So that there is nothing more undeniable then that these forty two Months are to be drawn out by the Prophetical Elaboratory into Months of Years 3. When upon a just and severe Computation we find that these forty two Months prophetically expounded will reach from the very Time where according to Prophecy they were to begin down to this Time and allow for the event that is to be still expected at the end of those forty two Months not yet being come to pass and will indeed exactly touch that very period that by Prophecy is affixed to them all together It is the greatest proof of the forty two Months so to be expounded that can be expected or desired until the event justifie all Let us then proceed to an exact Calculation of the Time given us in these forty two prophetical Months and there see what length they reach The great matter in Question will be whether these Months import Time of the Sun or of the Moon for between Time of the Sun and of the Moon there will in the whole forty two Months be near thirty eight years difference But there are these three great Reasons they must according to the strict propriety of the word and Thing Months be regulated by the Moon and not by the Sun. This was always the Sense of the Scripture where ever It Reas 1. mentions Months it intends Time governed by the Moon which had as all know so great Domination over Jewish Time that the great Solemnities of their New Moons and Feasts received Law from it and It created all the Time the Scripture calls Months and because of those New Moons must necessarily do so So that if It were not so here Scripture must vary from its own use of the word throughout all other places for It hath no word that it expresses Months by but precisely taken from the Moon or the Newness of the Moon Now why It should do so here without any Reason It should do so but much the contrary as will appear what Account can be given There is nothing more evident then that this divine Prophecy Reas 2. keeps a strict and severe Distinction betwixt the Children of the day and of the Night betwixt the Witnesses the Seed of the Woman the Church and the Woman the Church it self who are all of the Day and the Gentiles and the Beasts Times who are of the Night For the Times of the former are signally measured by Days as governed by the Sun wherewith the Church is Cloathed But the Times of the latter are charactered by Months as conducted by the Moon the pale and wan Luminary of the Night which Moon the Church is said not without regard to this very matter to have under its Feet and therefore not fit to give its Character of Time. And seeing this hath been taken notice of by many Interpreters of the Revelation It is much of wonder they have not measured these Months by the Course of the Moon which Rules the Night The Latine word Menses hath made the Confusion and I know not what should mislead them but Inobservance seeing the Hebrew and Greek words exactly translated are Moons not Months which kept to had clear'd all doubts There is a third Reason which is very great and would absolutely Reas 3. determin this Point if it were well Comprehended and that is that the Sun is the great measure of Days and Years and of all Time by its superior Motion and the Moon does but borrow from it as its Light so its power of guiding and denominating any Parts of the Course of Time Even so the Church and its Seed who is Cloathed with the Sun must give Law to the Course of that Time that concernes its self and its Seed And It hath the Moon under its Feet in this respect also that it gives Laws to the Course of the Moon 's Time by its own Time so then these forty two Months of the Gentiles and the forty two Months or rather Moons of the Beast can be no other than Lunar or time of the Moon as they must being call'd Moons And so as time of the Moon must be subordinated to the account of Time by the Sun's Motion So these Months must be subordinated in their measure to the Beginning and Ending of the Twelve Hundred and Sixty Years with which they are always match'd as Correspondents viz. of the Woman the Church in the Wilderness and of its Seed the Witnesses in Sackcloth and therefore must needs be Lunar Time or Time of the Moon For if they were Months of the Sun if we might call time of the Sun Months whose very Name denotes Time of the Moon alone and self-dependent Time the False Church even as the True Church must be Cloathed with the Sun and have the Moon under its Feet which is contrary to this Prophecy But if we should attend the full dimensions of this Argument It would lead us into the whole state of the Characters of Time given in Daniel and this Prophecy which would be too large a Discourse for what is here intended and therefore I referr the searching Reader to the Treatise call'd A Scripture-Line of Time which I have made Publick and satisfie my self with what concerns the Matter in hand That the Forty Two Months of the Beast are Lunar Time and must be measur'd according to the time of the Sun or the Twelve hundred and sixty Years of the Woman in the Wilderness and the Witnesses her Seed in Sackcloth which cannot be deny'd upon the proof given and is enough to our present purpose For upon this Ground-work well laid that these Months are as the very Propriety of the Expression requires Months of the Moon and to be apply'd to Twelve hundred sixty Days of the Sun It is very plain the both Days and Months cast a Countenance or Face of Three Years and a half Prophetically to be Expounded Years of Years for Years of Days But as there is an Abbreviation or shortning of the Solar Year or Year of the Sun into Three hundred sixty for Three hundred sixty five Days So let each Year of the Moon be rated in a Proportion and as five Days and upwards of the Sun's Time are taken off so let as many of the Moon 's Years be taken off also and whereas the Year of the Moon is Accounted by the best Accounts of Time at 354 Days let it be accounted at 349 Days and these Fourty Two Months will be as 1222 Years in answer to 1260 Years as near as Time of the Sun and of the Moon can be proportion'd one to another For which I Appeal to the exactest Accountants of Time. Now by all this Discourse I have undeniably as I hope and cannot but be humbly yet fully perswaded for I allow one Year for Rounding the Number gain'd such a space of time as twelve hundred twenty two Years very little under or over for the Woman to Sit the Beast
than the Discyphar and Explication he hath given of the Community we are now to treat of and the Recommendation of it to the Minds that have Wisdom to observe For having first given it under the Emblem of a Woman sitting on a Beast of seven Heads and ten Horns he unriddles the Heads to be seven Mountains and seven Kings and the ten Horns to be ten Kings and the Woman to be that City that at that time Reign'd over the Kings of the Earth which is as plain an Interpretation he meant Rome as if any one in these days should first draw London in an Emblem or Device and then say It is the City that is at this time the Capital City of the Nation I doubt not any one that understands common Sense would think it plain enough London was the City and if the Emblem were Treasonable the Innuendo would be thought sufficient to take away his Life And That It is the present Papal Rome the Procedure of the Argument is even as easie For if the Emblem of London were given with the Succession of Kings from the Conquest under which it hath been the Capital City till it came down to our present Soveraign whom God long preserve and let our King live for ever it would be a sure Character the present London was intended even so sure may the present Papal Rome be known to be intended by this Prophecy These two things I look upon as indubitably certain the Discourse of which runs to Pag. 17. And as to the Calculation of Time I fix upon I think it as clear certain and easie as by the Ballance of the Time of the Moon with the Time of the Sun It would be to a skilful Astronomer to tell us how many Lunar Years or Years of the Moon have pass'd from the Conquest when we are agreed how many Years of the Sun it is as is endeavoured to be made out to Pag. 32. However the Two first That Rome and the present Papal Rome are design'd by the Prophecy are as certain as plainest Words of the Prophecy expounded by it self can make them On which I throw down the Glove to all Gainsayers And if so they are sufficient to Found well the ensuing Inferential Corollaries to the End and to build an earnest Persuasive to come out of that * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Communion as the very Force of the Prophetical Word implies as well as the Vogue of Language and if we are Come out by no means to look back nor so much as to make any Terms with it For it can give us no Equivalent to incline us to yield it but a Toleration to its re-seating it self into a possibility to make publick Offers of its Golden Cup to the Nation No Indulgence can be a valuable Price for this For The Glory of Christ and of his Kingdom which that Eclipses is of more value than our Liberty and yet God forbid but that all due regards of the most Christian Evangelick Spirit should be born to all the Persons from the highest to the lowest who are of it much more to all Protestant Dissenters But to suffer so far as it is in our Power legally and in our Places to hinder this Prophetess from Seducing whoever reads these Seventeenth and Eighteenth Chapters of the Revelation and what is to follow to the End of the Prophecy which cannot come before the Fall of this Babylon and finds as I am not afraid to say I have proved It is the present Papal Rome that the Prophecy intends will see Argument sufficient against it if he be a Christian and a Protestant and the more zealous he is of Christian Protestancy still the more Reason And as for all Ambidexters Two-handed Achitophelians or Judasses who think to find it in their Account to be on both sides as they are now the private Scorn and Despisal of the Age so in future Records and not long hence they will stand Pillars of Salt. Pag. 27. Line 24. read after Wound During the Christian Emperour lin 27. blot During the Christian Emperour REVEL 18. 4. And I heard another Voice from Heaven saying Come out of her my People that ye be not partaker of her Sins and receive not of her Plagues THIS Voice is Another For it succeeds the mighty Cry of the strong Voice of an Illustrious Angel which had gone just before and proclaim'd Babylon the Great is Fallen is Fallen Now although these Two Voices are prepar'd for a particular Time and that is still to come yet they sound backward from that Time wherein they are to have so perfect an Elevation to the Times before and so consequently to all Time forward from that very Time wherein these Voices were Heard and Recorded by the Apostle John the Apocalyptical Amanuensis or Scribe that so from that very Time the Execution of the Things declar'd may be expected and prepar'd for as in their proper Time to be executed But more especially since the Time of the Reformation and so onwards the nearer we approach the Time for which it is prepar'd the more the Voice with which we have now to do is to be attended as if it sounded louder and louder And it shall most sensibly do so when the Fourty two Months of the Beast are expir'd which we shall find will be at the farthest Nine years hence Let us then consider the Importance of this Voice and it is plainly the Separation of the People of God and so of every Person among us if we are of his People from any Communion with that City or Community concerning which we shall by the Light of this Prophecy duly weigh'd and consider'd be convinc'd that It is the City symboliz'd or set out by this Mystical Woman And our Separation must be proportionable to the danger of being tainted or struck with the Contagion of its Sins or Apprehended and Reachd by the Thunder-shaft of its Plagues For so is the Charge Come out of her my People And so is the Enforcement Lest ye be partaker of her Sins and lest ye Receive of her Plagues Now that we may do this It is highly Expedient at least to use the utmost Enquiry into this Prophecy that we may know by the Characters of it What and what manner of City the Spirit of God in it doth signifie and what or what manner of Time also It hath denoted or else we cannot so well judge what is 1 Pet. 1. 11. our Duty or what our Danger For though I would allow with as much Largeness of mind as can be desir'd that by the General Rules of Universal Scripture we may without the particular Understanding of this Prophecy be secur'd from both the Impurities and from the Judgments of this City by Adhering to the Truth and Purity and Mercy of the Christian Religion in Doctrine Discipline Worship and Practise according to the just measures of the Word of God yet we cannot do it with those
that we enforce the Command it self to come out of it by particular Inferences from it For hence It appears how necessary It is for Christians in general Infer 1. to know and to take notice that there is such an Apostacy from Christian Religion disguised under the Name of Catholick Christianity that hath concentred it self in Rome under the name of an Vniversal Church and in such a Head of it as the Pope under the name of Head of the Church and Vicar of Christ The Apostle not only speaking Face to Face Not only when with them but by Epistle when at distance from them writing to the Thessalonians thought it a point of great Moment and of deepest Interest to inform them of it and to possess them of it and in them all Christians Learned or Unlearned And the Love of God the Father gave the Revelation to Jesus Christ to shew it to his Servants as containing this as One of the greatest Points of it viz. Concerning this Apostasie the Seat and Residence of it this Prostituted Church and City and the Beast the Prince of it It can therefore be no such mysterious or unnecessary Doctrine as It is generally suppos'd but hath its greatest and most Fundamental Uses That the true Christianity may by the Compare be more known and understood in its true Beauty and Excellency being a Pure Solid Even Supreme Extract and Cube given from the Increated Unerring Wisdom of God in the Face of Jesus Christ Divine Heavenly Spiritual Pure and Chaste Full of Mercy and of all good Fruits But Popery is an Irregular Odd Traditional Christianity made up of Idolatrous and Superstitious Rites Pomp Riches and Pleasures of Sensuality All of the present Evil World full of Rage Cruelty and Blood against All who do not swallow their monstrous Articles of Faith and submit to that slavery of their Antichristian Government To keep men therefore wholly to that Excellent Rule of the Word of God in Doctrine Worship and Practice and under that most merciful Discipline it is necessary to know the Goodness of the One by the Badness of the other That one Grand Reason of the so sad Imprevalency of so excellent a Religion as the Religion of Jesus Christ might be understood The great Eclipse of it is by so foul an Apostacy and Mystery of Iniquity casting so black a shade upon it and such a Cloud of Tares upon the Field of Wheat And this hath so universally obscured Christianity and allay'd its Supreme Excellency and turn'd it into so worldly a Religion that it neither hath nor can be Refin'd to it self till that whole Apostasie be consum'd out of the World And then but not till then there will be another Face of Christianity And this is necessary to be known to abate the Scandal That the dark Interposition between the Kingdom of Jesus Christ according to all the Prophecies of Scripture due to him at his Resurrection and the glory of it may be duely apprehended For the Mystery of Iniquity work'd early that it might arise to the taking away the true daily Sacrifice of Christian Religion and scattering the power of the Holy People for Time Times and half a Time. Now this is most necessary to be known to take off the Scandal of so many Massive Prophecies and Promises as were to ensue on the Kingdom of the Messiah both in relation to the Jews and to the whole World of Mankind not yet come to pass but we ought against it deeply to consider There was to be forty two months of the Gentiles and of the Beast running parallel to the twelve hundred sixty days Sackcloth of the Witnesses and the Wilderness-state of the Church all which was to be by the Fathers own Appointment who reserv'd Times even as that Day and Hour in his own Cognisance or Right of Dispose before the Kingdom of Christ and the glorious Accomplishment of the Prophecies such as Esay 2. 1. Zech. 14. with innumerable more which being so peculiar to that Kingdom cannot be adjourn'd to the Day of Judgment as generally understood For then Christ shall render up the Kingdom to God and the Father and God shall be All in All. There arises in the wise Ordination of God a mutual Justification of the Prophecy by the Separation from Rome upon the general Principles and Rules of the Word of God without close and strict and express Attendance to the Prophecy or deriving Directions from that for how is the Prophecy honour'd and vindicated in commanding to Come out of that City and Church which Holy Wise and Conscientious Christians see Reason and just Grounds from its extream Pollutions in Doctrine Worship and Practice and the Imperiousness of its Tyranny to come out from although they did not understand Prephecy so commanding them And how could Prophecy be either understood or fulfill'd if Things were not so bad upon such Fundamental Accounts How could it be verified that Prophecy were so to be interpreted if there were not so great Reasons for Coming out supposing there had been no such Prophecy On the other side How is the Separation justified by the Prophecy thus rightly expounded and interpreted For who might not scruple that so great and so long an Apostacy should grow up out of the Profession of Christianity and that the Prophecy of the New Testament should not have seen and foretold it So that it were without this Reason also hardly to be believed with that firmness and full Assurance that now it is viz. that such an Apostacy is And why should there be no easier a Remedy might men say than a Separation so solemn and avowed a Separation if there were not the Grand Prejudice against so guilty a Community that Prophecy hath long ago pass'd upon it There ought at least to be all means of Reconciliation perpetually us'd And who could believe they should be so long after so many Debates ineffectual if there had not been a Prophecy commanding the People of God to come out of it and not to expect its Repentance So that either it would not have been so bad as to necessitate such a Separation or we may be certain there is Prophecy concerning it Such a Prophecy and such an Apostacy undoubtedly belong to and interlock one within another Lastly what greater or better Determination of these everlasting Disputes than to seek into Divine Prophecy and to find them determin'd and decided so long ago by it against that prostituted Church and mystical City and on the side of the Separation This certainly in the nature of the Thing must surer and more speedily make an end of Controversie than those endless Combatings out of Antiquity for when all the Incertainties of the ways of Discourse among the Ancients may leave us in an Amaze and bewildred the Testimonies of God are sure Again Those Ancients might be deceived as Men but the Rightousness of Divine Oracles is Everlasting yea how great Certainty do these Prophetick parts
of Scripture give to the Expositions and Discourses out of Doctrinal parts of Scripture And certainly had God stirr'd up the Spirits of the Reformed by the most industrious Indeed prophecy if not thus conceal'd could not have been fulfill'd Searches into the Word of God to have conjoyn'd the one with the other and to have bestow'd that Time and Diligence in the Explication of Prophecy of Scripture that they have done in Researches into the Ancients the Controversie had been long ago at an end and the Apostasie exploded But God hath in the deep ways of his Judgment reserved the lustre of open Prophecy to the Times nearer to the Kingdom and Coming of Christ and the Brightness of his Appearance that so the Man of Sin May be consum'd by it Hereby arises a Judgment upon other Prophesies of Scripture that respect this Grand Apostacy as that of the Apostle John's Spirit of Antichrist and The Antichrist For whatever Community or City under the Name of a Church is continually saying Who shall go up to Heaven as to other Mediators besides the One Mediator Brings down Christ from Above as if He had not Ascended or were not Set down on the Right Hand of God to make Intercession for us And when the same False Church is continually Saying Who shall descend into the Deep of Purgatory by those many Sacrifices and ways of Propitiation This is to bring up Christ from the Dead as if He Himself had not made a perfect Sacrifice Once for all All which are a perfect Denial that Christ is come in the Flesh and an Antichrist in many regards worse then Judaism and always branded as Heatheanism in the Prophecy and the very worst of Heathenism This Prophecy rightly understood would expound to us that whole prophetical Chapter 2. Pet. 3. those Predictions of our Saviour concerning the Signs of his coming and of the End of the World Those three Mystical Cities Sodom Samaria and Jerusalem that are never to be recover'd that Edom the Border of wickedness against which God hath indignation for ever It would expound to us that Discourse of the Apostle against any Church being so wise in its own conceit as to think it self perfect till the Calling and Conversion of the Jews Those dreadful Menaces on the then truly Famous Roman Christian Church of its being Cut off and that more irrecoverably than the Jews who shall be grassed in again e're the end of the World into their own Olive But it is beyond my Intention to ingage further into these Things and it is enough to give only Intimations of them It shews us the Care God hath taken of his Servants in all Times since the first working Inference 2. of the Mystery of Iniquity to preserve them out of the Midst of this Congregation and Assembly of the Dead these Deeps of Hell the Damnation of those who are given up to the strong Delusions of Believing so horrible a Lye upon Christianity as Popery is who perish in not Receiving the Truth in the Love of it Who Believ'd not the Truth but had Pleasure in the Deceivableness of Vnrighteousness whose names are not written in the Lambs Book of Life from the Foundation of the World Who are led away with the Errors of the Wicked God hath graciously Sealed his own Servants whom he hath chosen to Sanctification of the Spirit and belief of Truth who are not wandring Stars falling from their own Stedfastness but fix'd by Grace as the Wise who shall shine as the Firmament and as the Stars for Ever let us therefore Consider the several Methods of the Grace of God herein and the various degrees of it according to the variety of Times and of the various Temptations upon them to Seduction All which have been so many Comings out of his People from this Babylon 1. That which hath been Universal to all his Saints and Servants hath been the Ingaging them to stand fast in the Traditions The True sincere Traditions of the Gospel of Jesus Christ first in the immediate word of the Apostles Preaching by the Holy Ghost sent from Heaven and then Sealed in Scripture without taking from or adding thereto in Doctrine Worship Practise or Government 2. When this Apostasie was risen so High that the Gentiles were come to their Forty two Months His Servants were so observant of it that they immediately put on their Sackcloth This was precisely their Testimony Finish'd before their prophecy ends Rev. 11. 7. and Prophecied in it against the Apostasie and when the Apostasie rose higher and became a Throne of Satan the Pope became a Balam an exalted False Prophet yet they did not Deny the Name of Christ but held fast his Name Even in the time when Antipas or the Anti-Papal Martyrs were slain Although in the mean time They might not be wholly free from some of the shade of that Doctrine on which account It is said They had those who held the Doctrine of Balam and are call'd the Church of Pergamus that High Tow'ring Church that was then aspiring higher and higher These Witnesses were retired out of it while in the midst of all that Corruption and they Fed on hidden Manna and were satisfied with the Absolution of the White Stone peculiar to themselves which all the World Damn'd for Hereticks which shewed they were retired form Rome and call'd by its Name as if of that Church although thus gently censur'd 3. When this City was become Jezebel the Mother of Harlots under the Name of a Church and that the Witnesses of Christ were slain by her and her Prince that had sold Himself to Work Wickedness before the Lord They then declar'd against it as such a Painted Prostitute and separated from it though they were encompass'd with it as with Lyons and Men set on fire with Rage to Burn them Alive and were forced to suffer this False Church while they were come out so far as not to have nor had it in the Account and Reputation of a Church and yet in signification of being in the midst of it are called Ihyatyra One of its Names 4. The Churches of the Reformation made not only an avow'd Separation from it by Coming out of it but by Laws and Sanctions prohibited the Superstitions and Idolatrys of it and of its Prince who ought to be under this Two-fold Caution as the Church of Sardu is Admonish'd and They under it 1. Of pursuing the Reformation to the utmost according to the Highest Spirit and Truest Perfection of it being else in Danger of being Reprov'd for not having their Garments Pure and undefiled nor their Works filled up before God in a perfect Coming Out 2. Of not receiving back into a Sufferance or Toleration the open bare-fac'd avow'd Sins of Spiritual Sodom and its Impurities seeing the Providence of God hath so far deliver'd them lest Many Return as a Dog to the Vomit and have Complacency in what was cast out with Detestation by a Nation and Church 5. But whereas these Things have not yet been done by the Servants of God so avowedly under the Banner of this Prophecy when the Beast's Forty Two Months are out There shall be more Solemn Voices that Babylon is Fallen is Fallen and if any Man continue to Worship the Beast c. He shall Drink of the Wine of the Wrath of God without mixture That All may Come Out and Reform 9. When the Vials are about to be powred out as the Plagues of Aegypt and Fire from Heaven upon this Spiritual Sodom and Aegypt there may be some Romanists in it who pertain to the Election of Grace on whom the Lord being Merciful to them He lays hold and pulls them as Brands out of the Burning and even forces them to come Out as of old He pull'd Lot out of Sodom that very Moment and with a Holy Violence of Grace to them Rescues them from the Flames After that Time He that is Filthy shall be Filthy still He thai is Vnjust shall be unjust still But He that is Justified from that Apostasie shall be for ever juctified from it After that time there is neither Reformation nor Apostasie FINIS