ancient Apostolick Church not any blind Conceits and Phancies of their own And for the saving Operations of the Spirit nothing is more inculcated than that in our Publick Service Nor is the Ministry of man so much the conveyer of it as the sincerity of the Party who desires to partake of it It is the gift of Christ to the sincere who has told us from his own mouth here upon Earth That blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be satisfied It is not the hearing of a gracious man once or twice a week or being present sometimes in the Meetings whether silent or vocal of a Company of sullen Melancholists or Histrionical Mock-Prophets but a firm and unshaken Faith in the power of the promised Spirit of Christ for the subduing our Corruptions a fixt and continued Resolution of not offending the God of Heaven in any thing small or great a close Guard upon our Words and Actions as having a sense of the Presence of the Divine Majesty all the day long a perpetual exercise of mortifying the impetuosities of our own Will and of extinguishing all the sweet Relishes of Self-interest and vain-glory and a constant endeavour of wholly resigning our selves to God and his Service who has wholly made us Body and Soul and strictly and conscientiously walking according to His Will revealed in his written Word that is the Method of attaining to a more near Communion with God and the only way of more fully participating of his Spirit And this certainly may as well be done holding still Communion with the Church of England as in any new-fangled way that either the cunning of man or subtilty of Satan can invent And therefore it is rather a wanton kind of Hypocrisie in men or Insincerity to true Religion indeed that makes them break from the established Religion of the Church of England reformed according to the old Symmetral and Apostolical Pattern than any colour of Necessity driving them thereto And thus much briefly to those high-flown Spiritualists But what I now shall utter is still more weighty forasmuch as it concerns a greater number of men that have an honest inclination to Religion but their Education Parts and Calling do not capacitate them to make so strict inquiry into the Doctrines thereof as others may make but seek some external Authority to support their Faith and thereby lye obnoxious to the solicitations of the Emissaries of Rome who boast so much of the safe Anchorage of their Church To these men therefore I appeal what can be more safe for them than to adhere to the Autority and Profession of the ancient Apostolick and truly Catholick Church such as it was found before the Apostasie and is bore witness to in the Oracles of the Holy Scripture as I have above declared To adhere I say and keep close to this steady Rock and stop their ears against the vain pretences of any idle Fanatical New Lights or bold Enthusiasts Now he that adheres to the Church of England does adhere to this ancient Apostolick Church the Church of England being reformed according to that Pattern as to the frame of Government and Articles of Faith And for the Precepts of an holy Life besides what occurs in our Liturgie Litany and Catechism they are so plain in the Scripture and so fully and effectually declared by those in our own Church in printed Sermons and several other Writings to say nothing of the good Preaching up and down that no well-minded Christian can want any due Instruction This is a consideration the best accommodate that I know to keep us all in one which is to acknowledge the Autority and Undeceivedness in matters of any moment though not Undeceivableness or Infallibility of the ancient Catholick Church before the Apostasie came in Which true and just ground will give us all the Advantages and more than that false Boast of the Roman Church as if she forsooth were infallible and therefore irrefragable whenas that one Tenent of Transubstantiation alone sufficiently demonstrates it to be a groundless Pretence that Doctrine being plainly a Fardel of Impossibilities and Contradictions to say nothing of their infinite Superstitions Impostures and gross Idolatries and barbarous and bloody Persecutions and Murders for not submitting to them So that she is a Church all over besmeared with sordidly-gainful Superstitions Idolatries and Blood And therefore she being deprehended so grosly and enormously erroneous or imposturous and deceitful and supporting all her absonous Opinions upon that single pretence of her Infallibility she has manifestly forfeited her Credit before all the World and most justly lost her Autority that no man that has leisure and freedom to examine the Truth can easily be perswaded to rely or lean upon this broken Reed of Aegypt which is a fictitious and certainly false Pretence to Infallibility by an Apostatized Church shamelesly obtruding upon those they can deceive all the Abominations that are declared against in Daniel and the Apocalypse where the Visions represent the state of those Times into which this grand Apostasie fell How unsafe therefore is it for any one to repose himself on the Autority of such a Church God open the eyes of all that mean sincerely in Religion that they never fall into such a dangerous Ditch as this But the Church of England keeping to the ancient Symmetral Church to whom the Divine Oracles bear witness is in truth infallible in the main Points above-mentioned and in all things else material to Salvation and therefore all sorts of people learned and unlearned may safely embosom themselves in her so long as she continues which I wish may be for ever In the mean time we see what a mighty advantage it would be if that as our own Church in particular so all the Reformed Churches would jointly exhibit the same unexceptionable Pattern of Antiquity to be followed that bears a just Autority with it which the generality of men may safely rely on and that Independency and the guidance of private Spirits seducing men from the National Churches framed to that ancient Platform were quite out of fashion in all Reformed Christendom and that all men with alacrity of mind and sincerely loyal affections would shew themselves morigerous to their Supreme Governours For this is the only effectual and warrantable way that I can conceive for the enlarging the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus and the overthrowing the Kingdom of Antichrist The other Scene of things as I noted above hardens the hearts of the Princes and Prelates of Christendom who cannot but think it a sorry exchange to accept of Presbytery which would prove but a Democratical Papacy for the Order of Episcopacy or a dismal Spectacle to see the Body of Christ mouldred into an infinity of Sects and Schisms as a dead Carcass dissolved into a multitude of crawling worms and the decent grandeur and splendour of the Church to dwindle into dispersed Companies of obscure Conventicles and
the Feast of Expiation though it was not fit nor could be that Aaron who yet doubtless was a Type of Christ should dye and rise again and ascend into Heaven of which the Sanctum Sanctorum is a Type even of the highest and purest part thereof yet instead of his own Blood he entred into the Sanctum Sanctorum with the blood of a Bullock and Goat which was a Type of the Bloodshed of Christ of whom Aaron was also a Type which therefore plainly implies the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ who out-did the Type and with his own Blood entred into the Holy of Holies And whereas both the Spiritual or Immortal Nature of Christ and his Terrestrial and Mortal could not be set out by one thing two Goats are made to typifie them the sacrificed Goat his crucified Flesh or Body on the Cross which likewise lay dead in the Grave while the Scape-Goat an Emblem of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plotinus somewhere calls it his Immortal part was sent free into the Wilderness the Won of Spirits and Ghosts to Azazel if that be a proper Name a mighty Prince in those Regions of the Dead according to that Clause in the Creed if rightly understood He descended into Hell Or that of the Apostle 1 Pet. 3.18 Being put to death in the flesh but alive in the Spirit by which he also went and preached to the Spirits in prison These were the weighty Negotiations of the Scape-Goat the Immortal part of Christ till his visible Resurrection by resuming his Body out of the Grave And there is the like reason of the two Birds one killed and the other let fly into the fields Levit. 14.4 These the more we search into them the more easie and natural Types they will be found of those Passages touching Christ his Death and Resurrection as the entring of Aaron with the blood of the Goat a Type of Christ as to his Suffering as well as Aaron was a Type of him into the Sanctum Sanctorum is a plain Type of his Ascension into Heaven and Intercession there in virtue of his own Blood shed on the Cross in his Crucifixion But it is besides my present Scope to insist on these things I will only give one Instance more and that is of Aaron in his Priestly Habiliments In which Spectacle we may so plainly read not only those three Offices of Christ whose Type he is King Priest and Prophet his golden Diadem denoting the first his Vestments in common with other Priests the second and his Urim and Thummim the last The durable effect whereof is discovered in those Visions especially of Daniel and the Apocalypse that run through all the conditions of the Church to the End of the World but there is yet a further Mystery discernible viz. the Divinity of Christ in that he is cloathed with the Universe which is a Vestment cannot belong to Aaron as a man but as he is a Type of the Eternal Logos that made the World See the Appendix to the Defence of my Philosophick Cabbala Chap. 5. Sect. 3 4. And the Name Jehovah viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 engraven on his golden Diadem an Orthodox Cabbalist will be prone to conceive and not without better reason perhaps than any can bring to the contrary that the Triplicity of those Letters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denote the Trinity of Hypostases in the Godhead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Platonists also term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and we Christians call Father Son and Spirit Which Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is set after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if we were to be instructed thereby that the Spirit proceedeth as well from the Son as from the Father Though I do not hope that such a Cabbalistical Notion will suddenly end the Controversie betwixt the Greek Church and the Latine But I must beg my Reader 's pardon for this not altogether I hope useless Digression I had before made a competent Supply for my not bestowing one entire Chapter in my Paralipomena to prove the Intelligibleness of the Visions of Daniel and the Apocalypse without which all endeavour to interpret them is ridiculous and vain And I need the less here expatiate on this Argument Phililicrines Parrhesiastes in his Reflexions on R. B. having done so much of that work to my hand but in a way that partakes much of Mirth and Satyr for which he may haply incur the Censure of the more grave and sowre and it may be more for being merry than Satyrical And the first I must confess is the greatest infirmity I have observed in that Party But it is a sign he has all this time served a good Master and that it is not the deepness of Melancholy as some superficial Souls may be prone to phansie that has plunged his mind into such serious studies as the searching out the right sense of inspired Visions and Prophecies and the like but that there is such a Life and Spirit in him that loves the exercise of Reason Wit and Divine Speculation at once And if by that of Satyr any contempt fall upon R. B. for his contempt of the ancient Primitive Times of the Church and for his presumption of making himself a Guide to People upon his private Spirit against the wholesom Instructions of the Homilies of the Church of England and Authority of both Crown and Mitre and for his foul slurring as much as in him lyes the peculiar Priviledge and Glory of the Christian Religion as to have its state from the beginning to the end so certainly prefigured by Divine Visions and Prophecies he hypocritically pretending the Apocalypse to be altogether unintelligible now it is so clearly to be understood against Fanaticism and Bloodshed thus cancelling the seasonable usefulness thereof and casting dirt upon the pious and learned Labours of the best Writers of our Church I say if any contempt fall upon him from what of Satyr is found in those Reflexions of Phililicrines Parrhesiastes he may as I conceive fairly thank himself there being nothing I dare say intended by that free Satyrist but the peace and good of the Church and the reducing of R. B. to a better Judgment and exposing the profane and frivolous Spirit of those that pride themselves in a boastful profession that to them forsooth great Wits as they are the holy Visions of the Divinely inspired Prophets are altogether Unintelligible Books written by the same Author and printed for Walter Kettilby at the Sign of the Bishop's Head in S. Paul's Church-yard HEnrici Mori Opera Theologica Philosophica 3. Vol. Fol. His Exposition on Daniel Quarto His Exposition on the Apocalypse Quarto His Answer to several Remarks on his Expositions on Daniel and the Apocalypse His Illustration of those two abstruse Books in Holy Scripture the Book of Daniel and the Revelation
words seem naturally to imply such a seeing of him as S. Paul had by Vision from Heaven whereby he was converted and forced to say Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord to recant his Judaism and sing Hosanna to Christ the Son of David and profess himself a Christian And accordingly which is the third place pointed at by Mr. Mede S. Paul 1 Tim. 1.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But for this very reason says he I who out of ignorance had been a Blasphemer a Persecuter and Injurer of Christ obtained mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in me first as the Primitiae of the Jewish Nation that is to be converted in such a miraculous manner as I was Jesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not as our English has it for a pattern to them for then it should have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but for a representative Figure or Type of them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting This seems to be the natural sense of the place For why should he say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in me first if others were not to follow that should be converted in such a miraculous manner as he was by Vision and Voices from Heaven For in other ways of Conversion he was not the first of the Jews that were converted Wherefore there must be a Conversion of the Jews by such a mean as S. Paul was converted and of which the manner of Paul's Conversion was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Prophetick Type or Figure These three Scriptures may incline a rational man to believe that some chief of the Jews the most able the most noted and most zealous of them for the Jewish Religion may be called as Paul was Whose Testimonies will awake all the Jewish Nation and cause them more impartially to consider the Truth of Christian Religion And the Completion of Prophecies and their genuine Interpretation the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church and the lives of the Reformed Christians a sort of them at least may be so considerably perfected by that time those few Names in Sardis by that time being well increased that things being so fitly prepared it may seem a Miracle for any honest sincere Jew in those days not to be converted These are my own proper thoughts on these three places of Scripture But for fuller satisfaction you may consult Mr. Mede I do not love to dwell long on an Argument that I cannot so certainly and assuredly master CHAP. XIX The last part of the Letter The Reinforcement of his Objection against the literal or physical sense of the first Resurrection from two parallel places of Daniel and John An Answer to that Reinforcement from those very parallel places The Genius of the Prophetick Stile in Daniel and John in intimating one Antitheton by another What Antitheton to those awakened into Eternal life in Daniel is to be found in the Apocalypse What is meant by the Devil's detrusion into the Abyss That the first Resurrection is Physical not Political proved from the Text it self Apoc. 20. v. 4. That the Judgment there did pass upon those that were either naturally or politically dead before the Millennium when the wicked were not politically so and therefore cannot be those revived in a Political sense after the Millennium Further Arguments that the first Resurrection is Physical THUS far I wrote before I received your last which contains a Reinforcement of your former Objection against the taking the first Resurrection Apoc. 2◠in a literal or Physical sense and not in a Political What you add I confess is sober and ingenious and may suit with some mens palates the best but though I have thought several times of this very thing afore of my self yet mine ever refused it I will set it down in your own words that I may not disadvantage the strength of the sense you aim at You ask Whether since my self make that place of Daniel Chap. 12. parallel to that of Apoc. 20. the first Resurrection mentioned there by S. John may not be understood rather in a Political sense of the state of the Church in the Millennium than in a natural and Physical concerning the Martyrs For those others say you in Daniel which awake to shame and everlasting contempt perhaps may be answerable to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Apocalypse and the awakening there parallel to the living here c. And whereas it is said by S. John The rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished what hinders say you but it may be understood of the wicked getting into Political power again after the expiration of the Millennium That is briefly your sense if not your very words To this I answer That though the attempt be ingenious to object thus from those two parallel places yet the places themselves that are parallel will jointly bear off the force of the Objection and show that a mere Political sense for these places is harsh and forced For what can be more violent and harsh than to interpret Dan. 12.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a Political sense This is the main place that the Jews alledge for their Article of the Resurrection in a Physical sense as also the Christians And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the very Gospel-phrase again and again inculcated that signifies a blessed Immortality in a glorified body And besides this as Apoc. 20.12 there is mention of Books being opened at the general and Physical Resurrection as all well in their wits must needs understand it so before this Resurrection in Daniel there is mention of the Book in which those whose Names are written are to be saved as it is said Apoc. 20.15 that those whose Names are not found in the Book of Life were cast into the Lake of fire These things considered methinks make it certain that the awaking here in Daniel into everlasting life signifies not a Political but Physical Resurrection let Porphyrius and Grotius phansie what they please And therefore in this parallel place of the Apocalypse the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their living and reigning with Christ must have a Physical sense not a Political and signifie their Vivification into celestial bodies and their reigning with him in Heaven And so those that had not worshipped the Beast nor received his mark c. they answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in eodem genere that is to say in a Political sense to those that in Daniel are to be in shame and everlasting contempt one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implying the opposite thereto and the opposite to that in Daniel is here made choice of in the Apocalypse For it is the Genius of the Prophetick stile in these two Prophets Daniel and John to intimate one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by another I have observed several Examples though I have not the command of them in my memory for the present That in
it is to be understood in a larger meaning than to be grosly put out of Office This Death I mean is gradual and the first degree thereof is when those that stood up for the Truth against the introducing the Pagano-Christian Rites c. were found so weak that they could not stop the Tide of Ecclesiastical Corruptions flowing in but their attempts were ineffectual so that as to any efficiency to stop the incroaching Pagano-Christianism they were as mere Cyphers or dead men that can do nothing This is included in Political Death in that large sense I take it in I mean this Inefficiency or Inability to carry on things that appertain to the Order or Polity of the Church or of the State in Matters respecting Religion against the Authors and Countenancers of the growing Corruptions And the Apostasie being the very Wilderness of the Church the Woman was in it as soon as it was These are Hints of an Answer to your former Letter I shall offer the like to your latter CHAP. XXVII Hints of an Answer to a second Letter from the same Hand A Semi-time the Unite in computing the Events of the Medial Visions proved by the Author Not four hundred thirty two but three hundred ninety three the Author 's Epocha for the Medial Visions The odd Semi-time in Daniel added to good purpose The prevailing of the little Horn Dan. 7. how to be understood The meaning of After three days and an half His Friend's mistake touching the second Query His use of a Prophetick Henopoeia in Answer to the sixth Query but no avoiding thereby but that Luther 's Reformation will be the final Issue of the forty two months War and a Semi-time the Unite for computing the Medial Visions YOU understand aright what I mean by making a Semi-time which I call also in one word an Hexamenon an Vnite in computing the time of Events in the Medial Visions But I am amazed that you say I only suppose or assert this whenas I have evidently demonstrated it in the brief Method of the nine Queries and Notes thereon if you patiently and closely attend thereto And I have noted above that from my Epocha the Witnesses began to rise about the midst of the second month and were rising till about at least the midst of the fifth in the last Semi-time And therefore it is no wonder that so large an Vnite as an Hexamenon or Hecatouogdoconthemeron that is an hundred and eighty Prophetick days should be the Vnite by which so large an Event should be computed Nor is there any other eventual measure of Time signified by the forty two months or twelve hundred and sixty days than Daniel's seven Semi-times as I shall remind you again in the Conclusion And it is not this partial Victory signified by the Rising of the Witnesses but that total Victory of the Rider of the white Horse under the seventh Vial that secures the Saints for ever falling again under the power of the Beast Now to your Paragraphs To 1 In Synopsis Prophetica lib. 2. cap. 5. sect 4. there I say only that the Epocha of the Beast's forty two months is at least so early as four hundred thirty two years but the Epocha I stick to is three hundred ninety three And according to that Epocha the Rising of the Witnesses will begin about the middle of the second month and reach into at least the middle of the fifth month of the last Hexamenon or Semi-time And I say that all the Variations of the time of the continuance of the Medial Visions signifie no more than that they shall continue for seven Semi-times which are the seven Vnites in this Compute And therefore if the Continuance reach into the seventh Vnite especially the Event aimed at filling that Unite so competently well as it does viz. the Rising of the Witnesses and partial Fall of the great City the fulfilling of the Prophecy is plain and exact To 2 What you say here is neat supposing your Epocha of four hundred fifty six years when the Beast became ten-horned were true For then Luther's beginning the Reformation would fall short of the seventh Semi-time But I stand to that one Epocha of three hundred ninety three years according to which the Rising of the Witnesses will begin about the middle of the second month of the last Hexamenon or Half-time and reach into the midst of the fifth month at least So that the Half-Time is added to the three Times to very good purpose in Daniel To 3 The little Horn prevailed against the Saints for a time and times and half a time but in the last Half-time he was not so prevalent or prosperous in his War but that part of his Kingdom was given to the Saints in the Rising of the Witnesses as it is said Dan. Chap. 7. v. 26. And they shall take away his Kingdom which was in part done in the Rising of the Witnesses and Fall of the tenth part of the City viz. in the Reformation but the consuming and destroying it to the end is left to the Vials that succeed the Rising of the Witnesses and will be completed under the seventh at that great Battel under the Conduct of the Heros on the white Horse with a Sword issuing out of his mouth And the Vials succeed the sixth Trumpet and consequently the Time and Times and Half a Time Which Vials would have no Kingdom of the Beast left to be poured upon if the fulfilling of the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses and Fall of the City were more than partial What can be more plain To 4 After three days and an half or after three times and an half doubtless is to be understood of the Three and Half current not expired But this Expression After does plainly assure us that this is the final issue of that forty two months War of the Beast with the Witnesses and that the final issue of that War is but a partial Fall of the City and no more Rising of the Witnesses than was commensurate thereto I pray you think seriously on that The regaining of the tenth part of the Kingdom of Antichrist into the hands of Christ and the Rising of the Witnesses in that tenth part is plainly the final Result of the forty two months that is of the Time and Times and half a Time War of the Beast with the Witnesses The Vision says so expresly As for your Answer to my second Query It is not my Query you answer to For my Query is Whether the forty two months prosperous War of the Beast does not synchronize with the first six Trumpets and you give your Answer touching the Reign or War of the Beast at large which indeed reigns still and wars still but not with like continued success as in the forty two months continued War noted in the Vision In Answer to my sixth Query it 's a pretty ingenious use you make of the Prophetick Henopoeia and I acknowledge there is
succeeding Body emerges out of their Persecutions into a Victory over the Beast c. then they become the Turba palmifera and that gradually First in the Sardian Interval after more gloriously and copiously in the Philadelphian which is coincident with the New Jerusalem Nor need they be thought those that suffered under Antichrist or the Dragon to be in the prosperity of the New Jerusalem state rewarded by a Proxy which is wittily expressed they according to the Genius of the Apocalyptick Stile being looked upon as the same individual Body Politick still as it is manifest in the Rising of the two Witnesses And lastly It is not too early of the Apocalypse to have the Jerusalem-state glanced at in a Vision Synchronal to the seven Trumpets which reach to the last Judgment and therefore include in them the Time of the New Jerusalem the ligher glances at which partake of the nature of that fuller description Chap. 21. and therefore are also Typical of the Martyrs Triumphant State in Heaven Consider our twentieth Chapter again of this Treatise Object 2. Upon pag. 102. The Vision of the two Witnesses hath always seemed to me one of the obscurest parts of the Book-Prophecy And he that reads what you have written on that Subject with due consideration will be apt to think it is scarce possible to employ more Wit than you have done to void the difficulties of it There are several things in the business of this Prophecy that seem to me of rational Conception 1 It is rational to think that the Apocalypse speaks stilo Judaico as all men observe quòd saepissimè 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 That these two Witnesses are two Judaical Prophetick Reformers Reforming Powers Movers and Mourners for Reformation mystically understood 3 That the Spirit of Prophecy speaks of them and characterizes them stilo Judaico as the two Olive-trees two Candlesticks of Elias-like zeal and terrour and Elias-like and Mosaick Wonder-working Power 4 That the cause of their mourning is the desolation of Jerusalem the holy City being trodden under foot 5 They are bipartite or of a twofold nature and quality and therefore represented by two Witnesses 6 It is rational to think that the Beast the ten-horned Beast the secular Power should kill them about the commencement of his Reign to rid the World of such troublesom Fellows But then the following Particulars seem to be as rational 1 The Text sets down things as they were represented 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and leaveth us to spell out the things signified corresponding to the Visional Representations or Iconisms and though the Rind and Pulp must not be confounded yet they must be connex correspondent and go hand in hand Wherefore 2 it should seem that the Witnesses prophesying upon their death quite ceaseth for mortui nihil agunt 3 That upon this account the Nations rejoice and send gifts because they are rid of them and their Testimony 4 That therefore they had been tormented by them and their Testimony for a long time before they were rid of them by their Death And 5 That the Beast himself was provoked and enraged by their long continued Testimony before he sets upon them to slaughter them And 6 That during the time of their Prophecy they could not be dead in the sense of the Prophecy because during that time they were as Olive-trees and Candlesticks standing before God and had and exercised all their Wonder-working Power mentioned Ch. 11.5 6. And 7 That their death in the Prophecy is represented as an effect and consequent of their prophetick Testimony so long continued to the Prejudice of the World These Sir are the best Objections that I can make against your Method of interpreting this Prophecy which surely is desirable it should be true But I cannot make all ends meet which possibly you may do But I intreat you consider Sir How it is possible that the Witnesses should be as dead Carcasses and yet be in Action all the while For if they be but Politically dead they must by the Text be as Politically dead If I could solve such Objections the Rising of the Witnesses sounds so like the Reformation that it would go down with me without chewing but I have tryed several Methods of reconciling things but none of them will do Answ The six first Particulars represent truly enough the Cortical meaning of the Prophecy But as to the latter part of the first of the following seven Particulars where it is required that the Rind and the Pulp though they be not to be confounded yet that they be connex correspondent and go hand in hand what the ingenious Objector would have by connex and going hand in hand I do not so well know but that there is a parallel correspondency I not only allow but assert And I say that their Political Death that is to say their Inability of reforming things amiss in the Church and Religion this PITH runs parallel with the RIND viz. with their lying three days and an half as dead Carcasses in the street of the City And those three days and an half viz. three times and an half the RIND again run parallel with the years the PITH that they are in this Death Political And what more exact Correspondency can be required But while they are thus dead as to Political power it does not at all imply that they are so to power Spiritual and Prophetical which they may exercise though at their peril and so in Individuals be naturally killed also though the Prophetick body or succession continue upon occasions prophesying and thereupon persecuted or suffering Martyrdom c. from whence appears the invalidity of the second Particular For though the Witnesses be politically dead yet they are not so to spiritual Power and Prophecy And mortui nihil agunt reaches no further than to what they are dead to Otherwise the Souls of men departed would be asleep who though they be dead to the things of this life yet they are alive to the things of the other And as for the third fourth and fifth Particulars their invalidity will be discovered if we consider the Prophetick Stile how Henopoetick it is representing frequently repeated Acts as it were but one single Act whereby notwithstanding there is understood as well succession of Acts as succession of Persons under one single Beast and these two single Witnesses Wherefore the Inhabiters of the Earth sending gifts to each other upon the slaughter of the Witnesses is the RIND in this part of the Vision but the PVLP is a successive or repeated rejoicing of the earthly minded Church and enjoying the World in keeping down these Witnesses the true Evangelici and outing them of all Political Power in Church or State and sometimes of their Lives and Fortunes and in the mean time sharing the World amongst themselves and rejoicing therein Wherefore the third Particular has no force against our Exposition of the Vision if we consider the nature of a
is to come which plainly is the seventh And then he says The Head of the Beast that was and is not he is the eighth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Masculine gender If he be not the eighth King what eighth is he Or what can be said more expresly Nay the Text has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By which plainly is intimated that he is both the eighth King and also one of the seven Kings represented by the seven Heads of the Beast which are Idolatrous Heads So distinct and exquisite is this Prophetical Declaration 2 This eighth King is the sixth Head revived together with the Beast that is is the seventh Head of the Beast Re-paganizing 3 But he is an eighth King because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the seventh his immediate Predecessour A man must be wilfully blind that does not see this nor does it follow because there were but seven Kings that answer to the seven Heads of the Beast therefore there are but seven Kings in all whenas the Angel expresly reckons eight 4 Nor has he proved before that the Head of the Beast redivive is not the eighth King and seventh Head as appears from what has been said above 5 And for his last proof it is wondrous weak as if because he is said to be one of the seven Kings answering to the seven Heads of the Beast and the same with them he may not be the eighth King in respect of the pure Christian Caesars which were the seventh King of the Empire when it ceased to be a Beast It is very Emphatical here to say and is one of the seven it insinuating this sense That though the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the immediately foregoing King belong not to the number of the seven Kings represented by the seven Heads of the Beast yet this eighth King does belong thereto and so makes the seventh of those seven CHAP. XLIV An Objection against the placing of the Epocha of the Apostasie in the year 393. as from other Topicks so from Rome 's not being till some hundreds of years later than so guilty of bloodshed Certain premisses set down in order to an Answer to the Objection An Answer to the first Part thereof An Answer to the second An Answer to the third about Idolatry To the fourth about Bloodshed showing that Visions touching the Apostasie are not confined to Rome but respect the whole Sacerdotal Hierarchy of the Empire and that Apostatick Cruelty consists not only in Bloodshed but in other Injuries and Violences Many Examples produced of both even from the beginning of the Apostasie to the year 797. IN the last Chapter but one I answered nine Arguments whereby some Sectaries would prove that the Epocha of the Time of the Witnesses till their Rising is in the year 326. contrary to what we have determined in Arithmetica Apocalyptica where from the proportion of the outer Court to the inner we conclude the Epocha to be in the year 393. which is sixty seven years later than the former Epocha And yet there are those that think it still set much too high For the complaint of the Witnesses being touching the Apostasie and the Apostasie consisting mainly of these two Parts Idolatry and Cruelty the Intervals of Time do not agree with the truth of the History For after the 393 years if the Apostasie began then it must be now a ended since it was to last but 1260 years neither was there any considerable b mutation either after the year 393 or the year 1653. which is the year wherein the 1260 days Prophetical expire c Besides Idolatry came not into the Church for near 360 years after this Epocha not till the beginning of the eighth Century So what shall be made of that Interval d And it was almost 400 years after that in the end of the eleventh Century that the Church of Rome was guilty of shedding of blood So to make an Apostasie to begin so early whose two chief Characters appeared not till many Ages after seems not very probable This will seem a material Objection at first sight But we must premise some few things for the better clearing thereof As First That though it has pleased the Spirit of Prophecy to intimate to us from the proportion of the outer Court to the inner the very year wherein commences the first Semi-time of the seven yet it does not thence follow that a year is the exact Vnite in the Eventual measures of the Medial Visions We have demonstrated that a Semi-time or Hexamenon is the Vnite in the Eventual measures of those Visions Chap. 25. Secondly That the Medial Visions point not at the final or consummate Ruine of Antichrist but at a partial Ruine of him there is but a partial Fall of the City Babylon at the Rising of the Witnesses Apoc. 11.13 See Synopsis Prophetica Book 2. c. 7. Thirdly The Reader is to remember That by the two-horned Beast Apoc. 13. and by the Whore of Babylon riding the Ten-horned Beast Chap. 17. I do not understand the Papal Hierarchy precisely but the whole Sacerdotal Hierarchy at large as well Eastern as Western once lapsed into the Apostasie This is fully expressed by me in my Exposition of the Apocalypse as any one may see that will consult it The Visions indeed at last pinch closest upon the Roman Hierarchy but the greatest part concerns the Apostatized Church and Empire as well Oriental as Occidental Fourthly That the seventh Head of the Beast with which the Apostasie begins is an Hieratico-political or Ecclesiastico-secular Head and it is hard to find the Secular acting in matters of Religion without some or other of the Ecclesiastick countenancing the same But whether one or both act at once from Apostatick Principles of Idolatry or Cruelty it is a fitting Object of the mournful Testimony of the Witnesses Fifthly and lastly Where Episcopal Government obtains where Paganism is cast out where the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are acknowledged and the Divinity of Christ and real Triunity of the Godhead professed though not to the utmost accuracy of Orthodoxy yet so so far as there is nothing worshipped with Religious or Divine Worship but what is justly conceived capable thereof even from the very Testimony of Scripture these men that thus profess and practise are really and in truth Christians and their Church and Polity Christian Having premised thus much we will consider the Objection in the main Particulars thereof a The first is That if the Apostasie began in the year 393. it must have quite been ended in the year 1653. when the 1260 Prophetical days do expire But we answer to this out of the second Premiss That the Medial Visions point not at the final or consummate Ruine of Antichrist but partial The Time of the Medial Visions is the Time of the entireness of his Kingdom before it was broken or considerably diminished by the Reformation b To the second That there was no considerable
according to the richness of the expression sometimes of the Scripture it would illustrate one thing by two Metaphors at once and so the Two-horned Beast would seem to do the office of both a Chirurgeon and Conjurer at once of a Chirurgeon in healing the deadly wound of the Sword of a Magician or Conjurer in making the dead Dragon appear alive in a breathing and speaking Image Arg. 6. Lastly Mr. Mede argues very well That of the self-same is the Image of the Beast said to be of whom is the Name and the Number Chap. 15.2 But I say the Name and the Number is of the Ten-horned Beast Chap. 13.18 See the Context and the following Note 2. And his Number is 666. The chief meaning must of necessity be Six in opposition to Twelve the Apostolical Number because of the six Idolatrous Heads of which the sixth bears the Whore which I prove thus The Empire was not totally destroy'd by the Ostrogoths but only wounded Who can doubt but the Monarchical Government of England is the same now that it was before Cromwell Or thus 3. The Head that was cured bears the Whore this none will deny but the Head that was wounded is the same with that which was cured For it is unreasonable to give one man a Cut upon the Head and lay a plaster on another mans head Therefore the Head that was wounded that is the sixth Head or that of Emperours bears the Whore 4. Note That 144000 is not a square but a multiplication of 12 and so is 666 of six And see Dan. 3.1 where Nebuchadnezzar's Image which was undoubtedly a Type of this was sixty Cubits high and six broad And it falls out handsomly that the Apostatical Number should be half of the Apostolical because the Apostates had about the half of the Apostolical Truth viz. they spoke half Canaan and half Ashdod c. Answ To the first I say That the Context shows the Number to be the Number of the two-horned Beast For it is the Image of the Beast that causes all to receive by his coercive power the mark of the two-horned Beast For of the two-horned Beast and the Image he made does all the second part of the Chapter run And therefore the Beast must be understood of the Two-horned Beast not of the Ten-horned Beast and the Number to be his and the Image his as the Artificer thereof 2. To the second that I see no necessity of Six in opposition to Twelve it had been rather Seven viz. 777. there being just seven Idolatrous Heads of the Beast Chap. 13.1 or seven Idolatrous Kings Chap. 17.10 and the Apostolical and Apostatical opposition also appearing under the seventh Head the Whore riding the Beast under that same Head not under the sixth Nor is the deadly Wound on the Head of the Beast by the Ostrogoths but by Michael in his fight with the red Dragon He that does not see that must be stark blind in Apocalyptick Notions To bring in the Ostrogoths here is as if one stuffing a Pillow with feathers should so forget himself as to stodge in pieces of Brick or Clay 3. To the third I say It is a mere inelegant Quibble Inelegant in that it makes the Whore a Pail of Milk as it were born upon the Head of the Beast A Quibble in that he would have it as if one mans Head were cut and another mans Head had the plaster applied to it whenas it is not one Beast's Head wounded and another Beast's Head healed but the Head of one and the same Beast is both wounded and healed For it being one and the same individual Beast in succession so it is one and the same Head or supreme Power though under a sevenfold Modification and they are called seven Heads only in that respect But one and the same Beast has still one and the same Head that is his own Head not the Head of another Beast as this Quibble phansies two Heads of two several men one wounded but the other plaistered But the Beast Chap. 13. being represented with his Head healed which ipso facto is the seventh Modification of the Head and that under which the Beast bears the Whore which expression implies it to be for substance the same Head agrees well with that of Chap. 17. where the Beast is called the Beast that was is not and yet is which imports that he is the same Beast as the Head the same but healed from its wound with the Scar of Christianity upon it though so grosly grown into Pagan-like Idolatries Whence it is plain the Number 666 has no reference to the Ten-horned Beast restored else it should have been 777. Besides what wisdom would there be in counting this Number c. 4. To the fourth I grant that 144000 is made by 12 into 12000 and 666 by 6 into 111 but in the mean time it is undeniable but that 144 Chiliarchies or Regiments which have the nature of Vnits in this case and that 666 propounded alone is to be numbred by extracting the square Root thereof neither 6 nor 111 being given to divide it by nor both to produce it And that one should say that the Image that Nebuchadnezzar set up was undoubtedly a Type of this seems a piece of such Levity as hugely misbecomes any serious Interpreter of the Apocalypse Nor is there any handsomness in six the Apostatick Number being half of twelve the Apostolick Number For the Apostatick Church if you compare the Apostolick Doctrines of it with themselves it has all of them but if with Apostatick or corrupt Doctrines the Apostolick is not the tenth part of the Apostatick But besides the weakness of all these Arguments it is impossible the Pope should be the Image of the Ten-horned Beast restored the Popes being single Persons but the Ten-horned Beast a Body Politick CHAP. XLII Nine Arguments out of Socinians and other Sectaries whereby they would prove the first Imperial Council Anno Dom. 326. to be the Epocha of the time of the Witnesses till their Rising With Answers to each Argument IN Arithmetica Apocalyptica upon the third Query I have fixt and setled the Epocha of the Apostasie with all care and circumspection I could and there I hope upon very good grounds concluded That the true and precise Epocha of the Apostasie of the mournful Witnesses and indeed of all the Medial Visions is to be pitched in the year of our Lord 393. Wherefore we are concerned to answer these nine Arguments that would infer it to be in the year 326. which are as follows Arg. 1. The first Imperial Council made the Empire a National Church and so most fit to be called a Beast Answ The Jewish Church under their Kings was a National Church and yet no Beast Idolatry and Cruelty make the Beast not one publick National Confession of Faith It is against the very Light and Law of Nature that the Supreme Power in any Kingdom should not look after
Religion and make Laws and Orders concerning it so far as consists with the just Liberties of truly conscientious men nor are repugnant to the written Law of God whether in Scripture or in Humane Souls This is so consistent with Christianity that I do not doubt but the Holy City in the Millennium will be built by a Council truly Holy and truly Oecumenical Arg. 2. This Imperial Council confessedly added to the Creed Answ What the Council of Nice concluded concerning the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the Godhead was no addition to the Creed or Canonical Scripture but only an Explication made for the quieting of the Church and burying that Floud of Contention wherewith the Dragon would have overwhelmed the Church And therefore no Pride Fraud nor Covetousness being underneath but a sincere study of preserving the Church in Peace and of exhibiting such a Form of Faith as was least obnoxious to the Cavils of the Heathen as if the Christians worshipped more Gods than one or any thing that was not God we have no reason to question but Christ assisted and directed that Council in their determinations according to his promise Arg. 3. That this Council has been of greatest Authority and most dangerous to be opposed Answ I do not see how this derogates any thing from the worthiness of the Council so that it should be made the Epocha of the time of the mournful Witnesses till their Rising Certainly it is as dangerous to oppose the Apostles Creed and yet I think no man will deem it a fit Epocha for the time of the mournful Witnesses Arg. 4. The Council of Nice set the first Horn on the Ecclesiastick Beast the other not by full Authority till Anno 380. or rather 451. A Beast may be a Beast without one Horn or with none but he cannot have an Horn and be no Beast Answ The Patriarchate of Rome and that other of Constantinople that they be the two Horns of the two-horned Beast Apoc. 13. I easily admit But so soon as they were two Summities or Preeminences Ecclesiastical that they were necessarily ipso facto two Horns in that worse sense that I deny For neither embodying into a Polity or having Superiorities and Preeminences make Beasts and Horns but only Idolatry and Cruelty But the degeneracy of the Church into Idolatry was a pretty while after the Nicene Council It commenced with the Beast that was is not and yet is And he commenced with the breaking of the Empire into several Kingdoms which was after the Nicene Council and the first Constantinopolitan also Arg. 5. The Dragon stood before the Woman that was ready to be delivered to devour the Child as soon as it was born Chap. 12.4 The Child was born in the Conversion of Constantine Therefore the Re-paganizing of the Church must be presently after and so was the flight of the Woman into the Wilderness Answ The Dragon stood ready to devour the Child so soon as it was born but no Text says he did devour it so soon as it was born but quite contrary that it was caught up to the Throne of God and possessed the Imperial Crown and the Woman also escaped by her flight into the Wilderness An Attempt does not at all infer an effect I understand no force at all in this Argument Arg. 6. This gives a good account of the universal Woe Chap. 12.12 which seems to come in strangely after those words of Triumph preceding For the Devils Pagan Worship must quickly have come to an end by the Conversion of Constantine if he could not in that short time have turned off Constantine from the Faith or Re-paganized the Christians And the greatness of his wrath shows he was likely to make quick dispatch Answ I answer 1 That that Wo is not universal Earth and Sea not comprehending all the parts of a Political World There are Heavens besides that are bid to rejoice at this defeat by the Conversion of Constantine The vulgar people are Earth and Sea and amongst them the Devil was resolved to bestir himself 2 The short time he had to turn himself in is in reference to the keeping up his old Draconick Religion He must either do it before the Woman go into the Wilderness or else never And therefore that floud of Contention was to turn off the Populacy from Christianity and make them adhere to the old Pagan Religion But for Re-paganizing the Empire become Christian his time was not short for that he carrying on and perfecting that project for many hundred years 3 And lastly The greatness of his wrath only shows the greatness of his straits not the quickness of his success in those designs of either upholding the old Paganism or introducing a new one In the former whereof he is quite defeated and in perfecting the latter his progress was but slow when once begun nor begun till about four hundred years after Christ when the Empire begun to be broken into many Kingdoms Arg. 7. In this way we need not go to the uncertain Conjectures of proportion betwixt the inner and outer Court from Villalpandus or arbitrarily fix on such an Epocha as will best suit with our own Opinions For the state and times of the Church before and after Constantine are signally distinguished of themselves with reference to the Altar Chap. 11.1 as the Symbol of Martyrdom Answ I say 1 That the proportion of the inner and outer Court of the Temple namely the Area's of them in Villalpandus are not uncertain And it is the Area's of them by a Metonymia Adjuncti that are conceived to be measured The square Area of the whole Temple in the largest sense is conceived to be cast into nine square Areolae of equal bigness Two of which are the Area's of the inner Court the rest of the outer Whence the inner to the outer is as two to seven And it is Ezekiel's Temple questionless that the Apocalypse alludes to and none else As the description of the Trees and the River Apoc. 22. is from thence And the thing is so phrased according to the Artifice of the Apocalyptick Stile that both the proportion of the Time of the Non-Apostasie and Apostasie and also the Non-Apostate and Apostate Condition of the Church is insinuated For his being bid to measure the inner Court shows the Symmetricalness of that State of the Church but the rejecting the outer Court from being measured intimateth its Incommensurableness or Asymmetry to the Measure But the naming the forty two months it was to be trodden down gives a third Term whereby we may gather the time the Church was not yet trodden down by the Gentiles For as the outer Court is to the inner so is forty two months time to the Time sought for which is twelve months Thus As 7 to 2 so 42 to 12. The time therefore of the Non-Apostate Church is one entire Time or two Semi-times 2 And this plainly hinders us from seeking such an