the Beast Why doth He in explication of the Seven Heads say Here is the Mind that hath Wisdom Why had Christ the Revelation to shew to his Servants But was it not all one as if they had not been reveal'd since the Revelation was not pretended to be understood in former Times I answer we do not know what was understood the Apostacy so cover'd and muffled all Things and does yet so darken them The universal prejudice against the Explanation of this Prophecy is I doubt not the effects of this Apostasie But that there hath gone a stream of Light from hence to the Servants of Christ by the Witnesses in every Age is to me out of all question and that it hath discover'd the Things most necessary to that Age although the Light hath been not only clearer but the knowledge that such a Light hath been more certain to us since the last Age and Half and shall be every day clearer and clearer When
Time and therefore by the constant care of God in preserving a Seed that is accovnted to the Lord for a Generation and particularly by the Types of this Prophecy we are most assured there must be such Witnesses and such must be their Testimony SECT VIII Wherein The Forty Two Months are measur'd by the exactest Rules of Prophecy and found by express Concurrencies of those Prophecies to begin at the Cessation of the Christian Western Empire and to end whenever the 1260 Days end the Date of the Kingdom of Christ immediately ensuing and therefore to begin at 475 and by compare with the 1260 Days to end at 1697. According to which the State of the Empire of the Administration of the First Beast and of the Witnesses during the Fourth Trumpet viz. from 475 to 606 is represented THE Point of Time I am now entring upon hath had a just Approach made to it according to its Importance which is very great I shall now through the Assistance of the Divine Spirit duely consider the most weighty sense of it self there being no Line of Time whose Bounds are so definitive the Beginning so uncontestably evident in History the End so illustrious as this must be to sense it self in the very nature of the thing That I may therefore discourse hereof most regularly I propose these four Heads to fix the Intendment upon 1. To shew That the Apostle Paul hath affirm'd the coming of the Man of Sin or Beast whose End is according to all Prophecies concerning him Destruction by the immediate Appearance of Christ's Kingdom at that his end hath an unmoveable Bar to his Manifestation till his own Time and that the Apostle John declares that Bar to be an indefeisable Succession of a seventh King not come in his Time to a sixth King then in Being in his Time and that seventh King to endure a short time and that then the Beast the eighth King should succeed and that he could succeed neither sooner nor later When therefore it will appear that such a seventh King did succeed the sixth and that that seventh did decease at 475 if it shall also appear as it will that this is the very same Beast to whom forty two months are determin'd it will then be most evident his forty two months must begin at 475. 2. To shew That the Kingdom of the Beast must last till the Kingdom of Christ according to the same Laws of Succession can succeed and it can last no longer as also that the Kingdom of Christ must succeed when that Kingdom ends and it can succeed no sooner if then it is expresly said the Kingdom of Christ shall immediately succeed the 1260 Days and that according to this Law of Succession and the course of all Prophecy it must also succeed the forty two months it then will plainly follow the 42 Months and the 1260 Days end together 3. To shew That the 1260 Days must be Time of the Sun and the forty two months must be Time of the Moon and seeing they must be adjusted to one another as ending together and lying both within one common Womb of Time Times Half Time The forty two months by the most exact compare of Lunar and Solar Time can be but 1222 Years and therefore besides all Advantages of Scripture-use of round Number beginning at 475 they most exactly and most necessarily must end at 1697. 4. To shew That the Beast indeed must have every way the Seminal fundamental Nature of such a Beast as he is describ'd to be at the very beginning of his forty two Months as the Infant hath of a Man but need not nor cannot be suppos'd to attain full prophetical Proportions till long after which Time Prophecy hath also dated to him by his Number 666. So that the description of the Empire according to the Fourth Trumpet the Administration of the other Beast and the State of the Witnesses may continue many Years after as they stood at the forty two Months entring and so Prophecy determines of them To begin then with the first of these I find this Order and Head 1 Concert of the Parts of it will be most convictive and demonstrative 1. That Daniel the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John speak all of one and the same Beast 2. That this one and the same Beast hath forty two months determin'd upon him as the just State of his Duration 3. That the Apostle John hath declared that peremptory positive Law of Succession that was the Let of the coming of the Beast into his forty two months For the first Although a multitude of Proofs from the Concert of all Prophecy which either have been or will be farther taken notice of may be given yet That which I will rest upon alone at this time shall be that most convictive one That his End is Destruction by the glorious Appearance of the Kingdom of Christ so that his eminent Character is Son of Perdition in Conformity to that Apostate Apostle Judas so near the Glory of Christ's Resurrection so the Apostle John twice describes him by his going into Perdition Apoc. 17. v. 8. v. 11. and his Destruction is solemnly declared c. 19. and then the Kingdom of Christ succeeds c. 20. c. 21. Thus Daniel in every Vision The great Image was smitten by the Stone cut out of the Mountains without hands growing to a great Mountain filling the Earth by a Kingdom never ending in its ten-toed feet part of Iron and part of Clay so exactly compounded of the Beast out of the Sea with his ten crowned Horns inseparably united with his false Prophetism a Beast out of the Earth Revel 13. The little Horn is a Beast deliver'd to the Flames and the Kingdom under the whole Heaven given to the Saints The King standing up against the Prince of Princes shall be broken without hand At the Accomplishing to scatter the Holy People viz. by this Beast as hath been made to appear All the Wonders of Christ's Kingdom shall be finished Dan. c. 2. v. 24. c. compar'd with Dan. c. 7. 11. c. c. 8. 24 25. c. 12. 7. The Apostle Paul 2 Thess 2 3. c. stiles him the Son of Perdition and foretels his being consumed with the Brightness of the Lords viz. Christ's coming and the Glory of his Appearance Whoever then considers the most notable and notorious Destruction always affix'd to one and the same kind of Power so even in all its manners of Description and such a kind of Destruction as is always declar'd to issue and flow out from the Glory of Christ at his coming to his Kingdom will find It must be one and the same Beast since Christ hath but one such Coming and one such Kingdom as these are describ'd to be nor indeed is there any more than one such Beast so scituated in Time Place and Succession as this will appear to be It is in the second place to be made out that this is the same
Beast that hath Fourty two Months determin'd to Him and though there needs nothing to make that good but to take the two Chaps c. 13. and c. 17. of the Apocal. and to write down all the particulars of agreement between those two Beasts and it will be impossible for so much as the thinking Mind to doubt of their being one and the same But I will only insist upon the former Argument in this matter that Beast that is so destroyed as the Beast in the c. 17. is to be destroyed must needs according to the former Argument be the same Beast But the Beast that hath Fourty two Months determin'd to his Continuunce c. 13. v. 5. hath such a Destruction affix'd to him as the Beast c. 17. hath For who can assume the Effrontery or Boldness to deny that the Beast c. 19. who is taken and cast into the Lake v. 20. is the same with the Beast c. 17. And the Beast c. 13. hath this very same Destruction foretold to him For he is to be Taken and to go into that Eternal Captivity of the Lake with his False Prophet inseparable from him according to v. 10. and his Ten Crowned Horns or whole Circle of Kings are to be killed with the Sword of Christ's Mouth c. 19. v. 21. compar'd with ch 13. v. 10. he that leadeth into Captivity shall go c. and he that kills with the Sword c. now Christ's Captivation and Killing are such as argues Divine Justice and Power and such is that declar'd c. 19 20. The Apostle John hath declar'd that so obstinate unyielding Bar to the Man of Sin being reveal'd still in his Time as the Apostle Paul most emphatically speaks signifying the impossibility of his Coming till that his own proper Time Now the occasion of that great Apostolical Paragraph was an Expectation of a sudden Appearance of the 2 Thess 2. Glory of Christ's Kingdom this very Kingdom of which we are now speaking which was the great Expectation of the Apostles till they were better Instructed and of other Christians after them upon a general but not particular Apprehension of Scripture Prophecy For that this Day was the day of Judgment there is no Sense for in those lightsome Days before the Apostacy seeing all the Prophecies are big with a Glorious state of Christianity in this World To this the Apost for their Information and of after Ages much more speaks punctually That it could not be expected so soon and does most vehemently obtestate by the very coming of Christ and our gathering unto him against the Expectation for saith he There must be an Apostacy first and the Man of Sin must be reveal'd but that must be in his own proper Time and not before for there is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Person witholding and a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an effectual Thing witholding or each of these taking such Fast Hold of their proper Space and Time that the Bestian Prince cannot come forward till they by going off let go their Hold and then shall be reveal'd that lawless one that Man of Sin which is an Exposition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when it is to be understood of a Body of Successors So this is the Apostle's Sense The day of Christ viz. of his Glory and Kingdom cannot come till the Man of Sin come The Man of Sin comes indeed out of the Apostacy as out of a Womb but as no Birth can so he cannot come till his own Time Sathan is eager enough every thing works to it as fast as it can the Mystery of Iniquity is now already at this very moment at work But every Thing that God hath ordain'd will hold its own it s own Time it s own Place and such a Holding Thing there is and such a Holding Person there is that possesses and fills that Time and Place Thus far the Apostle Paul goes in his Epistle so far he was order'd by the Holy Spirit to go and no farther the rest he refers to former Personal Discourse Now whatever prudential reason there might be of saying no more The great Reason was the Holy dictating Spirit order'd no more but that all Scripture might be search'd and compar'd Holy Writers say so much in one place so much in another so much one Holy Writer says so much more is said by another by every ones part the Harmony is made up The Apostle John therefore speaking as I have prov'd of the same great Matter and aiming at the Glorious Kingdom of Christ the grand scope of all Prophecy declares the Reason why the Kingdom of Christ could not Come because there was an unalterable Succession determin'd by God before that Kingdom There were seven Kings five of them he gives in the Lump because Prophecy was not concern'd in them or in the manner or order of their Succession they are only a Character of the Monarchy a distinctive of the Fourth Beast by its seven Heads or Forms of Government in a Succession as Kings signifie Dan. 7. But in three of them the Prophecy then in motion by the Apostle John was highly interested The first was then and it was in its course according to five of the seven Seals The seventh King was not yet Come it was not very far off comparatively but it was not as yet Come it was to come in the sixth Seal and when it came there was a necessity upon him he must continue by the same Comparativeness but a short space viz. during only the time of the sixth and seventh Seals Now this seventh the Spirit is industrious to assure us He was the Christian Emperour though he was a King of that great City and Empire yet he pertain'd not to the Beast indeed there was a Declination to the Apostacy in his time but the Church was yet pure all those Seals as appears by them it appears too it was declining the Apostacy drew near a declining from one Degree to another there had been from the first Operation of the Mystery of Iniquity forming the Antichristian Prince no with great Curiosity in the lowest parts of the Earth where no Eye saw the way of the Sathanick Spirit but he before whom Hell and Destruction have no Covering However this Christian Emperour was none of the Heads but wounded the Pagan sixth Draconick Head The Beast he is the eighth and is of the seven Seven what but Heads Clearly joyning this Vision with the seven Heads of Chap. 13. He that as the Son of Perdition goes into Perdition I say again Goeth into Perdition that Perdition just before the Kingdom of Christ and so hath no Successor but Christ consuming him Now this Succession stands firm God himself had fix'd it As then no Prince can succeed till the former is avaunted in so exact a Succession one cannot crowd out another no more than one Month or a Day following can crowd out the precedent but when any goes off the next succeeds immediately there can
be no Vacuity Rex nunquam moritur where God holds the Succession and its Law firm and so it is to the very Kingdom of Christ Just then when the Christian Emperour deceas'd tht Bestian Emperour succeeded and that was indisputably at 475 and then his forty two Months of Duration succeeded and it was a large Time as Prophecy draws them out and they are still current they must have been yet a long time ago begun for there was the sixth King in Being when the Apostle wrote signifying his Time then in spending The seventh had no long time That end of things the Apostle declares Ch. 18. c. 19. c. 20. c. 21. is beyond all Controversie upon due yea but small Consideration not yet come Therefore this eighth King must have been long upon the Throne and now near the end of his forty two months For he came at the very first of them He came then though as an Infant Prince a Prince as in the Cradle yet then he came Humane History is not more competent to declare the Time when Antichrist was born than the Jews could pronounce aright when the Christ was born yet some chosen Observers there were of the one and of the other some or alarming Indications The Father Jerom sounded it aloud or rather by Inspiration before hand proclaim'd it but God hath judg'd it he hath declar'd it and there can be no incertainty in it When the short-liv'd Christian Emperours and their Empire dyed in the West then it was The true Seat of the Roman Empire being at seven headed seven hill'd Rome was by a wonderful Operation of Providence quitted by the Dragon to be the Seat of the Beast the Christian Emperours resided elsewhere most for still that was the Metropolis of the Bestian Empire Constantinople did but borrow the Name by a secret of Providence of Nova Roma as useful for some Types of Prophecy when the Christian Western Empire was cessated then the Eighth King succeeded his Fourty two Months then began I come now to the second Head of this Discourse The Head 2 Kingdom of Christ must come immediately after the Beasts Fourty two months ended The Law of the Succession requires it it must be then immediately proclaim'd It does not appear all at once no Kingdom does so But its Preparations are seventy five Years So great so glorious an Empire so just so even and cubical in its Thousand Years must have an honourable Preparation And it is but short in comparison During this time all sorts of warnings are given by the seven Thunders unseal'd Revel 14. all kind of Justice done upon Offenders by the Vials c. 16. The Beast hath a kind of dying Life as an outdated Usurper not yet executed but that hath lost his usurped Empire and then Lak'd for Ever This Succession of the Kingdom of Christ is dated by Prophecy to the end of the 1260 Days For then the Witnesses rise go out of their Sackcloth are array'd in a white Cloud Ascend to Heaven they cannot Ascend in Sackcloth but for 1260 Days Sackcloth was their Shrowd it is then certain the 1260 Days End It is certain also the Kingdom of Christ is then proclaim'd for when the second woe past away the third comes quickly No delay and the third woe Trumpet brought it and the first Sound or Report is The Kingdoms of this World are become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ therefore lastly the forty two months must end with the 1260 days for Christ abated nothing of them by his Kingdom overhastily as is to be shewn and the Beast was to have so many for his Reign The 1260 days and the forty two months ending together Head 3 and the forty two Months beginning at 475 they must be adjusted one to the other as one being Time of the Sun the other as Time of the Moon For as in all Languages and parts of the World Days must and do signifie most properly the Time measured by the Sun so in the eastern and most especially the Jewish and Scripture Language Months signifie only and solely the Time as measured by the Moon and are call'd Novitates Newnesses or Times measured by each new Congress of the Moon with the Sun or new Moons so that however another way of speaking hath prevailed with us a Month of the Sun is as improper as a day of the night or a day measured by the Moon so that if words can signifie as they are always in Scripture us'd to signifie Months must signifie Time according to the motion of the Moon And further as hath been already shewn the Symbol is of the peculiar use in this Prophecy to semble Time of the Night of the Moon that the True Church hath under its Feet and as shall be more seen in a great Remarque upon the Mahometan Moon Because therefore days months years as they are within this Line of Time must all lye within Time Times half Time and equal 1260 days or years There are twice Forty two Months that knitting one within another will supply the shortness to 1260 Days or Years of the Forty two Months either of the Gentiles ending thirty eight years sooner or those of the Beast beginning thirty eight years later than those 1260 Days And as the Moon could be no Moon if there were no Sun to lend it Light so the Sun on a body prepared and moving to it as the Moon casts a Light like that of the Moon certainly and without fail In the same manner there could be no Antichristian months or Church if there were not a true Church and its Seed the Witnesses cloth'd with the Sun of Righteousness all those 1260 Years which cast those Months And if there be such a body as the Antichristian Church moving to the Christian Church as that does it must needs derive Months from its Days equal one to the other And it is most apparent that waving Scriptures round Number Unto the exactness of considerably less than a Years difference the Time of Forty two prophetical months adjusted by the strictest Accountant to the time of 1260 prophetical Days measured by the Moon 's motion from one new Conjunction with the Sun to another will be as 1222 Years to 1260 Years so that if the forty two months of the Beast begin at 475 the 1260 days beginning at 437 they will both end necessarily at 1697 which is the thing that ought to be shewn so great an Exactness so surely arguing the true Calculalation of this Line I hope all will agree cannot be bychance I request then I say a strictness of Account which to avoid both longsomness and perplexity in this Discourse I do not give but by so strict Account two mistakes will be escaped which may arise from a general apprehension of this Matter For it will then be found the Calculation is not to be made by accounting the Time of a Synodical Month to twenty nine days so many hours c.
manly Birth that had Right to Rule all Nations Now with this Dragon the Beast was to be united to receive his Throne Power and great Authority from him and in Him the Dragon must Live and be Worshipped Therefore He that is the Beast must be Roman and Sit at Rome from which the Christian Emperours by Divine Conduct receded that this Character of the Beast might be left free to the Beast alone And under Him it must be Antichristian until the very Glorious Kingdom of Christ and then is to be Burnt when the Beast is Taken and Cast into the Lake that it may answer the whole Ichnography or Description Rev. c. 17. c. 18. Now that we may throughly understand this Character and the certainty of it By the Woman that sits on the Beast must be Apprehended Rome as a City and a Church a False and Antichristian Church fix'd in and made inseparable from this City No other can answer the Prophecy so that the other Beast called the False Prophet cannot be conceived by it For whereas this City must be burnt as from Heaven the False Prophet was taken with the Beast and cast into the Lake That it must be the very City is plain by the whole Prophetical Type This had the Seven Kings united with the whole Empire that by their Residence in it did also carry it and bear it aloft This Sate on many Waters This Reigned over the Kings of the Earth This had its Merchants and its various Merchandises its Pomp and its Pleasures This is the Eternal Rome that after its being Thrown a burning Mountain into the Sea at above twelve hundred Years old was preserv'd and rescu'd and hath stood twelve hundred Years more so Great as it is at this Day and shall not be totally Destroy'd till the Appearance of Christ It s Epoch of Restitution is in Sacred Prophecy as Chronicular and Monumental as is its Building or Vrbs Condita But as it is a City so is it an Apostatiz'd Church fix'd to that City For on its Forhead is written Mystery the sense of which is Church in a City opposite to the Mystery of the Seven Churches but agreeable to the mystery of Iniquity It is the Great Whore and mother of Harlots with which the Kings and People of the Earth have committed Fornication And this we know is the constant description of an Idolatrous Church in the Old Testament as of Aholiab and Aholibah Ezek. 23. It is Babylon the Great in this Mystery and it is spiritually call'd Sodom the Impure City in its Spiritual Fornications as well as corporeal Nicolaitanism and Aegypt the enslaving cruel City holding the Israel of God in Bondage It is Spiritually that Apostate Jerusalem that is in Bondage with its Children where our Lord was Crucified It covers the true Church call'd for its sake Pergamus and the high-rais'd Throne of Satan so it is Thyatyra the Spiritual Jezebel Daughter of Eth. Baal King of the Sidonians Daughter of an Ethnick Idolatrous City whose Merchandises are the Instruments of Idolatry and Superstition sum'd up in the Bodies of men not only attending its State as the Scarlet Fine Linnen Gold Silver Ivory Precious Wood does but its blind dark Religion requiring servile stupid Brutes for men and Souls of men perishing for ever in its service against Light and Convictions of Truth and defending it with a violated distorted Reason abus'd Parts and Learning Revel 18. 13. And this Rome must be both the City and Church for here and in it the Primacy of St. Peter residing as Bishop laid the Foundation of its so long Greatness under the Name of the Apostolick See Constantinople was but an Eminence as small as the Fame of it Seven Hills but as little Risings compar'd with this Eternal Church of Eternal Rome The Ottoman Port has swallowed that Flames from Heaven rest upon this so that the Smoke of its Burning shall ascend for ever and ever as both City and Church For so Prophecy hath read its destiny and it cannot be revers'd Strong is the Lord that Judgeth it This City then is to be a Pyramid Pile of Smoke and Flame ascending for ever and ever an eternal City of burning as the City Sodome a Lake of Brimstone settling in its very Room Place and Scituation a Jerico so curs'd as to be no more built and an Apostate Church suffering as spiritual Sodome the vengeance of eternal Fire He The Beast must carry universal monarchy as the Emperours 〈…〉 of Rome did over as it were the habitable World for so his Union with the Dragon imports and yet that this may not be mistaken it must be in an Image a real martial natural Cesareate is not in the prophetical Portraicture of Antichrist but in the Image of a Pontificate or a Vicarship to Christ on Earth even as the Caesars carried a Pontificate enchas'd into their Imperialism or Cesareate so the Beast bears a Cesareate or imperial Power enchas'd into his Pontificate The other Beast therefore ministring to the Worship of the first Beast viz. the Roman Empire as to be under the seventh head but not yet erected into publick Dignity and Supremacy found no way to do it but by saying to the Antichristian Earth and its Inhabitants that they should make an Revel 13. v. 14 15. c. Image to the first Beast that was wounded with a sword and did live was wounded in the sixth head liv'd in the seventh but was not yet in Dignity to be worshipped to this entire Beast as in the seventh head was to be made an Image of Idolatry and an Image of Imperiality an universal Power under the Image of an in ordine ad spiritualia resident in a pontifical supremacy and infallibility And when this Image had by the continuing service of that other Beast Life given to it to speak and to cause That all that would not worship this Image c. 14. v. 9. c. 15. v. 2. c. 16. v. 2. c. 19. v. 20. c. 20. v. 4 should be kill'd and that all should receive a mark c. Here arose the universal monarchy in an Image and from this time the Prophecy joyns continually the Beast and his Image together The Beast must answer that prophetick motto or Inscription Caract 5. upon him thrice given and pointing at three several Seasons 1. The Beast that Was Is not he is the eighth and is of the Ch. 17. 11. seven and goeth into Perdition this is determin'd to the point of time proper to his Succession and then he must answer it 2. The Beast that was is not shall ascend out of the bottomless v. 8. Pit c. This is determined to the times in which the Beast first bore the Woman For the Beast that thou sawest viz. with the Woman sitting upon him was c. Then therefore he must answer that Inscription 3. The Beast that was is not yet is This is determined to v. 8. the time when
with the false Prophet and cast into the Lake with him He is consumed with the Spirit of Christs Mouth and disappears vanishes as a counterfeit at the sight of the true Christ himself being a false Christ an Antichrist comprehending and embracing false Prophetism within his Tyranny of changing Laws and Times and doing after his own Will Now whether such a Tyranny in the Image of Pseudo Prophetism hath been in the World gradually rising according to Prophecy since the decease of the Christian Emperour and supporting the forty two months for above these last twelve hundred years and especially from 606 and 725 that hath been no Fantom Ghost or Mormo but Flesh and Bones hard substantial Tyranny Let all the Christian World judge And thus I have settled every way the forty two months as Bestianism lyes under them without any new Distinction of Time under which nothing so remarkably transcendent to the former account of the other Beast and the Witnesses appears as will come into consideration in the Progress of things to which therefore I adjoyn the farther Treaty of them and close this part of Discourse with these few short Remarks Let the Prophetick Symbols be laid either to Ecclesiastick or Remark 1 General History and we shall find History hath nothing relating to things Prophecy hath been suppos'd to have design'd its Symbols to and for but that both in the Frame and Structure of the whole Prophecy in its Series and Notes of Time there is a most exact and wonderful Co-ordination of one to and with the other I mean in Cardinal Points To ascribe them then to Chance or Fancy what does it speak but an Obstinacy semblable to that of the Atheist against all proof of a Divine Being or to the Pharisaick Despightful accounting to the Prince of Devils what was too evident to be denied and too great to be devolv'd upon natural Causes If the Mystery of Iniquity began in the very Time of the Remark 2 Apostles if the Apostacy began at 437 and that then the Gentiles had invaded the outward Court of the Christian Profession as within their forty two months so to do if the Beast was at 475 in his forty two months under the Guardianship of the other Beast with the two Horns of East and West however pretending to the Lamb What Dependance can there be upon Antiquity not supported by Divine Authority of Scripture or firm solid Reason How much better are close Researches into this Divine Prophecy to determine those Controversies than Search into Antiquity only As certainly as the Gentiles Power of entring the Holy Remark 3 Ground and treading it down with unhallowed Feet as certainly as the Beast came into his forty two Months at the due time so certainly shall the Kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ succeed at the end of these forty two Months for it is not only so according to the Word of the Watchers and Demand of the Holy ones but according to the solemn Oath of Christ with hands lifted up to Heaven That after Time Times Half a Time Time shall be no more but of the seventh Trumpet finishing All and the Beast going into Perdition There is no Injury done to Persons of Royal Dignity or Remark 4 of any other Character of Dominion by deriving upon them what Divine Prophecy hath affix'd to them their Persons their Places may receive all due Honour and Christian Subjection notwithstanding Prayers may be made for them as any way deputed by God their personal Vertues and worthy Actions may be had in due esteem even as the Princes of the Heathen by Daniel Ezra Nehemiah or of the Caesars by the Apostles SECT IX In which the Time from the Forty two Months beginning is set out till 622 or the Mahometan Hegira by Rome 's dark State in the Fourth Trumpet by the Angel proclaiming the three Woe Trumpets by the Beast becoming a fallen Star at 606 and the Key of the Abyss given him viz. in the Universal Pastorship by Phocas and the Ministry of the other Beast to him herein and the state of the Witnesses are also declar'd Revel c. 8. v. 12. c. c. 9. v. 1. c. I Have in the former Section settled that so considerable Period of the Beast's Forty two Months and settled them upon their own Base the Beast in his most essential and fundamental Delineation but this Part rested upon the Point of Time that was even with his Succession His Rising out of the Sea that Sea into which Rome was thrown into which those Fountains ran where into the Imperial Star Wormwood fell and imbitter'd them This gave opportunity to the Beasts Succession to his rising out of that very Sea as hath been argued for when Augustulus thus fell the Name and Head into which the Beast succeeded was in the midst of the Tumults of the Winds striving upon the Great Sea the Winds rais'd by the three first Trumpets left supreme so He succeeded The Judgment of God upon the apostatiz'd Christian Empire made way for him to rise to a supreme Apostate God took away that apostatiz'd indeed Imperial King but no Head and gave the Apostacy a proper both Head and King in his Wrath. But he was at this time and long after a Beast that Was and yet Is not There being therefore no other Name of Potency and Augustness Rome the Absolute Rome for Constantinople was but a mutuatitious Rome it borrowed in Emulation the Name Rome only because I say there was no other Name but that of the Bestian Succession in the time when he was under the Inscription Is not Rome was very dark All other Names not only of Supremacy but even of Subordinacy by degrees were ecclips'd yea the Ecclipse was total ' ere the Light returned no Emperour no Senate no Kings under the Denomination of Rome no Consuls And Rome it self became a Provincial City under the Exarchat of Ravenna as low a State as the Mistress of the World could be depress'd into more inglorious than an utter Extinction Thus it was from 475 beginning to about 550 under Justinian the Emperour Herein all History is at Peace at one with it self and so things continued some time And how elegantly does Prophecy represent this under the symbolical Account of the fourth Trumpet The fourth Angel sounded and the third part of the Sun of the Moon and of the Stars were smitten and the Day shined not for a third part thereof and the Night likewise The Bestian Name being as yet in a Peerage and out of that very Peerage to come in an Image into its lustre and the Image not yet made could not inlighten this great Orb for its Name however the only Name of Supremacy was not yet known in its Bestian Supremacy but was yet as of another Order and Claim But now at the end of the fourth and in the beginning of the fifth Trumpet it began to dawn and so Prophecy will by its Dawn
they are all indifferently and promiscuously by this Prophecy used in all Cases as we may see If then the Number of the Name co-eval with the Number of the Beast was at 725 all the rest must be also at that Time Seeing then it is evident All must begin together If by Evidence from History one was at 725 or as between 725 and 726 we may conclude All the rest were so too But that one was viz. the Worship of the Image we have that so illustrious Icono-Clastick History at that Time Now besides the force of the Allusion between Worship of Images and the worshipping the Beasts Image if we examine it well we shall find both united For as in the worship of Nebuchadnezzar's Image to which pattern the Prophecy undoubtedly refers It seems the Worship of an Image made to his Glory even of that Image he saw in a Dream of which he was the Head of Gold or however most certainly his universal Power and Monarchy commanding all Nations was celebrated by the Worship of the Image he had made and therefore the Edict runs in that Imperial Style Unto you it is commanded O People Nations Tongues and Languages But besides this The worshipping this Image is call'd both by Nebuchadnezzar himself and by the Servants of the true Dan. 3. 14. 18. God The serving of his Gods Even thus The worshipping the Image made to the Beast was both a Worship of the Beast as part of that old Image made up of Idolatry and Tyranny a Worship of his Universal Power commanding Nations Tongues and People and also justly call'd a Worship of his Gods represented by Images As worshipping his Image in the last Time of the fourth Beast or Monarchy gives so significant an Allusion to the Worship of Images set up at that time by his exorbitant Power in whom the whole Image and Bestianism shall perish Of all this Leo Conon Isaurus and after him his Son Constantine Copronymus and the Successors of them from 725 or 726 the Beasts 666 until the second Council of Nice are a notable Indication for although we read not of any precedent Decree by the Beast commanding the Worship of Images yet the general usage of so doing made Image-worship as an Idolatrous Colossus to which every one in obedience to this Bestian Monarch paid Devotion And when the Emperour denied thus to worship it was an Offence as high as against that express Lyon-mouth'd Command of that King of Babylon Vnto You c. And in that these Emperours were out of Rome's Diocese and Jurisdiction it was a style like that Vnto you it is commanded O Tongues People and Languages And the Disobedience a Denial to worship the Image of Vniversality made to the Beast in a Monarchy so universal as to be above Emperours And if things were thus with so great Personages as Emperours how must they prevail in general upon Nations Tongues and Languages of an inferiour Character and what must the Rage be against them Whenever the Number was compleat the War so often Arg. 2 foretold that the Beast should make with the Witnesses with the Seed with the Saints must needs be also for then was the Obligation to worship and to receive a mark the Name or the number of the Name carrying the Nature But the 144000 sealed who had not defiled themselves with Women of a Virgin-worship and obedience to the Lamb distinct from the Beast and his Woman of Fornications he carries The Seed who keep the Commandments of God and hold the Testimony of Jesus The Saints and Holy Worshippers in the Temple must certainly remonstrate to this Idolatrous Tyranny and abominate it They are those who neither worship'd the Beast nor his Image nor receiv'd his Mark Name nor Number as is after the mention of this Number often recorded to their Honour Upon this the Beast risen out of the bottomless Pit who was to make War with all these and into whose hand they were given would in his Rage and his Fury make the War that was given to him to make with them And by wonderful Providence without which a Hairfalls not to the ground The Name of the high Feud in this matter is in all Historical Records call'd a War From 725 or 726 or the Beasts 666 Icono-Machia or Bellum Iconoclasticum The War of destroying Images Loade's History And though Leo the Emperour may seem to be the Aggressor and to have begun the War yet because the Cause on his side was just it is in Prophetical Censure the Beast that made the War and Leo Canon is herein a Representative of all the Witnesses Speedily after the War must follow the dying of the Witnesses Arg. 4 for whenever the War began it was given to the Beast to overcome and to kill and this was as was said solemnly declar'd by the second Council of Nice as also by the Excommunication of the Emperour and violating his Rights in Italy from him as in Capital Letters Greek and Latin as it were like the Jews Superscription on Christ All that worship not the Beast nor Received c. are damned Hereticks And this according to the known Blast of Excommunication was both a religious a civil and also a natural Death as often as the Tyranny of the Beast could make it so This Interdict Proscription and Outlawry upon men joyn'd with the Anathema or Curse of Excommunication like casting into the fiery Furnace was the very dying of the Witnesses the dispiriting and invalidating their Testimony so that it was esteem'd not only dangerous as to worldly Concerns but a deadly Sin to hold with them They were cursed even as he was that was hanged on a Tree All detested and abhorr'd them as damned Hereticks hated of God and Men. And when the Beast had this Victory They then cried out Who is like the Beast Who is able to make War with him They then in token of Triumph sent Gifts one to another rejoyced and made merry because of these Prophets who tormented them that dwell on the Antichristian Earth But tho' they died As their Lord did they could not as he be buried His Death was to be so assur'd by Burial but these Witnesses being a successive Body were to continue dying and prophecying as Christ did at his Death viz. in their continual Successions Part of this first day the whole two following days or twice 360 Years joyn'd therefore as two Times till within 1517 the last half day or 180 Years then the first motion to a Resurrection began and could not begin sooner So that when that Resurrection began we may know assuredly Intimate Time was expir'd The last 180 Years on which it was to make an Impression was come and that therefore the twice 360 days were past or the two Times and that some part of the first 360 days or first Time had also past since Intimate Time began so as to come from thence forward to 1517 and so to 1697 which is the
Peculiarity of Expression The Lamb slain from the Foundation of the World Rev. 13. 8. and the corrupting and annulling that Supreme Point of Christian Religion and the Service founded on it and regulated by it according to its own Purity Simplicity and Transcendency free from idolatrous Defilements is a Cardinal Point of Antichristianism and a most proper Sense of taking away the daily Sacrifice of which I am often to make mention and desire that from hence it may be carried all along with the Notion of the daily Sacrifice though mentioned but this once even this Sacrifice of Daily or Eternal Vertue The sealing Prophecy and Vision is not only the Ratification and confirming all Prophecy by finishing of it as Christ Joh. 19. 30. declar'd It is finish'd so far as was requisite to that coming of Christ into his Mediatory and Redemptory Kingdom but signifies also the sealing of Prophecy at that present Time so as thta the second Coming of Christ into his glorious Kingdom Rev. 6. 1. c. Rev. 7. 1. c. Rev. 10. 4. c. should not at that Time be but run through that course of sealing first during the Time of the seven Seals then during the Time of 144000 sealed then during the seven Thunders sealed under which Sealing we yet must remain these next following Ten Years Then all Things shall be finish'd spoken of in that yet sealed Prophecy for the Glorious Kingdom of Rev. 16. 17. ch 21. 6. Christ till those two words of Finiture are pronounced It is done It is done Yet notwithstanding This The most Holy is Anointed in his Resurrection made Lord and Christ the true Messiah Acts 2. 36. Act. 13. 3â— even by Him who said Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee The Covenant of Grace in his Blood and the Sacrifice of himself He Confirms for one Week viz. the First half week by himself For so it begun to be spoken by the Lord and then it was confirmed by them that heard him Heb. 2. 1. c. To which the Body of the Jewish Nation being so heinously Enemies first in cutting off Messiah then in resisting all the Ministry of his Apostles and persecuting them to the Death The Flood of Desolations returned upon them by that very Roman Power People and Wing of Idolatrous Abomination and Desolation that they invocated for the Death of Messiah and so they remain and shall remain desolated till the End of that Indignation during the Times of the Gentiles till that City spiritual Sodom and Egypt in which our Lord was Crucified shall be burnt with Everlasting Burnings and the Captivity never be returned till the Captivity of the Old Jerusalem the bloody and filthy City be returned which shall never be for the New Jerusalem shall come down from Heaven and constitute a Holy City below Ezek. 16. 54. This Richest Line of Time laden with the Redemption of Remark our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ invites us to it self with admiring and adoring Thoughts and commands the World to Kiss the Son with a Kiss of Homage and Obedience Great Occasions derive agreeable Names Daniel is therefore suitable to the Vision call'd a Man of desires or belov'd expressing the infinite Love from which Redemption flows and which it begets in us back to God and Christ with vehement Passions of Desire And he is not only call'd so in this Vision but ever after it to shew the Honour put upon him by it Dan. 10. 11. 19. And as this Vision stands in this Prophetick Line of Time it ensures it to us For as at the fulness of Time treasur'd up in it Christ came against all contrary Appearances against all the Indisposition of the World to receive him and the Indesert of so Divine a Condescention He came according to the sure word of this Prophecy Determining him as to the very self same day in comparison of which the Transfiguration before the Apostles as Eye-witnesses was less sure according to this he came and did not tarry and though his Transfiguration remonstrated his Right yet it was in private His Decease as a Cloud receiv'd it and though vindicated by his Resurrection yet the sitting down on the Right Hand of the Majesty on High was on the Throne of his Father He shall sit on his own Throne The Father will shew him whom the Heavens yet contain and Hide the Transfiguration was an earnest of it and does assure it yet we have a more sure Word of Prophecy unto which if we take heed and pursue its Conduct as a Light in the dark and obscure the fuliginous and dusky State of the Apostacy it will bring us to that bright Morning Star as the Wise Men were by a lesser Star led to this Morning Star even to him who Matt. 2. as the King of his whole Church is to be acknowledged with those Presents of Gold Myrrh and Frankincense Whatever most speaks Royalty Dignity on his part Love and Obedience on ours and he will return it a Thousand Fold by shewing himself and exalting us to the Mountain of Spices Cantic 8. ult SECT VI. Brief Remarques on Daniels last and largest Vision are made from part to part c. 10. c. 11. c. 12. THis last and longest of Daniels Visions I shall most briefly pass over Because the chief Things in it that concern the Kingdom of Christ have either been already given and are here recollected with some Explanations or the Line of Time to Christ is just Travers'd especially to introduce the End or else when it comes beyond the Weeks the Death and Resurrection of Christ Things are gone over again in the Evidence and clearness of a New Testament Prophecy yet sundry things of greatest Use and Remarque to the fuller understanding of what went before and is to follow will arise to us This last and longest Vision measures more particularly and distinctly the whole space of the 2300 days abating the two or three first years of Cyrus and so brings down Time to the End so as that from the sealing of Prophecy at the End of the first half and the last of the seventy Weeks Lines of Time are given the First implicitely along the Time of the sealed Book to be open'd in its seven Seals in the Apocalyps Or in express Numbers viz. the 1335 which just at the end of the seventh Seal begin in the Trumpets and continue until all Finished or IT IS DONE IT IS DONE and so arise to One thousand three hundred thirty five years This Vision according to the Pleasure of the infinitely wise Spirit of Prophecy varies from the precedent in this That it is rather Enigmatical in vail'd and covert Expressions then Iconical or by way of Imagery The first Vision was perfectly Dan. 2. an Image whose Anatomical Distributions by the Head the Arms and Breast the Belly and Thighs the Legs Feet and Toes distributed Time The second Iconiz'd by four Beasts had
a Line of Time in the Cypher of Time Times half a c. 7. Time applyed to a little Horn of the fourth Beast The third pourtrays Three Beasts and makes a little Horn of the Third of them a Type to the little Horn of the fourth Beast of the c. 8. former Vision and the Veil of a Type being thrown over There is a Line of 2302 Days drawn out by the Action of the Type * Antiochus Epiphanes bearing some Resemblance both in Action and Duration of Time naturally and not prophetically understood to that Anti typical little Horn It is drawn I say to the Kingdom of Christ rising on that little Horns Ruine at the End of the 2300 Ev. Mor. The State of the four Monarchies in the fourth of which the Kingdom of Christ breaks the whole Image is much the same in the main in this Vision as in the former The Antichristian King is guilty of the same Blasphemy against the God of Gods or the Lord of Lords and King of Kings as in the former Visions against the Prince of Princes and the most high and lastly the same Date of Time Times half a Time is applied to him yet notwithstanding there are some peculiar Things which this Vision carries all along upon the whole Line of the 2300 Ev. Morn by way of farther Explication as also of the excellent Vision of the seventy weeks and of the Word going forth before it which Vision of the seventy weeks most resembles this Vision in this that it is rather a prophetical History than Imagery The prefatory Description of Christ hath several Magnificencies of Presence like those Revel 1. and also Dan. 7. wherein the Divine Nature of Christ appears in his Mediatorship But in this they differ from the Majesty of Christ as on his Throne wherein Ezekiel's Visions exceed and for the sake of which He is so often honour'd with the Title Son of Man so peculiar to Christ's Kingdom and wherein Daniel came nearest in the Vision of the Sanctuary cleans'd and the Corrival to Christ's Princedome broken without hand at the end of the 2300 Ev Morn All which shall be then fulfill'd in the State of the Jews restor'd of the New Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Christ Rev. 20. 4. and therefore there he is peculiarly call'd Son of Man as before noted To shew it measures the same Time as that of the Ev. Mor. Daniel is much in the same manner affected It begins in its very Date near the Beginning of the Persian Monarchy it runs most evidently to the same End And having now made these general Remarks upon it I come to observe what is most particular in it in the way of a short Elenchus or Table of it 1. It is peculiar to this Vision that tho Christ calls to mind in it His supreme Assistance to His at the first Year of Darius who to distinguish him is call'd Darius the Mede and of the Seed of the Medes at the very Entrance of Cyrus's Persian Monarchy yet his third Year is the critical and precise Date of it for then that wonderful and unexpected stop upon so Royal a Decree by the divine Permission was made Ezr. c. 3. compar'd with c. 4. shewing the leisurely Progresses of the divine Kingdom and as is most probably conceiv'd Cyrus in his third Year making foreign Expeditions Cambyses or Artaxerxes his Son was left Viceroy upon whom the Enemies of the Jews gain'd so far that though they could not plainly command a Cessation yet by Sleights and Artifices They eluded the Decree and frustrated the Work all the days of Cyrus But Cyrus being dead in the days of the proper Reign of Artaxerxes or Cambyses the Son of Cyrus the Adversaries of the Jews writ to him and obtain'd his Edict against the Progress of the Building And in the Reign of Ahasuerus in the beginning of his Reign wrote they also an Accusation and still prevail'd Now by Ahasuerus I understand the Counterfeit Smerdis Ezr. 4. v. 5 6 7. whose Reign being very short it is said In the beginning of his Reign And by Artaxerxes I understand Cambyses who reign'd indeed before Ahasuerus yet the Sacred History intending a fuller Account of the whole matter gives first the general Account that all the days of Cyrus the Work was frustrated then takes in Ahasuerus first because his Reign was short and then gives the true Series of Things in Artaxerxes who was first in the days of Cyrus possess'd against the Jews and suffer'd an artificial Impedition of them When he came to Reign he laid a Prohibition on their Building When Ahasuerus began to Reign after the Death of Artaxerxes the Jews upon that change attempted to revive their Work but on Letters to Ahasuerus by their Enemies were still prohibited At the Reign of Darius being twice discouraged they lay still till arous'd by Haggai and Zechariah the Prophets and confirm'd by Darius in a new Enterprise they begin the Work again That which justifies this as the True Order is That the History expresly tells us upon the Letter to Artaxerxes The work ceas'd and that it ceas'd till the second Year of Darius the Persian all the Days of Artaxerxes Cambyses all the short Reign of Ahasuerus or the Counterfeit Smerdis Under Artaxerxes then it began to cease and till then the Cessation continued And thus often Sacred Story postpones that on which it intends to place the full and largest Accounts and therein directs the true Order yet As here Artaxerxes is postpond to Ahasuerus although before him And of this Delay of the Building the Space otherwise unknown is made known in this Vision by the one and twenty days Resistance Christ found from the Angel-Prince of Persia against whom Michael the Angel-Prince of the Jews stood with Christ Now these twenty one days viz. days for years for what could twenty one days Resistance signifie to such a stop of the Building if naturally taken Daniel observ'd a symbolical Fast three weeks of days a day for a year as Ezekiel observ'd on each side so that it is true The weeks of days do distinguish those weeks of days from the seventy weeks of years and yet they are a Type of twenty one days for years also so that here we have an Explanation of so much Time as the stop of the Building amounted to as so many years of the Persian Time as was before explain'd of the Word going forth and it justifies that Account so far towards 75 where it is possibly most needed 2. Here we have also the Intimation of the whole History of Esther as pertaining to the Decree of the Jews Destruction and Deliverance compris'd in the short Note of Christ's speedy dispatch of this Vision to Daniel and returning to sight for the Jews with the same Angel prince of Persia who Zec. 3. 1. as Sathan stood at their right-hand to resist them and this Reason to believe That Ahasuerus was Xerxes