Opened Book-Prophecy as commencing as high as the seven Churches or Seals there is he out again For that Vision in the eleventh Chapter does not reach to the end of Apocalyptick Time but to the seventh Vial only inclusively So that the Descent of the New Jerusalem the Millennial Reign of Christ and the Laodicean Interval are still behind But the Apocalyptick Time upon the seventh Thunder above-mentioned was quite ended and so a fit Regress made to a new set of Prophecies Which the ingenious Calendarist cannot deny but that it ought to begin as high as the seven Churches and the Seals And then of necessity the Time of the inner Court will not be synchronous but antecedent to the Time of the outer Which is a very plain Truth and equally useful He makes my second Argument for the forty two months beginning before 400 That the Invocation of Saints had entred somewhat before it In Answer to which he recurs again pag. 84. to the device of the Balance But my Reply to his Answer to the fifth Objection will serve here So that I will add nothing further but remind the Reader that not only the Invocation of Saints but the reposing Confidence in the Mahuzzim was then and this exceedingly spread as has been proved Chap. 28. The sixth Objection and the Answer being less material to my purpose I omit We therefore pass to the seventh and last which is this The Witnesses are risen and out of their Sack-cloth and that some years ago and therefore the 1260 years are also so long ago expired which utterly subverts the Calendar pag. 85. This says he being the great Objection requires the most distinct Answer I shall therefore briefly explain my full sense c. In pursuance of this I confess he is witty operose and copious but the substantial summ of the matter so far as I can gather is this That as the Time of the Medial Visions is distinguished into parts A Time and Times and Half a Time and three Days and an Half so there are several Degrees of the Completion of the Vision To this sense is that which occurs pag. 78. By all which it appears saith he Time at large has a less full presence of the Event and admits a contrary intimate Time hath the full presence of the Event and admits no contrary And pag. 88. Some says he speaking of the Witnesses are called up into places of Dignity as into Heaven but not as they shall be at the end of the 1260 days For each first and last part of all the Characters of Time must have degrees of the Event else they could not have a foundation to be so distinguished Even our Lord's first Night was a beginning to dye in his Agony being betray'd c. And till the Evening of the first day of the week he appeared not to a Number as not publickly risen till the end of the third day And then giving several instances of the scantness of the Reformation and of great Objects still remaining of the Witnesses sorrow to conclude then says he pag. 89. till after the full Expiration of the Time of the Apostasie being in Power as a Throne or Kingdom in all its coextensive Characters the Witnesses are not in full Apocalyptick sense Risen as the golden Key of the Time the three days and an half also assure us For till the Emphatical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or After three days and an half are fully past they rise not viz. conspicuously as our Lord did not And that that is not yet beside the credit of our Calendar is apparent in that since the Reformation there have been no effects like those that are to signalize the end of the 1260 days c. This is the main of his Answer to which I briefly reply that it reaches not the case For the utmost fulfilling of the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses is not that there shall be a Rising of them throughout the Kingdom of the Beast but that it shall be only in part of his Kingdom For it is expresly said in the Text that at the very hour of their Rising 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the tenth part of the City fell not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betwixt which there is as much difference as betwixt ten and one For as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the third part which is a Symbol of the Roman Empire does not signifie the whole Habitable or then inhabited Earth but the third part of the Earth only so the tenth part of the City cannot signifie all the ten parts of the City or the whole City but the tenth part only Besides that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not here relate to the ten-horned Beast or Secular Empire but to the Hieratical Polity the City of Babylon the tenth of that only fell but the Secular Empire where this fall was stood rather more strong than ever was more complete than ever being rid of the Papal Tyranny at the Reformation so far forth as it was reformed And now for the Emphatical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After the three days and an half Forasmuch as it is said after these three days and an half the Witnesses rose and the tenth part of the City fell it is as clear as Noon-day that no more than a partial Fall of the City and a proportionated Rising of the Witnesses is the full completion of this Vision or Prophecy But whatever other Accessions there are to be made to the Kingdom of Christ or Ruine of Antichrist they must be the completion of some other Visions but not of this And as for the Credit of his Calendar I have again and again shown how frail it is And for any Effects to signalize the end of the 1260 days I have demonstrated elsewhere that not Days but Semi-times are the measuring Vnite of the Event of this Vision And that there was no signalizing Effect at the expiration of the 1260 days from the right Epocha it is a further confirmation that not a Day but a Semi-time is the Eventual Measure and the last Semi-time was signalized with the blessed Reformation But yet as if his Answer to this seventh Objection had been in it self solid and valid and that as he has explained things the Witnesses were not Risen in a full Apocalyptick sense he proposes three Objections out of what he has read of mine The first Objection is this The latitude of months for the fulfilling Events in some parts of them may so disagree with the narrower lines of day too narrow for the months pag. 90. that the Prophecy may be made to contradict it self and so speak true and not true as to point of Time and Events together True in the months not in the days But his Answer is this As the heighth of Events is by the Prophecy determined to the intimate part of the three days and the three times and an half so the duration of the Event at large is by the Prophecy
Epistle to her which is supposed to be directed to her in being as the nature of an Epistle requires Behold I have set before thee an open door and no man can shut it The vulgar Latine has most faithfully and skilfully translated this passage out of the Greek Ecce dedi coram te ostium apertum c. Where coram as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek is point-blank against the sense the Objector would put upon the passage as if Christ meant that Philadelphia yet was not arrived to this opened door but that the Church at large in some time should be whenas the saying is expresly directed to Philadelphia to that very Interval of the Church And it is said Dedi coram te ostium apertum That I have given thee Philadelphia an open door in thy very presence not at a distance For Coram fignifies proximity always though Ante may be sometimes used of that which is more distant So plain is it that the Objector's Exposition is a false Gloss on the Text. And whereas he saith we have in the next Epistle Christ knocking at this door for what other can it be to get it open I answer it is impossible it should be this door For this door is an open door which no man could shut unless Christ himself and when he had once set it open to Philadelphia it is not likely he would shut it again to make himself needless work Besides that this door in the Epistle to Laodicea is a door that others are to open to him not the door he opens to others Which also argues it cannot be the door in the entrance of Chap. 4. For no man opens that door in Heaven But the door that Christ knocks at in his Epistle to Laodicea is a door that men are to open to him that he may come and sup with them c. And therefore surely the Text does not intimate these three doors to be the same But the first door in the Epistle to Philadelphia is a Political door a door of sure success set open to them of Philadelphia in their administration of the affairs of the Kingdom of Christ The door in the Epistle to Laodicea is an Ethical door the Hearts or Wills of the Laodiceans which Christ solicits that they would open to him and so receive him in the Communion of his Spirit which is extremely well agreeing with all those Moral Exhortations and Increpations preceding this passage And lastly That door opened in the entrance of Chap. 4. is a Prophetical door thorough which John passing is admitted to behold Divine Visions and be a Witness of Christ's receiving from his Father and revealing the following Prophecies touching the affairs of his Church to the end of the World This is the easie and natural sense of these three doors from the very Text of each place to him that will not Nodum in scirpo quaerere 5. To the fifth I say That if the Throne exhibited Chap. 4. be intended for Christ's Throne which be promises the Victor at the end of the foregoing Chapter the Scene seems to be very ill contrived For he that sits upon the Throne is not Christ but God the Father nor does Christ or the slain Lamb so much as sit with him on that Throne but stands Chap. 5. v. 6. betwixt the Throne with Him that sits on it and the four Beasts and Elders And v. 7. being in this standing posture he is said to go and take the Book out of the right hand of Him that sat upon the Throne And so not so much as Christ himself is enthronized on this Throne much less any Laodicean Victor which should have been expressed in this Scene if there were any such real Connexion betwixt this Vision and that of the Vision of Laodicea which the Objector is so solicitous for There seems so great a dissimilitude in the very Cortex that it will not so much as afford a Lemmatosynechia that Artificial Blind as I may so call it at which I observed above how incident the Objector is to stumble 6. This sixth Argument seems the most considerable of any but I hope I shall offer that which is abundantly satisfactory in answer thereto to any unprejudiced Reader And because the main ground of the strength thereof is the Rule I have noted on Apoc. 2. v. 11. we will here produce the Rule which is this That the promise to the Victor preceding the Parabolical Epiphonema is of things External and Political but those promises that follow the said Epiphonema are of things spiritual and invisible Upon which I will only advertise that the main Antithesis I intended lyes betwixt Visibility and Invisibility to us men of the performance of the things promised though the things are ordinarily such as may be also called Political From whence I answer first That this promise of an Heavenly Throne being to be performed at that visible and conspicuous nay glorious and illustrious general Assizes at the last Day when the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout with the voice of the Archangel and with the Trump of God and when the Believers that remain alive shall be caught up in the Clouds to meet the Lord in the Air when he shall sit upon the Throne of his Glory and all Nations shall be gathered before him whom he shall distinguish into sheep and goats and give the sheep the Kingdom prepared for them but condemn the Goats to everlasting Fire Is not this a performance visible in the highest measure of that promise of Christ to him that overcomes that he will grant to him to sit with him in his Throne even as he also overcame and was set down with his Father in his According to that in our Church Hymn When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers Into which questionless all true Believers enter at their death but in a way invisible and therefore the promise of Paradise to him that overcame in the Epistle to the Ephesine Church is set after the Epiphomena But this Heavenly Throne here promised to the Laodicean Victor being to be performed so visibly in that great and general Assizes at the last Day is placed according to the Rule before the Epiphonema thereby to advertise us that this promise is to be performed at that great and solemn Day which closeth the Laodicean Interval in the sight of all the World by Christ sitting on his Throne of Glory with all Nations gathered before him But now in the second place if you be so curious as not to be content that the reward and performance be visible but that it must needs be Political too does not Christ say to the sheep Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you And is not a Kingdom Political and therefore the promise thereof Political Besides what I intimated on this very Text Chap. 3.21 in these words Nay you shall sit with me on
vinces annis auspiciisque patris Wherefore though he be a false Prophet yet he is a pleasant Poet and true Witness of the Age of Caius Which if he be the Expedition will naturally fall into the Consulate of Lentulus and Piso as is above noted Then was he on his Expedition with his Rector or Governour M. Lollius Whence we see plainly that Augustus sent not Caius into the East before his thirteenth Consulate but that T. L. his Chronology which I have proposed by Consulships and Julian years is true Now as we are assured of the time when Caius was upon his Parthian Expedition by the expiration of Tiberius his quinquennial Tribunitian Power Anno Jul. 45. Lentulus and Piso being Consuls so we are by the same assured that it was the next year that Caius concluded the Peace with the Parthians at what time M. Lollius died and so fairly gave occasion for a new Tutour to Caius which within a competent time Augustus would appoint him The next year therefore when Caius had taken possession of Armenia Publius Quirinius is appointed his Rector or Tutor as Tacitus plainly tells us Annal. lib. 3. where speaking of the Honours conferred upon him he says Consulatum sub Divo Augusto viz. Anno Jul. 34. mox expugnatis per Ciliciam of which Province he had the Prefecture not of Syria then else you may be sure Tacitus would not have omitted so great an Honour Homonadensium castellis insignia Triumphi adeptus datusque Rector Caio Caesari Armeniam obtinenti What can be more pat Cilicia being near Armenia nor Quirinius made Caius his Rectour till his Recuperation of Armenia But Caius a little time after his ingress into Armenia being so unhappily wounded and grown unfit for the Administration of Affairs the whole Government of Syria naturally fell into the hands of Quirinius or Cyrenius this Anno Jul. 47. when Vinicius and Alfinius were Consuls and is the year of Augustus his renewing his Censorian Power in quartum Decennium so great congruity there is of things Here therefore commences the first Presidentship of Cyrenius over Syria and here is the beginning of this first Tax in the first time of his being Governour thereof and is consequently that very Oecumenical Tax of Augustus that the Evangelist mentions and the middle of the three recorded by Suetonius and the Monumentum Ancyranum and the Tax wherein Christ was born which lasting three Consulships together for as it began in the Consulship of Vinicius and Alfinius so it ended in the Consulship of Aelius Catus and Sentius Saturninus as was above proved out of Dion and as the fore-part of it was carried on by Cyrenius so the latter part of it by Sentius Saturninus the Consuls Father and Cyrenius his Successour in the Government of Syria as appears out of Tertullian It is natural therefore and obvious to place the Birth of Christ in the middle Consulship viz. that of Aelius Lamia and Servilius Geminus nothing clashing therewith in History and it so fitly complying with the true Epocha of Daniel's Weeks the thirtieth Consulate from thence being the thirtieth year of Christ's Age when he was baptized by John the first year of the last week and the Prophecy says expresly that there were seven weeks and sixty two weeks that is sixty nine weeks from the Decree to build Jerusalem to the Messiah Wherefore his Manifestation which was made at his Baptism was to be expected in the first year of the last week as it did indeed fall out according to this Compute Wherefore this Note of Christ's Birth from the carrying on the Tax by Cyrenius Governour of Syria mentioned in S. Luke I take to be a firm Argument to prove that Christ was born Anno Jul. 48. Aelius Lamia and Servilius Geminus being Consuls We will add but one Argument more and then conclude The last Argument T. L. uses is taken from a passage of Paulus Orosius lib. 6. Histor adversus Paganos towards the end Wherein briefly these two things are noted That Christ was born when there was an universal Peace over the Roman Empire and the Gates of Janus were the third time shut by Augustus and in the year when Augustus refused to be called Dominus Lord. Orosius his mistakes in that long Paragraph it is besides my Scope to take notice of But as for those two notable Characters of the time of our Saviour's Nativity we have noted before that Anno Jul. 46. C. Julius Caesar and L. Aemilius Paulus being Consuls Caius Caesar concluded a Peace with Phraates King of the Parthians and that the Temple of Janus was the third time shut by Augustus that year as it was before twice the first time in his fifth Consulship Sextus Apuleius being Consul with him and then in his ninth Junius Silanus being Consul in the same year during which Oecumenical calm over the Empire Christ was born And if in the year when Augustus refused the stile of Lord then it must be in the Consulship of Lamia and Geminus because Dion just in the same place where he says that Augustus refused to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord he says there presently that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that his third Decennium being fully out he accepted of a fourth Now that the fourth Decennium of his Censorian Power began in the Consulate of Aelius Lamia and Servilius Geminus I have proved above in the twelfth Chapter But we had produced Arguments enough before this to demonstrate That the Nativity of Christ was indeed Anno Jul. 48. or Anno P. J. 47.16 L. Aelius Lamia and M. Servilius Geminus being Consuls CHAP. XIV Two Objections out of Josephus that would prove that Caius took not his Expedition into the East till after Herod was dead 1. Because Josephus mentions no Civilities done by Herod to Caius as he passed Judaea 2. Josephus expresly says that Caius was at that Council that was called at Rome touching the disposing of Herod 's Kingdom upon his decease The Defectuousness Remisness and Carelesness of Josephus in several things noted by Tho. Lydiat and others His gross mistake in the time of the Commission granted to Nehemiah noted by the Author That he cannot be excused from the distance of Time or remoteness of Country An Answer to the first Objection Whether it was ignorance or dissimulation in Josephus that he writes nothing of Caius his Expedition into the East Herod 's Policy in forecasting his journey to Rome while Caius went into the East An Answer to the second Objection that supposing there was any Son of Augustus at the above-mentioned Council Josephus has committed a Misnomer and set down Caius for Agrippa Posthumus Several Allegations out of Historians that it could not be Agrippa that Augustus so honoured in that Council Passages out of Tacitus and Dion that imply that it might be he That if Josephus did really mean Caius he must do it on a ground wherein
who reigned thirteen years and eight months Wherefore Paul's departure from Corinth where he is said to have stayed a year and six months Acts 18.11 cannot be till then till about the end of the first year of Nero. Which therefore is a Ratification of the time of his Arrival there and implies more roundly that it was four years later than Spondanus and Petavius place it Tenthly Acts 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But after two years Porcius Festus came into Felix his room Surely most naturally this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must refer either to Felix or Paul they being the Persons spoken of not to Nero of whom there is no mention nor to Paul for though in bonds yet being in libera custodia he would not have been idle nor the story omit his acts that interim from his Sermon to Felix and Drusilla till Felix went out of his Office which certainly he continued in many years above two as is implied v. 10. Wherefore it is hugely credible that we should read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the ten years being finished that Felix had been Governour of Judaea Porcius Festus succeeded him For that Felix had by this time been President ten years appears thus Josephus in his Life declares of himself that he was born in the first year of the Reign of Caius and that being full twenty six years old he came to Rome to free certain Jewish Priests of his acquaintance that Felix had sent thither while he was President of Judaea that he did effect his business by the Favour of Poppaea Nero's Wife Wherefore Josephus being born the first year of Caius he was twenty six years of Age about the eighth year of Nero's Reign Marius and Asinius being Consuls At what time Tacitus relates Annal. lib. 14. that Poppaea was married to Nero. Now this sending of these Priests to Rome by Felix being at the end of his Presidency for these Priests he sent being Josephus his special Friends 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he differred no time for their deliverance it is plain that Felix was President of Judaea about ten years and that Festus succeeded him in the seventh of Nero's Reign not the second and that therefore Paul's being brought bound to Rome is full four years later than Petavius has placed it who places it in the third year of Nero Volusius Saturninus and Cornelius Scipio being Consuls See Helvicus Funccius and Calvisius that place the beginning of Felix his Presidency in the third year of the 207. Olympiad and the eleventh of Claudius and Tacitus who leaps from Felix to Florus taking no notice of Festus and Albinus by reason of their short stay in Office Paul's being brought bound to Rome therefore being four years later his Conversion is necessarily four years later not in the twentieth of Tiberius as Petavius has put it but in the second of Caius Whence Christ's Crucifixion is again in the twenty second of Tiberius and his Baptism in the nineteenth This is a pregnant proof out of which there is no evasion unless with Baronius we will impute ignorance to Josephus of those things himself was an Actor in and say he knew not his own Age but mistook five or six years which is next to the not knowing his own Name as T. L. has well noted against Baronius Lastly for it were too long to bring all T. L. his Arguments into view It is acknowledged by Petavius contended for by T. L. and proved out of Tacitus that the first Persecution which was under Nero was in the eleventh year of his Reign Lecanius Bossus and Licinius Crassus being Consuls The occasion to which Persecution was Nero's own burning of Rome which horrid Fact he would have cast upon the Christians to conceal himself Ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos quaesitissimis poenis affecit quos vulgus Christianos appellabat c. Igitur primi correpti qui fatebantur deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens haud perinde in crimine incendii quà m odio humani generis convicti sunt c. Wherefore the Christians being so universally hated and Peter and Paul being then at Rome and the great Sticklers for and Promoters of that Religion it is incredible but they went to pot with the first besides that this cruel Freak of Nero seems out of Tacitus to be but one continued Act of his the above-named Lecanius and Licinius being Consuls Peter therefore suffered Martyrdom in the eleventh year of Nero. But in Eusebius his Chronicon lib. 1. and also in S. Jerom in the Life of S. Peter Peter is said to have been possessed of the Sacerdotal Chair twenty five years at his death But where he was possessed of it at Antioch or Rome and from what time whether from the last of Tiberius or from the second or third of Claudius or from what other time is uncertain and controversial yet this in general seems less dubitable that this twenty five years is his time of his Apostleship since the Apostles dispersing themselves upon the expiration of the twelve years that our Saviour is said to restrain them to Jerusalem or rather to the Nation of the Jews What so likely an Epocha of the twenty five years as this And if you count from the eleventh of Nero till twenty five backwards you fall into the fourth of Caius Caligula which immediately succeeds the expiration of the twelve years abovesaid so that the fourth of Caius is the Epocha of Peter's Cathedra Sacerdotalis Which yet is further confirmed out of the Chronicon of Marcellinus Comes who writes that Indictione tertiâ Philoxenus and Probus being Consuls Helvicus calls him Probinus and places them in the year of our Lord 525. Pope John came to Constantinople in the 485 year of the Sessions of the Popes of Rome from Peter Now what is an easie concession if we but suppose these five hundred twenty five years and four hundred eighty five complete so that it may imply the two hundred fifty six and four hundred eighty six current Philoxenus and Probus or Probinus being Consuls if you count but from that Consulate four hundred eighty six years backwards you will again fall into the fourth year of Caius and then as was noted in the fifth Argument the twelfth year of the Apostles restraint to the Jewish Nation being the fifth from Christ's Ascension it is again manifest that Christ suffered in the twenty second of Tiberius and was baptized in the nineteenth And thus there being so many happy hits in Historians and Chronologers comporting and complying with the Times of the Baptism and Passion of our Saviour pointed to by the true Epocha of Daniel's Weeks namely the twentieth of Artaxerxes Longimanus in T. L. his sense which we have explained and made out in the 3 4 5 6 7 and 8 Chapters of this Book no man can with any reason say that Thomas Lydiat's Account of Daniel's Weeks is a Figment destitute of History That those