duo certissima there are two things most certain of which this is one Have not the Jews already received a very great Number of false Messiah's Did they not follow their famous Barchocheva in the reign of Adrian by whose orders more than a million of Jews that revolted from all parts under the conduct of this false Messiah were Massacred Why must he of whom Iesus Christ speaks be Antichrist Antichrist is not to have his seat at Jerusalem IV. But Antichrist must have his seat at Ierusalem Therfore he must be accounted by the Iews for the Messiah Another Chimaera If the Messiah must have his seat at Ierusalem why do they make him to come forth from among the ten Horns i. e. from among the ten Kings that must divide the Roman Empire at this day viz. Germany For that only at this day doth subsist under the name of the Roman Empire What connection what coherence can a Iew sitting in Ierusalem have with the ten Horns and the ten Kingdoms of Germany Why did they acknowledg a little before that Antichrist must be the last King that shall possess the Roman Empire What is there in common between the Roman Empire and the Empire of a Iew that must reign at Ierusalem Is it perhaps because Antichrist shall reign in Germany By the same reason the Persian Empire must have been the same with the Assyrian because the Persians did extend their dominion in all places where the Assyrians once did reign This dream is founded on what St. Paul saith that Antichrist must sit in the Temple of God and on what the H. Ghost saith that the two Witnesses whom Antichrist should slay should lie dead on the place of the great City where J. Christ was crucified now he was crucified at Ierusalem As to the first we say that the Temple of God can by no means signify the Temple at Ierusalem which was no longer the Temple of God since God caused this voice to be heard there Let us depart hence since God hath entirely abollisht the Mosaical service since the Law was abrogated and the Gospel Establisht The Temple of God is the very Christian Church wherin the throne of Antichristianism is raised up And as for that city in the Revelation where Jesus Christ was crucified 't is the Roman Empire in which the Saviour of the World was crucified 't is also the Empire of Antichrist who hath crucified Jesus Christ in crucifying his subjects Jerusalem is never called the great City without the addition of the Holy City V. Antichrist must hate Idols and not be an Idolater Why then is Babylon called the mother of whoredoms Who doth not know Antichrist is not to be an hater of Idols Dan. 11.38 that in a spiritual sense Whoredom signifies Idolatry Why do they confess that we must understand that place in Daniel concerning him that he shall worship Mahuzims These Mahuzims whatever they be are they not Idols He must not deny the coming of Christ in the flesh VI. He must deny the coming of Christ in the flesh St. John doth not say so He saith indeed that he that denies that Iesus Christ is come into the World and who doth not acknowledg an incarnate God is Antichrist in the sense wherin the same Apostle saith there are many Antichrists and in that sense wherin they that overthrow the foundations of the Christian Religion are Antichrists He is not to abolish the Mass VII He shall abolish the sacrifice of the Mass and shall make men renounce their Baptism This is not said in any place It is true 't is said of Antiochus that he shall cause the daily sacrifice to cease which he also did It is true also that in so doing he was a Type of Antichrist who hath caused the true sacrifices to cease which are prayers to God to substitute in their place the worship of Mahuzims and Demi-Gods How Antichrist is to overthrow three Kings VIII He is to overcome three Kings viz. those of Lybia Ethiopia and Egypt It is true also that this is expresly spoken concerning Antiochus and that it agrees to Antichrist as to the person of whom Antiochus was the Type And it is very certain this hath been accomplisht in the Roman Antichristian Empire in what sense soever we understand it For the Court of Rome hath destroyed three Kingdoms in Italy that of the Lombards that of the Goths and before these that of the Greeks These are the three Kingdoms which the Pope hath ruin'd to usurp his Temporalities He hath overthrown the King of Naples him of Sicily and him of Germany to make them his vassals He hath overcome the third part of those Kingdomes that have submitted to him because he hath usurped more than a third part of their Riches their Lands and their Iurisdiction How Antichrist causeth fire to come down from Heaven XII He is to cause fire to come down from Heaven It is enough to make fire come down from heaven to hurl Anathema's and lightnings on the heads of men to damn them if it were possible for him to do it and effectually to kill them For these are the lightnings tho painted ones that have set the Christian World on fire He is not to conquer by arms XIII He must conquer all the World by arms How can this be true seeing the H. Spirit saith expresly that the ten Kings which you your selves confess are co-temporary with Antichrist his friends and subjects shall freely give their power to him There will be no need therfore to conquer them by arms Moreover the Pope hath not been wanting to make use of carnal weapons to strengthen and encrease his Soveraignty Enoch and Elias must not return nor be killed XIV Enoch and Elias must come again in the time of Antichrist he must kill them and they must rise again These are ridiculous visions Jewish fables or tales made in imitation of them who always expect their Elias as well as their Messiah As for us we keep close to what the Lord J. Christ hath told us that Elias hath already come and that that Elias was Iohn Baptist who had the power and Spirit of Elias As for Enoch and his return it is a vision that hath not the least foundation in History or in Prophecy 'T is true Enoch was translated into Heaven but there is not one word whence we can hope for his return These are fables upon fables That Enoch and that Elias those two witnesses that must appear again in the time of Antichrist are hidden as they say in a retired place in the Earthly Paradise that subsists to this very day and which is invisible to all men Antichrist is not to style himself the only God. XV. Antichrist is to style himself God and the only God. How absurd is this How doth this agree with what you say that Antichrist must be received by the Iews as their Messiah that he is
Let them inform us a little where are and who are the ten Kings that shall reign the same time with Rome Pagan who in Saint Iohns time had not begun to reign and who yet were to begin their reign at the same time with the Roman Emperours Is it not plain that these are ten Kings that must receive their birth from the ruin of the Roman Pagan Empire and compose an Antichristian Roman Empire under the rule of the prostitute and adulterous Woman i. e. the revolted Church and Spouse of Jesus Christ Sixthly v. 13. How can these words agree to Rome Pagan these i. e. these ten Kings have one mind and shall give their power and strength to the beast Did those Kings whose Kingdoms were conquer'd by the Roman Pagan Empire voluntarily give their power to the Beast Did not Rome Pagan by meer violence ravish away those great Estates of which she formed her Empire Can it be said that the Kings that were conquer'd and subdued had one mind Did they reign together with Rome Pagan were they not destroyed and their Kingdoms reduced into Roman Provinces This therefore can in no wise agree to the Pagan Period of Rome but doth very well to the Antichristian and Papal one For it is true that the ten Kings compose this Ecclesiastical Empire and submit themselves unto it It is true that they have one mind and that they have given their power unto the Beast For it was not by Force of Arms that Rome hath acquired this second Empire but by perswasion by illusion by the false religion by the communion of idolatry and by the Chimaera of an Empire of Jesus Christ on the Earth This is the only thing to be met with which the popish Interpreters have to oppose to prove that Antichrist must not sit at Rome and that Rome in this Chap. is Rome Pagan say they the ten Kings shall hate the Whore How the ten Kings shall destroy Antichristian Rome after they have built it C. 17. v. 8 16. De Rom. Pontif. l 3. cap. 13. sect 2. and make her desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire 'T is the Argument of Bellarmin which all the rest have adopted St. Iohn saith he predicts that the ten Kings that shall divide the Roman Empire and under the reign of whom Antichrist shall come shall hate the whore clothed in purple i. e. Rome and shall make her desolate and burn her with fire How then shall she be the Seat of Antichrist if in that very time she must be overthrown and burnt A mighty riddle hard to be solved We need but read on Saint Iohn immediately adds v. 17. For God shall put it into their hearts to fulfill his Will and to agree and give their Kingdom to the beast untill the Word of God shall be fulfilled Who doth not see that these are two distinct times In one of them the ten Kings shall give their power to the Beast by the cheat of a false piety and in the other being better instructed and recover'd foolish fondness they shall spoil that Empire which they shall have formed by their complaisance Men must be hardly prest upon that have recourse to such vain evasions as these The foolish self-contradiction of the Papists But observe their foolish self-contradiction Here Bellarmin and his adherents say that the ten Kings which shall divide the Roman Empire shall come in Antichrists time and that these are the same that shall make the Whore desolate i. e. that shall destroy the City of Rome viz. Rome that is here spoken of and which Bellarmin himself defines by the Whore clothed in purple that is to say Rome Now how will the ten Kings that must not come till the end of the World according to them be able to make desolate and burn Rome Pagan which hath no longer been in being for above 1300. years The ten Kings associated with Antichrist only three years and a half before the end of the World will be able to make desolate no other Rome than what will then be in being Now Pagan Rome will be no more it will be Rome Christian whose Empire he supposes must subsist to the end of the World and to the reign of Antichrist Men must have lost their understanding and be given up to a reprobate sense so to contradict both themselves and the Truth with so much dishonesty Lastly it is clear by the following Chapter which is the 18th that the great City which reigneth over the kings of the earth cannot be Rome Pagan but Rome Antichristian In the 18th Chap. he calls her Babylon whom just before he called the great city and even the popish Interpreters agree also that that Babylon is Rome Now he describes the fall of that Babylon i. e. of Rome in such a manner as cannot agree to any other but Rome Antichristian First He saith v. 3. that all Nations have drank of the wine of the wrath of her fornication We have already seen that this signifies that Idolatry to which Babylon hath drawn the Nations by her Charms and Enchantments which doth not agree to Rome Pagan Secondly v. 4. He saith come out of Babylon my people that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues 'T is plain this cannot be understood of any thing but of an Idolatrous Church whence God would draw forth his Elect. God never commanded his faithful Servants to go out of Rome Pagan they always remained in it Thirdly and lastly the manner in which the ruin of this Babylon is described can by no means agree to Rome Pagan The Holy Spirit represents it as a City burnt and entirely reduced to ashes the Merchants whereof and they that gained by her behold her desolation and her burning afar off And to conclude he signifies that it must be such a fall from which she shall never rise again And a mighty Angel took up a stone like a great Mill-stone and cast it into the sea saying Thus with violence shall that great City Babylon be thrown down c. 18. v. 21. and shall be found no more at all Now this is not yet happened to Rome she hath been taken and retaken and pillaged several times but yet she subsists still so that this can't be understood but of the last ruin that must happen to Rome Antichristian And thus you have the proofs that shew that that Rome which all the popish Interpreters as well as we do find in the 17th and 18th Chap. of the Revelation cannot be Rome Pagan proofs which I call a demonstration for I maintain there is no man that can resist the force of them The confession of the modern Papists that Rome must be the seat of Antichrist Ribera Viega Cornelius à Lapide And the modern popish Interpreters have felt the force of them At this day they do confess that it is not Rome Pagan But
encrease of the papal Tyranny 'T is known this papal Tyranny had its degrees since Leo the first that sate in that See in the year 450 to Gregory the Great the Bishops of Rome endeavoured to arrogate to themselves a superiority over the Universal Church but yet however without desiring to be called Oecumenical Bishops After Gregory the first to Gregory the seventh the Popes called themselves Vniversal Bishops but without styling themselves Soveraigns and Masters of Kings and Kingdoms This Gregory was the first that endeavoured to depose Emperors and Kings This is Antichrist perfected Those also that did not know him when he was yet in his first periods did know him when he arrived to this We have many testimonies of the German Bishops of that time who profess that this Gregory the seventh and his successors were Antichrist CHAP. VI. The circumstances of the fall of Antichrist re-establisht in their order An explication of the fifteenth Chapter Principles for the right understanding the sixteenth Chapter Divers interpretations given of it and their visible faults AFter having seen the time in which the fall and last ruin of the Antichristian Empire must happen 't is time to see the circumstances of that fall and I am very well satisfied that therein we shall find what will confirm that which we have affirmed touching the approaching end of Antichristianism I pretend to improve my conjecture to a kind of demonstration by the full agreement there is between my hypotheses and the Prophecies The circumstances of the fall of the Antichristian Empire are to be found in the 11 14 15 16 17 18 and 19th Chapters 'T is certainly that part of the Revelation that hath been least understood I mean as to what respects the circumstances of the ruin of the Antichristian Empire For as for the Characters of that Empire which are also contain'd in those Chapters they have been well enough apprehended But as to the fall of that Empire the time and progress of that fall God would not let men hitherto be so happy in their conjectures I hope that in what I shall now say something shall be met with that shall much more bear upon it the Characters of truth Divers circumstances of the fall of Antichrist which the H. Spirit hath not pleased to put into one vision The H. Spirit 's so often repeating the prophecy of the fall of Babylon and the ruin of its Empire is not only to give us a perfect certainty of the event 't is principally to mark out unto us that fall by divers circumstances But it hath not pleased God to give us all these circumstances in one vision that so the Prophecy might not be too plain For it is not at all the intention of God to inform us clearly of things to come with respect to their circumstances But only as to the substance of the thing The fall of the Antichristian Empire is the substance that which is necessary to support the hopes of the Church Hence it is that there is no obsecurity in the prophecy with respect to this no more then there was in the Prophecies concerning the Messiah with respect to the substance of it and the certainty of his coming but there was much as to the circumstances of that coming Therefore God hath misplaced the circumstances in the visions that they might be obscure because God was willing that the circumstances of the fall of the Kingdom of Antichrist should be obscure he hath for this reason divided them into several visions And for the same reason that is that he might put a venerable veyle upon that which he was not willing that we should know before the time He hath not placed the circumstances exactly according to the order of their coming to pass The vision which marches fore-most contains things which ought not to come to pass till afterward and the visions which follow contain things which ought to come to pass before Therefore that we may place these adorable obscurities in such a Light as is necessary to pierce into them we must bring things into their natural order and explain the visions according to the order of those events which they fore-tell In doing this we will begin with the 16th Chapter of the Revelation which contains the admirable vision of the seven viols which are the seven periods through which the Antichristian Empire ought to pass to come to its fall God does ordinarily prepare for greater visions by lesser The fifteenth Chapter is nothing but a preparation for the vision of the sixteenth Where are the seven last plagues as the twelve first verses of the 14th are nothing but a preparation unto the vision of the harvest and vintage which is very evident from the beginning of the 15th Chapter which is And I saw another sign in Heaven great and marvellous seven Angels having the seven last plagues As a preparation unto the vision of these seven last plagues God does make the Prophet see a sea of glass or of chrystal mingled with fire that is a sea where ice and fire are mingled and them that had gotten the victory over the beast and over his Image that is them that had escaped his corruption and idolatry stand upon the sea of glass or of ice and they sung the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb Great and marvellous are thy works It is clear A lively Image of those who escape the corruption of Popery its persecutions that the Prophet does make an allusion unto the passage through the red Sea and unto the Children of Israel who being got upon the shore of that Sea sung the song which Moses composed for them The Sea of glass mingled with fire answers to the red sea they who had gotten the victory over the Beast answer to the Israelites who had overcome the Egyptians Egypt out of which the Israelites marcht answers to this Antichristian Empire out of which the Elect do escape Therefore as the red sea and its waves were the danger out of which the Israelites coming out of Egypt were deliver'd so this sea of glass mingled with fire represents the evils which the Faithful who leave Babylon do escape These evils are called a sea on the account of their greatness and bitterness my breach is great like the sea said Jeremy they are called a sea of glass or a sea of ice because of their hardness 'T is more easy to escape out of a sea of water because the liquidity of waters does make it possible to swim through them but if a sea was glass or ice it would be impossible to get out of it There is also fire mingled with glass to represent the burning and extream dolours of those evils Fire and Ice are two extreams in evil yet they are joyn'd in the description of the calamities of the Church though they seem inconsistent if it be a sea of ice there cannot be fire there and if
it speech or words are formed in the mouth by the wind the breath of the lungs thus it is the breath or spirit of the body besides this it discovers the sentiments and thoughts and thus it is the breath or spirit of the soul After all this I do not think that any can in the least doubt but that these three spirits that come out of the mouth of the false Prophet are the false Oracles and Laws of this false Prophet These things are like those riddles which when they are unriddled we wonder that they were not sooner guessed for there was never any thing more easy to be understood The third expression which God made use of to enlighten my mind is that of Armageddon which Saint John saith is a Hebrew word the learned know The Syriak in the age of St. John was called Hebrew that the Hebrew language in the time of St. John was Syriack and Chaldee This is the language that our Saviour spake 't is that which is called the Hebrew tongue Acts 22.2 where 't is said that the people of Jerusalem kept silence while St. Paul spake to them in the Hebrew tongue He would not we are sure speak to them in Bible-Hebrew for they understood it not at that time 'T is this language which in the Gospels is often called Hebrew and yet the expressions set down are found to be Chaldee Armageddon signifies a cutting off by a Curse or Anathema or Syriack as Golgotha Talitha kumi Gabbatha c. Now the word Armageddon without any straining signifies in the Chaldee or Syriack Cutting off by a Curse or Excommunication Gedad signifies to cut off to cut asunder Giddou ilana cut down the tree said the Angel in the vision related in the third Chap. of Daniel so Geddon signifies cutting off The word Herem in the Hebrew and Harma in the Chaldee is a word which we find in our Bibles at every step under the phrases of cursing abstaining from the cursed thing This is accursed which the 70 have every where translated anathema this is the term which the Apostle Paul uses when he would excommunicate all those who love not the Lord Jesus Let him be Anathema Maranatha let him perish in Armageddon and 't is the same word that the Jews used in the time of Saint John and which they still used to signify their great Excommunication Thus if you joyn these two words Harma and Geddon you have exactly without any alteration A cutting off by a Curse by Excommunication or an Anathema Now what can be meant by the spirits which come out of the mouth of the false Prophet and which are gathered or placed in Armageddon i. e. under the shelter and under the defence of a cutting off by a Curse or an Anathema but the orders laws and false Oracles of the Popedom and the Antichristian head 'T is known that there is a Curse and a Armageddon at the end of the every Canon 'T is known that the Canon Law saith Decret Gratiani causa 2. quest 1. Canon gen We declare to be anathema and accursed for ever before God and a prevaricator against the Catholick Faith every King Bishop or other Magistrate who shall violate and suffer to be violated in any kind the Censures of the Popes of Rome Behold the scale of all the papal Laws Lastly 't is known that through one of the sorest judgements of God that ever was felt the subjects of the Popedom suffer'd themselves to be seized with such a fear of these Armageddons or Excommunications with a Curse that this very thing was a rampart and an inviolable asylum to protect all the attempts and all the crimes of the Clergy The whole strength of the Ecclesiasticks consisted in Armageddon but this supply never fail'd them whatever they did whatever they undertook men endured every thing out of fear of the Anathema and the Curse To avoid these imaginary thunderbolts Subjects revolted and broke their Oath of Allegiance Kings abandoned their Crowns as John King of England did who that he might obtain of Innocent III. the taking off of an Excommunication or Interdict laid upon England surrendred himself and all his Subjects to be the Popes slaves All publick service of God was made to cease in a great Kingdom Churches were shut up the sick died without Sacraments the dead remained unburied Excommunicated persons through a ridiculous sillyness of the people became odious to all that were not It matter'd not whether the Excommunications were unjust or no 't was enough that they were denounced By means of this the Clergy defended their plunders and robberies as Father Paul hath excellently remarkt in his Treatise of Benefices The people saith he were so afraid of Censures that nothing did terrify them more 'T was even amazing to see that Captains and Souldiers who plunder'd any man without the least concern at the sin committed against God as desperate and profligate wretched as they were yet with great respect spared whatever belonged to the Church only from the dread which they had of its Censures And on this ground many ordinary people gave their goods to the Church that so they might shelter themselves from the rapine of the Souldier Thus the Laws and Ordinances and goods and crimes and enterprises of the Church were all under shelter and in a place of safety in Armageddon I do not think that there can arise any doubt in any ones mind concerning what we have now said But to give the fuller confirmation to these truths let us go over all the expressions used in this Prophecy From whence these three unclean spirits do come And I saw three unclean spirits like froggs come out of the mouth of the Dragon and out of the mouth of the Beast and out of the mouth of the false Prophet The Dragon is the Devil the Beast is the Empire of the Popedom and the false Prophet is the Pope these are the three springs of false Oracles The Devil is he who inspires them all those decrees and those Canons which overthrow the true Religion of Jesus Christ can come from none but him They likewise come out of the mouth of the Beast for 't is the Church of Rome that makes them hence they are called the Canons of the Church the Laws of the Church and its decisions And lastly they come from the false Prophet for the Pope is the mouth of the Church he is in fallible when he speaks ex Cathedra all his decisions are seased with the word Armageddon and of the grand Excommunication Why three unclean spirits These spirits or Oracles are three in number not of the number seven for this number is sacred and proper to signify the sacred perfection of the Divine Oracles which thing the Holy Ghost intimates not only by seven spirits but also by seven thunders Nevertheless seeing the Oracles of the false Prophet of Antichrist are perfect in their kind i. e.
appearance will be the last And as Peter de Lune after he had been deposed by the Council of Constance went and held his Seat in the mountains of Arragon where he continued a Schism ten or twelve years so 't is probable that the Popes being driven out of the rest of Europe will shelter themselves among the Spaniards from whose hearts it will be a hard matter to pull popery away Lastly it must be observed that 't is true the harvest does spoil the Earth of a part of her fruits but it doth not of all it remains to be a fair and pleasant season the Autumn which follows hath its beauties its profits and advantages it is a second Spring the medows are crown'd with an after-growth the trees put forth new flowers But the vintage makes all waste A lively Emblem in harvest and vintage of what hath happen'd and shall happen in the ruin of popery it spoils the Earth of the very remainders of its fruits and beauty and immediately Winter comes that puts on the Earth the very complexion of death and destruction This is an Emblem of what fell out in the first destruction of popery and of what shall in the second The Reformation cut down several fair Countries in the last age but notwithstanding many were left to it nay it had great success massacred an infinite number of the faithful procured to it self the confirmation of a famous Council engaged those Kings who were its vassals to double their endeavours for the preservation of its Worship and Doctrines It hath gain'd ground in the East in China in the Indies in the West in America by the conquests of the Spaniard and Portuguese It hath sent Missions even to the end of the World hath made an infinite number of false Christians it hath regain'd on one side as much as it had lost on the other and hath made its worship and Idolatry to reign as much as ever For Spain and Italy were never more deeply plunged in Idolatry then since the Reformation It hath strengthned its tyranny for the Popes since the Council of Trent have domineer'd and acted as Soveraigns over Kings and as Superiors over Councils In the reforming of the Calender Gregory XIII did an act of an Vniversal Monarch which the Popes had never done in the ages of their greatest insolence They have deposed Kings of England and in France Henry III. and Henry IV. They have laid an Interdict upon the Common-wealth of Venice and the Kingdom of Portugal In a word Popery hath had great prosperities that have comforted it under its disgraces But as for the blow or stroke which God is ready presently to give it it will be a dispatching blow it will be a vintage that shall spoil it of all its fruits and utterly take away all its beauty the Winter shall come upon it and its desolation shall be irrecoverable This is the substance of the vision let us view the circumstances And I looked and behold a white cloud and upon the cloud one sate like unto the Son of man having on his head a golden crown and in his hand a sharp sickle J. Christ himself often appears in the visions of the Revelation This personage like unto a man is probably the Son of God found in fashion as a man on the account of his Incarnation the golden crown which he wears on his head does prove that 't is he though he executes his judgements by his Angels notwithstanding he often himself appears on the scene of the World in the book of the Revelation He is probably the Heroe in the sixth Chapter who appeared sitting on a white horse Chap. 6.2 and had a bow and a crown was given him and he went forth conquering and to conquer He is the same who appears again in the 19 Chapter sitting a second time upon a white horse and was called faithful and true and in righteousness doth he judge and make war. He always sits upon something that is white sometimes upon a white horse sometimes upon a white cloud White is the symbol of innocence and mercy A white cloud is a throne of mercy a red cloud is that of justice But mark it must be some grand work for which Jesus Christ himself comes for the Holy Ghost does not bring him upon the stage for some mean matter Now since the Apostles age no work had been done so great as that of the last age He had a sharp sickle in his hand He comes upon a white cloud intending favour to his children but with a sickle for his enemies 'T was a great mercy to his own when he took them out of Bahylon the last age But 't was a terrible stroke of a sickle to Antichrist And another Angel came out of the Temple crying with a loud voyce to him that sate on the cloud Thrust in thy sickle and reap for the time is come for thee to reap for the harvest of the Earth is ripe He who sits upon the cloud gives out orders to the Angels and receives none from them but he recieves from his Father and the Angels may be charged to carry these orders to the Son. Thus the Angel who here gives orders to Jesus Christ speaks not in his own name but in the name of him that sent him The time to reap is come Their iniquity is come to its height Their measure is full Another Angel came out of Heaven he also having a sharp sickle This is the destroying Angel who went through Egypt the executioner of the judgements of God this Angel comes onely as a second for he who sits upon the white cloud disappears not he is the Master and 't is under his direction that this second Angel gives the last blow to popery Another Angel came out from the Altar which had power over fire and cryed with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle c. Here mention is made of an Angel who hath power over fire and in the 16. Chapter we find the Angel of the waters Shall we conclude that every Element hath its Angel who presides over it and the events which fall out by its means so that one Angel presides over the Sea and shipwracks another over fire and burnings This seems very probable to me for the providence of God makes the winds his Angels and a flame of fire his Ministers The Angel of the fire comes out from the altar which popery had prophaned by its prophane sacrifices and false worship And 't is the Angel of the fire who is here employ'd to signify that now the fire shall consume the Antichristian Kingdom without any hopes of recovery 'T is not necessary that the Kingdom of Antichrist should be destroyed with great shedding of blood The wine-press was trodden without the City and blood came out of the wine-press even unto the horses bridles by the space of a thousand six hundred furlongs 'T is a great question
the Revelation sets forth the Dragon as broken loose giving his power to the Beast and devouring the whole world Once again this is a blindness which I cannot conceive If there was no other argument against these two Hypotheses this alone would be enough to convince me of their falsity namely the terrible confusion into which these Authors do put the Visions of the Revelation To any one who hath studyed them it is evident that the Prophet hath observed the Order of History at least in the gross of events He had several visions concerning the same thing and in the order of these vision the order of all their circumstances does not alwayes in every thing agree with the order of events and this we have observed and cleared But I say it again the gross is alwayes according to the order of history this order is observed in the Revelation that the birth and progresses of Antichrists Kingdom are laid down before its fall Now the Authors we have spoken do make St Iohn guilty of a Parachronisme of two thousand years After he had finisht the narrative of the ruin of Antichrist and gone through a Period of 1260 years which if we add to them the space from the Incarnation of Christ unto the revelation of the son of perdition make almost two thousand years After this I say they make him on a sudden to go back as far as the beginning of the Christian Church Is there any other instance of such confusion in this book Let them shew it What mean those words After this so the French version which begin the 20 Chapter and denote always not only the succession of visions but of times This work is already large than I intended to make it but notwithstanding I cannot forbear to lay down a few of our arguments there are so many that one might crush the contrary opinion with number but I shall only urge the principal ones I shall open as it were four springs of arguments Four springs of arguments that demonstrate the trath of Christs reign upon earth which I shall leave every man liberty to sound and dive into contenting my self with producing them and drawing from them the principal evidences which clearly discover this future reign of our Lord Iesus Christ The firs spring is the fifth Monarchy promised to the Saints My first spring or source of arguments will be in the Prophecies that speak of a fifth Monarchy reserved for the Saints 'T is impossible to find a rational sense in them without supposing this thousand years reign There are two remarkable ones in the book of Daniel In the 2. Chapter Nebuchadnesar sees a statue whose head was of gold the shoulders of silver the belly of brass the leggs of iron the feet and toes partly of iron and partly of earth The Prophet interprets to him these four metals of the statue that they are four great Monarchies The iron leggs by consent of all signifie the fourth Monarchy which is the Roman The feet and the ten toes partly of iron and partly of earth signifie the ten kings or Kingdoms which were to divide the Roman Empire and weaken it at the same time And wheras thou sawest the feet and the toes Dan. 2. v. 41 42. part of potters clay and part of iron the kingdom shall be divided but there shall be in it of the strength of iron forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixt with miery clay And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken These ten toes are the ten Kings which were to make up the Kingdom of Antichrist and reign together with him in the last Period of the Roman Empire during the 1260 years marked in the Revelation Now hat happens at the end of the reign of these ten Kings and of the fourth Monarchy v. 44. And in the dayes of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a Kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the Kingdom shall not be left to other people but it shall break in pieces and consume all these Kingdoms and it shall stand for ever Behold a fifth Monarchy different from the ten Kings The Monarchy promised to Christ cannot be placed in the Ages by past which must break them in pieces and must continue after them for ever i.e. untill the end of the world 'T is granted that this Kingdom that shall never be destroyed is that of Iesus Christ But is it not as clear as the day that this Kingdom must not appear untill after that the ten Kings and the ten Kingdoms shall have been broken ' in pieces by this fifth Monarchy I confess I have nothing to say to them who are incapable of beholding this evidence and I do not conceive how it can be said that we must go back beyond the ten Kings that we may place the Monarchy of Iesus Christ before them when the Prophet so plainly placeth it after the ten Kings Is it not expresly said that his fifth Monarchy must break in pieces and destroy these ten Kingdoms How therefore can it go before them or have its duration parallel to theirs In the seventh Chapter of the same Prophecy we have the same four Monarchies under the Images of four Beasts 'T is confessed that the fourth Beast that had ten horns is the Roman Empire all our writers grant that these ten horns that signifie ten Kings are the ten Kingdoms into which the Roman Empire was divided after the time of Valentinian the third and that those ten horns reign together with the little horn which is Antichrist When the Prophet had seen both the fourth Beast and the three first wholly destroyed and their bodies burnt with fire he adds And I saw in the might-visions Chap. 7. v. 13. and behold one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven and came unto the Ancient of dayes and they brought him near before him and there was given him dominion and a glory and a Kingdom that all people nations and languages should serve him his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed And to the same purpose in the explication of the vision v. 24.25 And the tend horns out of this Kingdom are then Kings that shall arise and another shall arise after them and he shall be diverse from the first c. And he shall speak great words against the most high and shall wear out the saints of the most high and think to change times and lawes and they shall be given into his hand untill a time and times and the dividing of times c. All are agreed that Antichrist is here intended and all Protestants grant that this is the Papacy and that its reign is to last 1260 years Now what is to happen after this time and times and a dividing or half
I waited till farther Time which is the only true Touch-stone would distinguish foolish visions from real Prophecies I found something surprizing and extraordinary in the Prophecies of Cotterus Christina and Drabitius which are publisht by Comenius Cotterus who is the first of the Three is Great and magnifick the images of his visions have so much majesty and grandeur that those of the ancient Prophets have hardly more They are also admirably laid together every thing supports it self and one part doth not contradict another I cannot conceive how a simple Artisan could have imagined such great things without Divine assistance The two years of the Prophecy of Christina are in my judgement a train of as great Miracles as have ever been since the Apostles days and even the Life of the Greatest Prophets hath nothing in it more miraculous than what happened to that maid Drabitius hath also his Heights and Excellencies but for the most part he is obscure These three Prophets concur to fore-tell the Ruin of the Antichristian Empire as a thing that shall shortly come to pass but withal they have so many things that offend that no man can satisfy himself to rely upon what they say Therefore I resolved to look into the Fountain it self of the Holy Oracles to see if the Holy Ghost would not teach me something more certain and more exact concerning the approaching ruin of the Antichristian Empire than what other Interpreters have discovered from thence I will freely acknowledge that when I first lookt into the Divine Oracles my opinion was in favour of what I searcht for being altogether inclined to believe that we were near the end of the Kingdom and Empire of Antichrist I was also fully perswaded of this truth that the Papacy is the Antichristian Empire and that the principal Character of that Antichristianism is the superstition which for more than twelve hundred years hath disfigured the Church and made her desolate Many things without reckoning the modern Prophecies made me Hope that we were near the end of that Period of 1260 years at the close whereof Babylon must fall the Heathen be converted and the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ be fully settled First I reflected on the long duration of that Idolatry which hath been establisht in the Christian Religion I saw that it began about the end of the fourth Century that is thirteen hundred years ago it seem'd to me that no instance could be given where God suffered so great a Corruption for so long a time without giving some remedy and relief I considered farther that in the last age God gave a terrible blow to the Antichristian Empire and the Pagan Religion The Kingdoms of England Swede Denmark the Protestant States of Germany the Vnited Provinces the Switzers and a great part of France broke from the Papacy all at once appeared to me so considerable a matter that I could nor perswade my self but that God had made mention of it in the Revelations And yet I found no such thing among the Expositors of that Book or I found that they had lookt for it in those Places where I saw plainly that it was not Hereupon I suspected that that part of the Apocalypse which describes the degrees and Circumstances of the end of the Antichristian Empire was not well understood and consequently that it was much nearer than was commonly thought Considering the Reformation of the last Age as one half of the ruin of the Kingdom of Antichrist I supposed that the other half could not be far off there being already near 200 years from the one to the other When God makes great Empires fall and not all at once the distance is not commonly so great between the first part of the Fall and the second After this I considered the present posture of the World and it seem'd to me as if all things were prepared for some great Revolution 'T is as easy with God to work in one moment and without preceding dispositions as to take time and prepare the matter Nevertheless we see that by secret methods which men perceive not he opens the way to his greatest works For Example the Fall of Paganism by the preaching of the Gospel and the conversion of the Heathen World was a great Revolution God prepared all things for this great Event many ages before it came to pass by admirable means of which no man then knew the tendency and design 1. He reduced the World to two Languages which were almost universal the Greek and Latine that the knowledge of the Gospel might the more easily be communicated Difference of Languages being a great hinderance of such a communication 'T is true the Apostles had the gift of Tongues and could speak all Languages but we are not to imagine that all the Preachers of the Gospel had the same priviledge 2. The world was almost wholly united under one Empire viz. the Roman which was another means to facilitate the Conversion of the Nations For if the Earth had been divided into many little Principalities under several Soyeraigns as the West is at this day it had been as it were impossible but that divers of them if not the most part would have denied entrance to the Apostles who were the new Preachers Little Lords who have not much to do concern themselves more particularly about every part of their Territories than great Emperors who having the Government of the whole World to mind are forc't to remit the care of less important matters to their Deputies and Lieutenants 3. The dispersion of the Jews by their frequent Captivities was also a means which God made use of to prepare the way for the Conversion of the Gentiles they gave them the knowledge of the true God. 4. Another thing which contributed very much to this design of God was the Translation of the Bible into the Greek Tongue whereby the sacred Oracles became common among the Heathens And about the time of our Saviour's appearance in the World there were multitudes of those Proselites which are called Proselites of the Gate Such as were not really Iews but they ceas't to be Pagans They renounc't their Idolatry they were present every Sabbath day at the reading of Moses and the Prophets they had a distinct place in the Synagogues 'T is of them we so often read in the Book of the Acts under the name of devout and such as feared God among the Gentiles Cornelius was of that number It could not be difficult for them to abandon Paganism for they had already left it and they could not be hindred from becoming Christians by Judaism for they had never imbrac't it So that they became Christians without change or violence The greatest part of the converted Gentiles were such as these 5. And by the same good Providence of God Philosophy began to flourish among the Pagans a little before the coming of Christ which was of great use to refine the minds of men and
makes this renewed Paganism of Popery to be in less credit and esteem than formerly Men begin to disgust the popish superstitions They speak of the Invocation of Saints with contempt and boldly condemn the excess of it and call it Idolatry when they speak of it in private They wish Images were banisht from their Churches that it might not be a scandal and an offence to us They begin to confess that there was no necessity for the taking away the Cup. They acknowledge that a man may be saved without Indulgencies by the sole merit of I. Christ They would restore the reading of the Holy Scriptures to the People They suppress the Authority of the Pope and speak of it with scorn They despise his Thunders and if he begin to murmur they talk as loud or louder than he They indeavour to establish this Doctrine that under pretence of Religion or for the preservation of it 't is not permitted to subjects to take up arms They mollify and sweeten all the Doctrines of Popery I have taken notice of this in another place and again observe it this cannot hold long this state and posture of the Papacy is violent Since it is freely confest that the adoration of one God is sufficient without that of Saints and Images they must shortly conclude that for things unnecessary they ought not to scandalize one half of the Christian World and shut the Gate against the Iews and the Mahometans Never were there so many in the Church of Rome as now who acknowledge the vanity impurity of their Superstitions Every man hath the liberty of his own thoughts but I profess that to me these are great presages of the approach of the last work of God for the establishment of his Kingdom and the ruin of that of Antichrist My spirit was in this frame when this last and great Persecution in France began I therein took notice of several Characters that confirmed me in the belief that we were in the last times of the Period of 1260 years and that this is the last Persecution spoken of in the 11th Chap. Revel Singular Characters in the present persecution which presage that it shall be this last And when they shall have finiht their Testimony the Beast who ascendeth out of the bottomless Pit shall make war against them and shall overcome them and kill them And their dead Bodies shall lye in the street of the great City three days and a half For there are so many things singular and irregular in this Persecution that without prophaness and a denial of Divine Providence we cannot but acknowledge the hand of God therein 'T is singular and more than usual whether we consider the Authors of this Persecution and the manner of it or whether we consider the Subjects that suffer it and in what manner they suffer As to the Persecutors themselves There is First a Prince who hath the chiefest obligation to us for the Crown he wears which entred into his Family by the person of his Grand Father a Prince to whom we have always paid obedience and submission without the least shadow of Rebellion a Prince for whom we preserved the Crown in his minority and who hath not scrupled to testify that we did so a Prince who is wise and understanding as to his own Interests and those of the States of Europe who yet in despite of his own Interest hath done all that which the House of Austria would have dictated to him to do if she had imployed her Emissaries in his Council who destroys his own Subjects who makes innumerable Male-contents who throws eternal seeds of rebellion and war in his own Dominions who disobliges his Protestant Allies and alienates them in such a manner almost as never to be reconciled The Protestant States and Princes have been always the principal Allies of France Swede Denmark England the Low-Countries the Switzers and the Protestant Princes of Germany These are they that have supported it when the House of Austria threatned the liberty of all Europe And these are they who assisted France to humble the House of Austria so low as now it is and consequently that have advanced France to that point of Grandeur she is now at But Time will shew how great a wound France hath now made in the heart of all her ancient Allies We see already that this Persecution makes the discord and dissention cease that was between the Protestants and brings them nearer an union and reconciliation than before God will let us see something farther of that kind However it must be confest that there is something therein which is not to be understood by man that so wise a Court should violate all the rules of good policy which is the Soul of States and the spring of all their motions If we look upon the Clergy that seems to have been the Sollicitor of this Persecution it will appear no less extraordinary 'T is not an Ignorant and superstitious Clergy as was that of the last Century These are understanding and knowing persons Men of learning and prudence freed from the ridiculous affectation and prejudice of a Monastic Spirit who have little zeal for the Romish Ceremonies who flight their worship at least for the most part of it who have much knowledge of the Truth and at the bottom but very little Religion In a word they are such as know very well that we are not in the wrong or at least that altogether and in every thing we are not Nevertheless they persecute us more cruelly than the most furious Monks or inraged Inquisitors have ever done They act therefore against their own light which is so far very strange and surprizing But what is more astonishing they act against the most sacred Principles of their Religion There is nothing among them more venerable than the Sacraments and nothing esteemed more criminal than the violation of them To administer the Sacrament of Pennance to give absolution to a Sinner to an Heretick who is not penitent who saith and declares openly without hiding or concealing it that he perseveres from his very heart in his sin and Heresy and never renounc't it but by constraint and violence to give I say absolution to such a man according to the definition of their loosest Casuists 'T is Sacriledge to give the Sacrament of the Altar to a man that professeth he believes nothing of it and acknowledgeth nothing there but meer Bread 't is a Sacrilegious Communion Should it not affect the Hearts and even the Imaginations of those persecuting Bishops and Priests to think of the innumerable Sacriledges that by this means are every day committed They absolve a multitude of wretched People who protest that by meer force and violence they were constrained to sign the abjuration of their Religion and to get out of the hands of a thousand Executioners who devour'd and destroyed 'em and gave them no rest day or night The Priests and Bishops who
the other Churches of Asia and if any will have it so all those that were at that time in the world And he chose among these seven the names of the principal ones intending that the other lesser Churches should reckon that as spoken concerning their present estate which is spoken to the seven principal ones among them 2dly Who knows whether there were at that time more than seven considerable Churches in Asia The other were so very much below these for Dignity Grandure Excellency that the H. Spirit judged it not proper to make any account of them the Advertisements that he gives to these seven Churches being sufficient for the Disorders which might be in all the others which Disorders were apparently the same For 't is usuall enough for little flocks to follow the examples of the greater ones Lastly it doth not appear that the holy Spirit in what follows hath divided the duration of the Church since J. Christ's time to the end of the world or to the coming of Jesus Christ's Kingdom into seven Periods For the seven seals the seven Trumpets the seven Vialls do not each of them take up all time They succeed one another The seventh seal brings forth seven Trumpets the sixth Trumpet is subdivided into seven Vialls It had been very methodical in a Revelation after having obscurely mark'd out the seven Periods of the Church by the seven Epistles to describe the same times by seven other Characters more observable more distinct This is indeed what some modern writers do believe that God hath done pretending that the seven seals the seven Trumpets are co-temporary divide the duration of the Christian Church into seven Periods as the seven Epistles to the seven Churches do But this opinion will not appear probable to those that study the Prophecies the events with any application of mind I look on that as nothing that is said to support the mystery of the seven Churches viz. that we do not see that such things happened in the seven Churches of Asia which are there named as have any resemblance with what the H. Spirit saith to them How should we see it seeing we have not the particular History of those Churches in that time Besides tho we do not know the particulars of those events yet there is nothing in the seven Epistles which doth not very well agree with the Estate of the Church that then was without any necessity to seek out events mystically meant in future ages The applications that are made of the seven Epistles to the seven Periods are not happy The principal thing that hinders me from closing with the opinion of the Prophetical sense of the Epistles is that I do not find that the applications which are made of them to the Ages that have past since the Apostles do answer expectation 'T is true there are some places where the applications are not unhappy But seeing this is not to be met with every where I believe that they have hit luckily by chance Otherwise the Prophecy should every where agree with the events To the end one may better judge of the force of this last reason I shall set down two or three of the mystical interpretations that are given to these Epistles This will please those who cannot or will not go to seek them in their Springs I begin with that of Patrick Forbes a Scotch Divine The explication of the mystery of the seven Churches by Forbes that lived died in the beginning of this age According to him the Church of Ephesus signifies the Primitive Church of the three first Ages The Praises which the H. Spirit gives it I know thy works thy labour how thou canst not bear them which are evil c. These praises I say may well agree to the Church of the three first Ages But those which God gives to the Church of Thyatira afterwards are greater Yet 't is certain that the fourth Period of the Church did not come near the Church of the three first Ages in fervency purity The Nicolaitans that are spoken of in this Epistle to the Church of Ephesus may signifie all the Hereticks all the kinds being meant by one But seeing the Church of all Ages hath had its Hereticks this character can't distinguish this Period from the others The second Epistle is to the Church of Smyrna Forbes would have this to be the Period in which the Arrians Macedonians Nestorians Eutychians reigned That is to say that this Period will comprehend the fourth the fifth Age. But how can these words be applied to those Ages I know thy works thy Tribulation thy poverty but thou art rich I know the blasphemy of those that say they are Jews but are not but are the Synagogue of Satan See here are praises that are no whit inferiour to those that were given to the Church of Ephesus Yet 't is certain that the Church in these Ages was corrupted lost all the beauty it had in the three first Ages of the Church Its manners were corrupted its worship was marred by the invocation of Saints the worship of Reliques What will become of that Persecution of ten days that God predicts to this Church of Smyrna 'T is true the Church was persecuted under the Arrian Emperours but it doth not appear very well why this is described by number of ten days The third Epistle is directed to the Church of Pergamus according to Forbes this is the Period of the reign of Antichrist The foregoing Periods were but of two or three hundred years this must be above a thousand years Here is found something that is pretty like this Period I know where thou dwellest even where Satan's seat is To which may be added that the martyr Antipas spoken of in this Epistle signifies Anti-papa an Enemy opposing the Pope that this signifies all those that have opposed the tyranny of Antichrist But the rest doth by no means agree to this Period I know thy works that thou holdest fast my name hast not denied my faith These praises do by no neans belong to a Church so corrupt as was that of the third Period under the reign of Antichrist Thou hast them that hold the Doctrine of Balaam who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the Children of Israel to eat things sacrificed unto Idols to commit fornication By this must be meant those evil Christians that joined in with the Antichristian Idolatry Now these people are not well described by thou hast them for this imports that it was not the body of the Society And on the contrary under the Antichristian Empire the greatest part of men did partake of his abominations The fourth Epistle is directed to the Church of Thyatira to which the H. Spirit gives these great praises I know thy works Charity service Patience that thy last works are more than the
necessary to premise in the first place an Observation which I call the Key of the Revelation 'T is that this whole Book is nothing but a Paraphrase on what Daniel saith in the seventh Ch. of his revelations touching the fourth Beast Certainly this fourth Beast is the Roman Empire the fourth Monarchy And if some great strange events be found therin 't is always with respect to the Roman Empire that must endure to the coming of the Kingdom of J. Christ on the Earth VVhy God hath nor taken notice of other States in the Revelation The reason why God taking no notice of so many great events that happen without the bounds of the Roman Empire of the great Empires that are establisht the nations that are overturned the bloody Wars that are every where insists only on the fourth Monarchy or the Roman Empire is because god reveals not future events but with respect to the Church which he loveth which he conducts which he will instruct concerning his will. Now the Church was to be enclosed in or very near within the bounds of the Roman Empire I know that there were Christian-Churches in Persia it may be some in the Indies But all this was but a small matter Euphrates was the bounds of Christianity it spread it self but a little beyond it The Church therfore had no need to know that which should happen on the other side Euphrates nor to understand the foundation of the Empires of the Tartars the Kings of Persia the Mogulls the Chinois for all this had no respect to her Wherfore the Revelation saith not one word of them The Spirit of God also had no intention to instruct us in the adventures of the Empire of the Saracens that of the Turks but with reference to the fourth Monarchy Therfore we shall not see these two Empires that of the Saracens that of the Tarcks but only by the by in the fifth sixth Trumpets we shall not see them there but as the Scourges of God that fall on the fourth monarchy to vex to destroy it This observation is the Key of the Revelation For first it removes that difficulty which many make so great a stir about viz. that the Revelation as t is usually explained doth not at all touch on or if it doth 't is but by the by the greatest Revolutions of the World that happen'd in the East since 1200 years Yet once more it was not the work of him who would speak of nothing but the Church those Events that have in immediate reference to the Church Secondly This observation will teach us rightly to divide the times of the Revelation properly to apply the visions to each time to discover the events that are signified by those Visions We must know therefore that the fourth monarchy without comparison the greatest The division of the fourth Monarchy into two Periods most distinguished in the Prophecies is divided into two great periods The first is from the birth of Rome ab urbe conditâ which was the great Epocha of the Romans to the division of the Roman Empire into ten Kingdoms which was after the death of Valentinian the third about the year 455. For then the Empire was torn in pieces between the Greeks the Vandals the Goths the Burgundians c. it was I say divided into ten principal parts The second period of the fourth monarchy is since the division of the Empire among ten Kings the reunion of those ten Kings under one sole head that calls himself the universal Bishop to the end of this monarchy the coming of the fifth which is that of J. Christ on the Earth These two periods are very near of the same length viz. 1200 years or a little more The Lord J. Christ came into the world Anno V. C. 754. or 752. as Dionysius the lesser pretends The Empire was divided into ten Kingdomes about the year of J. Christ 455. i. e. in the year 1209 or 1207 of the city of Rome since that time under the Roman Gothish Kings the counting ab urbe conditâ was continued till the time of Dionysius the lesser a Roman Abbot a Scythian by nation who died in the year 540 according to Baronius who made his Paschal cycle in the year 527. T is about the year 530 that the Christian Aera began to be in use the counting by the years of J. Christ Then men left off counting ab urbe conditâ after they had used this Epocha about 1280 years However that be the period from the building of Rome to the division of the Roman Empire among ten Kings is more than 1200 years The second period of the fourth monarchy since its division among ten Kings to the end must be also above 1200 years The Prophecy makes it 1260 prophetical days i.e. 1260 years Now we must observe that in the time of St. Iohn i. e. in the time when he wrote the Revelation there was above two thirds of the first period of the fourth monarchy past gone For the wrote about the year 850 after the building of the city There remain'd therfore but a little more than 350 years of this first period But he had before him the whole entire second period of 1260 years Wherfore t is not very strange that he enlargeth himself much more on this later part than on the former So that we shall not find properly more than two chapters the sixth the eighth that respect this first period of the fourth monarchy and all the rest from the ninth ch inclusively to the 20th exclusively contains the events that belong to the period of the 1260 Years which is the second of the fourth Monarchy To render this truth more plain that the Prophecy of Daniel touching the fourth Monarchy is the Text on which the H. Spirit treats in the Revelation we must here view the Prophecy of Daniel apply it to divers parts of that of St. John. After this I saw in the night visions Dan. 7.7 behold a fourth beast dreadful terrible strong exceedingly it had great iron teeth It devoured brake in pieces stamped the residue with the feet of it it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it it had ten horns Daniel having asked the explication of this vision the Angel saith to him hereupon The fourth beast shall be the fourth Kingdom on the Earth v. 23. which shall be diverse from all Kingdoms shall devour the whole Earth tread it down break it in pieces This refers to the establishment of this Empire its conquests that were begun under the Consuls Dictators were finisht under the Emperours of which St. John. had seen a part some followed after him under whom also the Empire was always enlarged or at least preserved in its greatness even to the children of Theodosius It broke in
pieces the whole Earth stamped the residue with the feet of it For it mortifyed all its neighbours whom it did not Subdue The 6th Ch. of the Revel belongs to this first part of the Prophecy of Daniel The 8th Ch. of the Revelation addeth to the Prophecy of Daniel for it shews the degrees wherby the Roman Empire was brought to its division into ten Kingdoms 8. It had ten horns I considered the horns behold there came up among them another little horn before whom three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots behold in this horn were Eyes like the Eyes of a Man a mouth speaking great things 24. The Angel explaining this place saith The ten horns out of the Kingdom are ten Kings that shall arise another shall arise after them he shall be diverse from the first shall subdue three Kings 25. And he shall speak great words against the Most High shall wear out the saints of the Most High think to change Times laws they shall be given into his hand untill a time times the dividing of time See the division of the fourth Monarchy into ten others which was made after the year 450. We shall see afterwards which are these ten Kingdoms From the midst of these ten comes up a little horn a Monarch that appears as nothing a Priest that insensibly encreases his power over these ten Kings so far as to take away the third part of their Demains Jurisdiction Power This is what hath been exactly accomplisht in the Papacy which hath taken away from the Western Kings more than a third part of their Estate which is become Church Lands dependant on the Church more than a third of their jurisdiction by the Tribunals of Bishops Officials who drew almost all causes to them under the pretence that there was something mingled with them that respected the Church the Sacraments or the Conscience Lastly more than a third part of their Power by the Usurpations of the Popes who have made Kings their Vassals a hundred ways Besides this the Popes have particularly overthrown these three Kingdoms that of the Greeks in Italy that of the Lombards that of Germany which they have made dependant on the Roman Church This little horn speaks words of blasphemy against God exalts it self above all that is called God against the Kings of the Earth It destroys the saints of the most high That is to say it persecutes them even to blood It thinks to change the Times the Law it makes attempts against the divine laws it destroys Gods Commands dispenseth with them It commands the adoration of images Creatures which God forbids It permits crimes which God abominates against which he hath made severe laws This also is the true description of the Pope the Papacy To this horn is given a time times the dividing or the half of a time one year two years half a year three years half in all 360. prophetical days to a year that is to say 1260. years See the text on which the 11th 13th 17. Ch. of the Revel are a comment I beheld till the Thrones were cast down v. 9. the Ancient of days did sit whose garment was white as snow the hair of his head like the pure wool his throne was like the fiery flame his wheels as burning fire A fiery stream issued came forth from before him v. 10. thousand thousands ministred to him ten thousand times ten thousands stood before him the judgment was set the books were open'd I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake v. 11 I beheld even till the beast was slain his body destroyed given to the burning flame In the explication which the Angel gives Daniel we read But the judgment shall sit v. 26 they shall take away his dominion to consume to destroy it unto the end And the Kingdom do minion v. 27. the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole Heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the most high whose Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom all dominions shall serve obey him The judgment here spoken of is not the last judgment God appears sitting on a magnificent throne not to judg the whole world but to judg the Empire of the Beast the fourth Monarchy in its Antichristian Period to deal forth the various punishments that befall this Monarchy for 7 or 8 hundred years to bring it to its end This Fire these Flames these Wheels burning like fire on which the throne moves represent the greatness of those punishments And behold the Text of the 9th Ch. in which St. John presents to our view the Saracens the Turks that make desolate the Roman Antichristan Empire of the 14th 15th 16th 18th 19th where God in divers visions represents the different steps of the ruin of the Roman Antichristian Empire As for what is said here of the Kingdom given to the Saints 't is the matter Text of the end of the 11th Ch. of the 20 21 22. throughout So it will appear in following the path which we are entred into that the whole Revelation is a commentary on ten or twelve verses of the 7th Ch. of Daniel CHAP. IV. The systems of the seven seals the seven Trumpets that denote the great events bring the world to its end IN the 4th Ch. the H. Spirit open'd the scene the 5th is a preludium for the vision of the seven seals which is contained in the 6. Ch. The first book is sealed with seven seals that is to say 't is very obscure Indeed it is so to that degree that never will any thing be said on this first part of the Revelation that goes beyond conjecture probability Wheras as for the second I hold that one may attain to the true sense of it certainly know that one hath found it See what in my judgment may best be said on the seven seals How far the seven seals teach The seven seals certainly reach to the end of the world but not in that manner as the greatest part of our Interpreters have imagin'd in dividing the duration of the World from J. Christ to its end into seven Periods almost equal The six First seals do not go beyond 300. years But the seventh seal is subdivided into seven Trumpets doth produce them Now these seven Trumpets bring the events even to the last judgment the first not beginning till after the 6th seal So that these seven seals are as six branches that shoot forth from the body of a Tree with a seventh great branch which it self becomes a great arm shoots forth seven other branches As for this it cannot be doubted by any that read the beginning of the 7th Ch. with any attention
To find out the mystery of the seven seals the seven Trumpets we must here again bring in that observation which we a little before made in the foregoing Ch. viz. that the Revelation contains enigmatically the Epitomy of the history of the fourth Monarchy that is to say of the Roman Empire a Monarchy which according to Daniel's Prophecy must last till the coming of the Kingdom of J. Christ on the Earth i. e. to the end of the reign of Antichrist It is clear that the Holy Spirit was to insist only on this fourth Monarchy without considering the other states Empires of the world because 't is that only that Daniel spoke of after the three first Beasts whose reign was certainly past in St. John's time Moreover 't is under this fourth Monarchy in the extent of its dominions that the Christian Church hath receiv'd its seat its rule That Christianity that is found beyond the extent of the Roman Empire is almost nothing And therfore 't is that the Counsells which were assembled from the several parts of the Roman Empire are called Oecumenical as representing the Universal Church Now 't is certain that all the Prophecies have a Mediate or an immediate Relation to the Church So that they ought to insist only on those states in which the Church hath been nourisht brought up There is a third Reason why these Prophecies cannot be understood but of the Roman Empire viz. because the reign of Antichrist which is the greatest affair that happens in the Church which must happen there was to make a part a continuation of this Roman Empire For Antichristianism is the Roman Empire continued This principle which I was willing to repeat here because of its importance will serve to answer those that say to us How know you that the Prophecies of the Revelation do not refer to China or Tartary This objection doth not seem to me to be worthy of understanding persons This being supposed that the Revelation enigmatically contains the history of the Roman Empire continued The principal Catastrophes happening in the Roman Empire are istinctly noted in the Revelation it must also be necessarily supposed that principal great Changes that happened in this Empire are described in large Characters with some note of distinction in the Revelation Otherwise the H. Spirit would not act according to his profound wisdom if in making a history of an Empire he should omit to mark the great Catastrophes that are to happen therin or if he should hide them make them to pass without any character of distinction among the other less events We must therfore consider what are the principal events that have happen'd in the Roman Empire See here they are 1. The fall of Paganism when the Roman Emperours became Christians This is so great an affair that 't is impossible to suppose that the Holy Spirit should have taken no notice of it 2. The fall of the Temporal Roman Empire when 't was divided into ten Kingdoms 3. The erecting a new Roman Empire or rather the continuation of the same under the rule of Antichrist 4. The Birth of the Saracen Empire by the Arabians that come to afflict the Roman Empire in its Eastern branch i.e. the Empire of Constantinople 5. The power of the Turks that come to finish the destruction of the Greek branch of the Roman Empire to lay desolate the Latin Empire See the five great events that have changed the face of the word of the Empire Wherefore I am perswaded these must be found in the Revelation with Characters of distinction Let us suppose therefore that in all the places where there is a notable distinction there we must find one of these notable events The First distinction is found at the end of the sixth seal After the opening this seal there happens a great Earthquake the sun is eclypsed the moon becomes red as blood the stars fall Afterwards the vision of the seals is interrupted by a new vision that comes between in which an Angel marks the elect among the twelve Tribes twelve thousand of every Tribe After which the Holy Spirit returns to the seventh seal under which nothing is done besides the distribution of the seven Trumpets to seven Angells that must sound the successively 'T is clear this is an Epocha a point on which the H. Spirit would have our thoughts to dwell This first Character of distinction must to all appearance be affixed to the first distinct event that happens in the Roman Empire that is the fall of Paganism So that in the opening of the sixth seal we must find the fall of the Pagan Religion The Second very observable distinction is found at the fourth Trumpet There the third part of the sun is in like mannereclypsed the moon the stars suffer the like diminution in their light After which the process of the Trumpets is interrupted by a new Vision viz. that of an Angel that flies in the midst of heaven cries three time Wo to the inhabitants of the Earth because of the three last Trumpets which are yet to sound This is an evident distinction this second distinction must signify to us the second distinct event in the Roman Empire viz. its fall division among ten Kings which came to pass after Valentinian the 3d. in the middle of the fifth Age. The making a new Vision a new Angel crying Wo there times go before the sounding the 5th Trumpet is also a mark of distinction for that 5th Trumpet which signifies to us that 't is an event greatly distinguisht in the history of the Roman Empire And this third distinction can't be applied to any thing but the third notable event that befalls the Roman Empire viz. the Birth of the Saracen Empire by Mahomet his Successors that did so cruelly afflict the Roman Empire in the Empire of Constantinople which was the greatest the most noble part of these ten into which this Empire was divided The Empire of the Turks at the bottom is but a branch of the Arabian Saracen Empire Wherfore it doth not deserve so great a distinction as the other great events of which we have just now spoken And yet the H. Spirit is content to distinguish it by a very long description The fifth sixth Trumpet contain an entire Chapter whereas the four first Trumpets were finisht in 6. or 7. verses which signifies that this fifth and sixth Trumpet must be concerning great Affairs and Evils of a long duration As for that great Event which was to happen in the Roman Empire which wereckon'd for the third viz. the Erection of a new Roman Empire or the continuation of the same Empire under the new Name of the Pope and the Roman Church 't is so great an Affair that the Holy Spirit would not bring it into the first part of the Revelation He hath reserved it to make it the Subject
Therfore the three Last Trumpets are preceded by an Angel that cries Wo Wo Wo they are the three last blows of the Fall of the Roman Empire After this Cry follows the fifth Trumpet Ch. 9. And the fifth Angel sounded v. 1. I saw a star fall from Heaven to the Earth to him was given the Key of the Bottomless pit And he open'd the Bottomless-pit v. 2. there arose a Smoke out of the Pit as the smoke of a great Furnace the Sum the Air were Darkned by reason of the Smoke of the Pit. v. 3. And there came out of the smoke Locusts on the Earth And the sequel of the history the Characters of this Prophecy perswade me that by the Locusts we must understand the Arabians and Saracens for after the fall of the Imperial dignity in Italy the greatest event that happen'd with reference to the fourth Monarchy and Religion is the Empire of the Arabians The imperial dignity falls in the fifth Age. In the sixth Age the Arabians are raised up to weary and torment the Roman Empire divided into ten Kingdoms but above all for the punishment of the Empire of Constantinople the most remarkable part of the tâ—n We shall see that the words of the Prophecy agree very well with this discovery of those modern people The falling star in the fifth Trumpet is noâ— a grandee or a Prophet A star falls from heaven 'T is a presage of some great event By this star we must not understand a great Lord or a false Prophet as some have imagin'd For this star doth nothing appears no more in this fifth Trumpet 'T is very improperly that De Launay many others apply to this Star these words to him was given the Key of the Bottomless-pit as if a star could carry a Key use it and open a door The Prophecies are continued Metaphors and Allegories Now according to good Rhetorick Actions in Metaphors must be attributed to Subjects according to the nature of those subjects Here an Angel a star are spoken of 'T is the Angel that opens the Bottomless-pit and not the star 'T is the proper office of Angells in the Apocalyptical Visions to open and shut and bring in on the stage So in the 20th Ch. of the Revelation 't is an Angel that closes the Bottomless-pit on the Dragon This star therfore doth nothing else here but only presage a great insurrection against God that was to happen under the fifth Trumpet The bottomless-pit being open'd The Religion of Mahomet meant by the black smoak there comes out a Smoke black and thick like that of a Furnace and the Sun was darkned therby 'T is the unhappy Religion of Mahomet that fills the world with his thick darkness of Error there arose out of the smoke of the bottomless pit Locusts on the Earth And this unhappy and detestable doctrine formed an Empire and united the Arabians together under the detestable Mahomet By the Locusts the Saracens are meant One can't better represent the Arabians than by Locusts First because of their innumerable multitude So 't was the Author of the book of Judges called them many ages before St. John. And the Midianites the Amalekites all the Children of the East were in the valley as Locusts for number 2. 'T is from Arabia that these inundations of locusts come that often cover both Egypt and Ethiopia and the other neighbouring places round about 3. The prodigious swiftness of the Conquests of the Saracens is most admirably represented by Clouds of Locusts that fall on the fields in one night and almost in a moment 4. One can't better represent the hideous desolations which the Saracens made every where than by the hideous condition that the meadows and fields are in when the Locusts come on them It is commanded these Locusts â— 4. not to hurt the Grass of the Earth nor any green thing but only those men which have not the seal of God in their forheads This is to express that these Locusts are men that are sent against other men wheras true Locusts fasten on the green things And to them it was given not that they should kill men but torment them five months We must know always remember the foundation we have laid that the whole Revelation is a history of the Roman Empire that all the events refer to that Empire So that the sense is the Saracens by the permission of God should have a great power to torment harrass the Roman Empire divided into ten Kingdoms but not to destroy it Indeed the Saracens tormented both Greeks Latins most cruelly But both the Empire of Constantinople the other parts of the Roman Empire defended themselves against their assaults What the five mouths of the reign of the Locusts signify The duration of these Locusts is limited to five months these make 150 days But these days do not signify an 150 years a day for a year according to the prophetick style Joseph Mede that follows this hypothesis assigns 150 years to the time during which the Saracens particularly afflicted Italy from the year 830 to the year 980. But 't is not so We must observe that the reign of the Locusts is in the five months of the summer May June July August September that is their longest reign For oftentimes they last not so long because sometimes in the midst of summer a great wind carries them away or a long rain makes them burst So that the Prophet means that the Sarazens shall fulfill their reign in its greatest extent that God will not abate any thing of it in favour of the men that are the subjects of the Roman Empire The description of these Locusts is notable Their shape was like unto horses prepared to the battle 'T is to signify the wars fights wherby the Saracens were to establish their government On their heads were as it were crowns like gold All the Empires that at this day take up the East came from them that of the Turks that of the Persians that of the great Mogull that of the Tartars Their faces were as the faces of men they had hair as the hair of women their teeth were as the teeth of Lions the sound of their wings was as the sound of Chariots That is to say they are as great women with their hair dishevelled a hideous countenance wings on their shoulders I question not but the Prophet had respect to the description which the Poets make of the Harpyes Tristius haud illis monstrum Aeneid 3. nec saevior ulla Pestis ira Deûm Stygiis sese extulit undis Virginei volucrum vultus faedissima ventris Ingluvies Vncaeque manus pallida semper Orafame VVhence comes the name and fable of the Harpyes Where 't is very observable that the name of Harpyes comes from the Hebrew word Arbim or Arpim which
And when the seven Thunders had uttered their Voices v. 4. I was about to write A sealed vision is an obscure vision I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me seal up those things which the seven Thunders uttered write them not A Sealed Book a Writing a Word sealed according to the Style of the Scripture is a word that is not understood 1s 29.11 The Vision of all is saith Esay as a book that is sealed that is to say you shall not understand it God saith to Daniel seal up the vision Dan. 8.26 for it shall be for many Days And in another place O Daniel shut up the words Dan 12.4 seal the book even to the time of the end many shall run to fro knowledg shall be encreased That is to say God will not have the Prophecies be understood till a certain time In like manner the Prophecy that respected Antichrist was Sealed up till an appointed time For above ten whole ages nothing of It was understood or so little that 't is to be reckon'd as nothing And write them not that is to say do not express them in such terms that in them the events may be read at least not very soon V. 5. And the Angel which I saw standing upon the Sea and upon the Earth lifted up his Hand to Heaven V. 6. And sware by him that liveth forever and ever who created Heaven and the things that therein are and the Earth and the things that therein are and the Sea and the things which are therein That there should be Time no longer V. 7 But in the days of the Voice of the seventh Angle when he shall begin to sound the Mystery of God should be finisht as he hath declared to his Servants the Prophets VVhen the last Trumper must sound The Voice of the seventh Trumpet is that which must sound at the moment of the last Fall of the Antichristian Empire when Popery shall be destroyed Then all the Nations shall turn unto God to make up the Kingdom of Jesus Christ that is yet to come as appears by these words The seventh Angel sounded Ch. 11.15 and there were great Voices in Heaven saying The Kingdoms of this World are become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever Here our Angel swears that in that time that is to say when the Kingdoms shall be reduced to Jesus Christ Time shall be no longer Time in this place is not opposed to Eternity as if the Angel would say that then the World shall end and Eternity begin but his meaning is that the times afforded to Antichrist shall be ended shall be no more It must be remembred that the Holy Spirit as well by the mouth of Daniel as by that of St. John assigns to Antichrist a time times half a time This shall be no more There shall not be neither time nor times nor half a time for Antichrist Time shall be no more for his reign it shall be the time of his total destruction Then the mystery of God shall be finisht as he hath declared to his servants the Prophets viz. The mystery of this glorious reign of Jesus Christ on the Earth which hath been foretold by all the Prophets in so magnificent a manner as we shall shew in the process of this work which Daniel saw so clearly as to mark the time circumstances of it And the voice which I heard from heaven v. 8 spake to me again said Go take the little book which is open in the hand of the Angel which standeth upon the sea upon the Earth And I went unto the Angel v. 9 said unto him give me the little book And he said unto me take it eat it up it shall make thy belly bitter but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as Honey The voice which he heard from Heaven is the same as spoke to him in the beginning of the book I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day heard behind me a great voice as of a Trumpet saying I am Alpha Omega the First the Last And this also shews that this here is a new prophecy not the continuation of the first For the same voice of God the Father that began the First Revelation returns begins the second as the same Jesus Christ also appears again a second time Saint John receives the book from the hand of the Angel that is to say of Jesus Christ because 't is he that sends the Prophets that inspires them by his Spirit This little book is Saveet in Saint John's Mouth because the Spirit of prophecy the glory of being the mouth of God from heaven pleases the inclination of men that love honour But this little book Made his belly bitter because that after having reflected on the events which he was about to fore-tell after having digested consider'd them in his own breast he found them so dreadful that they filled his soul with sorrow And he said unto me v. 11. thou must prophecy again before many people nations tongues Kings These words do no longer leave any cause of doubting whether this be a new prophecy not a continuation of the First Thou must make a Second Prophecy to Kings People Nations wheras what thou hast prophecied to them respected their Temporal state for the future that which thou shalt foretell them respects their Spiritual state the things of Religion CHAP. IX A short System of all the Events of the Church which are noted in the Apocalypse first of all an Epitome of the Chronology The history of the Church is not to be found but in the last eleven Chapters of the Apocalypse WE must not seek for the History of the Church in the First Nine chapters of the Apocalypse Joseph Mede is the first that hath discover'd that the Apocalypse consists of two bodies of Revelations meant by two Books the first of which we find in the beginning of the fifth Chapter v. 1. And I saw in the right hand of him that sate on the throne a book written within on the back side sealed with seven seals The other we find in the 10. Chap. v. 2. And he had in his hand a little book open he set his right foot upon the sea his left foot on the Earth It is plain that these two Books are two bodies of Revelations perfect in their kind different each from the other that both the one the other run through all reach to all the times from the beginning of the Revelation of St. John even to the end of the World. One cannot imagine any thing more reasonable than this that the First Book contains the destinies of the World the Empire the Church also in respect to her Temporal as far as she is
't is necessary to observe in this place that during this Period several things fall out that are co-temporary For this Period is oftentimes repeated its characters are often affixed to diverss subjects to the Woman that dies hid in the Desâ—rt to the Gentiles that are to tread down the Court to the two Witnesses that are to Prophecy clothed in sack-cloth to the Dragon to the Beast to whom it is given to exercise his power for 42 months These are not different Periods that must be fastned one to the end of the other These are different Events or the very same events presented under different ideas which must be accomplisht in the same Period For the right understanding therfore of the Chronology of the Apocalypse it is necessary to know what events things are co-temporary As thus Many things in the Apocalypse co-temporary I. The Court which is to be trodden down by the Gentiles for the space of Forty Two Months Rev. 11.2 II. The Woman to whom are given two great Wings of an Eagle to save her self in the Wilderness where she is fed 1260 dayes a time and times and half a time i. e. one year two years and half a year which make three years and a half or forty two months This is what is said Rev. 12.6 14. III. The two Witnesses that must prophesie clothed in Sackcloth for 1260 days Rey. 11.13 1260 days make just forty two months or three years and a half IV. The Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns Rey. 13.1 0. to whom Power is given to fulfil forty two months But we must observe that these 42 months are affixed only to the seventh head of the Beast which is that of Antichrist the whole entire Roman Empire is signified by that Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns The last Head is that of Antichrist which alone must last as long as the other six The Roman Empire under Kings Consuls Decemvires Tribunes of the People perpetual Dictators and Emperors lasted about 1250 years a little more or less The seventh Head of the Roman Empâ—re is Antichrist and he is to continue 1260 days 'T is evident that we must assign the duration of forty two months to the seventh Head because 't is to that we must affix the ten Horns that signifie ten Kings and 't is to Antichrist that Daniel assigns for his duration a Time Times and Half a Time. All the World acknowledges that he means Antichrist by the little Horn that grows in the midst of the ten and that subdues three of them He shall speak great words against the Most High C. 7. v. 25. and shall wear out the Saints of the Most High and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time We have already observed that this signifies one year two years and half a year This is the duration of the Kingdom of Antichrist 't is also the duration of the seventh Head of the Roman Empire and this is what they ought to take particular notice of that make a scruple to grant that these forty two months express the duration of the whole Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns V. In like manner the second Beast of the 13th chap. of the Revel that hath but Two Horns like to those of a Lamb and that spake like the Dragon is also of the same duration i. e. it must be found in the space of 42 months VI. The Whore also of the 17th chap. sitting upon the scarlet-coloured Beast reigns in this Period of forty two months 1260 days or three years and a half She sits upon the Beast i. e. on the first Beast that had seven Heads and ten Horns and lasts as long as the 7th Head. VII Lastly The 144 Thousand sealed persons that appear in the 7th chapter and are mention'd frequently afterwards are also co-temporary with the Beast and the Court trodden down by the Nations for they are no other than the two Witnesses that prophesie clothed in Sackcloth for 1260 days whilst the outward Court is trodden under foot by the Gentiles they are no other than the Woman that remains in the Wilderness and is nourished there for a time and times and half a time while the red Dragon makes war with the saints The seventh seal contains under it the seven Trumpets For the understanding this Chronology of the Apocalypse it must also be known that the seventh Seal which is open'd in the beginning of the 8th Ch. contains under it the seven Trumpets that the seven Trumpets reach to the end of the second Period which is the Empire of Antichrist even to the reign of Christ inclusively That is to say to the very end of the World. For at the sounding of the last Trumpet C. 11.15 there were great voices in Heaven saying the Kingdomes of the World are become the Kingdomes of our Lord of his Christ he shall reign for ever and ever And the seven Trumpets begin about the time of the fall of the Roman Empire under the Christian Emperors C. 8.7 Upon the sounding of the First Trumpet there followed hail fire mingled with blood they were cast upon the Earth the third part of the Trees were burnt up These are plainly the numberless Northern Armies of the Vandals Goths Hunn's who in the reign of Honorius begun to make dreadfull havock throughout the whole extent of the Roman Empire which is here meant by the Third part because the Roman Empire in truth did contain very near a third part of the World. And so the duration of the six Trumpets even to the seventh exclusively is also very near co-temporary with the 42 Months of the reign of the Beast the Court trodden under foot by the Gentiles The seven Vialls are contained under the sixth Trumpet It must also be observed that the seven Vialls of the wrath of God are co-temporary with the sixth Trumpet do divide it even to the sounding of the seventh The duration of the Kingdom of Antichrist which is 1260 Years is divided into two other Periods The first is that of the birth growth progress of the Babylonish Empire to its perfection And this Period reacheth to the tenth Century i. e. it lasts between 5 and 600 Years The second Period is from the tenth Century to the end of Antichrist's reign Now the seven Vials of the 16th Chap. of the Revelation are the steps by which this Babylonish Empire passes to come to her ruin So these seven Vials are not co-temporary neither with the seven Seals nor with the seven Trumpets as some have imagin'd They are co-temporary only with the sixth the effect of which begins about the tenth Century The Chronology of the third general Period of the Church which is that of the 1000 Years hath no difficulty in it that needs a resolution We need only to observe that these
five things are co-temporary in the third Period Five things cotemporary in the Period of the reign of the thousand years I. The reign of the Saints for a 1000 Years Rev. 20.4 II. The Dragon that is bound whose power is broken Rev. 20.2 3. III. The New Jerusalem the description wherof we have Rev. 21. 22. Chapters IV. The company of Saints that are clothed in white garments who carry Palms in their hands singing this song Salvation to our God that sits upon the throne Rev. 7.10 Rev. 7.17 unto the Lamb and of whom it is said they shall hunger no more neither thirst any more neither shall the sun light on them nor any heat the Lamb shall feed them shall lead them unto living fountains of waters For these are not the 144 thousand Sealed persons spoken of in the beginning â—f the 7th Chap. St. John saith expressely After this v. 9. i. e. after these 144 thousand sealed persons I beheld lo a great multitude which no man could number of all nations kindreds people tongues stood before the throne before the Lamb c. This plainly shews that these are not the persons that were Sealed For they might easily be numbred because they were not above 144 thousand wheras these here spoken of are innumerable In truth these are the same that are spoken of in the 20th of the Revel who are there called the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Iesus for the word of God here they are called they which came out of great tribulation C. 7.14 have washed their robes made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They are therfore co-temporary with the reign of Christ for a 1000 Years as the 144 thousand that were sealed are co-temporary with the reign of Babylon for 1260 Days V. The fifth and last thing co-temporary is the duration of the seventh Trumpet And the seventh Angel sounded with a Trumpet there were great voices in heaven Rev. 11.15 saying the Kingdoms of this world are become the Kingdoms of the Lord. For at the sound of the Last Trumpet the last blow must be given to the Babylonish Empire at the same time shall begin the reign of Iesus Christ to which is assign'd a Period of 1000 Years And the influence of this seventh and last Trumpet must reach even to the end of the World. Thus you have the Chronology of the twelve last Chapters of the Revelation We proceed to consider the History CHAP. X. A short System of the Events foretold in the Revelation concerning the Church as to the Historical part A short explanation of the 11th Chap. IN the 11th Ch. where the Destinies of the Church do begin the H. Ghost in the first place gives us an abridgment of these Destinies Events nothing is more methodical than that First to give a general Idea of those things that are afterwards more particularly to be explained So this Chapter from the 2d. v. to the end contains a short History of the 1260 Years of Antichrist's reign of the 1000 Years of Christ's reign as in the first verse he had described the first Period of 360 Years as we just now observed in the foregoing Chapter This reign of Antichrist is here described by this Paganism that was to tread under foot the Holy City for 42 Months v. 2. The afflictions of the Church its perpetuall subsistence in the midst of those afflictions during this reign of Antichrist are signified by the two Witnesses clothed in sack-cloth A great persecution that must befall the Church at the end of these 1260 Years of Antichrist's reign v. 3. is there also predicted The total suppression of the profession of the truth by that persecution is signified by the death of these two Witnesses v. 7. who must remain dead in the territories of Babylon the great for three prophetical days and a half i. e. three Years a half We shall see afterwards what that means where we must place this great event At the end of three years a half these two Witnesses i. e. the publique profession of the truth shall rise again and be gloriously reestablisht For the H. Ghost saith that the two Witnesses shall ascend again up into Heaven i. e. shall be exalted glorified upon the Earth In the same time the tenth part of the City shall fall v. 13. i. e. one of those ten Kings that gave their power to the Beast shall revolt from him And a little after the seventh Trumpet shall sound which will give the last blow to the Babylonish Empire v. 15. After which the Reign of the Saints shall commence which shall continue to the end of the World. This is the Epitome of the whole History of the Church the sense of the 11th Chapter After this general idea of the History of the Church Ch. 12. its explication the Prophet enters upon the particulars In the 12th Ch. God shews him the vision of the Woman that was with child deliver'd of a Son persecuted by the Red Dragon who fain would devour the Child of the Woman Afterwards there is a battle fought by Michael his Angells against the Dragon The Dragon is overcome and cast to the Earth but as much overcome as he was he ceaseth not to persecute the Woman She is forced to escape into the Wilderness where she is nourisht 1260 Days The Dragon not being able to reach her vomited out a flood after her but the Earth open'd swallow'd up the flood saved the Woman This Woman is the Apostolical Church this Child of which she is deliver'd is pure holy Christianity The Dragon is the Devil who by the authority of the Roman Empire would devour extinguish Christianity in its birth Michael his Angells are Jesus Christ his Ministers celestial as well as terrestrial The combat of the Red Dragon Michael is the combat of 300 Years that was between God the Devil during the ten persecutions of the Roman Heathen Emperours The Devil endeavouring on one hand to destroy the Christian Church by the cruelty of the Emperours God on the other hand defending it by his Martyrs Teachers The victory gotten over the Red Dragon is the casting down of Heathenism which falls to the Earth is cast from Heaven i. e. 't is tumbled down from the throne by Constantine his successors to the reign of Theodosius The great flood which the Red Dragon casts after the Woman when he was thrown down on the Earth is those inundations of Heresies that Arrianism that cover'd the Christian World immediatly after the fall of Heathenism under Constantine The Earth swallowed up this flood in favour of the Woman these Heresies were destroyed swallowed up as in a moment the Church remained deliver'd from them by a kind of
throughout the whole 18. Chap. The frequent repetition of the same thing is to note the certainty of it The three following Chapters viz. the 20 21 and 22. contain the History of the third last general Period of the duration of Christianity It is the reign of J. Christ upon Earth The matters contained in the 20 Chapter are so remarkable that they deserve a particular attention But seeing that hereafter we shall have occasion carefully to examin them it is not necessary to stay about them at present So much suffices for a general Idea both of the Chronology of the History of the twelve last Chapters of the Revelation which contain the destinies of the Church CHAP. XI Several things that all are agreed on in reference to Antichrist which will serve to clear up those wherin we are not agreed WE seek First the Character of the Babylonish Empire 2dly the time of its duration 3dly Its Establishment end 4thly What must happen after its ruin The two first points respect what is past or present shall be the subject of the first part of this work About the first of these four things there is no controversy among the Orthodox But there is a great dispute about it between the Papists the true Church However we have one great advantage for the determining this controversy viz. there are some certain principles in which both sides do agree In controversies where men are agreed in nothing but where every thing must be proved it is very hard to determin any thing But where men are agreed in many things ordinarily those things which they are agreed in serve for the clearing up of those things wherin they are not agreed I think it best therfore before we enter upon the Characters of the Babylonish Empire to consider those things wherin the Papists as to this matter do agree with the true Catholicks All agree that the little horn in the 7th of Dan. is Antichrist 1st We are agreed about almost ll the places whence we are to draw the pourtraiture of Antichrist and his Empire 'T is confessed that the Little horn in the 7th Chap. of Daniel is Antichrist that 't is of him that the Prophet speaks I considered the horns Dan. 7.8 and behold there came up among them another little horn before whom three of the first horns were pluckt up by the roots and behold in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things v. 24 25. The ten Horns out of this Kingdom are ten Kings that shall arise and another shall rise after them and he shall be diverse from the first and he shall subdue three Kings And he shall speak great words against the most High and shall wear out the saints of the most high and think to change times and laws they shall be given into his hand for a time and times and half a time We are agreed that the First Beast in the 13th of the Revel is the same with the fourth Beast in the 7th Chapt. of Daniel The two Beasts of Rev. 13. are Antichrist and that both the one and the other signify the Roman Empire 'T is acknowledged that the ten Kings that must be born of this Beast which are represented by the ten Horns of the fourth Beast in Daniel and of the first Beast in the 13th of the Revelation are the ten Kings which in the time of Antichrist are to divide the Roman Empire among them and give their power to Antichrist 'T is confest that the little Horn i.e. Antichrist must be grafted on the Roman Empire enter into its place and the last that shall possess the Roman Empire Antichrist saith Bellarmin Bellarm. part 1. c. 3. sect 15. Respondeo priorem c. shall be the last head of the wicked and the last King that shall possess the Roman Empire but yet without the name of a Roman Emperour The same Author in the very same place confesses that the head of the first Beast which received the deadly wound in the 13th Ch. of the Revelation is Antichrist This miracle of a feigned Resurrection saith he must be attributed to Antichrist in the opinion of Primasius Beda and Haymo and many others whom he names We are agreed that the two Beasts of the 13th of the Revelation do both of them signify the Antichristian Empire Bellarm. ubi Supra According to the opinion of Rupert The second Beast in the Revelation signifies the very same Antichrist For Antichrist is represented by two Beasts by the one his royal power and tyranny by which he will offer violence to men is represented And by the other his magical power and crafty tricks by which he will seduce them But according to Richard and Anselm and many others the second beast signifies the Preachers of Antichrist Thus it agrees to the Babylonish Empire to be the seventh head of the Roman Empire however without bearing the name of a Roman Emperour to be a head wounded unto death and raised up again to have ten Horns on its Head ten Kings for its subjects to have a false Prophet with two Horns like those of a Lamb which causes the image of the Beast to be worshipped whose name contains the Number 666 and who makes all those that he causeth to submit to hi Empire to bear his mark in their foreheads We are agreed that a time times and half a time the 42 Months the 1260. days do denote the time of the duration of the Antichristian Empire and that all that while the Church must be afflicted beaten down obscured as it were hidden swallowed up by persecution 'T is acknowledged that the great Whore in the 17th of the Revel and the city with seven Mountains is Rome Some would have it be Rome Pagan The Papists are forced to confess that Babylon in the Revel is Rome but others shewing either more knowledg or more sincerity do confess that Rome in the 14th and the 17th Ch. of the Revelation is not Rome Pagan but of Christian become Antichristian Estius and some others go a little further and are forced to acknowledg that Rome must be the seat of Antichrist Others as Ribera Viega Cornelius a Lapide retaining the common hypothesis among the Papists viz. that Jerusalem must be the seat of Antichrist are however forced to confess that Babylon in the Revelation is the city of Rome wherat the end of the times an Idolatrous Empire persecutor of the Church and Enemy of God must arise who say they shall join himself to the Empire of Antichrist when he shall be come Cornelius a Lapide confesses that the Waters on which the great Whore sits signify all the Nations and people which Rome shall command over who shall agree together in their subjection and in the vanity and idolatry of Rome as their lady and the mistress of the universe i.e. Rome become Idolatrous after having been
dismembred pieces of the ancient Roman Empire as well as the other Kingdoms of Europe It retains the name of the Roman Empire its head is called the King of the Romans What of all this Is it necessary only to retain names and vain titles to be in possession to the thing and to exercise the rights belonging to it The Jews retain the name of the people of God of the chosen people of the Lords inheritance by way of exclusion of all the nations of the Earth but doth it follow that they are what they once were and what to this day they call themselves We therfore may justly say the Roman Empire is destroyed and was abolisht when the Goths the Vandals and the Huns rent it in pieces and divided it into so many parts took away the rule from the City of Rome and made it the chief City only of a part of that ancient Empire And indeed 't is then that the Antichristian Empire was born or at least began to be Revealed that is to say to become sensible and this was in the fifth Age. But this doth not agree with the other Prophecies for according to St. John and Daniel the fourth Monarchy which is that of the Romans must continue till the Kingdom be given to the Saints and all the Nations of the World be reduced to the obedience of Jesus Christ The Roman Empire according to the Prophecy of St. John and Daniel is not yet ended v. 17 18. This is in the seventh of Daniel There he makes four Beasts i. e. four Monarchies or four Empires These four Beasts are four Kings that shall arise out of the Earth But the Saints of the most high shall take the Kingdom and possess the Kingdom for ever even for ever and ever He places nothing at all between the end of the fourth Beast or the fourth Empire and the Kingdom given to the Saints Now if the fourth Monarchy did cease in the fifth Century then the fifth Monarchy which is the Kingdom of J. Christ being not begun there would be the space of 12. or 13. hundred Years between the fourth Monarchy and the reign of J. Christ upon the Earth One can't conceive why the H. Spirit should leave so wide a gap of time in the Prophecy This is yet more evident by what follows The Angell that explains the vision to Daniel saith to him v. 23. The fourth Beast shall be the fourth Kingdom upon Earth which shall be diverse from all Kingdoms and shall devour the whole Earth and shall tread it down v. 24. and break it in pieces And the ten horns out of this Kingdom are ten Kings that shall arise and another shall arise after them and he shall be diverse from the first and he shall subdue three Kings v. 25. And he shall speak great words against the most High and shall wear out the saints of the most High and think to change times and laws and they shall be given into his hand untill a time v. 26. and times and the dividing of time But the judgment shall sit and they shall take away his dominion to consume and to destroy it unto the end And the Kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the Saints of the most High c. He had said before on occasion of the fourth Beast and his little Horn I behold them v. 11. because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake I beheld even till the beast was slain and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame 'T is clear that the ten Horns or the ten Kingdoms together with the little Horn that subdues three Kings are a continuation of the fourth Beast and make but one Monarchy together with it which Monarchy must endure till the Kingdom be given to the people of God. The same thing plainly appears in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar Chap. 2. and the explication which Daniel gives of it Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream a great Statue whose head was of Gold his shoulders and his arms of Silver v. 32. his belly of Brass his legs of Iron v. 33. and his feet divided into ten Toes were partly of Earth and partly of Iron v. 34. A Stone cut out of the mountain without hands breaks this statue in pieces mingles the Gold the Silver the Iron and the Brass and reduces them all to dust Daniel explaining this dream declares that the head signifies the Monarchy of the Assyrians of which Babylon was then the capital city since the ruin of Nineveh and Nebuchadnezzar the head That the shoulders of Silver signify a second Monarchy and the belly of Brass a third v. 40. And the fourth Kingdom shall be like Iron for as much as Iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things All the World is agreed that this is the Roman Monarchy After which follows not the destruction but the division of that Empire among ten Kings And wheras thou sawest the feet and toes v. 41. part of potters clay and part of iron the Kingdom shall be divided viz. into ten other Kingdoms as the feet into ten toes For the ten toes of the statue and the ten horns of the Beast are the same thing which all Interpreters have acknowledged Among these ten Kings must he come that must subdue three i. e. Antichrist As therefore the ten Toes make a part of the Statue and the ten horns a part of the Beast 't is plain that the ten Kings that must arise from the division of the Roman Empire and the reign of Antichrist that must establish himself by the ruin of three of those Kings are the continuation of the Roman Empire and the Roman Empire it self Now immediately after and without any thing happening between comes the reign of Jesus Christ and of the Holy people signified by the little stone cut without hands out of the mountain And in the days of these Kings shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdom v. 44. which shall not be left to other people but it shall break in pieces and consume all these Kingdoms and it shall stand for ever The same thing is evident by the Revelations of Saint John. The first Beast in the 13th of the Revelation in certainly the same with the fourth Beast in the 7th Chapter of Daniel 't is the Roman Empire We have seen before that 't is agreed that the second Beast in the same Chapt. which had but two horns is the same with the fore-going Beast that had ten Now the foregoing Beast is the Roman Empire the second Beast is the Empire of Antichrist Whence it is plain that the reign of Antichrist must be the continuation of the Roman Empire Saint Iohn after having described the Roman Empire continued under Antichrist in the 13th Chap. carries on this continuation in the 14th Chap. to the total ruin of
see what they say viz. that that Rome that now is towards the end of the World shall be corrupted become idolatrous debauched that she shall shake off the yoke of Jesus Christ and carry her disorders as far as Rome Pagan But yet however that it must not be the seat of Antichrist who must be accompanied with his ten Kings have his habitation at Jerusalem and come to Rome when it is turn'd Idolatrous and Pagan to destroy and ruin it as he will also do See the words of Viega on the eighteenth of the Revelation One may plainly gather from the infinite number of precious merchandises and of all sorts that are here noted that Rome in the last times after her Apostacy shall attain to soveraign power and great riches and that her Empire shall extend it self throughout the World upon the ten Kings so often named For that these mighty riches do not belong to Rome Pagan it is clear by these words Come forth of Babylon my people For this shews that 't is not ancient Rome that is here spoken of in which there were no faithfull ones but that Rome that shall flourish in the last times Then therefore the City of Rome shall greatly flourish and its Empire shall be very large She shall live in pleasures and have great abundance of all things And at the same time she shall be enslaved to Idolatry be full of Superstitions sacrifice to Doemons and false Deities And by reason of the vast quantity of the blood of the Saints that shall be shed by her under the Emperours of Rome by a terrible but a very righteous judgement of God she shall at last be made desolate and burnt by ten Kings See what the force and evidence of the truth hath drawn from the mouth of the worshippers of Rome What prodigious whimsies are these To what extremity must these men have been reduced The Scripture speaks of but one Antichristian Empire The Church never imagin'd there was more than one and lo here are men that make a couple The first shall be in Rome corrupted for according to them Rome in the last days must have a great Empire must subdue Kingdoms and draw them together with her self into a revolt from Jesus Christ Lo therefore there 's one Antichristian Empire at Rome what need have we of another Antichrist sitting at Jerusalem Moreover this Chimaera is founded on this principle that the Beast in the 13th Chapt. which according to them represents Antichrist is not the same with the Beast in the 17th Chap. with the great City that ruleth over the Kings of the Earth and with Babylon spoken of in the 14th and the 18th Chapt. Now we have confuted this ridiculous imagination and have demonstrated that Babylon the great City the Beast of the 13th and the 18th Chapter are the same thing This Chimaera is so ill to be defended that the more modern Papists have abandon'd it and at last have been forced to acknowledge that Rome must be the seat of Antichrist that the great City spoken of in the 11th Chapter where Jesus Christ was crucified is not Jerusalem but spiritual Babylon spoken of afterwards and Bernard de Montreuil that hath write since the rest though he retains that ancient dream that Antichrist must come out of Jerusalem yet he confesses however that the Babylonish Empire and the Antichristian are not two Empires that must succeed one another and the one destroy the other according to the supposition of those we were just now speaking of He confesseth that Rome shall be the chief City of Antichrist's party that Antichrist must defend it and that the ten Kings of the Beast are the subjects of its grandeure and that of Antichrist the head of the League the Monarch of the time He calls Antichrist the Prince of the Apocalyptical Babylon And he confesseth that this Babylon is Rome therefore he acknowledgeth that Rome must be Antichristian and the capital City of Antichrist Babylon saith he is the Mistress the Queen the Empress of the kingdom of Antichrist Not daring to call Rome Babylon On the 24. Chapt. he defines it however by Western Babylon who being perverted instead of obeying the Laws of the piety of the first age shall in her pride cause her self to be called the great and the independant and shall become much worse under the reign of Antichrist than ever Eastern Babylon was After these confessions there remains no other help for the popish Doctors to hinder their Rome from being acknowledged to be Rome Antichristian but the Chimaera of the three years and a half 's duration of Antichrists kingdom It is true say they that Rome must be possessed by Antichrist that he must establish Idolatry there that Rome must become worse than Rome Pagan was in the time of St. John and than Eastern Babylon in the time of the Prophets but this must last but three years and a half When therefore we have destroyed this ridiculous dream of three natural years and a half we shall have demonstrated that Rome at this day is the true Seat of Antichrist and then I shall make them this Argument Babylon in the Revelation is the seat of the Antichristian Empire the same thing with the prostitute Woman with the Beast with seven heads and ten horns All this is Rome become Antichristian and the seat of Antichrist Which is plain either by what hath been invincibly proved or what the Papists themselves have confessed Now this Antichristian Roman Empire must endure not 1260. natural days but 1260. prophetical days i. e. 1260. years Therefore it is evident that the Antichristian Empire which must be at Rome cannot be that chimerical Empire of Antichrist of three years and a half that must conclude 45. days before the end of the World and that 't is that of Rome which hath endured so long already The consequence is plain because all do acknowledge the World must not and cannot according to the decrees of God endure yet twelve or thirteen hundred years to make room for the reign of Antichrist and a thousand years more at the end of that to make room for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ the truth and certainty of which we shall prove So that if the reign of Antichrist must endure 1260. years it is necessary that it subsist at this present time and that it hath begun a long time since This is I say a demonstration which I have in readiness for these Gentlemen when I shall have proved the only thing in this argument that can be called in question viz. that the 1260. days of Antichrist cannot be understood of so many natural days I would prove this truth presently were it not that it regards the time of the duration of the Antichristian Empire of which we shall have occasion afterwards to speak Wherefore now we shall continue to give you the explication of the Prophecies that contain the Character of this Antichristian Empire CHAP. XVIII
they are at a prodigious distance from it So the Prophet looking on these two resurrections the first and the last it is not strange that beholding them at so great distance he looked on them as joined together though they are a 1000 years distant from each other Moreover the H. Spirit from this first resurrection in which the Church must be deliver'd and which it may be is but a figurative resurrection would raise us up to the contemplation of the last and general resurrection because this first resurrection that must be before the 1000 years of the reign of Jesus Christ must be but an Embleme of the great deliverance of the Church when it shall be in one body translated from earth to heaven by the last resurrection 'T is usual with the Prophets to have holy sallies that from temporal things do transport them to spiritual and eternal ones Isaiah speaking of a sign that God would give to Ahaz and which he refused passes over many ages leaves there Ahaz and his sign Esai 7. and saith the Lord God shall give you a sign behold a Virgin shall bear a son The rest of the twelfth Chapter is not less profound but as it respects the duration of the persecution of Antiochus literally and mystically the time of the duration of the Kingdom of Antichrist we shall reserve it for that Chap. where we must speak of the duration of his Kingdom CHAP. XXIV In which are gather'd together 35. Characters of Antichrist that perfectly agree to the Papism and cannot agree to any but it A short portraiture of Antichrifi and his fearures AFter sounding all the fountains whence the pourtaiture of Antichrist is drawn I believe it will not be unuseful to gather together here all the strokes that we may see them all with one view and that we may discern the perfect conformity that is between that Antichrist and the Papism 1. It must be an Empire Rev. 13.1 for it is called a beast now in the Prophetick style a beast always signifies an Empire when Kings are treated of The Papism is an Empire in all the forms of worldly Empires ancient and modern We have proved it with the greatest evidence in our prejudices 2. It must also be a Religion 2 Thes 2. for it is called a mystery and it must be a false Religion for it is called a mystery of Iniquity and an apostacy There is only the Papism in which an Empire and a Religion are found both together 1 Tim. 4.1 8. 'T is true Mahomet made an Empire and a Religion at the same time But in Mahometanism the Religion is not the Empire nor the Empire the Religion and the Priests are not Soveraign Lords under the pretext of Religion Mahometanism is divided into many Aempires and yet there is but one Religion a proof that the Religion and the Empire are not the same thing The Papism is the only Religion that boasts of a Prophet always living Rev. 19.20 3. Antichrist must have a Prophet i. e. a man that saith he is infallible and that pretends to pronounce Oracles as well as the ancient Prophets For with the beast is joined the false Prophet The beast was taken and together with him the false Prophet that wrought signs before him There is no Religion in the World but the Papism that pretends to have an infallible head always pronouncing Oracles when it is necessary always speaking and always living This is a very peculiar Character and which should make us well discern him 4. The corruption of the Religion of Antichrist must principally consist in Idolatry 1 Tim. 4. 2 Thes 2. Rev. 17. for it is called apostacy a Doctrine of Daemons spiritual whoredom The Papism is a Religion in which Idols are re-establisht under new names We have also clearly proved it The Idolatry of Antichrist must be an idolatry of Christians Rev. 17. 5. This Antichristian Idolatry must be an idolatry of Christians which must be exercised in the Church and not without by the Spouse of Jesus Christ and not by a stranger For this idolatry is called adultery and conjugal unfaithfulness The Papism with its Idolatry retains the foundation of the Church and preserves Christianity 6. The chief City of this Empire and of this Religion must be a City seated on seven Mountaïns Rev. 17.9.18 and the great City which in the time of Saint John ruled over the Kingdoms of the Earth that is to say Rome The Papism hath for the capital of its Empire and Religion new Rome built where the ancient one was 7. This Empire was to form it self not by force but by craft by seduction and by the consent of the Kings of the West Rev. 13.13 that were to give their power to the beast The power of the Papism and the Bishop of Rome come by illusion rather than by the violence that both Kings and people have suffer'd 8. This Antichristian Empire must be a continuation of the fourth Monarchy which is that of the Romans Dan. 2.7 Rev. 13. as hath been shewn by the vision of Daniel's Statue by that of the four beasts and by the beast of the 13th of the Revel The Papism is a true continuation of the Roman Empire having the very same seat and very hear the same Provinces 9. This Empire must be only an Image of an Empire an Image of the Roman Empire Rev. 13.14 15. Yet this Image must speak and must be worshipped in all the Earth The Papism hath no arms nor citadels that really make an Empire it hath nothing but superstition and foolish fondness for all its arms however it speaks it threatens it promiseth it teacheth it seduceth and by this means it reigns 10. The Empire of Antichrist must have ten horns Rev. 13. end 17. that is to say ten Kings vassals and subjects props and upholders of its throne The Papism hath always had under it ten principal Kings that have worshipt and maintain'd its power 11. Antichrist must speak great things in his own behalf Rev. 13.5 but against God for they must be blasphemies The Papism saith of it self and its capital great and mighty things saying that Rome is eternal that she is infallible that the Pope is Superiour to all the Kings of the Earth the Spouse of the Church the Vicar of J. Christ God upon Earth his Holiness and most holy Lord. And these arrogant pretensions are true blasphemies against God against J. Christ and against the true Church the Spouse of J. Christ 12. Antichrist must raise wars and cruel persecutions on the account of Religion Rev. 13.7 For 't is given to him to make war against the Saints and to overcome them The Papism hath bathed it self in humane and Christian blood for six or seven hundred years 13. The Empire of Antichrist must be an Empire raised up again Rev. 13.3 an head mortally wounded but healed again The Empire of
the Papism is the Roman Empire that was brought to nothing by the Goths and Visigoths but is raised up again by the Popes 14. Antichrist must ascribe to himself two powers Rev. 13.11 like to those which J. Christ hath Now the Lord hath temporal and spiritual power There is no Potentate in the World that saith he hath this double power but the Pope the head of the Papism 15. Antichrist must be an Empire Rev. 13.18 as hath been proved and the name of this Empire must contain the number 666. The number 666. must be in the name of an Empire and not in the name of a man. There is no Empire in the World whose name contains 666 but that of the Latin and the Roman which is the name that the Papism glories in And this should be well observed to lay open the vanity of the observations of the Papists who to elude this so plain a Character seek for certain names of men in which they would find 666. They would fain find it in the name of Luther and very lately M. Simon would find it in Roterodami We must let them know they do nothing that here 't is not the name of a man but of an Empire that is treated of Now they will search in vain they will not find any Empire in the world whose name contains 666 besides the Roman or Latin Empire 16. The Kingdom of Antichrisi must be a Sodom Rev. 11. full of impurities and abominable crimes The Papism in all the fore-going ages hath been a sink of all the abominations of the Earth There are no filthy and odious crimes of which its Clergy and its subjects have not made themselves guilty The proof of it at large may be seen in our just prejudices 17. This Antichristian Empire must be a cruel Egypt a Babylon Rev. 18.4 in which God will preserve his people notwithstanding its corruptions Come forth of Babylon my people There is no false Religion that hath possessed the Church more ages and in which God hath been able to preserve his Elect than the Papism 18. Antichristianism must be establisht in the Temple of God i.e. in the Church There is no Kingdom Empire and corrupt Religion together with it that is establisht in the Christian Church but the papism 19. The Antichristian Empire must be exceeding proud 2 Thes 2. For its head must sit in the Temple of God as if he were God. The papism hath carried pride beyond whatsoever can be imagin'd 'T is notorious 20. Antichrist must worship Mahuzim i. e. Patrons and Protectors The Papism worship its Guardian Angels and Saints under whose protection it puts it self 21. Antichristianism must be a Paganism raised up again Rev. 11. For the outward Court must be left to the Gentiles for 42 months The Papism hath all the parts of a paganism built on Christianity as hath been so evidently proved 22. Antichrist must usurp the power of J. Christ For he shall have the horns of a Lamb Rev. 13.11 and shall speak as a Dragon The Papism hath usurp'd all the power of J. Christ The Pope acts speaks censures absolves damns dethrones Kings c. in the name and by the authority of J. Christ The Empire of the Papism ascended out of the Earth by little and little 23. The Antichristian Empire must not be formed with noise this beast must not ascend out of the sea as a monster that comes out of the deep very great and wholly formed in the twinkling of an eye and which devours as soon as it is on the Earth It must arise out of the Earth as a plant that is nothing in the beginning and which after many years grows a great Tree Rev. 13.11 For the second beast ascendeth out of the Earth and not out of the Sea. The Empire of the papism came by little and little as a Tree which for many years hath been but a little herb 24. The Empire and the Religion of Antichrist must be establisht by false signs and false wonders 'T is impossible to reckon up the false miracles Popety is the only religion that boasts of working signs and miracles which the papism hath produced to establish its superstitions and its power 'T is at this day the only religion in the World that pretends to work miracles 25. The Christian Apostacy must be promoted by persons given to lies lovers of fables 'T is the true signification of the word which St. Paul uses Pseudologoi 1 Tim. 4. There never was a religion in the World that hath produced so many fables as the papism I have proved it in my just prejudices 26. The Teachers of Antichristianism must have a great appearance of Austerity they must despise and discredit marriage and command abstinence from meats The Teachers of the papism make it necessary for them to remain unmarried and think they merit greatly by abstinence from meats 27. Antichristianism was to appear in the world when the head of the Roman Emperors was beaten down The papism in the time that the Roman Empire was destroyed by the Goths and the Vandals began to be sensible in its idolatry and its tyranny 28. This Empire must have its course in the later times 1 Tim. 4. It is unquestionable that we are in the later times therefore the Empire of the papism at this day subsisting is the Empire of Antichrist 29. The Antichristian Empire must subdue three Kings of the ten The Empire of the papism Dan. 7. besides that it hath subdued more than a third part of the temporal power of the Western Kings it hath actually subjected to it self in fief and temporal homage many Kingdoms Among others that of the Lombards of which he possesseth one part the City of Rome and its jurisdiction and the Kingdom of Naples for which even at this day he makes homage be paid him every year 30. The Antichristian Empire must put to death the Witnesses of the Truth of God. Rev. 11. The papism uses all imaginable attempts to extinguish those Societies that give testimony to the truth and that oppose Superstition and Idolatry 31. The Antichristian Empire must interdict fire and water Rev. 13. i. e. all commerce with those that will not pay homage to it and carry its mark and its name The Papism excommunicates damns proscribes and puts under interdict all those that will not submit themselves to its Laws and that will not bear the names of Roman Catholiques 32. Spiritual Babylon must be a Merchant Rev. 18. and there must be great traffique in all precious things even in souls Therefore they that live of its Traffique shall weep bitterly upon her ruins Of all the Religions in the World there was never any where avarice simony and the sale of spritual things reigned to that degree as they have done in the papism If any one can tell of any one they would much oblige us to
five days The mystery of the four numbers I do not know whether any Interpreters have understood the mystery but see how I explain it First we must know that the first number of 2300 mornings and evenings must not be taken for 2300 days as Interpreters take it which forces them to go back to the very beginning of the reign of Antiochus Two thousand three hundred mornings and evenings taken for so many days 2300 mornings and evenings make but 1150 days make six years four months twenty days The prophanation ended in the 148th year of the Aera of the Seleucidae as we shall see So that we must go back even to the 142 year to find there the beginning of these six years four months and twenty days And it were necessary that the prophanation of the Sanctuary and the cessation of the daily sacrifice should then begin For the Prophet speaks expresly of the cessation of the daily sacrifice How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice And he receives this Answer for 2300 evening and mornings Yet 't is certain by the History of the Macchabees and by the Prophecy of the twelfth Chapter of Daniel that the prophanation of the Sanctuary and the cessation of the daily sacrifice begin not till three years after viz. the 145 year of the Aera of the Seleucidae I am perswaded therefore that we must understand by it two thousand three hundred sacrifices of the evening and the morning And this will not be scrupled by him that shall consider First That it is not usual in the holy Tongue nor in any other to say two evenings and mornings or three evenings and mornings meaning two days three days c. Secondly That the cessation of this daily sacrifice that was offered morning and evening being here spoken of to this question How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice a more proper and intelligible answer than this cannot be given viz. It shall be for two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings That is to say There shall be an interruption of two thousand three hundred sacrifices So that this number makes one thousand one hundred and fifty days See then these four numbers 1. Eleven hundred and fifty days which make three years two months and ten days 2. A time times and half a time which are three years and six months 3. One thousand two hundred fourscore and ten days which make three years and seven months 4. One thousand three hundred thirty five days that make three years eight months and fifteen days In the whole taking thirty days for every month a round number which the Holy Spirit hath chosen to avoid broken numbers arising from the inequality of the months Which appears by this that in the Revelat. 42 months and 1260 days are taken for the same thing 'T is so if 30 days be assigned to every month These four numbers are different and the later always exceeds the former There is six months and five days difference between the least and the greatest How can we reconcile this with the History We find this history in the four first Chap. of the first book of Macchabees The first Book of Macchabees is a book that deserveth esteem Though this book be not Canonical it deserves however a very great esteem and I do not at all doubt but it was left to the Church by a singular Providence of God that by it we might see the truth of Daniel's Prophecy and at the same time to instruct us in the different periods of the duration and end of Antichrist's Kingdom shadowed forth by that of Antiochus See then how we must frame the Chronology of the four first Chapters of this Book to the end we may find an admirable agreement between the events and these four numbers in the Prophecy To understand what we are about to say it must in the first place be observed that two things usually are Confounded that must be very carefully distinguisht in the persecution of Antiochus We must observe four periods in the persecution of Antiochus the first is the prophanation of the Sanctuary the second is the cessation of the daily sacrifice 'T is supposed that they are the same thing or at least that these two things lasted one as long as the other Which is not so for the prophanation of the Sanctuary began some months before the cessation of the daily sacrifice also it ceased sooner For the daily sacrifice began not again till some months after the sanctuary had ceased from being prophan'd see then the four Periods that must be observ'd in the persecution of the Jewish Church by Antiochus The first from the ceasing of the daily Sacrifice till its first beginning again The second from the beginning of the prophanation of the Temple by the Gentiles to the purification of the Temple begun by Macchabaeus The third from the beginning of the prophanation of the Temple by the Gentiles to the finishing the purification of the Temple by Judas Macchabaeus The fourth from the beginning the first prophanation of the Temple by the Geniles to its dedication consecration which was the very same day that the first daily sacrifice began again The four numbers in the Prophecy answer to these four Periods 1. The first number of 2300. evenings and mornings answers to the cessation of the daily sacrifice as is clear and this signifies that from the ceasing of the last daily sacrifice to the first beginning again of the daily sacrifice there was to be an interruption of 2300. sacrifices i. e. 1150 days which make three years two months ten days 2. The number of a time times and half a time i. e. three years and six months answers to the period that ran out from the first prophanation of the Temple by the Gentiles to the beginning of the purification of it by Judas Macchabaeus And this signifies that from the first prophanation to the beginning of the purification there were exactly 3 Years and 6 Months 3. The third Number which is 1290. days answers to the period that ran out from the first prophanation of the Temple by the Gentiles to the finishing the purification by Macchabaeus and this signifies that from the first prophanation of the Temple to the finishing its purification there were 1290 days i. e. three Years and seven months 4. Lastly the fourth number which is 1335. days answers to the period that ran out from the first prophanation of the Temple to its dedication and consecration And this signifies that from this first prophanation to the feast of the dedication there were 1335 days i. e. three years eight months and fifteen days The three last periods begin at the same point viz. the prophanation of the Temple by the Gentiles but they end at three different points One at the beginning of the cleansing of the Temple the other at the end of this cleansing and the third at the
the World but was manifest in these last times for us 2 Pet. 3.3 4. The same Apostle tells us in the last days shall come scoffers walking after their own lusts and saying where is the promise of his coming 'T was the very time in which Saint Peter spoke and wrote For 't is spoken as of persons that were in being already And it appears by the second Chapter of the Epistle to the Thessalonians that there was an opinion spread abroad that the end of the World was at hand which made prophane ones say where is the promise of his coming which they tell us is nigh The Prophet Ioel saith Acts 2. in the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh St. Peter applies this Oracle to that which happen'd on the day of Pentecost and in the ages of the Primitive Church 2. Tim. 3.1 St. Paul saith to Timothy Know this that in the last days perillous times shall come for men shall be lovers of their own selves c. These last days began a little after St. Paul For the Church was not long before she corrupted her manners These very same Texts prove also the other thing we have laid down which is that the last times do not signify a short duration For the manifestation of Jesus Christ made in the last times and God speaking to us in the last days by his Son and the last days wherein the prophane shall bear sway all this I say signifieth the time that passeth from I. Christ to the end of the word The times divided into three parts in reference to the Church To understand why the Period that passeth from Jesus Christ to this present time is called the last time we must observe that in the Scripture the times are divided either with reference to the Church or with reference to the World. With reference to the Church there are three times A time when the Church was without the Law and without the Gospel this is the first time that passed from Adam to Moses A time wherein the Church had the Law of Moses that was the time from the departure out of Egypt to I. Christ that 's the second time Lastly A time wherein the Church enjoys the light of Iesus Christ that 's ours and that 's the third time The times in reference to the world are divided into four With reference to the World the time is divided into four great Monarchies that must precede the last reign of I. Christ The first was the Monarchy of the Assyrians which had its seat first at Niniveh and afterwards at Babylon The second is that of the Persians the third that of the Greeks and the fourth that of the Romans whose reign must be prolong'd till the Kingdom be given to J. Christ and his Saints Since Jesus Christ we are in the last times Now whether we refer it to the first division or the second 't is still true that we are in the last times that I. Christ came in the last times and that the Empire of Antichrist must be in the last times J. Christ came in the third and last time with reference to the times of the Church seeing he came since the Law of Moses ceased to be in its vigor And Antichrist also hath his reign in the third and last period of the Church Jesus Christ also came in the last times with respect to the World for he came in the time of the fourth Monarchy Antichrist with much more reason may be assigned to the last times of the fourth Monarchy because he himself is but a continuation of that fourth Monarchy But to be so much the more fully perswaded that 't is a very proper expression it must be observ'd that the fourth Monarchy figur'd by the fourth beast was to have two great periods one of six heads the other of a seventh head having ten horns The Period of the six first heads is the Roman Empire under Kings Consuls Decemvirs Tribunes of the people perpetual Dictators and Emperors And this first Period contains about 12 or 1300 years The period of the little horn or the seventh beast with ten horns is that of Antichrist and the ten Kings which must also be between 12 and 1300 years Antichrist therefore is come in the last time of the last time i. e. in the last period of the fourth and last worldly Monarchy And consequently the Holy Spirit might with very great reason call his reign the last times And thence it can by no means be concluded that this Kingdom must last but a few years before the end of the World. Having said all that I had to say to destroy this false imagination that the Empire of Antichrist must last but three years and a half I might justly reassume and urge all those Arguments I formerly mentioned to prove that the Idea of Antichrist which the Papists frame to themselves is false and that the popish Roman see is the true Antichrist But before that I must use them yet once more to confound the dishonesty of the Translators of the Port-Royal Rev. 17.10 The dishonesty of the translation of the Port-Royal about the duration of Antichrists reign who say of the ten Kings that they shall take power for one hour or for a little time with the beast instead of translating in in the same hour or at the same time with the beast They found this translation or rather this notorious falsification very proper to take away from the Reformed this Text that proves so clearly that the birth of Antichrist must be reckon'd from the division of the Roman Empire among ten Kings and into ten Kingdoms But afterwards we shall see that though we should let their translation pass our proof would not in the least be weakned by it But as they will not agree that 1260 years may be called a little time see here they are engaged to prove that all that we have said to prove that the 1260 days of Antichrists reign are so many years is illusion a Chimaera a dream and a sophism For if our proofs do subsist how will they maintain their version that the Kings shall take power for a little time with the beast Seeing all Interpreters do agree and 't is clear of it self without their consent that the power of the ten Kings must last as long as that of the beast And also these ten Kings must reach beyond the beast for after they have clothed him with their power they must strip him of it eat his flesh and burn it with fire If therefore they duration and continuance of the beast be 1260 years as we have demonstrated it 't is necessary that the reign of the ten Kings be 1260 years and consequently this reign will not be for one hour and for a little time 'T is here that these Gentlemen the Interpreters will have great need of the Arabique Rabbinical learning and Hebrew of Father
nations unto the obedience of the Church of Rome But besides that in this there is no shadow of resemblance between the Prophetick Emblem and that which is pretended to be signified by it this contradicts the evident Principle that these plagues never signify good to the Antichristian Empire The reduction of so many Nations under the obedience of the Pope is the greatest advantage that hath happened to the Antichristian Kingdom 3. According to Mede it is the popish sea slain and turn'd into blood by the Reformation which was done in the last Age. 4. According to De Launay it is the government of soveraign Princes allied with the Pope which shall become tyrannical and odious to their subjects 5. Testard thinks that it signifies that many States shall withdraw themselves from the jurisdiction of the Pope so that this domination shall become like a bloody carkass which putrifies the waters 6. According to Durrham the waters are Ecclesiastical constitutions decrees Canons worship Mass c. And that the viol shall make all these become deadly to those who use them 7. Lastly in the judgement of Dr. More the fishes here signify men and the sense is that men shall withdraw themselves from the dominion of the Pope so that no more any men shall be found under that dominion Interpretation of the third plague The third Plague is The Rivers turned into blood 1. According to Forbes these are the Doctors Bishops and Priests of the Church of Rome which must become stinking unto the people even as Rivers of blood 2. According to Cocceius this signifies the wars and divisions which have spilt so much blood among Christian Princes since the time of the Waldenses and Albigenses 3. According to Mede the Rivers are the Emissaries Agents and Protectors of popery whose turn shall come to suffer the deaths and torments which they had caused the faithful to suffer which he says came to pass in England in the reign of Queen Elizabeth 4. According to de Launay this is the Doctrine of popery that shall become odious to all its followers 5. Testard follows the Interpretation of Mede 6. Durrham does the like 7. And so does Dr. More Interpretations of the fourth plague The fourth Plague is The Sun whose heat and scorching beams do burn men 1. According to Forbes this is the Light of the Gospel which is renewed and doubled by the Reformation and which fills the Papists with despair 2. Cocceius saith almost the same thing that the Sun is Jesus Christ the beams are his efficacy and light which destroys the superstitions of popery by discovering them 3. Mede thinks that the Sun in this fourth Plague is the Emperor or some other great Potentate who shall abandon popery and torment it 4. De Launay judges that the Sun is the Pope and this is the only thing in which he hath guessed right and that the burning caused by the Sun signifies that remorse of Conscience which Papists subjects of the Pope will feel 5. Testard who every where follows Mede does leave him here and follows Forbes 6. Durrham follows Mede 7. And Dr. More is of the opinion of Forbes and Cocceius Interpretations of the fifth plague The fifth Plague falls upon the seat of the Beast which is darkned by it 1. According to Forbes this is the diminution of credit and authority which happened to popery by the Reformation 2. According to Cocceius the throne of the Beast signifies a multitude of Nations upon whom the Pope did sit and this throne was overturn'd by the Council of Trent which by its excommunications hath seperated a multitude of Nations from the See of Rome 3. According to Joseph Mede this signifies that the City of Rome shall be utterly destroy'd a considerable time before popery be compleatly ruin'd 4. This is also the opinion of de Launay 5. Testard hath followed them both 6. And Durrham likewise 7. Dr. More saith that the plague which falls upon the seat of the Beast and darkens it is the discovery of the falshood of the pretended infallibility of the Pope Interpretations of the sixth plague The sixth Plague falls upon Euphrates whose waters are dryed up that a way may be open'd to the Kings of the East 1. According to Forbes Euphrates signifies the Papal power and domination the Kings of the East are Turks and Jews this Papal domination is an obstacle to the conversion of these Kings of the East when it shall be abolisht that which is signified by the drying up of the River Euphrates the Turks and Jews shall be converted 2. According to Cocceius Euphrates signifies also the power of the new Babylon This Euphrates saith he this Roman power hath been much weakned in this present age by the wars which have happened between the Spaniards the French the Germans the Hollanders The Kings of the East are the Turks which must come but he knows not how far they must come 3. According to Joseph Mede Euphrates dryed up signifies the ruin of the Mahometans and the Kings of the East who shall come are the Jews who shall be converted 4. De Launay says almost the same thing save that by the Kings of the East who shall come he understands all the Nations which are on the other side of the Bosphorus who shall be converted to the Faith. 5. Testard exactly follows the conjecture of Ioseph Mede 6. Iames Durrham does not much differ 7. And Dr. More conjectures that here is signified the conjunction of the Turks and Iews as well as their conversion They all agree in interpreting the three unclean spirits like unto Frogs to be the Agents and Ambassadors of the Pope or Monks Interpretations of the seventh plague The seventh viol falls upon the air and the plague consists in thunders lightnings earthquakes the division of the City into three parts 1. Forbes explains this to be the total ruin of popery but knows not what to make of the division of the City into three parts 2. Cocceius applies this to the wars which have happen'd in this Age in England Scotland to the massacre in Ireland to the death of King Charles I. to the War between the Hollanders and Spaniards He confesseth also that he knows not what the division of the City into three parts means by the City he understands the true Church 3. Mede also explains all this to be the final destruction of popery but saith nothing of the division of the City into three parts 4. De Launay understands it after the same manner he says that the three parts of the City have relation to the three great judgements by which God will destroy the Antichristian Empire 5. Testard follows Mede and knows no more then he the meaning of the division of the City into three parts 6. According to James Durrham this Plague comprehends all the calamities which must happen from the fall of Antichrist unto the end of the world the
Constantinople against the Turks But they leapt over this barriere and spread themselves as far as the Euxine Sea and the Bosphorus and the Aegean Sea or the Archipelago The Croisades about the end of the eleventh Age drove them back took from them Nice and a part of the lesser Asia But afterwards they came again and wasting the Grecian Empire they took all away from it as far as the Sea called Bosphorus and as far as the Archipelago Behold these are the Kings of the East which appear again in our sixth viol behold the Euphrates which again comes upon the stage But what is this Euphrates Here Euphrates is the Thracian Bosphorus the second barriere of the Turks In this Prophecy whatever serves as a barriere to the Turks is called Euphrates because this River was the first barriere which did seperate that people from Christendom After the Turks had got over that River they find another Euphrates viz. the Bosphorus This in their last irruptions was the same that Euphrates had been in their first namely a barriere that for a little while stopt their course though at last they leapt over it This figure is very ordinary in Orators and consequently there is ground to seek it in Prophets whose style is much more figurative Thus one will say Here are my Herculis's pillars meaning here I will bound my conquests another will say Here are my East-Indies meaning here I will bound my longest voyages A third says This is my Louure meaning this is my Palace or residence So it might be said of the Turks stopt behind the Bosphorus This was their Euphrates therefore the Sea call'd Archipel and the Bosphorus of Thrace in the thirteenth age were the barriere that parted the remainder of the Greek Empire and the Empire of the Turks But at the end of the 14th age the Turks under the conduct of the proud Bajazet and by means of the treachery of the Genuese who let their Gallies to them they passed the Bosphorus made themselves masters of all Thrace fixed the Seat of their Empire at Adrianople and plundred all Greece insomuch that the Greek Emperor had scarce any thing left besides the City of Constantinople Tamerlain tamed the pride of Bajazet and for a while stopt the fury of this torrent But the Children and Successors of Bajazet soon after carried on their conquests and 50 years after quite ruin'd the remainder of the Greek Empire Mahomet II. took Constantinople in the year 1452. After which the Turks overflowed as a torrent conquer'd all Greece Macedonia Albania Slavonia Croatia Bulgaria Hungary and extended the bounds of their Empire even unto the borders of Germany Here therefore the Archipel and the Bosphorus which is joyn'd to it are called Euphrates because this Sea served as a barriere against the Turks as Euphrates formerly had done this was the Euphrates of that time and the Holy Ghost kept the name of Euphrates in this second barriere that we might in this Text the more certainly discern the Turks who had passed over Euphrates when they first invaded the Greek Empire and Christendom The Latin Church suffered infinitely by the passage of the Turks into Europe This is the sixth plague which may be well called the plague upon the Kingdom of the Beast for that Kingdom did infinitely suffer by it 'T is true the first desolations fell upon the Greek Empire but as I have already remarkt the great Idolatries which reigned in the Greek Church had made it become a Province of the Antichristian Empire it was indeed separated by a schisme from the Latin Church notwithstanding it was a Province Besides this the Latin Church the Kingdom of the beast was infinitely a loser How many fair Provinces and brave Kingdoms were rent off from the West by the Turks How often have the Turks vexed Italy nay even Christian Princes have used them to mortify the Popes besides what they have already done we know not what they must do hereafter The Holy Ghost seems to intimate that God hath placed them there for some greater work than that which they have already performed for the Spirit saith that the way of the Kings of the East might be prepared without telling us what work they are to do and the reason is because their greatest work must not be done under the sixth plague but at the end of the seventh God hath thought it sufficient to tell us that he hath placed them on this side the Bosphorus and brought them even to the borders of Germany to be the instruments of his great work at least this is the opinion of many who are taken with the Prophecies of Drabicius They are perswaded that the Turk must destroy Rome The present state of his affairs does not promise this for since the Ottoman Empire was founded he was never brought so low But I confess that this is far from weakning my opinion that the Turk must be the Instrument of the vengeance of God against Rome for 't is this that does confirm me in it for I look on this year 1685 as a Critical year in this great affair God hath brought low the Protestants and the Turks at the same time that he may raise them up at the same time and make them the Instruments of his vengeance against the Babylonian Empire Notwithstanding as I do not found my predictions upon the visions of Drabicius but upon those of Saint John and he saith nothing that does determine me I am in suspence whether the Turks have been placed so nigh the Kingdom of the Beast to bear a part in destroying him or to be honoured with the blessing of conversion upon the sight of that great work of God. I am perswaded that a few years will inform us which of these is the truth From 1390 until 1526. The duration of this period is about 125 or 130 years In the year 1529 the Turks came and besieged Vienna Charles the fifth made them raise teir siege Since that time they have not made any great progress into the Kingdom of the Beast And this sixth plague exactly brings that Kingdom unto the time of Luthers preaching of which the consequences are fore-told in the seventh plague as I hope a Parenthesis of a great depth and obscurity V. 13. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the Dragon and out of the mouth of the Beast and out of the mouth of the false Prophet V. 14. For they are the spirits of Devils working miracles which go forth unto the Kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battel of that great day of God Almighty V. 15. Behold I come as a thief c. V. 16. And he gathers them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armegeddon Behold great affairs untill now finding nothing better I was contented with the conjecture of those who by these three unclean spirits understand the
pass over the Archipel and the Bosphorus they went still forward untill the year 1526. when they ceased to gain ground upon the West Now 't was at this time that the body of the papal Laws styl'd the Canon Law was compleated the Clementines had been publisht by John XXII about the year 1320. he likewise publisht the Extravagants But the Common or the common Extravagants appeared not nor were compiled till the end of the fifteenth Century So that 't is properly in this sixth period of the viols that this work of darkness was wholly finisht Now 't is natural when something is to be brought upon a great Theatre that it may be shown to stay till it be finisht and therefore the Prophet ought not to speak sooner of these papal Laws Second reason The 15th Censury was an Age of Excommunications Besides there never had been any age or time wherein there were more Armageddons Anathema's and Excommunications then in this period The Popes at Rome and Avignon did excommunicate one another Within this period the Councils of Pisa Constance Basil Florence and the Lateran under Julius II. and Leo X. were held and it s was nothing but anathema's excommunications canons decisions censures either against Popes or pretended hereticks as the Wickliffites Bohemians Taborites and lastly against Luther c. Lastly these spirits are most fitly placed under the period of the sixth viol because then the Bulls Third Reason decisions decrees of the Church of Rome gathered the Kings of the Earth to battel against the Bohemians And Zisca having gain'd such signal victories that they might well be called the battels of the great day of God Almighty a Croisade was publisht against him and all those who stood for the Truth in Bohemia and the neighbouring Countries CHAP. X. The seventh plague is the preaching of Luther and other Reformers by which the Latin Church was divided into three parts Papists Lutherans and Reformed ANd thus behold we are come to the seventh and last viol V. 17. And the seventh Angel pour'd out his viol into the air and there came a great voyce out of the Temple of Heaven from the Throne saying It is done It is done does not signify the final ruin of Antichrist This expression It is done hath deceived all the Interpreters who have confounded this moment or space of time with that of the seventh trumpet when it must be proclaim'd It is done the Kingdoms are brought under our Lord Jesus Christ The great Babylon is wholly destroyed c. They have believed that this expression It is done signified the total destruction of the Antichristian Kingdom at that very moment But certainly they are mistaken It is done is nothing else but It is done with the viols The viols comprehend and signify periods of some length this is the last this is the last period of the Antichristian Kingdom and which shall comprehend its total ruin We have remarkt already that every period contained in every viol took in a considerable space of time a hundred a hundred and forty a hundred and fifty years and more Therefore there is no reason not to allow some length of time to this seventh viol it ought to have as much as least as the others yea more because 't is the last and consequently it must have about two hundred years allowed to it And this is the period that comprehends the total ruin of Antichrist which ruin as we shall see anon is divided into two parts the harvest and the vintage the harvest hath been in the age last past the vintage must be at the end of this and the beginning of the next age This last viol begins exactly at the preaching of Luther and as an hour-glass must run untill the total destruction of popery And I hope none will doubt of this when we shall have made out how exactly all that follows in the Prophecy agrees with the times and things which have been seen since the Reformation This seventh viol is pour'd not upon the Earth or the Sea or the Sun or the Seat of the Beast as the others were but on the air which is the seat of the voyce of sounds and thunders and we shall presently give you the reasons V. 18. And there were voyces and thunders and lightnings and there was a great Earthquake such as was not since men were upon the Earth so mighty an Earthquake and so great These voyces The seventh viol raiseth Preachers and voyces for the ruin of Antichrist these lightnings and these thunders are the voyces of Preachers who labour'd in Reforming the Church we shall afterward see that there are three ways of Reforming the Church the way of Inspiration the way of Authority the way of Preaching this last is signified by voyces and thunders And 't was this way that God used to reform the Church in the last age These voyces glittered like lightnings and passed with a prodigious swiftness from one end of the Antichristian Kingdom to the other All men saw them and would see them men studied Religion The very Grandees of the World persons who despise knowledge were concerned in these affairs Henry VIII wrote a book against Luther Charles the fifth made Laws about Religion now on the account of these lightnings i.e. the voyces of Preachers this seventh viol is said to be poured on the air for the air is the seat and vehicle of the voyce There was a great Earthquake In the Prophetick style this signifies a change of the face of the World the Earth plainly signifies here the frame and face of the Antichristian Kingdom We have already seen and shall afterward have occasion to see that Earthquakes in the figurative style of the Prophets always signify a change of the face of the World because Earthquakes do overturn not only Cities but Mountains Forrests hilly Countries and Vallies they set Mountains where Vallies stood and Vallies where Mountains stood in so much that the face of a whole Country is changed Now all know what a change the reformation made in the face of popery It took away from it at one clap several Kingdoms and a great number of Soveraign States And this Earthquake i. e. this change of affairs was so great that there had not been such since men were upon the Earth This may be truly spoken without any exaggeration For we must observe that this last period comprehending the harvest and the vintage the first and last destruction of Antichrist 't is undoubted that the face of the World was never so changed as it shall be changed after the total ruin of Antichrist the time of the first establishing of Christianity not excepted For at that time there were great numbers of men converted up and down among the Nations But at the time we speak of all the Nations and whole Nations shall submit themselves to the Faith. And thus this period shall make greater changes in the World then
were ever seen Nay if we should interpret these changes which ought to happen onely by those which fell out in the last age surely we may say that never were greater and more surprizing alterations The Earthquake signifies the great change of the world by the Reformation In less then twenty or thirty years a great part of the Christian World was Reformed And at the same time there were dreadfull wars troubles and sheddings of blood in Germany in Flanders in Holland in England and in France as every body knows V. 19. And the great City was divided into three parts Behold something which does furnish us with a plain Character of this last period and of this last viol These words have not hitherto been understood but I perswade my self that it will be judged that they can be understood We have already said and shall hereafter prove it that the great City is not Rome strictly taken but Rome made up and joyn'd with its whole Empire In a word this City is the Antichristian Kingdom otherwise called the Latin Church A remarliable prediction of the division of the Latin Church into three principal parts Papists Lutherans and Reformed This City upon the pouring out of the seventh viol was to be divided into three parts This is exactly come to pass at the preaching of the Reformers the Antichristian Kingdom was divided into three one part remain'd with Antichrist one part did separate from him under the name of the Ausburg Confession A third part did separate under the Confession of those who are barely styled the Reformed Sweden Denmark and a great part of Germany make the second part England the Vnited Provinces the reformed part of France a part of Germany make the third part These are the three grand parts that divide the Western Church which is the great City Let this be attentively minded for I affirm that this passage does as it were speak with a tongue and is able alone to convince that our System of the seven plagues is a most undoubted truth This division of the great City into three parts so clearly points out the three Communions of the Latin Church that to deny it can proceed onely from unreasonable passion and opiniatrety And if we have hit upon the truth in this point we have done so in all for if this Character of the seventh plague is true and is already accomplisht all the other plagues are also accomplisht and if they are accomplisht I do boldly affirm they cannot be apply'd to any other events then those to which we have apply'd them And it must not be hoped that to obscure this evidence a fourth part may be made viz. the Church of England because of the controversies about Church government for the Church of England never refused to receive other Reformed ones into her Communion nor have these again ever refused to receive her into theirs We have alway professed the same Religion with the Church of England on the account of the perfect agreement of our Doctrine notwithstanding the difference of discipline and government When as the Lutherans have constantly refused to receive the Reformed into their Communion There is among the Lutherans themselves a difference in point of government Sweden hath Bishops Denmark hath none at least not such Bishops as those of Sweden and England and nevertheless this makes not a different Sect. There is also the same difference among the Reformed on this side the Sea for the Superintendants who are in many Reformed Churches of Germany are real Bishops and notwithstanding the Reformed are not divided one from another Thus in truth there are but three grand parts into which the Latin Church is divided i. e. Papists Lutherans and Reformed as they are called by one another or Catholiks Reformed Evangelici as they style themselves And the Cities of the Nations fell i. e. they fell with respect to Popery they departed out of the Antichristian Kingdom in the same sense that in the eleventh Chapter 't is said that the tenth part of the City fell And great Babylon came in remembrance before God to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath These words let us see that the expression It is done did not signify the very point of the final ruin of the Antichristian Kingdom For behold after 't was said It is done Babylon comes in remembrance before God to give her the cup. Now these expressions signify both the future and the present time And indeed 't is within the duration of this period that God will remember Babylon to give her the last cup of his wrath And observe it that the great Babylon comes not in remembrance before God to give her the cup i. e. the last cup of her ruin till after her dividing into three parts This division is not her total ruin but after that she shall be thus divided into Papists Lutherans and Calvinists then God will prepare to give her the last cup of his wrath Which signifies that the division of the Latin Church into three parts must continue untill the compleat ruin of popery V. 20. And every Island fled away and the mountains were not found This is nothing but a Paraphrase and a description of the Earthquake which he had spoken of a little before for these are the effects of Earthquakes where mountains once stood they are not to be seen new Islands are produced and the old ones are often swallowed up But yet if any will interpret Islands to signify lesser States and Mountains great ones I do not contradict it for 't is really true that the Reformation hath already taken away from the Popedom and shall yet take away all States both small and great V. 21. And there fell upon men a great hail out of Heaven i. e. upon the Subjects of Antichrist this signifies the judgments of God which fall upon this Kingdom and these judgements are well known for it hath suffered of all kinds wars famines pestilences mortalities And men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail The Subjects of the Popedom have not hitherto been converted by all these chastisements but have always stuck firm to the Kingdom and Seat of the Beast whose head is cover'd with names of blasphemies The seven hour-glasses being run out the Kingdom of Autichrist must be at its end This is the seventh and last viol or hour-glass which thanks be to God will in a little time be run out now we have that which we seek namely an evidence that the Antichristian Kingdom is near its end We need not longer wait for the accomplishment either of all the seven plagues as some of our Interpreters say or of some of the seven plagues as others say It is done all is accomplisht we are in the last period of the seven yea we are at the end of the seventh period I am informed that since the first Edition of this work some
persons that they might be taken notice of will yet affirm that not so much as one of these seven plagues is hitherto come to pass This singularity is neither too edifying nor too comfortable I earnestly entreat them to lay aside the desire of contradicting and to consider without prejudice these two things First that in the whole explication of this 16th Chapter there is not the least forced application the Emblems which the Prophet makes use of do exactly resemble the events set down in History The second that in the application of these seven plagues unto the events every thing does hang together no part of this System contradicts another This being supposed I entreat them to consider if chance can do this and hath ever done it chance may hit right in some points but never does so in all I say again that we are at the end of the seventh period for it ought to be well observed that there is not one viol which distinct and seperated from others lasts 200 years the greatest part does not come near that number This hath already lasted 170 years it cannot last much longer 'T is true the papal authority whose beams so scorched men under the fourth viol lasted above 200 years but this was because it was inlayd or jointed in those that preceded and those that followed And its particular strict period must be reckon'd to be onely 108 years which begun at the year 1270 when the Croisades ended and continued untill the grand Schisme which happen'd in the year 1378. for then began the diminishing of the papal authority and the darkning of the Kingdom of the Beast The seventh viol hath already lasted longer then any of the rest and 't is probable that it must last about 200 years which none of the others hath done but we shall see the reason of this in the next Chapter where we shall shew that this seventh period is it self divided into three other periods the harvest the vintage and the time that is betwixt the harvest and the vintage The harvest is already past the time betwixt the harvest and the vintage is almost expired we are approaching to the vintage and at this day ought to say Come Lord Jesus come but within a little while we shall say He is come he is come CHAP. XI The explication of the 14th Chapter The vision of the harvest and the vintage the harvest of the Reformation made in the age last past the vintage is the Reformation which shall be made this present age THe fourteenth Chapter is the second of those wherein we find the circumstances of the fall of the Babylonian Kingdom In the beginning of the Chapter we find the 140 thousand marked ones who are the same with the two witnesses whom we shall discourse of hereafter the small number of faithful ones whom God preserved in spiritual Babylon and who did not partake of her Idolatries We find them I say who sing a song which none was able to learn but they i. e. they tast peculiar joyes and pleasures which the Antichristian Christians were notable to taste In the following verses an Angelappears flying in the midst of heaven Chap. 14.6 having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people This is the preparative unto that preaching of the Gospel which must be made to all Nations when the Antichristian Kingdom shall be ablosht This preaching is said to be of the everlasting Gospel because it shall last untill the end of the world All Nations shall be converted and their purity shall suffer no alteration as long as the world shall last And to signify that the Kingdom of Antichrist shall fall through the preaching of this everlasting Gospel immediately after another Angel cryes Babylon is fallen is fallen that great City Which proves that in the vision that follows the harvest and the vintage are the two parts of the fall of the Babylonian Kingdom The persecution of the Waldenses Albigenses foretold in the 14th Chap. vers 9.10 11. In the third place we have in this Chapter an Angle who denounces the terrible judgments of God that must fall on those who worship the Beast and his image and receive his mark in their foreheads or in their hands And at the same time by these words here is the patience of the Saints is signified a sore persecution that must go before the fall of Antichrist not that persecution which we suffer at this day and which must be the last but that which the Church endured in the Waldenses the Albigenses the Bohemians c. For this is the persecution which happen'd before the Reformation of the last age because the fall of Babylon which is spoken of in this Chapter begins by the Reformation made in the last age Therefore the persecution here spoken of must be that which went before our Reformation but there is no other besides that against the poor Waldenses which lasted a full 100 years before the preaching of Luther All these things are onely a preparative unto the last vision of this Chapter which contains a new prediction of the fall of Antichrist with new circumstances and 't is this V. 14. And I lookt and behold a white could and upon the cloud one sate like unto the son of man having on his head a golden crown and in his hand a sharp sickle V. 15. And another Angel came out of the Temple crying with a loud voyce to him that sate on the cloud Thrust in thy sickle and reap for the time is come for thee to reap for the harvest of the earth is ripe V. 16. And he that sate on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth and the earth was reaped V. 17. And another Angel came out of the Temple which is in Heaven he also having a sharp sickle V. 18. And another Angel came out from the Altar which had power over fire and cryed with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle saying Thrust in thy sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth for her grapes are fully ripe V. 19. And the Angel thrust in his sickle into the earth and gather'd the vine of the earth and cast it into the great wine-press of the wrath of God. V. 20. And the wine-press was trodden without the city and blood came out of the wine-press even unto the horse bridles by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs A distinction of circumstances and substance in this vision In this vision there are circumstances and substance the circumstances are these the Angel who sits on a white cloud and his cloathing another Angel who bids him thrust in his sickle another Angel who appears likewise having asickle the ripeness of the corn and grapes the wine-press of the wrath of God the blood that flows out by the space of 1600 furlongs These I
whether the Antichristian Kingdom shall be destroy'd by sword fire and bloodshed I see nothing in the whole Revelation which obliges us to believe so for though in this and several other passages the ruin of popery is painted out in expressions borrowed from war slaughter and bloodshed yea in the most terrible and high expressions nevertheless this may very well be understood figuratively for the destruction of Paganisme is painted out in almost the same expressions by the Prophets though it was brought to pass without bloodshed As the Kingdom of the Beast was formed without war by the sottish complaisance of the Kings of the Earth who suffered their power to be snatcht from them or rather did voluntarily surrender it so this Antichristian Kingdom may perish without weapon by a word of two Letters The Princes of the Earth need onely say NO and the tyranny of Antichrist will fall to the ground And as for Idolatry which is the other part of Antichristianism the word and grace of God must destroy it Nevertheless I am willing to submit to the general consent of Interpreters of both Communions who unanimously hold that in the ruin of the Antichristian Kingdom there shall be a great effusion of blood and that Babylon the capital City of that Kingdom shall be laid in ashes I am willing therefore to believe that there shall be some bloodshed not for any passages in the Revelation but for these two Reasons Rome must be miserably destroyed 1. The first that 't is not probable that the Pope and his Partisans will yield without resistance they will stand out and in defending themselves will attaque in which attaque they shall perish 2. The second it seems agreeable to the Divine justice that the City of Rome that for two thousand years is the Mistress of the World the tyrant of the universe which hath shed so much blood and has bin delug'd with so many impurities should be overwhelmed and the World be avenged Ierusalem who was not guilty of such excess is ruined by a dreadful destiny 'T is not probable that God makes ready a less destruction for the City of Rome Here the last lacking of Rome is fore-told If this be so this passage without doubt is one of those that foretell this bloody Tragedy The City which is spoken of here without the City must be Rome But we have said before and shall hereafter prove that this word ought to be taken only for Rome in conjunction with her Empire Here 't is Rome alone and not her Empire 'T is true but the reason is that when she shall be laid waste in the manner that is mention'd here she shall have no more any Empire all her Provinces shall be revolted she shall be left alone of her whole party so that in this place she ought to appear all alone And the City cannot signify any more then the City of Rome because she shall have no more any dependent Provinces excepting that which is called the patrimony of St. Peter which Joseph Mede believes is meant by these thousand six hundred furlongs For he saith that the Countrey that reaches from the walls of Rome unto the river Po contains 200 Italian miles which make exactly 1600 furlongs If this conjecture be true as 't is probable this signifies that all the forces which the Pope shall be able to get together shall be wholly destroy'd without the City i. e. without Rome in that part of the Country which lyes betwixt Rome and the River Po. CHAP. XII The explication of that part of the eleventh Chapter where the last persecution made by Antichrist is fore-told which is the present persecution in France The death of the two witnesses who shall not be buried by means of the succour brought by the enemies of France THe first Chapter in the Revelation where the ruin of Antichristianism is fore-fold is the eleventh We passed over it for the reasons above mention'd We come again to it at present and place it the last that we may place it according to the order of events We have observed that there is found in it an Epitome or short draught of the whole History of the Church from the resurrection of Jesus Christ untill his coming into the World to erect his Kingdom there The pure Church of the three first ages is hid under these words measure the Temple and the Altar and those that worship therein And the corrupted Antichristian one under the Gentiles who must tread under foot the holy City forty and two months That is the outward Court but the Court that is without the Temple leave out and measure it not for it is given to the Gentiles This outward Court as Vsher hath divinely explain'd it in his Prophecy signifies Christians in appearance whose Religion consists in the performance of some external duties of Christianiâ—y without having the inward life or the true Faith which should unite them to Jesus Christ But those who worship in the Temple and before the Altar are those who sincerely worship God in spirit and truth whose souls are his Temples in which he is adored and honoured with the most inward thoughts of their hearts and who offer unto him a constant sacrifice not onely of their lusts but of their whole selves Thus this holy man speaks and I confess that I see in his words the Character of the spirit of God. These are the true worshippers whom God does measure and whom he makes account of and these are those who possessed the Church during the three or four first ages But afterward the Church became an outward Court was filled with feigned worshippers who made Christianity to consist in an appearance of piety and in external Ceremonies Then God pronounc'd concerning this Court let it be given to the Gentiles for forty and two moneths Then Paganism Idolatry the worship of subordinate Gods Mediators and a thousand heathenish Ceremonies were introduced into Christianity And this outward Court these formal outside worshippers were given up to a spirit of error and superstition to begin Antichristianism and make it continue twelve hundred and sixty years We have also in this Chapter the Church under the Cross persecuted and hid in Babylon in the two Witnesses who prophesied cloathed in sackcloth a thousand two hundred and sixty days We have in it the sound of the last Trumpet and the thousand years reign of Jesus Christ and the Church For at the sound of the seventh Trumpet the Kingdoms of the Earch become Gods and his Christs Lastly we have in it a remarkable event which must come to pass at the end of the reign of Antichristian popery and 't is expressed in these terms V. 7. And when they shall have finisht their testimony the Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them and shall overcome them and kill them V. 8. And their dead bodies shall lye in the street of the great City
contrary he reckons these to be a victory which they gain over the World and the Devil He speaks of Martyrs when he saith He that overcomes I will make him sit down on my Throne So that when 't is here said that the Beast shall overcome the witnesses this signifies that he shall make them faint under the tryall Which thing ought to be well observed that we may discern the singular Character of this present persecution that hath conquer'd and overcome above a million of souls 3. This victory of the Beast must prevail even to a total extinction of profession there shall remain no more signs of outward life in the faithfull who shall stand for the Truth they shall lye on the ground as dead bodies 4. This murther and the effect of this persecution shall be done in the street of the great City 5. The death of these witnesses must last three years and a half denoted by three prophetick days and a half 6. During these three years and a half the Truth shall remain as it were dead but not withstanding not buried men shall not dare to make profession of it notwithstanding it shall be visible the people who are neighbours of them who shall have stain it shall hinder it from perishing and putrefaction to which the bodies that are in the grave are obnoxious 7. At the end of these three years and a half the faithfull who are oppressed and whose profession shall have been violently suppressed shall rise again after that shall ascend to heaven and shall be exalted in the world 8. At the same time and after the exaltation of the faithfull there shall be an Earthquake i. e. a great emotion and trouble in the World and in the Antichristian Kingdom 9. In this emotion a tenth part of the City shall fall i. e. a tenth part of the Antichristian Kingdom shall be take away from it 10. Seven thousand men shall perish in this Earthquake and be buried under the ruin of the City i. e. that this shall be brought about with some blood shed though not considerable in that part of the City which shall be taken away from the Pope and the Popedom 11. And lastly within a little while this tenth part of the City which shall be taken from the Popedom shall give glory to God and be converted Behold what are the Characters of this last Antichristian persecution Now when I search after the time in which this persecution must happen I cannot doubt but that it is that in which we now are After this persecution shall be over God will begin to strike those sore blows to destroy the Antichristian Kingdom which must be destroyed within 25 or 30. years That the present persecution is the last That none may wonder that I speak so positively about a thing which seems to be as yet hid in futurity I entreat all equitable minds to consider that I have as I think with great evidence proved 1. That the reign of the Popedom must last 1260 years 2. That these 1260 years began about the year 450 or 455 and consequently they must end about the year 1710 or 1715. this being so we are but 25 or 30 years from the end of the Popish Kingdom And if this be so the present persecution must needs be the last since there is no probability that this present persecution being ended the calm restored to the Church should leave room for another persecution which must happen before the fall of the Popish Kingdom For we must allow the space of at least 20 or 25 years in which popery shall be persecuted and attacqued and not be the aggressor and the persecutor And certainly a shorter time cannot serve for the utter destruction of this vast Kingdom For it shall not be destroy'd in a way of violence but in a way of perswasion and because the charm that holds men enchanted cannot cease in a moment The harvest is past a long while ago the vintage must come speedily I have further proved that the fall of this Popish and Babylonian Monarchy is divided into two parts the harvest and the vintage that the harvest is the Reformation of the last Age and the vintage is the Reformation that must be made in this that is present Now the space of time that is already run out since the Reformation of the last Age does already equal the proportion of time that is between the natural harvest and vintage and consequently we must be very near the vintage i. e. the time wherein God will begin the first blows in order to the final destruction of the Babylonian Kingdom These things being so this persecution must be the last and immediately after it shall be ended begin the first events which shall bring the Popish Kingdom to its final fall A time of some length must be assigned for the last fall of popery I have lastly observed that the Holy Ghost hath styled these two parts of the fall of the popish Kingdom harvest and vintage to let us understand that as the harvest and the vintage are not reapt in a moment but require many dayes nay weeks so the two overturnings of the Babylonian Kingdom must not be made in the twinckling of an eye but in several years This hath been already verified in the harvest i. e. the fall which happened to popery in the last Age for this took up five and twenty or thirty years and more And no fewer can serve to compleat the ruin of this Kingdom But if this be so this must needs be the last persecution yea it cannot last a great number of years longer For if the Babylonian Kingdom begin to decline 25 or 30 years before its last and final destruction it must begin to decline and fall within four of five years supposing that it be true that it cannot last longer then the year 1710 or 1715. We must therefore see if the Characters of this present persecution that the Church suffers agree with those of the last persecution which the Church must suffer from the Beast according to the Text of the Revelation And we are about to find these Characters so agreeing and like that what at first seem'd only a conjecture will be able to become a kind of certainty The last Antichristian persecution of which this Chapter speaks must happen when the witnesses shall be almost at the end of their testimony and Antichrist near the end of his reign Now we have proved by the Predictions and Types of the foregoing Chapters that Antichrist is finishing his reign therefore this must be the last persecution It hath already lasted 30 years for it began in the year 1655. when the Duke of Savoy undertook to destroy the faithfull of the Vallies of Piedmont he sent thither Souldiers who made a great massacre but because the time of slaying the Witnesses was not as yet come God raised deliverance for them they defended themselves with success and
all the Protestant States of Europe did concern themselves to obtain from the Duke a Peace for those poor people A persecution began in Poland a while after and the Reformed were involved in the same ruin with the Hereticks Socinians and Antitrinitarians they were driven out of that Kingdom and were scattered in Transilvania Hungary and Germany At the same time a persecution begun in France immediately after the Pyrenaean peace the project of the ruin of the Protestants was laid at Court and hath been prosecuted till it hath been executed as we see at this day In the year 1671. began the persecution of the Churches of Silesia Moravia Hungary the consequents of which are the almost utter extinction of the true Religion in the Territories of the Emperor The two witnesses will in a little time be dead through the total extinction of the profession of Religion The Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them This Beast is the papacy where ever it is for 't is not only in Rome that the Beast is found but 't is in the whole extent of the jurisdiction of the ten Kings 'T is not therefore necessary that a persecution should be exactly rais'd by the Bishop of Rome that so it may be ascribed to the Beast 't is enough that it be raised in the extent of the popish Kingdom And their bodies shall lye in the street of the great City 'T is evident from these words that this last persecution must be rais'd only within the circumference of the great City i. e. the Babylonian and popish Kingdom in the Countries where it reigns On this account probably those Kingdoms Countries and States who are out of the jurisdiction of the Popedom and whose Soveraigns are Protestants must have no share in it Further the Prophecy saith that the war must be made against the two witnesses that prophesy cloathed in sackcloth which is the same with what we call preaching under the Cross this therefore only concerns the faithful who preach and are under the Cross so that the persecution must onely be rais'd within the bounds of the City i. e. the Babylonian Kingdom and against those who preach under the Cross Holland Sweden Denmark and all other States which have Reformed Princes and where the Reformation is the ruling Religion shall not feel it And we have ground to hope that the torch of the Reformation shall not be extinguisht And though at present the King of England is of the Romish Religion I dare notwithstanding perswade my self that his Kingdom cannot be reckoned as one of the streets of the great City seeing popery is not the ruling Religion there though it be the Religion of him that rules Therefore I do not believe that we must understand the prophesy of Vsher in the letter or strictest sense who says that the persecution must be general over all the Churches of Europe for we may understand it of all those where popery does rule 'T is true he fore-tells a massacre in England but besides that those who wrote this prophesy from his mouth might be mistaken 't is also possible that this holy man through the violence of his sorrow went further than the Spirit did carry him Notwithstanding the English ought to remember the massacre in Ireland circumstances then were not near so favourable to popery as they are now Men must not trust to this that the King of England will never consent to so barbarous an action I believe he will not but the Papists do not trouble themselves about the pleasure of their Soveraigns when they see any prospect of advancing their cause by any kind of Methods Therefore if the Protestants be wise they will not put weapons into the hands of their enemies The bodies of the two witnesses shall lye in the street of the great City 'T is to be observed that in the Text 't is not in the streets in the plural as the French translation reads 't is in the street in the singular And I cannot hinder my self from believing that this hath a particular regard to France which at this day is certainly the most eminent Countrey which belongs to the popish Kingdom Her King is called the eldest Son of the Church the most Christian King i. e. the most popish according to the dialect of Rome The Kings of France have by their liberalities made the Popes great at this day it is the most flourishing State of Europe It is in the middle of the popish Empire betwixt Italy Spain Germany England exactly as a street or place of concourse is in the middle of a City 'T is also foursquare as such a place i. e. almost as long as broad In a word 't is the place or street of the great City And I believe that 't is particularly in France that the witnesses must remain dead i.e. that the profession of the true Religion must be utterly abolisht This is already done by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and by the enormous cruclties of the Souldiers who have bin let loose upon the Protestants of whatsoever sex quality and condition If any stand firm they must either leave the Kingdom or be destroyed Thus within a little while the external profession of the Reformed Religion will be wholly abolisht there And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and Nations shall see their dead bodies and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put into graves i.e. The Truth shall be slain but it shall not be buried Burial is a degree beyond death and is always joyn'd with a total corruption and destruction And so 't is not an office of charity which is denyed to these two witnesses but a degree of ruin from which they are exempted The witnesses shall not be buried i.e. the Truth shall not be destroy'd And observe who they are who hinder their burial they are not the same with those who killed them Those who killed them are the Inhabitants of the street of the great City i. e. those who dwell in the most eminent part of the popish Kingdom which at this day is France Those who hinder their burial are the Tribes Languages People and Nations i.e. several neighbour nations yea 't is to be observed that the Propheey saith not simply The Tribes Languages and Nations but they of the Languages Tribes and Nations i. e. some chosen and elected out of the Nations the faithfull scattered in all the Nations of Europe shall hinder the burial and total destruction of the Reformation in France Nevertheless this does not wholly exclude those among the Tribes Languages and Nations who are not Elect. For 't is probable that all Europe shall contribute to hinder France from executing her design of extirpating the Truth But this signifies that the Reformed and the true Christians shall awaken Europe as well that part which is Roman Catholick as that which is Protestant to oblige it to look to
Among the considerations laid down by me in the Preface which induce me to believe that this persecution is the last I mention'd the singularities of it I named several such Behold one which in my judgement deserves to be added to the rest 'T is the horrible Edict which commands that the new Converts being sick shall communicate after the popish way This is the worst effect that ever was produced by the spirit of rage and reprobation And 't is not conceivable how a Clergy that will be called Christian can do such horrible actions The Edict ordains that they who will not communicate shall be sent to the Galleys if they recover There is none who is so mortally sick that is sure that he shall dye and fearing to recover he will also fear to go to the Gallies and this affrighting object is able to induce a sick man to communicate without faith and to worship that which he judgeth to be a piece of bread that is to say to commit a horrible sacriledge and an act of Idolatry and consequently to damn himself certainly So that properly this Edict is a trick of the Clergy to procure the damnation of all the new Converts This is perfectly to imitate that Italian who that he might take a compleat vengeance having his enemy in his power promis'd him his life on condition that he would deny God which having done he murther'd both his body and soul Will men never open their eyes to behold such objects as these The Reformation is foretold by three figures signifying three Methods And the spirit of life from God entred into them These words teach us how the Reformation shall be re-establisht in France for in these Prophecies I find three ways by which the Truth is establisht or re-establisht The first is by lightnings voyces and thunders thus after the seventh viol was pour'd on the air the Reformation in the last Age was made by lightnings voyces and thunders i. e. by the preaching of the Divine Oracles And the seventh Angel pour'd out his viol into the air and there were voyces and lightnings and thunders In this Prophecy thunders always signify the Divine Oracles The seven thunders that uttered their voyces in the tenth Chapter are the Oracles of God which ought to be uttered in the sequel Thus the Reformation was made in the last Age in a most sensible manner by the preaching of the word The Reformation shall come into France by way of internal grace But behold a second way of reforming A Spirit of life from God enters again into the dead Witnesses i. e. those who are at this day under oppression shall suddenly rise up again by a secret operation of grace and an extraordinary motion not by the means of preaching the word not by the ministry of some new Preachers but by a heavenly operation that shall open the eyes of them who are as yet in darkness and strengthen again the hearts of those who at this day have fallen through weakness At that time in all appearance the yoke of the Persecutor shall be broken a time of ease shall come and all those who at this day groan under the Captivity of Babylon shall lift up their heads and shall improve that season of calm to repair that which they are now forced to do by violence 'T is these words signify a Spirit of life from God not from any man nor by the ministry of any man but from God entred into them and their zeal was enlivened again But things shall not stay there God is preparing other wonders There is a third Reformation which shall be set on foot by way of Authority by the Royal power and this is expressed in the words that follow And the Witnesses heard a great voyce from heaven saying unto them Come up hither and they ascended up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies beheld them What heaven and lifting up to heaven signify in the Prophecies In the style of the Prophets heaven and lifted up to heaven is the Throne and to be exalted to dignity greatness and power even in the language of heathen Prophets for Apomasar in his Apostelismata insomniorum saith If a King dreams that he sits upon the clouds and is carried where ever he pleaseth this signifies that his enemies shall serve him But if he fancieth that he is carried up to heaven where the stars are this presages that he shall be lift up above all Kings The Prophets of God do also make use of these representations to signify the same thing Isa 14.13 Isaiah describes the exaltation of the King of Babylon by an ascending up into heaven I will ascend into heaven I will exalt my Throne above the stars And Jesus Christ saith of Capernaum that she had been lift up unto heaven but should be brought down unto hell 'T is therefore evident that God does here signify that some time after these three years and a half of death the Reformation shall be lifted up to a great glory but not every where 't is only in that place which is called the street of the great City and is after called the tenth part of the City for the total destruction of the Antichristian Kingdom must not happen untill some years afterward There will shortly be a Reformation in France by the Royal Authority And after These words signify that when the Reformation shall be establisht again in France by way of Divine immediate operation by which the zeal of the Apostates and of others who know the truth but with-hold it in unrighteousness shall be quickned again some space of time shall pass probably some years before France shall wholly throw off the yoke of popery That Kingdom shall not be entirely Reformed by way of Authority immedately after out Reformation shall be again set on foot by way of inspiration and recovering of zeal For and after signifies an interval of time but whether it shall be short or long is not expressed notwithstanding I see no likelihood that it shall be very long nor do I believe so They heard a great voyce from heaven Yet once again Heaven is the Throne 't is the Soveraign dignity which in a State is exactly the same that Heaven is to the Earth in light in lustre in good or bad influences in scituation and in elevation From Heaven i.e. from Authority and the Prince who reigns they heard a voyce they received an order not a small clandestinsilent voyce but a great voyce i.e. a publick command a solemn Edict and this voyce said to them Come up hither Then the Truth shall get up into the Throne and as God hath contrary to all probability given a popish Prince to England so God will give a Protestant Prince to France in spight of all oppositions of the Papists And the ascended up to heaven in a cloud i.e. Their elevation and that of the Reformed Religion shall be made publickly as the
elevation of Elijah and of Jesus Christ who were lift up above the clouds And their enemies beheld them Popery shall not as yet be destroy'd in France when this shall happen The Priests the Clergy and Monks shall be spectators of this great work But the end of popery in France shall come quickly after For the same hour-there was a great Earthquake mark the same hour he saith not and after as he had said to express a space of time between the resurrection of the witnesses and their ascending up even to the Throne But he saith the same hour to signisy that assoon as the Reformation shall be establisht by a solemn Edict of the Prince as by a great voyce from heaven the total destruction of popery shall happen as we are about to shew And the same hour there was a great Earthquake I will not spend time upon the signification of this representation an Earthquake For 't is known by all who are versed in the Prophets See Isa 170 13. and 24.19 20. Jer. 4.24 and 49 20. that in the Prophetick style an Earthquake signifies a great commotion of Nations that must change the face of the World because Earthquakes do overturn Cities Mountains and wholly change the face of a Countrey make Valleys where there were Mountains and Hills where there were Valleys and Lakes which were dry Land before and deserts of Countries which were inhabited so that 't is certain that according to this Prophesy in a very few years the face of the Antichristian Kingdom shall be changed but not every where It shall be only in the tenth part of the City which shall fall by this Earthquake The City signifies the Roman Antichristian Empire and not Rome alone And the tenth part of the City fell This is a passage where Interpreters have been short sighted not excepting our Joseph Mede who often hath so quick a sight To understand this we must first know what the City is Joseph Mede is mistaken together with all the rest when he understands this to mean precisely the City of Rome 'T is a truth which must be held as certain being one of the keys of the Revelation that the City the great City signifies in this book not Rome alone but Rome in conjunction with its Empire The name of this great City is Babylon Now 't is clear that Babylon is the whole Babylonian Kingdom Come out of Babylon my people 'T is not from the City of Rome that the Holy Ghost invites his Elect to come out 't is from the Church of Rome from the Babylonian Empire This passage alone together with that in this eleventh Chapter v. 8 And their dead bodies shall lye in the street of the great City which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was cruicified are enough to prove that the Babylonian City is not Rome alone Our Lord was not crucified in Rome and if we should here take crucifying in a figurative sense for the crucifying of the Religion of Jesus Christ this hath been sacrificed at Rome no more than in other places of the Latin Church In the 14th Chapter the Holy Ghost describes the fall of this City of Babylon Babylon is fallen is fallen that great City and in the same vision he fore-tells the ruin of the Antichristian Empire under the Metaphors of an harvest and a vintage which proves that this City is nothing else but the intire Kingdom of Babylon In the 18th Chapter the Prophet makes a long description of the desolations of this City under the Metaphors of a City of Merchandise which had a great traffick and was fill'd with pleasures and delightfull things Now 't is certain that the shamefull simony the wicked pleasures of the Papacy have not reigned less in the Provinces of the Babylonian Kingdom than in the Capital City from whence 't is again evident that the City signifies the whole Antichristian State. Lastly the constant opposition between the Holy City and the great City proves that the City includes the whole Antichristian Church even as the Holy City signifies the whole Christian Church De Launay hath confessed this in the eleventh Chapter of the Revelation and in the 16th but no exception is to be made every where the City and the great City Babylon signifies the intire Kingdom of the Papacy And the reason of this is evident old Rome made her whole Empire to be one only City by means of that right of citizenship which she bestowed on all who were of some considerable quality though they dwelt in the Provinces The citizens of Rome dwelt in all Countries now where the citizens of a City dwell there is the City this made Rutilius say Dumque offers victis proprij consortia juris Vrbem fecisti quod prius Orbis erat Thus it goes exactly in the Church of Rome which hath re-establisht the Roman Empire All those who are members of this Church are citizens of her capital City The Church of Rome is but one City Persons of all Nations are admitted into her Senate or Colledge of Cardinals The Tribunal which is called the Rota is constituted of Councellors taken out of all the Provinces which pay subjection to Rome Every Forreigner may come to be a Cardinal and every Cardinal may come to be Pope Therefore there are properly no Forreigners in that State no Papist is a Forreigner to the Church of Rome and that which they call the holy See. That which hath deceived Interpreters v. 9 1â— is the 17th Chapter where the City is called the Woman which sitteth on seven Mountains and that great City which reigneth over the Kings of the Earth This say they is the City of Rome and the Papists themselves do grant it and without doubt 't is Rome and we have above proved it but 't is Rome conjointly with her Empire Babylon signifies the whole Antichristian Empire and this Antichristian Empire is said to sit upon seven Mountains and to rule over the Kings of the Earth Rome must always be considered together with her Empire because this is true of its Capital City Nothing is more ordinary not to add that 't is constantly used than to denote a whole Kingdom by the ruling City Thus men always spoke of Rome Rome hath conquered the Nations Rome hath enlarged her Empire to the end of the World this signifies that the Roman Empire hath subdued all Nations and extended its bounds even to the utmost parts of the Earth The tenth part of the City is one of the ten Kingdoms that make up the Empire of the Papacy Chap. 17.12 13. This being supposed and proved that the City is the whole Babylonian and Antichristian Empire it must be remembred that this Empire of Antichrist is made up of ten Kingdoms and ten Kings who must give their power to the beast The ten horns which thou sawest are ten Kings These have one mind and shall give their power unto the
whose number 't is not easie to define and which the Holy Ghost denotes by the number seven which is the number of perfection to signify that the orders of Monks and Nuns shall perish for ever This is an Institution so degenerated from its first Original that 't is become the arm of Antichrist These orders cannot perish one without another If any will have it that these seven thousand slain signifie that there shall be bloodshed it shall not be great for the number seven put for an indifinite number never signifies a great one De Launay is very much mistaken when he sayes that the seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal â— King. 19.18 signified a great multitude on the contrary the signified a very small number indeed the number was so small that Elijah did not know of them he sayd I am left alone The Kings of France at this day do lift their authority so high that nothing can resist it 'T is therefore probable The authority of the Kings of Francs shall prevail over the ruling Religion that every thing will bend under the yoke of their Will when they shall resolve to break with Rome and it seems as if the Providence of God was preparing the way unto this thing by the Clergies Declaration confirmed by that of the King viz. that Kings depend on none in any thing which concerns Temporals and that 't is never lawful to deny obedience to them upon a pretext of Religion For if this be once fixed when ever it shall please the Kings of France to forsake the Communion of Rome by this Principle of the present Bishops it cannot be allowed that the People should rebell against them I look on that which is happened in England as another preparation unto this Event A King of a Religion contrary to that of the State reigns peaceably the reason is that Providence will accustome the subjects to pay subjection to Princes who are enemies of the Ruling Religion And the remnant were affrighted and gave glory to the God of heaven This is the total conversion and reformation of the tenth part of the City i.e. of the Kingdom of France that shall quickly follow after the Kings of France shall have broken with the Bishop of Rome V. 14. The second Wo is past and behold she third Wo cometh quickly namely the second of the three Woes which had been denounced after the sound of the fourth Trumpet Chap. 8.13 And I heard an Angel flying through the midst of Heaven crying with a loud voyce Wo wo wo to the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the other voyces of the Trumpet which are yet to sound The first of these three woes was the Grashoppers Saracens denoted by Grashoppers who came up out of the bottomless pit with their Head Apollyon and in Hebrew Ahaddon These Grashoppers are plainly the Saracens Chap. 14. Arabians with their Head Mahomet The second Wo is the domination of the Turks who passed from the other side of Euphrates at the sound of the sixth Trumpet And the third Wo is the fall of the Antichristan Empire These three great events deserve to be distinguisht from all others for they have changed or shall change the whole face of the world And the seventh Angel sounded c. this which follows concerns the Kingdom or reign of Iesus Christ and the Church and consequently must be reserved to another place CHAP. XIV Observations upon the 17 18 19. Chapters of the Revelation concerning the fall of Antichrist's Kingdom A brief Methodizing of the events which the Holy Ghost had displaced in the Visions THe seventeenth Chapter contains something that relates to the destruction of Antichrists Kingdom V. 16. And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast these shall hate the whore and make her desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire V. 17. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will and to agree and give their Kingdom unto the beast untill the words of God shall be fulfilled There 's nothing in this passage that hath not been opened or is obscure 'T is clear that these Kings who through ignorance or weakness suffer'd their power to be usurped by the Empire of the papacy shall take it again they shall eat her flesh i.e. shall enrich themselves with her benefices revenues and burn her with fire i.e. shall abolish the the memory of this Romish Empire so that nothing but ashes shall remain of it The 18th Chapter is a long description of the ruin of the Antichristian and Babylonian Empire I have no need to enter into this Chap. because I find nothing in it of that which I principally seek which is those certain characters which can inform us of the time of this fall namely whether it be night at hand or afar off There is nothing there concerning it except that which is general As to this Chapter I will say only First We must remember the remarque which hath been often made by us that Babylon here does not signify strictly the City of Rome as most have imagined 'T is the whole Babylonian Empire as appears from these words Come out of Babylon my people I do not think that any great number of Gods people hath come out of the City of Rome hitherto we have not seen it My second remarque is we must not as is usually done over much press the mystical sense of divers merchandises which are reckon'd up and were sold it that City I do not believe VVe must not over much seelt mysteries in the particular merchandises of Babylon that there is any other mystery in this thing than that this Babylonian Empire being set forth under the Emblem of a great City it was necessary to represent it as a City of great commerce for that is inseperable from great Cities Not but that these merchandises and the many instruments of Luxury and pleasures which are said to have been in this City do not very fitly signify and according to the design of the Holy Ghost both the Simony and debaucheries of this corrupted Church in the general But I believe not that 't is necessary to enquire particularly what is meant for example by the silk the precious stones the fine linnen c. The burning of Babylon must not be understood literally My Third Observation upon this 18th Chapter is we must not interpret literally the Metaphors of burning fire blood and slaughter which the Holy Ghost set before us Certainly these are not the Methods which God makes use of to establish his Kingdom I think indeed as I have already said that God will suffer Rome to be sackt as he suffer'd Jerusalem to be I further believe that this great change in Religion will not be made without blood shed as it hapned in the last age But seeing the City in this Chapter and generally in the Revelation take in
the whole Babylonian Empire we must not imagine that all this great circuit of Countries shall be laid desolate The 19th Chapter is the last in which mention is made of the destruction of Antichrists Kingdom The ten first Verses of this Chapter must not be disjoyned from the fore-going Chapter for they are only the continuation of it The solemn rejoycings of the Elect after the ruin of Babylon and the consummation of the Christian Church here below upon Earth The eleven last Verses of the Chapter contain a wonderful vision wherein Jesus Christ appears sitting upon a white Horse having the titles of faithfull of true of the word of God of King of Kings of Lord of Lords He gathers his armies together to fight against the Beast and against the false Prophet An Angel stands in the Sun and calls to all the fowls of Heaven to come and eat the flesh of those men that must be slain in that great battel which was to be fought On the other side the Beast and the false Prophet gather their forces the battel is fought the Beast and Kings are overcome he is taken with his false Prophet both are cast into the lake of fire and brimstone together with all those who had worshipt the Image of the Beast And this is magnificent and the Figures are lofty But there is nothing new in this and in my judgement 't is nothing but a recapitulation of the fore-going visions concerning the ruin of Antichrists reign The vision of the eleventh Chapter is an Epitome of the visions that follow and this is properly an Epitome of the visions which went before therefore I do not judge it necessary to insist upon it Especially seeing nothing is found of that which we seek for namely the signs and marks by which it may be known when and at what time the reign of Antichrist must end 'T is in the 11 14 and above all in the 16th Chapter that we find the Characters of this end and of the time in which it must come to pass Therefore it was necessary only that we should insist upon those Chaters The slaughter and murthers in the 19th Chapter must nor be understood literally I will only make the observation upon this Chapter which I made upon the fore-going That we must not understand literally the expressions of war and destroying that are used here for example that Iesus Christ must tread the wine-press of the wrath of God that he must give to be eaten by the fowls the flesh of Kings of Captains of mighty men of Horses of free and bond c. These are Metaphors borrowed from war and must be understood surably to the nature of this spiritual war which Jesus Christ must make against Idolatry Superstition Heresies and Tyranny his quarrel is with these and not with men Besides the reasons alledged we have here a convincing one that the Instrument of so many victories and which must make such a slaughter Vers 15. is the sharp sword that comes out of the mouth of him who sitteth upon the white horse And the remnant was slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse and all the folws were filled with their flesh Now all know that this sharp sword that comes out of the mouth of Jesus Christ is the Word of God a spiritual sword which must act only spiritual slaughters and which does not destroy the lives of men but their manners and Idolatries So that I fear lest those are mistaken who hope to render to Babylon that which we have received form her and in the cup which she hath filled to fill to her double i. e. to give her blood for blood torment for torment This is not the spirit of the true Church I have now done with this subject and I think there remains but one thing to do that I may give a clear Idea of our prophecies and that is to Epitomize and rank according to the order of time the various events which relate to the ruin of Antichrists Kingdom which the Holy Ghost displaced and confounded to the end that the prophecies might not be clearer than God did intend they should be As for the seven plagues of the seven viols they are perfectly ranked according to their order and according to their times A commendious Methodizing of the events which must bring Antichrist's Kingdom to its ruin 1. The first plague of the first viol begins about the year of our Lord 900. it lasts almost 150. years and ends under the Popedom of Leo IX about the year 1050. 2. The second and third plagues which are the Croisades begin at the end of the eleventh age and end at the going out of the thirteenth in the year 1270. or 1292. For till then some of the Latins kept possession in Palestine so that they take up the space of about two hundred years 3. The fourth plague begins before the Croisades but if we please we may place its beginning where the foregoing ends This fourth plague is the encrease of the Papal yoke and this Period beginning at the year 1270 shall continue untill the year 1378 when the consequent of the fifth plague begins namely the weakning of the Papal reign by the schism Therefore this Period will contain 108 years 4 The fifth plague is the removing of the Popes to dwell at Avignon and the grand Schism of the West It begins in the year 1305 and lasts untill the year 1440. This Period being a little jointed within the former shall last 130 or 135. years 5. The sixth plague which is the passage of the Turks into Europe and the desolations which they made in the Popes Dominion and in the Latin Church beginning towards the end of the fourteenth Age about the year 1370. and lasting untill the siege of Vienna under Charles the fifth in 1529 this Period will be 150 years 6. The seventh plague beginning about the year 1520 and lasting untill the end of our Age and the beginning of the next must last about 190 years This last Period is longer then the rest because God intended to subdivide it into three other Periods 7. The first Period of this last viol is the harvest which lasted 30 or 40 years from the year 1520 until 1560 when all the Countreys which were to be Reformed had embraced the Reformation 8. The second period of this seventh viol is that season and state of rest and victory which the Papacy regain'd and this period lasts from 1560 or 1570 for since that time Popery hath received no considerable check but rather hath much prevailed it hath made war against the saints had hath overcome them 9. Towards the conclusion of this second period of the seventh viol a sore persecution must happen The Witnesses clothed in Sackcloth i.e. the faithful who are under the Cross shall be oppressed and remain dead in the street of the great City for three years and a half That is the profession
Maimbourg should publish one history upon another of the declining of the Empire Of the Croisades Of the Schism of the Greeks Of the great Schism of the West Of Lutheranism and Of Calvinism for this purpose to raise our attention unto these great events of the seven plagues which without this perhaps none would have thought of I earnestly beseech them I say seriously to consider this heap of circumstances and to tell me in their Consciences whether Chance can produce and agreement of above a hundred or two hundred points relating to the same subject None can ever make this reflection seriously but he must be convinced CHAP. XVI Of the thousand years reign That in all the past time there is not a time to be found wherin Satan hath been bound Four heads of arguments to prove this reign The first is the fifth Monarchy so plainly promised to the saints WE have done examining that which relates to the fall of the Antichristian Kingdom That we may keep our word that we gave in the Title of our second part we must now enquire what must happen to the Church after that great event This laid down in the 20 chapter of the Revelation in these terms v. 1. And I saw an Angel come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand v. 2. And he laid hold on the dragon that old serpent which is the devil and Satan and bound him a thousand years v. 3. And cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set a seal upon him that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled and after that he must be loosed a little season v. 4. And I saw thrones and they sat upon them and judgment was given unto them and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Iesus and for the word of God and which had not worshipped the beast neither his image neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years v. 5. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished This is the first resurrection Behold the Text which is the subject to so many doubts and so many controversies Behold that which hath made the pretended Hereticks who are call'd Chiliasts and Millenaries I mean not those Chiliasts who have believed a thousand years reign of the Church during which time it must enjoy according to their opinion the carnal and sinful pleasures of the world these were filthy spirits which came out of the Dragons mouth A distinction between carnal and spiritual Millenaries But as for those who believe that after the ruin of Antichrist and before the end of the world God reserves to himself a period of a thousand years in which he must reign by himself and his people pour out upon them an abundance of his spirit bring al Nations to his knowledge govern them with a golden scepter and no longer with an iron one secure them from all evil and from all danger of corruption as for these I say the time is coming and that very shortly that men shall be ashamed that they have branded them with the names of Chiliasts of Millenaries and fifth Monarchymen I have former by observed that there is something that is surprizing and divine in the due understanding of Prophecies We wonder at the strange stupidity of the Jews who do not discern in their own Oracles our Jesus and their Messias We are Astonisht at the dismal blindness of the Papists who do not see the Beast and Antichrist in that which they call their Holy See and their Holy Church God hath had reasons why he hath given these men eyes that they should not see and a heart void of understanding Certainly here is the same thing There must be a blindness greater then can be imagined 'T is surprising that men have not seen in the Scripture the Reign of Jesus Christ on the earth in those who see not this Kingdom of Iesus Christ and the Church which must make the seventh Period of the world There is something supernaturall in this blindness I had this favour from God that I saw this Reign in the Scriptures ever since I was able to read and understand them without having read either any Commentaries upon the Revelation or writings of the Millenaries I hope to make out the truth of this Reign with such clearness that if shall be difficult to shake any doubt of it It is impossible to find in the time by-past room for the Period of a thousand years in which Satant must be bound First it is agreed on all hands that within the duration of the Church we must necessarily find a Period of a thousand years in which it may be said that Satan hath been bound i.e. hindred in his designs which are seduction and persecution This it too plain to be denyed But where shall we find this Period I am sorry to see so great so learned and so holy a person as Vsher Archbishop of Armagh to place this period of a thousand years within the time of Christs Incarnation and the eleventh Age. How can any one say that the Devil was bound during that space Is it with respect to seduction In the three first Ages did he not seduce men Were not the Pagans seduced Their Religion was it not the Ruling Religion There were Christians I grant but I am perswaded that they were not the fiftieth part of the whole Roman Empire In the succeeding Ages hath he not set on foot that grand seduction that is called the Beast the False Prophet the Kingdom of Antichrist Hath he not brought Idolatry into the Church the abomination into the sanctuary such tyranny pride and corruption of manners that there was never greater among the Pagans With respect to persecution hath he been bound how much blood hath shed how many Butcheries hath he acted how many Massacres what a great number of Martyrs Can it enter into any mans thoughts that this should be called the Period of Satans binding He was never so broken loose The falsity of their hypothesis who begin them at Constantin What do those gain who come three hundred years lower and hold that Santan began to be bound at the time of Constantin They must upon that principle place their ending at the year thirteen hundred and so include within their Period of the thousand years the rage of the Beast who hath fed upon the blood of the saints the seductions of the false Prophet who makes the Image of the Beast to be worshipped and the whole world to run after him who obligeth all men to bear his mark upon their foreheads who makes war against the Saints and overcometh them In one word they must take in into their Period of Santans binding that space of time in which
lye so he was their Saviour If the Jews have nothing else to look for but the conversion of some thousands of them who shall not be damned could it be said that the goodness is great that is bestowed upon the house of Israel and that God will deal with them according to the multitude of his loving-kindnesses If we compare the whole Nation which for almost two thousand years was to be loft would such a conversion deserve to be counted any thing Above all we must take notice in this 63 Chapter that the six first Verses represent in a magnificent manner the bloody victory of a Conqueror Who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed garments from Bozrah this that is glorious in his apparel travelling in the greatness of his strength I that speak in righteousness mighty to save Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat I have trodden the wine-press alone and of the people there was none with me for I will tread them in mine anger and trample them in my fury and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments and I will stain all my raiment For the day of vengeance is in my heart and the year of my redeemed is come And I looked and there was none to help and I wondred that there was none to uphold therefore my own arm brought salvation unto me and my fury it upheld me And I will tread down the people in my anger and make them drunk in my fury and I will bring down their strength to the earth Ordinarily this passage is interpreted of the Passion of Jesus Christ and I do not oppose that it should be apply'd to it by a pious allusion The victory over Antichrist fortold in the 63 of Isaiah and in the 19th of the Revelation But I much wonder that none hath discryed its true meaning and that none hath perceived that the same event exactly is fore-told here and in the 19th of the Revelation from the 11th verse to the end 'T is so plainly the same thing that the expressions are in a manner the same 'T is clear that the Holy Ghost alludes to this passage of Isaiah when he saith Revel 19. â—5 And he treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. The figures are the same borrowed from war slaughter combats and bloodshed So that without doubt the same thing is signified in both places Namely that great victory that the Lord Jesus must gain over all the enemies of the Church before the period of the thousand years An unbloody victory and which must be gain'd by the sword of his mouth i. e. his Word But 't is represented under the figure of war according to the custome of the Holy Ghost who paints out spiritual victories with colours borrowed from temporal ones Now I would fain know for whom this victory discribed by Isaiah must be gain'd Without doubt 't is on the behalf of the people of the Iews 't is to the Jews that he speaks the year of my Redeemed is come and presently after followeth that which we have cited I will mention the loving-kindnesses of the Lord c. which belongs to the people of the Jews and can't belong to any other 'T is therefore for the Iews and on their behalf that the great battel in the 19th of the Revelation shall be fought 't will be to get a crown for them and to raise them upon a Throne Therefore this Nation is not in so great an error as men have hitherto imagined upon the subject of the nature of the reign of their Messiah It is certain that it must advance their Nation to very great glory But they are mistaken 1. In that they have not own'd the Messiah in his state of Humiliation and will not till his glorious Appearance 2. They doubtless mistake in the nature of their Kingdom fixing thereto too much of what is Temporal whereas it shall be very Spiritual and not at all consist in commanding over Nations to assemble them for War to receive of them Tribute and Subjection It will rather consist in this that this Nation shall be the most glorious of any in the World the most zealous the most Holy which shall give Pastors and it may be Governors to all other People In this we have the true reason why in the book of Revelations there is nothing formally spoken of the Recalling of the Iews It would have been a very surprizing thing that the Holy Ghost should have omitted one of the most considerable events of the Church in a book of Prophecies containing the History of it So our Interpreters would willingly find it every where and really can find it but in very few places The reason is because 't is only to be met with in the 20th Chapter of the Revelations and in the 11th Chapter of that Book The Kingdom of the Messiah and of the Saints which is spoken of in those places is that Kingdom which is to be given to the Holy People according to the Prophecies of Daniel for in the style of the Prophets there is no other Holy People but the People of Israel So that the Iews are to be the principal part of the fifth Monarchy This is the Kingdom that was promised to Jesus Christ by the Angel who fore-told his birth to the B. Virgin. God will give him the Throne of David his Father I would feign know how that Oracle hath been accomplisht The converted Gentiles of whom Jesus Christ hath been King for sixteen hundred years are they the Kingdom of David while the Jews who are Children and Brethren of David are the avowed Enemies of this Kingdom It may well be said that Jesus Christ hath received a Kingdom whereof that of David was the figure but that doth by no means satisfy But what doth the Answer of our Lord Jesus Christ to his Apostles signify They demanded of him I. Christ promis'd his Apostles to re-establish the Kingdom of the Zews Wilt thou at this time restore the Kingdom again to Israel Jesus replyed by remitting them to another time 'T is not for you saith he to know the Times sand Seasons which the Father hath put in his own Power If the Kingdom should never be restored to Israel why doth not our Lord tell them so and why doth he hold them in suspence if the Kingdom of Israel be nothing else than the Calling of the Gentiles and our Christian Church why doth he refer them to a longer time saying that God hath reserved to himself the knowledge of that Time that was a thing should be effected within a few years in their own time before their eyes and by themselves Lastly why hath he commanded us to pray daily Thy Kingdom come since that Kingdom is already come for by that Kingdom cannot be understood the eternal Kingdom of Paradise where Jesus Christ so far as man is only the
first Subject They say 't is the Kingdom of the Father we pray for i. e. of the Heavenly Paradise the Eternal Kingdom But we need only read what follows in the Lords prayer to be assured that it must be understood of a Kingdom upon earth Thy Name be hallowed Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven That clause on Earth as in Heaven is common to all three Petitions Thy Kingdom come upon Earth as it is already come in Heaven 'T is reasonable to think that God hath reserv'd a time for the Kingdom of grace which hath not yet 12-ken place So great a difficulty have these Gentlemen the Antimillenaries to conceive a Kingdom of God upon earth and for my own part I find as great a one not to conceive it How can we reconcile it to the wisdom and goodness of God to have abandon'd and forsaken the World thorowout all the duration of it without preserving a certain time in that duration for himself and his own Kingdom Now when was it that God did reign in the world by his Kingdom of grace It was not in the first World before the Flood where wickedness prevailed to that degree that obliged him to destroy it by the Deluge It was not in the Time from Noah to Moses for in those Ages Idolatry sprung up increas't and multiplied Much less in those Ages from Moses to Iesus Christ for the Devil reigned every where oftentimes not excepting that little corner of the Earth which God had reserved to himself It is not from the Appearance of Christ to that of Antichrist for saving about one hundred years since the Emperors were Christians Paganism hath always been uppermost and the prevailing Religion It cannot be since the birth of Antichrist for the 1260 years of his reign are the Empire of the Beast and of the Dragon and this will lead us even to the end of the World according to these Gentlemen And the course of the World will be finisht and God and his Kingdom of Grace have found no place in it I confess that in all ages God hath saved some persons but that is not to Reign for Truth and Grace have never yet ruled and been uppermost They never had the Empire the number and the multitude of their side The number of wicked and worldly men hath always carried it How much more reasonable then is it to conceive that God after having abandon'd six periods to the World and the Dragon hath at least reserved one seventh to himself wherein Truth and Grace shall rule and prevail whereas in the other preceding they have been supprest The conversion of the nations and of the Iews shall form the Kingdom of Christ I find nothing more odd and singular than the Hypothesis of these Gentlemen They acknowledge that all the Nations hitherto under Infidelity shall be converted St. Paul hath expresly said it in the eleventh Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans according to them also the Iews are to be converted Behold the fairest Empire of Grace which can be imagined why should we make it fall assoon as it is raised and make the World it self to end soon after Is it not more reasonable to conceive that God will preserve the Church in that glorious state for several ages to injoy as it were the fruit of his Labours and see the Intelligible World compleated and brought to its perfection Since the Iews the fullness of the Gentiles are to be brought in to J. Christ as all the World grants is it not reasonable that in that period of the re-union of all People that they who have been an holy People to whom we owe the Patriarchs and the sacred Oracles for observe it there is no one book of the N. Testament any more then of the Old but was made by a Iew is it not just I say that that Nation should then have the Pre-eminence above all other Nations There is then in my opinion a Kingdom of God to be expected and this Kingdom is that of the Messiah the Kingdom of the Iews The Reign of the Messiah which is not yet come for to speak properly we cannot say that Christ hath hitherto reigned upon Earth His party as yet hath been in no place or part of the World the prevailing ruling Party the wheat hath been always buried in the Tares The Kingdom of the Iews promised by the Prophets so often and in so many different manners And these two Kingdoms that of the Messiah and that of the Iews are to take place at the same time 'T is true we may compute the beginning of Christ's Kingdom from the fall of the Kingdom of Antichrist and 't is manifest that from that point God will reckon the thousand years Nevertheless the Kingdom of Christ cannnot be well said to be come till all Nations shall be converted now the Iews are not to be converted till the last of all People J. Christ hath not yet reigned upon earth in a proper sense Ioseph Mede hath a reflection thereupon which I confess I am pleased with 'T is but a Conjecture but I find it to be very well framed 'T is this that the Conversion of St. Paul a zealous and bigotted Iew in the highest degree is the Type of the future conversion of the whole Nation 1. He was a great zealot for the Law and a furious Persecutor of Christianity The Iews are also very zealous for Moses and irreconcileable enemies to Iesus Christ 2. Paul was converted not as other men The conversion of S. Pauls a type of that of the Iewish nation by the bare preaching of the Gospel and the sight of Miracles but by the glorious appearing of Christ to him from Heaven 'T is likewise very probable that the Conversion of the Iews will not be in an ordinary way as by preaching for the Hearts of that People are under an invincible obduracy So that 't is likely that Christ will convert them by some glorious and surprizing apparition and will appear clothed with those Characters the Prophets have given him that they may no longer be able to disown and refuse him 3. Those who accompanied St. Paul saw indeed the Light but Christ did not appear to them the Gentiles and Christians who shall then be may have some part in that glorious Apparition but it may be shall not see it all 4. Paul was instructed by way of inspiration in all Mysteries assoon as Iesus Christ had appear'd to him The Iews shall have their minds inlightned and the vail which is now on their hearts shall be taken away and on a sudden shall see clearly into the Oracles of their Law and Prophets 5. St. Paul was the last of the Apostles who was converted the Iews will be called the last of all People 6. Paul after Conversion was the most zealous of any the Iews when converted shall be the most affectionate and zealous of all Christians 7. St. Paul
converted becomes an Apostle and the instrument of the conversion of the Gentiles the converted Iews shall compleat the conversion of the most remote Pagan Nations in the utmost corners of the World. This doubtless is that admirable return of the Iews and their advancement to the Soveraign dignity of the Church which Ezekiel represents in the 37. Chapter of his Prophecies under the Image of a Resurrection This also is that which St. Paul calls Life from the Dead Ezekiel saw a large Valley covered with dead Bones These dead Bones are the House of Israel saith the Holy Spirit They came together and sinews and flesh came upon them and the Spirit of the Lord entred into them The Prophet speaks farther in the following Chapters of the Victories this renewed Israel should obtain over Gog and Magog the Enemies of the Church After which in the nine last Chapters he makes a figurative description of this Kingdom of the Iews and of the Messiah and of the Church perfected upon Earth under the Emblem of a magnifick Temple whereof he describes the Parts the Apartments and several Buildings the Altar Priests Victims the Land of their possession and a new division of it This in my opinion is the mystery of the nine last Chapters of Ezekiel Chap. 45. which have appeared so unintelligible to most Interpreters I conclude this Chapter by saying that the Papism makes it hereby plain that it is the true Kingdom of Antichrist by their cruel persecution of the Iews That Mystery of iniquity comprehends nothing of the Mystery of Godliness and sees not that God hath reserved that Nation to manifest in them his greatest wonders and consequently that they ought not to be destroyed by flames as in Spain and in those Countries where the inquisition is in force CHAP. XVIII The third Head of Arguments for the future Kingdom of Christ and the Church So many Prophecies which concern the compleat Victories of Jesus Christ the Holiness of the Church and its perfect prosperity which have never yet been accomplisht MY third Head of Arguments to show that we are to expect a Kingdom of Christ upon Earth are the Prophecies not yet accomplisht and which cannot be fulfilled unless such a Kingdom do come This would be a large subject and yield matter for several books and those good ones too whereby the World might be informed of several things they know not But this Book is larger already then I would have had it I shall therefore content my self briefly to show and endeavour to perswade that there must be a Time which we have not yet seen for the fulfilling of several Prophecies which were delivered on purpose to describe the Kingdom of our Lord Iesus and give us the Characters of it The most ancient Oracles are not perfectly fulfilled The most ancient and most remarkable of all the sacred Oracles is that which God himself pronounc't to Adam The seed of he Woman shall bruise the Serpents head and â—hee shall bruise his heel 'T is agreed that the Head signifies Empire and Power So that Prophecy imports the victory of Christ and his Children over the Kingdom of the Devil and that they shall destroy it Now this is a promise not yet accomplisht in the History of the Church we have no age wherein it could be said that the Kingdom of Christ prevailed over that of Satan It is an observation we cannot mind too much that we must carefully distinguish here between Life and Kingdom or Reign Life signifies existence but Reign imports actual Domination and Rule Iesus Christ 't is true in every age hath had a party subsisting in the World and in that respect hath been victorious over all the attempts of Satan whose end was to destroy him and 't is some kind of victory over an Adversary to prevent him from attaining his end but this can never be called a full and compleat Victory It is necessary to that to be the predominant prevailing Party whereas that of Iesus Christ hath alway been opprest either by Paganism or by Mahometanism or by Antichristianism Such a time therefore is to be expected wherein the party of true Christianity shall prevail over and utterly extinguish the Empire and Kingdom of the Devil All the nations of the earth have not been blessed in Christ 49 Gen. The second Prophecy is that which was given to Abraham In thy seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blest which signifies that the righteousness of Christ shall spread it self over all Nations to the same sense is that other Prophecy Shiloh shall come and to him shall the gathering of the People belong 'T is true almost all Nations have been invited to the knowledge of God many have been actually brought to it but many have not yet been called much less converted And among those Nations which have been converted the Bad hath so far exceeded the good that it cannot be truly said that the multitude of the People belong to Christ Nevertheless I am confident that shall come to pass and that the number of the Good shall one day as much exceed that of the wicked as now the number of the wicked doth that of the Good. But that these Oracles are not accomplisht we shall be fully convinc't if we proceed to those Prophets who were sent on purpose to Characterize the Kingdom of J. Christ Among whom the Prophet Isaiah shines as a Sun among the Stars It would be necessary to make a just Commentary on all his Book to make it plain that what he fore-told is not come to pass For most of his Prophecies have for their object this glorious and blessed state of the Church in its last Period But to be as short as may be I shall reduce all that he hath said of the Church under the Messiah to these two Articles 1. It s Righteousness and Holiness 2. It s Peace and Prosperity and shall make it evident that neither the one or the other have been fulfilled to that degree which they ought to be fulfilled according to those Prophecies For the Righteousness and Holiness of the Church Chap. 11.6 c. Prophecies of the future Holiness of the Church the Prophet Isaiah saith That the woolf shall feed with the Lamb the Leopard lie down with the Kid the Calf and the young Lion and the Fatling together and a little child shall lead them The Cow and the Bear shall feed their young ones shall lie down together and the Lion shall eat straw like the Ox And the sucking Child shall play on the hole of the Asp and the weaned Child shall put his hand on the Cockatrice den They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy Mountain for the Earth shall be full of the Knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea. Behold the most ravishing and fair description of it that can be seen It amounts to a return of the State of Innocence 'T
that hath mercy on them shall lead them even by the springs of water shall he guide them I will make all my Mountains a way c. 55.12 13. and my high ways shall be exalted ye shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace The Mountains and the Hills shall break forth before you into singing and all the Trees of the Field shall clap their hands Instead of the Thorn shall come up the Firr-tree and instead of the Bryer shall come up the Myrtle-tree and it shall be to the Lord for a Name and for an everlasting Sign that shall not be cut off The Sun shall be no more thy Light by day neither for brightness shall the Moon give Light unto thee Is 60.19 but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting Light and thy God thy Glory The Sun shall no more go down neither shall thy Moon withdraw it self for the Lord shall be thine everlasting Light and the days of thy mourning shall be ended Is 54.9.10 This shall be as the waters of Noah unto me for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah shall no more go over the Earth so have I sworn that I would not be wrath with thee nor rebuke thee for the Mountains shall depart and the Hills be removed but my kindness shall not depart from thee neither shall the Covenant of my peace be removed saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee What is meant by all these prophecies All these and the like Expressions which we read in the Prophets do import 1. A profound Peace which shall never be interrupted by war. 2. Plenty and Abundance of all sorts of Goods 3. An Exemption from all Evils 4. Such a Prosperity where are Riches and Plenty and Joy. 5. A Felicity that is not to be interrupted by the return of Calamities This must be fixt that all these Prophecies respect the State of the Church under the Messiah for as to those who endeavour to turn them to another sense and apply them to the Temporal blessings of the Iews I cannot consider them as Christians but reckon them enemies to Christianity These promises have not been accomplisht We must therefore search for the accomplishment of these Prophecies in the History of the Church that no such thing can be found there the Antimillenaries themselves confess For they constantly tell us that these thousand years of Rest are altogether inconsistent with the orders of Divine Providence and the condition of the Church which is appointed to be always calamitous and afflicted upon Earth that Sorrow and Suffering Persecution and the Cross do inseparably belong to it that we must judge of what is to come by the History of what is past 'T is true in the three first Ages the Church was under the Cross of the Pagans in the fourth under that of the Arrians in the fifth she began to sink into superstition and hath remain'd overwhelm'd with it during the whole reign of Antichrist Where then shall we place those happy days the Prophets promise 'T is trifling to apply those promises of Peace and Tranquillity to certain little intervals of Quiet which from time to time the Church hath had in some places for it would be a very ill use of Rhetorick and a strange force put upon figures to represent so imperfect a calm by such terms as give us an Idea of the greatest and most perfect Prosperity imaginable Moreover the Prophets speaking of an endless Peace to which no affliction shall succeed it must be such a one as is like the waters of Noah which shall never return to cover the Earth it must be a peace so firm that though the Mountains be overthrown shall never be changed These Prophecies not accomplisht by the spiritual graces which the Church hath received We may not say that all this hath respect only to spiritual Graces the stability of God's Covenant and the Joy of the Faithfull I will not deny but the Holy Spirit may have some reference thereto but it is false that those spiritual favours in that weak degree wherein we see them at this day can comprehend the full signification of such great Expressions which clearly import a peace in reference to Earth as well as Heaven Add to this that though these Promises should not be applied but to Spiritual Blessings there must yet be a new Kingdom and a new Age for the fulfilling of them for we have never yet seen any wherein Spiritual Peace and invisible Graces have been so abundantly poured out to satisfy in any measure the greatness of such Expressions CHAP. XIX The fourth Head of Arguments for the reign of a thousand years are the Types Four Types of this Period the Principal is the seventh day of the Creation which is not an immediate Type of Eternal Rest but of the Peace of the Church on Earth I Come now to the fourth Head of Arguments viz. the Types They as well as the Prophecies are Pictures and representations of future Events They are not vain speculations of Divines and the Great wits that look upon them to be so approach very near to Impiety 'T is very certain that God hath been pleased to shadow forth his Mysteries in certain dispensations of his Providence Saint Paul teacheth us that Hagar the servant of Sarah Sinai a Mountain in Arabia were Types of the legal Institution As Sarah and Sion were also Types of the Covenant of Grace That Melchisedeck was a Type of our Lord Jesus Christ and in general that the Law had shadows of which the substance is to be found in Christ The Types therefore are no false or deceitfull Light whereby to judge in case they be rightly used Now I pretend that all the Types make for the Reign of Christ before the end of the World. We may find a great number of them The Captivity of Israel in Egypt was certainly a Type of that bondage under which the Church should groan The deliverance of Israel out of Egypt figured that of the Church from under the bondage of Antichrist during the Reign of Antichrist The Antichristian Empire is therefore called Egypt Now after the Israelites were come out of Egypt they entred into Canaan the Land flowing with Milk and Honey which did certainly prefigure the happy State of the Church after all her enemies should be subdued 'T is supposed that the Land of Canaan was the Image of that great and Eternall Dwelling to which the faithfull should be transported after the last judgement I deny it not But you must know 1. Type the Rest in the Land of Canaan that in the Old Testament the descriptions of the future Blessedness of the Church by Emblems Types Figures and metaphorical resemblances have not their immediate relation to Eternal Blessedness St. Paul hath told us that eye hath not seen it nor ear heard it nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive and consequently
prove our notion of the Reign of Christ for a thousand years and the Triumphant state of the Church upon Earth before its final glorious Triumph in Heaven we might be furnisht from these last Chapters For they are not as is commonly supposed a description of the Church in Heaven The Prophecy of the nine last Chapters of Ezekiel is the same with that of the last Chapt. of the Apocalypse They exactly answer to the nine last Chapters of the Prophecy of Ezekiel That Prophet in those nine last Chapters sets forth in a figurative manner the condition of the Church of Israel after its restoration their glorious Kingdom and the wonderful Peace they should injoy after their return which return or recalling was to be after the fall of Antichrist St. John gives an account what the Church shall be after with relation to that Fall after it shall have bin accomplisht so that both these Prophets describe the Church as to the same Period and the same condition This will easily appear if we briefly run over that which remains of the Apocalypse It cannot be questioned but that our Prophet concludes the 20th Chapter with a description of the last day of Judgement The war of Gog and Magog follows upon the reign of a thousand years to the revolt of Gog and Magog succeeds their defeat after their defeat there is nothing but the last day which shall come and surprize the World in the twinkling of an eye This is signified by those words V. 11. Chap. 20. Then I saw a great white Throne and him that sat on it from whose face the Earth and Heaven fled way and there was found no place for them White as well as Purple is a Royal colour and withal a Priestly for the Priests were clothed in white The Holy Priest's garments on the day of Expiation according to the tradition of the Iews were called Bigdei Lavan white garments In like manner he that sat upon the Throne is our King and Priest The Earth and the Heaven fled from his face for they shall be burnt that they may be renewed V. 12. And I saw the dead small and great stand before God c. 'T is a description of the last Judgement to the end of the Chapter all this is plain The 21. v. 1. Chapter begins with these words And I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth for the first Heaven and the first Earth were passed away The first Vision of 21 Chapt. to the 9th V. respects that which follows the end of the world These words do evidently allude to what he had said just before and the Heaven and the Earth fled away As that was interpreted of what should happen at the last day of Judgement it is clear that these new Heavens and this new Earth must be understood in a literal and not a figurative sense for the new World after it hath been refined by fire And so the description we read of here even to the ninth Verse is that of eternal Rewards and Punishments 'T is true that which is spoken of the H. City v. 3 4. of the new Ierusalem coming down from Heaven prepared as a Bride adorned for her Husband of the Tabernacle of God with men of his dwelling with them and they with him and that God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and that there shall be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain All this I say might very well be applied to the Church as victorious upon Earth but this description is determin'd by what precedes and by what follows to Eternal Glory by that which precedes which is the description of the last day of Judgement and by that which follows which is the description of everlasting Punishment but the fearful and unbelieving c. v. 8. shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death The 9th v. begins a new Vision The ninth Verse begins a new Vision and a more perticular description of the blessed Reign of Christ upon Earth In the same manner as the H. Spirit after he had in the 13th Chapter given an enigmatical and general description of the Antichristian Empire under the image of the two Beasts gives a more ample account of it in the 17th Chapt. So having in the 20th Chapt. described the reign of Christ though in few words he set forth that reign more at length afterwards that state of the delivered Church under the image of a great City called Ierusalem as after having set out the Antichristian Church under the image of a Beast and of an Empire he represents it under the Emblem of a great City called Babylon V. 9. And there came unto me one of the seven Angels which had the seven Viols full of the seven last plagues and talked with me saying come hither I will show thee the Bride the Lambs wife 'T is in all likelyhood the last of those seven Angels who had poured out the Viols and the same who show'd unto the Prophet the great City the mother of Fornications Cha. 17.1 Then came one of the seven Angels unto me which had the seven Viols and talked with me saying Come hither I will show thee the Judgement of the great Whore that sitteth on many Waters As it was this seventh and last Angel who had the Viols by whom the ruin of Antichrist was effected it doth most properly belong to him to show Babylon faln and Ierusalem rebuilt V. 10. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high Mountain and showed me that great City the Holy Jerusalem descending out of Heaven from God. This is somewhat like what the Devil did unto Jesus Christ when he carried him up into an high Mountain and shows him all the Kingdoms of the world what the Devil makes appear by illusion St. Iohn sees by vision That he was carried or seemed to be carried up into an high Mountain makes it plain that the Ierusalem he was to be made see from thence was here upon Earth and not the Triumphant Church in Heaven though it be called the Holy Jerusalem descending out of Heaven from God. She shall be descended from Heaven because she shall abound in Graces which come from thence she is called the great City and 't is the first time she is so called 'T is a detestable name which in all the preceding Prophecy is given only to Spiritual Babylon But 't is on this account that then the Church shall possess the multitude of the Nations as Antichristianism doth at present V. 11. Having the Glory of God and her Light wus like unto a stone most precious even like a Iasper stone clear as Cristal V. 12. And had a Wall great and high and had twelve Gates and at the Gates twelve Angels and names written thereon which are the names of the twelve Tribes of the children of Israel V. 13.
of the Gospell committed to their charge This Gospell is the Pearl of great Price which when one had found he went his way and sold all that he had to purchase it This is the Treasure of which S. Paul speaks when he saith we have this treasure in Earthen vessels The Apostles with Evangelical truth in their Breasts are the 12 foundations the 12 Gates and the walls of the City They are Every thing with this for Truth is every thing and without it they are nothing V. 22. And I saw no Temple therin for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its Temple This must be understood as the words of another Prophet who speaking of the Church in this period saith Every man shall not teach his Neighbour for they shall be all taught of God which doth not import that the Ministry shall be abolisht but that the increase of Knowledg shall be so great that ordinary men might rather be Teachers than need to be taught doubtless there shall be Temples to the end of the world and places set a part for publick worship But it shall hardly be necessary to distinguish places for divine service because God shall be every where served in perfection The Lord and the Lamb shall be its Temple God shall dwell in them and they in God the union of holy souls with God shall be most intimate and reciprocal V. 23. And the City had no need of the sun nor of the moon to shine in it for the glory of God did lighten it and the Lamb is the light therof Here the sun and the Moon do signifie created lights which cause a succession of day and night and these Luminaries are Emblems of the manner wherin the light of Grace is now dispenst There is now a mixture of Light and Darkness of Day and Night in the same Church and in the same soul It shall no more be thus in the Church of the seventh Period The air of that Church shal be always full of Light. God shall abundantly impart knowledge to the Souls of the Saints in a more immediate manner without any created Luminary V. 24. And the Nations of them which are saved shall walk in the Light of it and the Kings of the Earth do bring their glory and honour into it V. 25. And its Gates shall not at all be shut by day for there shall be no night there V. 26. And they shall bring the glory and honour of the Nations into it V. 27. And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth or that worketh abomination and a lie but they who are written in the Lamb's book of Life Here is the perfect and compleat calling of the Gentiles who shall joyn themselves with the converted Iews to compose this glorious Church The Holy Ghost seems to intimate as if there should be none but the Elect and no Reprobates At least if there be any Hypocrites that their number shall be so small as not worthy to be counted Then he shewed me a pure River of water of life clear as Chrystal proceeding out of the Throne of God and of the Lamb. 'T is so well known that water in the Scripture stile signifies grace and the Divine Spirit that 't is needless to remark it Ho every one that thirsts come to the waters out of his belly shall flow living waters but he spake of the Spirit which they should receive who believed on him So that the River which proceeds out of the Throne of God is that vital Spring of Spirit and Grace which God will most plentifully dispense to this Church It is the same River which the Prophet Ezekiel saw coming out of the Temple Chap. 47. at first it was no higher then the anckels but by little and little the increase was such that you must be obliged to swim to pass over it 'T is the Emblem of that measure of Grace which is always progressive and in theses last and happy days shall flow as the Sea. V. 2. In the midst of the street of it and of either side of the River was there the Tree of Life which bare twelve manner of fruits and yielded her fruit every moneth and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the Nations This is almost copied from Ezekiel so that we may see it describes the same thing Ezekiel said that on the bank of the River were very many trees on the one side and the other fruit trees whose leaves shall not fade neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed it shall bring forth new fruit every moneth This farther denotes Grace which is our meat and drink to satisfy our hunger and quench our thirst which is the Manna in the Wilderness and Water out of the Rock The fruits of this tree shall be for the healing of the Nations Ezekiel saith the leaf thereof shall be for medicine v. 12. That Grace which shall be our food shall also supply the use of Physick Every one may see here a manifest allusion to the Earthly Paradise to its Rivers and to the Tree of Life that was there To denote that the Church in this her last Period shall be a true Paradise where plenty and abundance of all blessings may be met with 'T is of this reign and of this last Period of the Church that the last part of the eleventh Chapter is to be understood We have already seen how that Chapter is an Epitome of what shall befall the Church In the first part we have a short account of the happy state of the Church during the time of its purity In the second the reign of Antichrist is described and the last persecution which the Church shall suffer And in the Third we have the glorious state of the Church after she hath subdued her enemies This is the Prophecy V. 15. Chap. 11. And the seventh Angel sounded and there were great voices in Heaven saying the Kingdoms of this World are become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign for ever and ever V. 16. And the four and twenty Elders who sat before God on their seats fell upon their faces and worshipped God. V. 17. Saying we give thee thanks O Lord God Almighty which art and wast and art to come because thou hast taken to thee thy great Power and hast reigned V. 18. And the Nations were angry and thy wrath is come and the Time of the dead that they should be judged and that thou shouldst give reward unto thy Servants the Prophets and to the Saints and them that fear thy name smal and Great and shouldst destroy them which destroy the Earth V. 19. And the Temple of God was open'd in Heaven and there was seen in his Temple the ark of his Testament and there were lightnings and voices and thundrings and an Earthquake and great Hail We have observed that the seven Trumpets followed upon the seven seals and were
not contemporary with 'em the seven seals carry the Prophecy almost as far as the fall of Paganism unto Constantine the first Christian Emperor The seven Trumpets divide the rest of the Time between Constantine and his Christian Successors to the end of the World. And the seventh Trumpet that sounds here is the beginning of the last Period which comprehends the fall of the Empires of the World and particularly that of the Antichristian Kingdom or the Papacy The seventh Angel sounded and there were great voices These are voices of Acclamation and joy That Thunders and Lightnings are joyned to those voices signifies the preaching of the Gospel And the four and twenty Elders who sat before God on their seats fell upon their faces and worshipped God saying we give thee thanks O Lord God Almighty c. 'T is the Song and subject matter of thanksgiving wherewith the Holy People should praise God during the reign of a thousand years when God shall have subdued all their Enemies Observe here that the four and twenty Elders appear alone and begin the Song whereas in the first Vision the living Creatures begun the Song and the Elders followed ' em 'T is not to exclude the living Creatures and the Ministry in the last Period of the Church but to signify that then the People shall be so filled with the Divine Spirit that they shall not need to wait the inspiration and assistance of the Holy Ministry to ingage them to praise God and perform holy duties The Nations were angry and thy wrath in come i. e. the Nations of the Antichristian People have executed their malice and fury and thou hast avenged it by destroying their Empire And the Time of the dead that they should be judged and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy Servants the Prophets and to the Saints and them that fear thy name small and great This doth not signify the last judgement or the last Resurrection 'T is the first Resurrection the Deliverance of the Church her coming to the expected Kingdom This is set forth after the same manner in the 20th Chapter of the Apocalyps as hath been already seen The Time of the Dead to be judged he saith not the Living and the Dead or all the Dead but speaks of the Church which lay as dead during the reign of Antichrist and shall rise again when that Kingdom is destroyed The Dead shall be judged And how 't is God will reward the faithfull and the Church by giving them Peace and a Kingdom 'T is a judgement of Grace and of Beneficence He speaks not of eternal Rewards as appears by what follows and to destroy those who destroyed the Earth Which is not a proper term to signify eternal punishments wherein nothing is destroyed men continue under them for ever so that the ruin of the Antichristian Empire must be here meant V. 19. Chap. 11. And the Temple of God was opened in Heaven and there was seen in his Temple the Ark of his Testament The Ark is the sign of God's Covenant with the Iews so this Prophecy of the Ark in the Temple of God signifies the recalling of the Iews The Temple of God was open The Church shall be open to all Nations all People shall resort to it and among others we shall see that People who derive their Glory from the Ark of the Covenant CHAP. XXIV The Characters of the Kingdom of the Church Eight are certain and five doubtfull What shall happen after this Kingdom What is meant by Gog and Magog There shall probably be a lesser kind of Antichrist a little before the end of the World. HAving confirmed the Truth of this Reign of Christ upon Earth we ought now to consider the Nature and Characters of it they may be divided into two Classes some that are doubtful and others certain It is fit that we begin with the certain We are not to reckon among the Characters of this Reign either the fall of the Babylonish Empire or the conversion of the Iews or the conversion of the remaining Gentiles For these three things are to go before it They can never be brought about but with confusion and Tumult The Popish Empire cannot fall but it must cost blood and make a mighty noise The conversion of the Iews must needs be attended with great Commotions among the People and it may be violent contradictions 'T is likewise impossible to conceive that the Conversion of the Gentiles can be brought about without the utmost endeavours of the Devil to hinder it he will raise all his forces every where to hinder the last establishment of this Kingdom of Christ as he did in the first Ages of the Christian Church So that we cannot doubt but he will cause great opposition not only by words but it may be blows Now this cannot belong to the Kingdom of Christ whereof the principal Character is Soveraign Peace Insomuch that we thus conceive of it 1. The Papal Empire shall fall 2. After that some years will be necessary to abolish Sects and Parties and compose the differences among Christians 3. That after this many Heathen Nations and the Iews shall be converted for it cannot be thought that they should be converted while Christians are so much at variance among themselves and seeking the destruction of one another 4. After the Conversion of the Iews the remainder of the most remote Nations shall also be converted Now for all this there must be time for should we think that God will act in a more miraculous manner in this than in the establishment of the first Christian Church Wherefore as the Christian Church was near an hundred years in its first setling no less will be necessary perfectly to resettle it and then shall that blessed Kingdom come which we expect not but that there is some probability that God may begin to compute the thousand years from the fall of Antichrist even before the Conversion of the Iews and Gentiles and so the fall of the Antichristian Kingdom and the Conversion of the Nations may in some sort be comprehended within the Reign of Christ for a thousand years But when we speak here of the Kingdom of Christ we speak of it as in its perfection which will not be till after these things are come to pass An extraordinary effusion of the Spirit the first certain Character Chap. 2.28 29. The first certain Character of this reign of Christ is the plentifull effusion of the Spirit of God upon men The Prophecy of Ioel to this purpose is one of those which is but in part accomplisht hitherto I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and your Sons and your Daughters shall prophecy your old Men shall dream dreams and your young Men see visions also on the servants and the hand-maid in those days will I pour out my Spirit That lesser effusion of the Spirit which the first Christians experienc't is not enough to fill up the
in the preceding Chapters where I have shown that Empire and a Kingdom Peace and Prosperity are promised to the Church of Christ in such a manner as hath never hitherto been fulfilled Object VVhen Christ shal come the Church shall be most corrupt 4. After this they tell us that when God describes those Times which shall immediately precede the end of the World instead of representing them as a golden Age they are painted out as an Age of Iron and darkness Iniquity shall abound the love of many shall wax cold false Prophets and false Christs shall arise they shall work signs and wonders to deceive if possible the very Elect. Math. 24. v. 12.24.37 The coming of the Son of man shall be as the days of Noah When the Son of man shall come Luke 18. c. 8. he shall not find faith upon Earth And 2 Ep. Thessal 2. chap. 't is said the Lord shall destroy the man of sin by the brightness of his coming But all this is grounded on a false supposition viz. that there shall be no other coming of Christ but for the last final Judgement which is not true the coming of Christ here spoken of is that to settle the Peace and Glory and Kingdom of his Church and we may be certain that this is meant in almost all the Passages where the coming of Christ is spoken of It is true that when Christ shall come to destroy the Antichristian Kingdom he shall not find true Faith upon Earth that is very little of it Experience confirms this for we are now in that very time Farther when Christ shall come the third and last time for the last Judgment it may well be that there shall be a great scarcity of faith piety in the World at that time for Gog and Magog shall be increas't there shall be a great seduction upon Earth and a great affliction upon the Church So that these Prophecies shall have their accomplishment whenever Christ comes They were fulfilled at his first coming when he came in the flesh for the Church was then exceedingly corrupted and so at his second coming when he shall come to destroy the Antichristian Kingdom For in our days there is a very great corruption and shall be at his third coming for at the end of the world there shall be an Insurrection against the Church and against the Son of God. 5. Object The day of Judgement would not then be unknown 5. It will farther follow say these Gentlemen that the Hour and the day of Iudgement would not then be unknown as our Lord J. Christ hath said it is For if just after the fall of the Antichristian Empire the reign of Christ for a thousand years must take place we likewise know that at the end of that Reign of a thousand years shall be the day of Judgment First you must know that our Lord J. Christ saith not that the day of the last Judgment shall be alway concealed he only saith that no man then knew it concerning that day saith he knoweth no man. That depends on the fixing the time of the 1260 years for the reign of Antichrist Now no man knew for certain at that time when the 1260 years should begin God did not permit that it should be well known till this last Age which is as also the last of the reign of Antichrist for 1260 years Moreover after having well fixt the Epocha of the birth of Antichrist that we may discover his end yet can we not thereby come to the exact knowledge of the day of Iudgement 1. Because we know not whether the thousand years of the reign of the Church must begin just at the end of the 1260 years of the reign of Antichrist We may say the contrary without saying any thing that is improbable that the thousand years are not to be computed but from the compleat establishment of the Kingdom of Christ 2. We cannot tell whether the Period of a thousand years is to be exactly so much neither more or less for the H. Ghost is not so critical and precise and often makes use of a round and certain number to signify one that is uncertain unless when he makes use of a broken number as three and half for then we cannot doubt but we are to reckon exactly so much So that these two things being always doubtfull we can never know the precise time of the Judgement day 6. Object The world would then last a long while 6. After this they say that if the Church must reign a thousand years on Earth the World is yet to last for a long time which is not likely it should because the Apostles even in their days spoke of the end of the world as a thing approaching and near at hand We are in the last times saith St. Paul. The coming of I. Christ is at hand saith St. James My littie children It is the last time saith St. John. They ought to confess that these passages make against them instead of being for them The Apostles called their Days the last times and the last hour and yet almost two thousand years have passed since Those Texts therefore must not be taken in too rigid a sense We have spent one Chapter on purpose in this Book to explain those Passages 7. Object The Scripture speaks but of one Resurrection 7. Lastly they tell us that according to the Scriptures at the coming of our Lord J. Christ All the Dead must be raised at once the Righteous and the Wicked which agrees not with the supposition of the Millenaries who would make one part of the Dead to rise at the beginning of the reign of a thousand years and the rest at the end of it But how can any one say that the Scripture saith that when it speaks the quite contrary that one part of the Dead must rise first which is the first Resurrection and that the Rest of the Dead are not to rise till the thousand years are fullfilled There are some passages 't is true wherein the Resurrection of the Good and Bad is spoken of as that which shall be at the same time and so it shall accordingly be for this first Resurrection will be but of a very few viz. of the Ancient Martyrs The remainder of the Faithful shall not be raised till the end of the World. Many Dead were risen with Christ when he rose and are certainly with him body and soul in Heaven Notwithstanding this the Scripture speaks of the Resurrection of all the Dead as a thing deferr'd and adjourn'd to the last Day because one little Exception destroys not a general Rule 'T is strange that these Gentlemen find so much difficulty in this first Resurrection Methinks they should remember the many Saints who were raised with Christ Why may not Christ raise some of the New Testament Saints at the coming of his Kingdom as well as raise some of the Ancient Patriarchs when he rose from the Grave However notwithstanding all that I have said on this subject of that first Resurrection I once again declare that I am not sollicitons to decide it Therefore I have and do again place it among those things which are doubtful I am informed that the learned and famous Prof. Mr. Witsius of Vtrecht hath thought fit to declare his mind on this subject in some publick Lectures I am told that he agrees with me concerning a great change which is to be in the Church before the end of the World with respect to Manners Union in Doctrine and the spreading of the Christian Faith as well among the Iews as among the Nations which as yet are Pagan He is also willing De X Tribubus Israelis c. 9. §. 1. cap 11. § 17 that the Iews should hope to return to their own Land and rebuild Ierusalem I would ask no more and am more rejoy't to meet with the concurrence of so great a man in that which is Essential than I can be troubled that he differs from me concerning that first Resurrection for I must acknowledge that I meet with very great difficulties about it But when I look upon it on that side and in that manner as I have represented it I find it to be very probable Nevertheless I am far from being fully perswaded of the Truth of it as I am concerning those Arâ—â—cles wherein we two agree These I think are all the Objections wherewith these Gentlemen oppose us For I regard not what they say when they tell us That this Reign of a thousand years is a Iewish vision a Fancy derived from the impure Fountain of their Traditions This is to declaim and not to prove 'T is not impossible but there may remain something that is good among the Traditions of the Iews at least St. Paul and St. Iude believed so The first learnt from their Tradition the names of the Magicians of Aegypt who opposed Moses and likewise those words of Moses I exceedingly quake and fear which we no where read in the Old Testament And St. Iude learnt from thence the combat of Michael the Arch-angel with the Devil for the body of Moses also the Prophecy of Enoch They urge likewise against us a multitude of ancient and modern Authors But I had rather give credit to Iustin Martyr and Papias who might have seen St. Iohn than to all those who have wrote since God hath his particular reasons why he will not that the Prophecies should be understood in every Age. FINIS
forbid all Assemblies to leave us in ignorance and deprive us of all the other advantages which others Subjects injoy the Reformed Religion would have been almost extinguisht before ten years were over such being the coldness and declension of Piety to which the Protestants were already come But God who would not that his Truth should perish suffer'd not that things should remain in that posture 'T is well known that humane passions are a great help to Christian vertues The fury which these persons are now in who feel this violence the torment they suffer in their Consciences the rage which they are in for being forced do all concur to fortify the hatred they had of Idolatry and their love and inclination for the Truth So that by means of these violent Passions the Truth makes the more indelible impressions on their hearts He must be very ignorant in the History of the World and of the Heart of man who can think this to be a likely way to extinguish a Religion The means to extirpate an Heresy pretended or real is to cut off the Heads to shed a great deal of blood and to stifle the most zealous of them by a massacre for if you suffer them to live and are content only to draw from them a feigned abjuration you thereby make them irreconcileable Hereticks 'T was by fire and sword the Albigenses were destroyed There is yet another very effectual way of extinguishing an Heresy which is to take away from them all means of increase and growth by preaching and instruction after this manner the Arrian Heresy was supprest by the Emperors This way they began to take in France for these twenty years last past and which could not have failed of success as I observed if it had been continued But he must be very blind that can believe that Persons into whose Heads and Hearts you would force the Truth by blows and violence will not recover themselves again assoon as possible and by all manner of ways But it will be said there are other methods used which you grant to be effectual The People are deprived of all the means of Instruction and so in a little time the Truth must dye This would prove so if their Consciences were not under such a violence as they are and if that posture of things could last long the Truth would then be extinguisht by little and little But that state of things is too violent to continue long and within a few years you will see the Light of that fire which is shut up without being extinguisht There is another thing very extraordinary in this Persecution and wherein the finger of God doth manifestly appear that is the way they have taken in their dealing with the Pastors These are the men that must be supprest if you would extinguish a Religion because they are capable of recovering it Therefore in all former Ages the severest part of the storm hath fallen on them and even in this Age likewise witness the History of the Persecutions in Hungary But here is the quite contrary the People ruined and the Ministers suffered to go free They must carry nothing away with them but their Souls and Consciences are given them as a prey which so many Laiks would desire and rejoyce to obtain These banished Pastors carry the account of the miseries of their several Flocks into all parts of the World. They are in all the Protestant Courts of Europe the unreproveable Witnesses of the violence of the Persecution their miseries stir up compassion towards the afflicted and Indignation against their Persecutors Besides this they are always ready and kept in reserve to return into France and bring back the Light of Truth again there whenever God shall please to open the door This is such a thing as speaks plainly that God preserves them in safety in order to his great work and till then This is not the effect of the Compassion of their Persecutors for they are destitute of any and are cruel to the utmost degree 'T is not a piece of policy neither for that would have made them secure the Pastors in such a place wherein they should have been condemned to an eternal silence 'T is then a secret Providence of God which leads persons farther than they would go and to do that which they would not have otherwise done and 't is observable that Bishop Vsher in his prophecy doth expresly take notice of this particular that in this last persecution the Pastors shall be spared God reserving them for the Great work he hath farther to do which makes me give the more heed to that prophecy Lastly that we may see how extraordinary this persecution is in all its Circumstances let us consider it in its success and with respect to those on whom it hath succeeded I look upon that general Desertion an whole Kingdom in a manner changing its Religion in four moneths time as a thing that cannot be parallel'd 'T is true the Roman Empire hath been seen to become Arrian in a very little while by the persecution of the Emperors But Arrianism was a speculative Heresy and the Arrians cheated the People by equivocal Confessions of Faith which taken in good sense might now be subscribed unto And for other things their Worship Prayers Ceremonies Altars Bishops Government 't was all alike and so the passage from one to another was very easy But here is the greatest difference imaginable in worship the object of adoration the manner of it in Ceremonies Government and Discipline The Reformed Religion and the Roman differ as Day and Night so that there must have been a prodigious Current for the passage from one to another in so little time 'T is a frightfull and surprizing thing to see People make less difficulty to change their God than good Subjects would do to change their Prince in case an Enemy break into any Country he would not find People so ready to abjure their former Oath of Fidelity 'T is true this kind of persecution which is made use of against the reformed seems to me more cruel and more likely to overcome their constancy then Massacres and Fires Wheels and Gibbets When a man can see to the end of his sufferings though that end be death he may be able to stand his ground but when he is given over to an hundred Executioners who are commissioned to torment him by turns without giving him the least repose I confess this is the ready way to despair If they did nothing more than hinder a man from sleep it were sufficient to make him distracted and to make him do what ever they would have him 'T is certain then that several of those who have yielded would more willingly have suffer'd death for their Religion and have earnestly and seriously desired it But what is very strange is that the greatest part have not tarried for these Persecutors At the very approach of the Dragoons they cowardly complied and a
small number of True Believets remain'd victims exposed to the Rage of an Army of an hundred thousand men which were let loose upon the Kingdom This I say again is without Example in any Histsry S. Cyprian in his Treatise de Lapsis seems to say that some such thing happened in the persecution of Decius but he himself in his Epistles makes it evident that the Apostacy was not so general for he remits those who had fallen to be judged at the return of Peace in the Assemblics of the Faithful who persevered so that the number of those that persevered must have been considerable In our time it would be difficult out of every Flock to make up an Assembly of such as persevere to judge the rest 'T is therefore an Event wherein we must admire the depth of Divine Providence 'T is a speaking Prodigy which tells us we are now in those last days when Christ should come and not find true Piety or true Faith upon Earth This is a Touch-stone for all Protestants their Brethren of France were not more wicked than others Wherefore we may believe that the same thing would happen in any other place on supposition of the same Circumstances and consequently that Christian courage and true Faith are at this day very rare and few Instances to be found Lastly this Affair tells us that God would melt the Heart of that People and suffer them to sink and be swallowed up that he may shortly raise to himself another a new People These are the Characters of this persecution which makes me regard it as very singular and extraordinary in its kind and consequently as a presage that God will shortly finish the establishment of his Kingdom and the Ruin of that of Antichrist If we only consider how this Persecution hath been more effectual than any the Church ever suffer'd it were enough to make us judge that the Devil now imploys his utmost force and power as apprehending 't is the last Time and that the ruin of his Kingdom is at hand When Paganism was ready to fall under Constantine he then excited the sharpest persecution under the Emperor Dioclesian These are the different Reflexions that conspired to possess me that the coming of our Lord was near to destroy the wicked one by the Breath of his Mouth I had a strong inclination to be certain and assured of the truth of these Thoughts which could no otherwise be done but by finding in the Apocalypse the accomplishment of those Circumstances which were to precede and accompany the fall of the Babylonish Empire With this design I betook my self to read over the Apocalipse not the several Commentators on that Book but the Book it self only with the Exposition of Ioseph Mede whom I formerly look't upon as a man inspired for the Interpretation of the Prophecies His Key of the Apocalypse and annexed commentary did heretofore charm me I could find nothing like it in all the other Expositors I added that of his Chronicles and his Book called The Apostacy of the latter Times which is a large Commentary on 1 Tim. Chap. 4. v. 1 2 3 4. And the Spirit saith expresly that in the last times there shall be some who shall depart from the Faith. Besides several excellent and curious things a part whereof you will find in this Treatise I met with in that Author the thing which I so eagerly sought for viz. the true Epocha of the 1260 years during which Time the Antichristian Empire should last he makes them to begin about the year of our Lord 450. or 455. by dateing them from thence they must end about the year 1710 or 1715. which agrees very well with my conjecture But Ioseph Mede who set me right at first in the beginning of the true path forsook me in the middle of the way and when the circumstances and preliminaries of the fall of Babylon were to be adjusted according to this Calculation which are so exactly described in the Apocalypse I found no assistance at all from him on the contrary he led me out of the way wherin he himself had put me and to make me wander and go astray According to the Epocha which he himself had mark't for the beginning of the 1260 years for the reign of Antichrist I should see the end of it in 25 or 30 years but according to Mr. Mede there must be many Ages to accomplish all things which are to be fulfilled before the period of the Kingdom of Antichrist In the 11th 14th 16th Chapters we have an account of the Circumstances and degrees of the Fall of that Empire the Eleventh Chapter speaks of the death of the two Witnesses for three days and half of their Resurrection and of the fall of the tenth part of the City c. In the 14 Chap. where the Fall of Babylon is divided into two Acts one is called the Vintage the other the Harvest In the 16th Chap. where the seven Periods of the declension and Fall of the Antichristian Empire are set forth by seven viols and seven Plagues of all this Ioseph Mede understood nothing yea supposing as he doth that of those seven Plagues not above two or three were come to pass in his Time he remits us far enough off for the accomplishment of the five others The Periods described by every Viol are each of them more than one Age so that we should have four or five hundred years yet to come before the end of the Kingdom of Antichrist If every one of the four viols that remain to be poured out were but of fifty years we should have yet two hundred years longer to wait I confess that after having read those places of the Apocalypse and reviewed them twenty times I understood nothing more therin I was only more and more confirmed that no man had rightly understood them In the midst of these distractions I yet begun my work without knowing well where I went. But I can say that God so opened mine eyes in the way that gave me unexpressible consolation for after having consulted the Eternal Truth above an hundred times with a deep Humility and very great Attention at length I received an answer at least I believe so and think it very plain that all that must precede the last Fall of the Antichristian Empire is fully accomplisht I have no right to require the same assurance from others neither do I require it But that which I demand at least is a little of that attention which I imployed in the meditation of those divine Oracles and then I am perswaded that if you are not as fully convinc'd as I am you will yet see reason enough not to condemn me of rashness In the first part of this work you will find nothing new for the substance of it for 't is a long time that Rome hath been called Babylon and that the Characters of the Antichristian Empire have been confest to be found in the Papacy I