And so respects the state of the other life And lastly the promise to the Church in Pergamus after the Epiphonema it is plain it is not of a visible and Political nature but of things invisible viz. to eat of the hidden Manna and to receive a white Stone and a new Name therein written which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it This is no Political or visible State but spiritual and invisible So that the Induction is full and firm touching the Promises after the Epiphonema so far as they go And these immediately following the Epiphonema being of an invisible and spiritual nature it is a fair hint that those that immediately precede should be of a visible nature and Political and that as well in the rest of the Epistles as the three first But we shall make it good in every one of them Now therefore for that Threatning to the Church in Ephesus I will remove thy Candlestick out of its place All Interpreters agree that it concerns the visible State of the Church as it is manifest that Candlestick signifies the Church And it is as easie and natural an Interpretation of to be removed out of its place to be moved from the state and condition it was in namely of peace and rest to that of trouble and persecution Which Commination was made good in the very next Interval The Church in Smyrna being exercised with no less than ten Persecutions And so that promise to the Church in Smyrna that precedes the Epiphonema I will give thee the Crown of life Forasmuch as it corresponds so well with the Crown that is given to the Rider of the white Horse under the first Seal which is the Imperial Crown and this promise was made good in the very next Interval the Pergamenian when Constantine turned Christian and seeing it would imply a needless Tautology if it were understood of an Heavenly Crown that being promised after the Epiphonema in the promise of partaking of the first Resurrection or not being hurt by the second Death which intimates the same this may assure any unprejudiced Reader that the promise of the Crown of Life here placed before the Epiphonema signifies Politically As in the Epistle to the Church in Thyatira the promise before the Epiphonema is most evidently Political viz. Power over the Nations to rule them with a rod of iron And the Morning-star in the Prophetick Stile signifies also Political Sovereignty And in the promises to the Church in Philadelphia before the Epiphonema they are all along Political and visible As that of the Synagogue of Satan worshipping before her feet The Caution also that no man take her Crown that Political Sovereignty intended for her And her being a Pillar in the Temple of God c. intimates a permanent visible State of that Church and the Name of the City of my God the New Jerusalem is a most manifest indication of a Political sense indeed Wherefore it being so evident in these four Ephesus Smyrna Thyatira and Philadelphia that the Threatning and Promises are of a nature Political and visible that precede the Epiphonema if the Threatning or Promises in the other three will bear this sense we are in all reason to conclude that such a sense belongs unto them Wherefore that Threatning to the Church in Pergamus I will come unto thee quickly according to that most constant tenour of the sense before the Epiphonema must fignifie some visible and external dealing with those in the Church of Pergamus here blamed and threatned severely but conjoined with a Commination also against the Enemies of the True Church or against the False one the Baalamites The fighting against whom with the Sword of his mouth which is the Word of God convincingly preached is the attacquing and fetching off whole Nations by the preaching of the Word which is that Sword of the Spirit from the Baalamitish Church to the pure Faith of Christ which accordingly came to pass in the next Interval In which this fighting with the Sword of his mouth continued so much in earnest that in the close it cut off whole Kingdoms from the Idolatrous Church of Rome So well is the Political sense of these Threatnings verified by the Event See my Exposition on Chap. 2. v. 16. And now for the Promises to those few Names in Sardis of being cloathed in white raiment That that Phrase signifies prosperous success in affairs in the Prophetick Stile is a thing undoubted and so he that overcometh the not blotting out his Name out of the Book of Life is the like indication of the continuance and increase of those few Names or pure and unspotted Christians till they emerge into the Name of the Philadelphian Church nay of the New Jerusalem it self not extinct though disguised at the last under the Name of Laodicea which lasteth even to the very Conflagration And this I think is a sufficient completion of this Promise of not being blotted out of the Book of Life in such a sense as the Imperial Crown promised to the Church in Smyrna is called the Crown of Life signifying their security from the Persecutions of the red Dragon and here the prosperity and security of the Church whose seed were those few Names in Sardis from all their Enemies even to the end of the World Gog and Magog being not able to take the holy City Such shall be the success of those few Names in Sardis for which they are also in a more special manner recommended to God by Christ and to the Ministry of his holy Angels And from whom but these can the Philadelphian Church and New Jerusalem spring So easie and natural is the application of those Promises made to these few Names in Sardis to an external and Political sense Whence we may be sure that that is the sense here as well as in other such like Promises in the other Epistles before the Epiphonema And now lastly For the Promise to him that overcomes in the Church of Laodicea viz. That he shall sit down with Christ in his Throne c. That this Promise is of a nature external and Political or hugely akin to it is plain from hence that the performance thereof will be at that general visible and indeed most illustrious Assizes when there will be the Appearance of all the dead before the Tribunal of Christ and the Saints as Co-assessours with Christ shall in their Thrones judge the lapsed Angels So that though I have argued from the above-mentioned Hypothesis as then seeming but an Hypothesis yet the obvious Applicability thereof to the explaining these Epistles and the now distinct proof that it is a true Hypothesis or a real Truth shows that it is a safe Topick to argue from Which was the thing aimed at CHAP. XXXVIII Four Objections taken out of a Letter of a learned and ingenious Friend touching the Kingdom of Christ on Earth as if all his suffering Adherents should be rewarded in that Kingdom in the
into the last Semi-time or Hexamenon that is into the third month thereof Though this is but a defectuous scambling thing in comparison of what falls out according to the true Epocha I have pitched upon But that your Epocha is false I have in my former demonstrated it being not pitched in the beginning of the Apostasie and of the War of the Beast with the Witnesses And in the mean time you see plainly even according to your own Epocha that the seventh Semi-time is not superfluous and that the reckoning not by Years but by Semi-times is necessary 8. And now eighthly Whereas you say you hope the more the time of the End of the Churches affliction from her Enemies draws near the more God will stir up here and there some to look more diligently into those Divine Prophecies which tell us how long and no longer it shall last and to enlighten his people that they better understand them for the encouragement and consolation of his Church I do not question but this may be a pleasing and pious hope in you But if this respect any of the Numbers of the Medial Visions and the true Epocha of the two thousand and three hundred Evening-Mornings in Daniel taken in a Typical sense defers the cleansing of the Sanctuary till about four hundred years hence I must ingenuously confess I think your hope is groundless for any one to tell to a year or thereabout from any of the Medial Numbers when the affliction of the Church shall cease And my Reasons are these First That computing from the true Epocha as I have proved it the Medial Numbers twelve hundred and sixty days or forty two months expired above thirty years ago Secondly The number of three days and an half or three times and an half Synchronal to the twelve hundred and sixty days or forty two months are assigned to indicate only the time of the ending of the prevailing War of the Beast or little Horn against the Witnesses by a partial Fall of Babylon and a commensurate Rising then of the Witnesses Which I have demonstrated as clearly as any thing is demonstrated in Euclide Wherefore the Medial Numbers cannot possibly tell us nor any one from them how long and no longer the Churches Afflictions shall last Thirdly It is better and more expedient for the Church not to know so precisely for a year or thereabout how long and no longer her afflictions shall last lest upon a lazy confidence that God will then be as good as his word and deliver them they neglect the fitting themselves for that deliverance and the prosperity thence ensuing Which fitting themselves consists in an hearty Holiness of life by virtue of real Regeneration in an inviolable Loyalty to their Prince in prudent Conversation and sincere Benignity to all men Fourthly This predicting how long and no longer to a year or thereabout the afflictions of the Church should last is a Priviledge that was not granted to the Primitive Christians themselves who yet lay under more grievous Persecutions than the Mercy of God is like to permit his Church to suffer during the space of the pouring out of the Vials that is yet to come And yet they had no more precise notice how long and no longer than the order of the six Visions under the first six Seals could indicate to them And such an indication have we and every whit as certain from the Order of the seven Vials And when the true Christianity shall more generally appear in the Reformed Churches accompanied with a most faithful and fast Loyalty to their Sovereigns and ready and chearful obedience to all lawful Commands for Peace Order and Safety in Church and State this will be an indication of the near approach of the pouring out of the fourth Vial on the Sun and of the greatest Potentates in Christendom their inclining to reform and to shake off the servile Yoke of Antichrist and all the Idolatrous Trumperies thereunto belonging and of ordering things so that a great deadness and darkness will seize upon the Seat of the Beast and prove the pouring forth of the fifth Vial. And the sixth is manifestly touching the Conversion of the Jewâ—â— And when the lovely Philadelphian Spirit shall more universally break forth and shine in all the Enjoyers of or Well-willers to the Reformation then let them look up and lift up their Heads for that more consummate Redemption and vast enlargement of the true Church draweth nigh and will be atchieved in the Battel of that great Day of God Almighty under the auspicuous Conduct of that mighty Heros on the white Horse out of whose mouth goeth a sharp Sword and whose Title is the Word of God which is sharper than any two-edged Sword and this is to fall out under the seventh Vial. And after this is the descent of the New Jerusalem or Creation of the New Heaven and New Earth wherein Righteousness shall dwell upon the dissolution of the former Constitution of Things whether Pagan Infidel or Antichristian Polities Wherefore then seeing as the Apostle speaks that all those things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness not only looking for but hasting on as the Original has it the coming of the day of God even of that great day of God Almighty in the Battel above-mentioned But if this Day was fixt to a certain year or thereabout how could we be said to either hasten it or slacken it But there is no such fixt time set that we be not tempted to wanton security and laziness but reminded of our duty may hasten as much as in us lies that great day we expect and desire by perfecting Holiness in the fear of God if we be sincere and not Hypocrites But this thing I have touched upon already In the mean time it appears we have at least as certain indications of the Time of the Churches deliverance as the Primitive Christians had before us in which we are to acquiesce with humility and thankfulness and improve them to our best advantage to confirm our Faith and support our Courage And therefore fifthly and lastly There being so visible and palpable an order of Revolutions of the Affairs of the World under the Series of the Vials whereby the nearer and nearer approach of the consummate deliverance of the Church of Christ and enlargements of his Kingdom may plainly be discerned it seems altogether needless that the Numbers of the Medial Visions should signifie any thing more than the terminating the forty two months prosperous War of the Beast in his unprosperous counterbuff by Divine Providence in the partial Fall of the great City and commensurate Rising of the Witnesses in the last Semi-time current according to what I contend for and have so manifestly demonstrated 9. And now in the last place to answer to what occurs in what I will call your ninth and last Paragraph where you say You cannot but
foretold made to Daniel but the Object of the Vision the things foretold and that not when they would begin but when once begun how long they would hold from some certain Epocha viz. the time of their beginning But as for the mere Visionary Exhibition it was so far from reaching to the 2300 days whether vulgar or prophetical that it is not likely to have taken up one single hour And besides the Object of the Vision which is the taking away the daily Sacrifice c. not commencing before Antiochus his time as the Type or Antichrist's time as the Antitype it is impossible the Epocha of the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings should be placed so high as the Fall of Babylon by Cyrus Nor is the time of the Visionary Exhibition inquired into but the time of the taking away the daily Sacrifice the transgression that makes desolate and the giving the Sanctuary and the Host to be trodden under foot Unto this question of the time of these things it is answered Vnto 2300 days then shall the Sanctuary be cleansed So plain is it that the Epocha of the 2300 Evening-Mornings cannot be fixt higher than from the violation of the Temple by Antiochus Though there may be a pretence indeed in the Typical sense of placing it lower viz. in the beginning of the Reign of Antichrist the mystical Antiochus which according to my Epocha of his Reign is the year 393. And therefore if you add the 2300 days Prophetical to 392 years it will be the year of our Lord 2692. before the Sanctuary be cleansed a thousand and odd years hence But if you take the Author 's Epocha it will be above forty years more So improbable is it that the beginning of the Reign of Antichrist of whom Antiochus was a Type should be the Epocha of the 2300 Evening-Mornings Wherefore if they be Typical as well as Antiochus as the Term of the 2300 days literal from the first violation of the Temple shows when the Sanctuary should be cleansed from Antiochus his Pollutions so the end of 2300 Prophetical days from the same Epocha shows when the Church of Christ will be quite purged from the Pollutions of Antichrist And according to this middle or moderate placing of the Epocha it will be about four hundred and fifty years till the universal cleansing of the Church from Antichristian Pollutions till which there being so ample a space of time from the Rising of the Witnesses or commencement of the seventh Trumpet it is a plain indication how much the Author of the Calendar is out in allotting but forty five years to the Effusion of the seven Vials And as it is thus demonstrable by Reason that the Epocha of the 2300 Evening-Mornings is to be fixt in the Pollution of the Temple by Antiochus in the Typical sense of them So is it expresly declared Dan. 12.11 that there likewise is to be fixt the Epocha of the 1290 days and the 1335 days So that this quaint and wittily contrived frame of the six Collateral Lines so artificially adjusted to the Principal Line of the 2300 Evening-Mornings is every way utterly broken in pieces as also any hopes from hence that the Papacy and Turkish Tyranny will be brought so low about twelve years hence that the Witnesses every where will put off their Sack-cloth and cloath themselves with the garments of gladness Or that the New Jerusalem will appear upon Earth about eighty eight years hence Not the least glimmerings of hope shine forth from these Evening-Mornings of any such thing This I freely declare as one not interessed in any Party any further than they are in the Truth and it is not the Church of England as the Church of England but as she has the Truth on her side and is the most eminent and noble Specimen of the Accomplishment of the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses in the whole Reformation and that it is the adequate fulfilling of the Prophecy I have with irrefutable Evidence demonstrated elsewhere so that it is needless to say any thing thereof in this place that makes me adhere to so excellently well constituted a Church CHAP. XLVI Some few strictures more upon several passages of the Calendar of Prophetick Time As touching the four Beasts and twenty four Elders The meaning of the Doxologie of the twenty four Elders alone Apoc. 11.18 and of the Inversion of the Doxological Service and that they both argue the twenty four crowned Elders to be Kings or Monarchs Whether the Interval of Smyrna is to be restrained to the ten years of Diocletian 's Persecution His mistake in making part of the sixth Seal a whole seventh Seal Whether the Paganish Barbarians are the floud cast out of the mouth of the Red Dragon His dating the taking away the Daily Sacrifice from the first moment of the Apostasie That the roaring of the Lyon Apoc. Chap. 10. ceased not of a sudden The ground of his making Thyatira Sardis and Philadelphia run their course together to the New Jerusalem confuted The incongruity of the Position it self The difficulties the Calendarist incumbers himself with in his way of treating on the Vision of the Churches The true way of solving those difficulties WE shall add some few more strictures upon several passages of the fore-mentioned Calendar As upon pag. 38. That the ingenious Author mislikes our English Translation's rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the four Beasts which bears an ill sense in all other places of the Apocalypse as answering to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not to be found fault withal Mr. Mede in his Answer to a Friend calls them instead of the four Beasts the four Wights a word which our English Translators I suppose did not adventure on it being worn out of use otherwise it would exactly answer to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it signifying so much as a living Creature But the deserting of Mr. Mede's Interpretation of these four Beasts or living Creatures and making them a Representation of the Apostles as some shallow Interpreters make them the four Evangelists posted at the four Angles of the Throne as an universal Ministry diffusing the Gospel into all parts of the World and the pure Israelitish Ministry to be Typed by the twenty four Elders this is a slip of his in no wise commendable For first it is against the Genius of the Prophetick Stile to understand by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any other than a Body Politick not one single or some few persons This is a general Rule from which there is no Exception saving that of the Lamb which signifies the Person of Christ though it may be with a Connotation of his Church his Body And then secondly it seems wondrous harsh to interpret the four Wights of the Christian Church and the twenty four Elders of the Jewish whenas without all question as Mr. Mede has unexceptionably made it out that Vision is a Representation or has
a reference thereto of the Camp of Israel So that the four Wights are as well Israelitish as the twenty four Elders And the twenty four Elders wearing Crowns and the four Wights not so plainly indicates that the one are the Rulers of the other and therefore are but one congenerous Polity And the Reasons which he produces to the contrary are but slight For the four Beasts or Wights are no more employ'd in the services of the New Testament time than the twenty four Elders For whatever any of them are said to do respects the New Testament time And for their being made to say Come and see at the opening the four first Seals we are to consider that the three latter of those Seals respect rather the Empire than the Church And it is not as an Israelitish Elder that he informs John of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah's prevailing to open the Seals but as a crowned Prince it becoming such a Personage to instruct John touching the Almighty's deriving Power to Christ both to foretel and so to administer the Affairs in the World as to cause his own Predictions to be true But now for the Doxology of the twenty four Elders alone Chap. 11.16 without any of the four Beasts it is not intended to signifie the Christian Church not to be universally pure but confinedly to these Elders But it marvellously ratifies my sense of things that these crowned Elders signifie Kings or Monarchs and that therefore the Doxology of the Elders is here mentioned and that of the Beasts left out to denote the gladsom sense of those Kings and Princes that had cast off the Tyranny of Antichrist or Papal yoke in the Reformation at the Rising of the Witnesses The People was to be yet subject to their Kings or Princes but these Kings themselves to be no longer subject to the Pope but to be absolute Sovereigns in their own Dominions And this is the occasion of their peculiar Doxology which if the Beasts had not been left out would not have been discerned And that one of the four Beasts within the same Confines of Time delivers the Vials that is rather an Argument that the Beasts are pure as well as the Elders and that Purity is not confined to them And 't is much if the Beasts were not pure that they should give the Vials to Angels in pure and white Linen pag. 69. And as for the Inversion of this Doxological service Apoc. 4.9 and Chap. 5.8 where the Beasts begin first compared with Apoc. 19.4 where the four and twenty Elders are named first these things further confirm my Notion of the four and twenty crowned Elders that they are Kings or Monarchs For the usual custom being that the Doxology from the Beasts as the Praecentors should begin the Clergie being part of the People in Counterdistinction to their King or Monarch though otherwise highly venerable in their Archbishops Bishops c. this Doxology Chap. 19.4 which succeeds that copious description of the utter destruction of Babylon that Papal Polity that so Tyrannized over Kings how naturally does the four and twenty Elders being placed first in this Doxology though together with the Beast or People denote both that those four and twenty Elders are the Monarchs of those Times and that they have a more peculiar gratification in this destruction of Babylon though the people also are greatly gratified thereby and therefore both join in a Doxological Thanksgiving for her destruction But in the first place the four and twenty crowned Elders In pag. 45. he places the beginning of the Interval of the Church of Smyrna in the beginning of the ten years Persecution by Diocletian Because it is said to her that she should have the Tribulation of ten days that is of ten Prophetical Days or years Which I will allow to be alluded to also though that Persecution was not full ten years But Day not signifying only a Prophetical Day or Year but also any particular Season or Time those ten Days signifie chiefly all the ten Persecutions so famous in History of which this of Diocletian is but one But there were other swingeing ones before though that the greatest And Spondanus does justly call that first of Nero's raising a most direful Persecution and therefore the fittest Epocha for the Church of Smyrna that Interval having its Name from the Bitterness of Persecutions And as elsewhere so especially in this Prophecy of the Churches Allusion to Names as the Author himself somewhere freely confesses is of no small moment in Prophetical Interpretations In pag. 47. the last Seal he makes the space reserved for the rallying of Heathenism and its Forces that it may be finally destroy'd by Theodosius the Great in the overthrow of Eugenius and Argobastes and of the Paganish Forces under them But this which he would have the last or seventh Seal no doubt is part of the sixth which describes a Victory over all the Pagan Forces brought forth in defence of their Idols that none of them could withstand the wrath of the Lamb and this was the Fate of Eugenius and Argobastes as well as of others who were both subdued by Theodosius the Great An. Dom. 393. or thereabout even upon the Epocha of the seven Trumpets So that as the whole space of the Church from the beginning to the end of all is comprehended under the seven Seals so the space from the beginning of the seventh Seal to the end of all may be comprehended under the seven Trumpets This is the natural disposure of the Apocalyptick Time as Mr. Mede has solidly made it out And the half-hours silence at the time of Incense is no delay to the Prophetick Time of the sounding of the seven Trumpets which brings on the Vengeance on the blood-guilty Empire but is only a Type of the Efficacy of the Prayers of the Church unto God to do them right that had suffered and to execute Justice on his own Enemies which the Thunderings Lightnings and Earthquake Chap. 8. there mentioned signifie In pag. 49. he makes as if at the very same time that the Woman had got into the Wilderness the Dragon cast the floud of the Paganish Barbarians as it were out of his mouth to have swallowed up the True Church but that the Earthly Church drunk up the floud by proselyting those Barbarians to its Pseudochristianity when the Ten Kings gave their strength and Power and Kingdom to the Beast But first a floud of Contention and Dissension according to Scripture-phrase is more suitably conceived to come out of the mouth of the Dragon than vast Armies of men Secondly The floud is spued out to carry her away in her flight toward the Wilderness before she could get thither and by that means to re-establish pure Paganism again in the Empire as it seems to me from Chap. 12.15 Which design of his was frustrated by Daniel's Earth or Clay by the Oecumenical Council of Ecclesiasticks at Nice c. as
Paralipomena Prophetica Containing several Supplements and Defences OF Dr HENRY MORE HIS EXPOSITIONS OF THE PROPHET DANIEL AND THE APOCALYPSE WHEREBY The impregnable Firmness and Solidity of the said EXPOSITIONS is further evidenced to the World Whereunto is also added Phililicrines upon R. B. his Notes on the Revelation of S. John 1 Esdras Chap. 4. v. 38 40. As for Truth it endureth and is always strong it liveth and conquereth for ever Blessed be the God of Truth LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Sign of the Bishops Head in S. Paul's Church-yard 1685. The ERRATA correct thus Paralipomena Prophetica  For Read PAg. 3. l. 9. to many of so so many and of so p. 30. l. 2. Quintiliaeus's Quintilian's p. 50. l. 33. certainty ass certainly ass p. 54. l. 13. perusing phrasing p. 60. l. 24. Juliano 13. Juliano 3. p. 61. l. 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 70. l. 13. Muserius Mulerius p. 85. l. 23. Sextius Sentius p. 89. l. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 104. l. 23. Saturninus How Saturninus How p. 128. l. 34. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 143. l. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 145 l. 28. Bossus Bassus p. 151. l. 6. takes takes place p. 156. l. 4. Scribes esp Scribes esp p. 179. l. 13. Prophecy Prophecies p. 181. l. 6. that that what p. 220. l. 15. that 't is that when 't is Ibid. l. 17. that it p. 243. l. 1. and v. And v. p. 257. l. 26. fall till p. 261. l. 22. for a year to a year p. 270. l. 15. Pharos Pharas p. 290. l. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 298. l. 29. past put p. 336. l. 1. higher lighter p. 351. l. 18. made of of p. 419. l. 24. Witness Witnesses p. 420. l. 18. thorough after thorough after p. 421. l. 22. this that p. 429. l. 30. the Fanat his Fanat p. 444. l. 13. Genius a Genius p. 469. l. 6. takes takes off Phililicrines Parrhesiastes  For Read Pag. 3. l. 20. Corruption Corruptions Ibid. l. 29. Chap. V. 1. Chap. I. v. 5. Ibid. l. 29. conceive receive p. 4. l. 18. Names Pains p. 6. l. 12. no not p. 9. l. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 11. l. 11. to have to have made p. 13. l. 3. obnoxious to obnoxious to p. 18. l. 32. welome welcome p. 19. l. 22. the World this World IMPRIMATUR Guil. Needham Reverendissimo in Christo Patri ac D no D no Wilbielmo Archi-Episc Cantuar. à Sacr. Domest Ex Aedib Lambeth Sept. 23. A. D. 1685. THE PREFACE Reader BEing firmly assured in my own Reason and Judgment of the truth of my Expositions of the Visions of Daniel and the Apocalypse especially for the main that the assurance of this Truth might also appear to others I was desirous that those who have a Genius to these studies should freely and diligently search and examine these Expositions if they could find any flaw in them And how unexceptionable they are may appear from the Answer to S. E. the Remarker to any unprejudiced Peruser of the Answer and Remarks But these were but from one hand But in this present Treatise which I call Paralipomena Prophetica there are Answers to Objections from more and more skilful hands than that of the Remarker who have exercised their Wits in objecting what they could Whereby he that has a Genius and leisure to peruse what is written I hope will discover how sound solid and unexceptionable my Expositions are throughout Concerning the Acceptance whereof in the World I should not have the tenth part of this solicitude were I not as fully perswaded of the weighty Usefulness of the Expositions as I am of the Truth of them For it being so incredible a thing since the Visions as well of Daniel as the Apocalypse which were written and recorded for the use of the Church do reach the former higher the other from the beginning of the Church to the End of the World that they should omit the Prefiguring of that great Degeneracy which would come into the Church those coarse Corruptions in Doctrine and Worship and bloody Persecutions of them that could not submit to them And being the Visions are so easily interpretable that way nor any cunningly distorted Glosses able to hide their genuine sense from him that has but half an eye to discern what is true And this grand Truth being as too often others are abused to popular Faction and Tumult to Dissentions and Schisms even in the Reformed Churches themselves some brooding in their Fanatical minds vain conceits of a Rising of the Witnesses to come whenas that Vision most certainly has had its accomplishment many years ago and joining with the ruine of Antichrist the abolishing of Monarchy if not of all Political Government and interpreting grosly those Victories which the true Apostolick Church is to have against the Man of Sin who is to be destroy'd by the breath of Christ's mouth and the Sword of the Spirit as to be obtained by an arm of flesh and most fierce and salvage Wars and Bloodshed And that they may thereby avoid that noble Testimony to the Reformation especially to this of the Church of England which is so exquisitely and professedly reformed according to the Pattern of the Primitive Times while the Church remained Symmetral they minting also false Glosses touching the measuring of the Temple Apoc. 11. and pretending the Witnesses are not yet risen nor will be till such a Reformation come as will fit their unaccountable Humours I say therefore my Exposition of the Apocalypse being so diametrically opposite to this Enthusiastick Phrensie and I being not only assured of the Truth but of this apparent Usefulness thereof for the general Peace of Christendom for Loyalty to Sovereigns whether they be of the Reformed or Unreformed Religion for securing to Monarchs their Crowns for the preventing barbarous Bloodshed in the Christian World and for the extinguishing Sects and Schisms especially here in our own Nation I thought I could not be over-diligent in evidencing the truth of my Expositions and in publishing my NOTES at the same time with my Paralipomena Prophetica they serving to both these and other weighty Purposes which I have mentioned in my Prefaces to the said Expositions Where in that to the Visions of Daniel Sect. 36 37 38. I have set down a lively Description of the Philadelphian Spirit which is the only Weapon whereby the Reformed Churches will be able to run down their Adversaries and the Conquest and Victory of such will prove even the Joy and Advantage of them that are vanquished and overcome So little harm can come to the Christian World or indeed Universal Mankind from the right understanding of those admirable Records of Providence Daniel
and the Apocalypse But what a peculiar aptness and efficacy it has to reconcile the Sectaries to the Church of England and to shame them for separating from so Authentick a Constitution to follow the Guidance of private Spirits I cannot better express it than I have already done in my Advertisement on Jos Glanvil his Letter to my self printed with the last Edidition of Saducismus Triumphatus It is upon the occasion of his Converse with a certain Gentleman who had followed all the sorts of these Private-Spirit-Guides which at last plunged him into down-right Atheism The Harangue is something long but I hope not of so lazie a strain but it will keep the Reader attentive especially it being so useful and seasonable To forsake the sentiments of the ancient Apostolick Church for such are the Reformed Churches freed from the filth of the predicted Apostasie and such in a special manner is the Church of England to follow any private Spirit is such a piece of Folly and Giddiness that the Extravagance thereof is above expression and the danger so obvious that they must be very blind and stupid that discern it not at first sight All are not born to be Philosophers or Theologers and to have a faculty to decide Controversies by the edge of their own Wit and Reason Wherefore it is both their duty and safety to adhere to the sense of the Church Catholick before the Apostasie such as it was for about four hundred years after Christ Within which time the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the Godhead was professed as publick Articles of the Church and the distinction of Bishops and Presbyters owned Whence it is demonstrable how innocent the one is and how Orthodox the other For if the Articles of the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the Godhead were false they had also been Idolatrous and the Apostasie had begun much sooner than it is predicted to begin in that admirable Book of Prophecies the Apocalypse Nor was the late Reformation which yet certainly it is and I have undeniably demonstrated it in the second Part of the Appendage to my Exposition of Daniel's Visions the Rising of the Witnesses For they had been strange Witnesses that should still profess the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the Godhead if those Articles were false since it necessarily follows that they were ipso facto grosly Idolatrous or retained Episcopacy if it had been Antichristian These things are so exceeding plain that no man can deny them that has parts and leisure and without prejudice considers them And if the Sectaries that pretend so much to the Spirit above others had the Spirit of interpreting and understanding Prophecies aright it would convince them of their Errour and Schism But if this slowly goes down with them they are to examine themselves if it be not an humour with them to deny any such Symmetral Times of the Church for about four hundred years that they may still find matter for eternal Cavils and Schisms But now the main Articles of our Faith being thus redoubtedly assured to us both from the Symmetricalness of the Primitive Times for about four hundred years and the Testimonies of the Risen Witnesses of which Political Resurrection neither Quaker Familist nor Socinian partook of as appears by the Harmony of Confessions of the Reformed Churches no Reformed Church owning their Opinions how just how sober and Christian a thing is it for every private man to adhere to this common Faith touching these main Articles and not to commit himself to these Ignes Fatui of private Spirits which may lead him so about as at last to plunge him into the Dregs of Atheism as it happened to the above-mentioned Gentleman That Spirit which leads from the Communion of the ancient Apostolick Church which is a Light set upon an Hill and so certainly to be known by those Characters above-named and carries men into the dark Holes of Schismatical Conventicles is most assuredly let them pretend to what they will the Spirit of Errour and Delusion of the Devil and a certain Symptom that such men are carnal as highly as they think of themselves having not the Spirit most assuredly having not the Spirit in that measure whereby they become such living Members of the true Catholick Church which is the Body of Christ that they plainly feel what hurts it at least what palpably stops its growth what wounds it what hazards the very life and being of it Can they pretend to the Spirit of Christ in any due measure that are devoid of this necessary Sympathy and sense of the common good of his Body and the Interest of his Kingdom which is Reformed Christendom The Enemies whereof what do they desire What do they endeavour more than to divide and subdivide us to hurry us into Opinions and Practices as unlike the ancient and Apostolick Church as may be to make us appear as whimsical and ungovernable as they can thereby to expose us to contempt and loathing and to harden the hearts of the Princes and Prelates of Christendom against a just Reformation and those that have reformed to make them sick and weary of the Reformation by reason of the unsetledness and distraction of the people Does the Spirit of Christ then lead to the destroying and laying waste his own Church and Kingdom Certainly that Spirit that hinders the growth and hazards the being of the Kingdom of Christ must be not the Spirit of God but the Spirit of Giddiness of Errour and of Delusion Wherefore the ancient Authority of the Church while it was Symmetral is to be acknowledged and those main Points touching Faith and Worship to be adhered to and professed the Holy Ghost having set his Seal thereto in those Divine Prophecies of the Apocalypse and this detestable Pride and loathsom Ingratitude whenas yet things are so well setled by lawful Authority in the late Rising of the Witnesses in thus breaking from so Authentick a Constitution and setting up Schismatical Congregations is heartily to be repented of nor are we any longer to be deluded by that false Spirit that under pretence of bringing in a more pure and spiritual Dispensation undermines and hazards the very Being of the true Kingdom of Christ by this odious spectacle of multifarious Schisms It is not the breath of any mere Man that can convey the Spirit of God to us and it is a false pretence of those high-flown Spiritualists that think in their Schismatical Worship they have nearer Communion with God than those that adhere to the way of the ancient Apostolick Faith and Practice For they in their Meetings are but taught by men and those speaking the sense of a private Spirit they being Straglers from the Fold of Christ as having bid adieu to the ancient Catholick and Apostolick Church of which yet the Church of England which they have forsaken is a genuine part and therefore its Ministry more safe and Autoritative they speaking the sense of the
that make choice of that other Epocha the seventh of Artaxerxes produce Historians and Chronologers of their side also is with all readiness acknowledged Nor is there any Point controverted in Chronology and History but there must be such Testimonies alledged on both sides else it could be no Controversie But the main Allegations of the adverse Party and on which the greatest stress of their Opinion lies have been sufficiently answered by us above even keeping our selves within the bounds of humane Testimony But the weight of our second Postulatum being added thereto which I have set down in the first Chapter shows their pretence to be infinitely light and vain So that I hope the unprejudiced and considerate will easily perceive and acknowledge that the genuine Epocha of Daniel's Weeks is rightly setled and determined for ever to the Glory of God the Edification of his Church and the immortal Credit of Thomas Lydiat a learned industrious and faithful Member thereof and painful Protestant Minister of the Church of England To abet whom in so rightful a Cause I thought but a piece of Justice due to Him to the Truth and to the Honour of our English Church and Nation CHAP. XVII A Tripartition of a Letter to a Friend touching the first Resurrection and the Calling of the Jews The first part thereof What Exposition the most easie and natural That the primitive Fathers following this Rule expounded the first Resurrection in a Physical sense not Political That Grotius also expounds it so but in what deficient An Objection from two places of Scripture Luke 14.14 and 2 Tim. 4.8 An Answer to the first Who as well as Martrys capable of the first Resurrection An Answer to the second What meant by the Day of Christ's appearing That it may be the time of his Millennial Kingdom That the Martyrs receive their reward in the Morning of that day Others at the Evening thereof SIR I Have received yours and am glad that you have reaped that satisfaction in reading my Exposition of the Apocalypse that you profess you have saving in that one passage Chap. 20. v. 4 5 6. where I take the first Resurrection applied to the Martyrs in a literal sense I am glad so good a Wit and Judgment as yours rests satisfied in the rest I shall therefore endeavour to convince you that my Exposition in this passage is as easie natural and smooth as in others For I conceive that Exposition is most easie and natural that has the least tricks and devices in it and runs not from the proper signification of Words to Allegories and Metaphors when there is no necessity so to do Which Rule in this very place the Primitive Christians followed being perswaded from hence that a first Resurrection in the proper sense was the peculiar Priviledge of the Martyrs from which perswasion they were also the better encouraged to suffer Martyrdom And I appeal to your self supposing there were such a first Resurrection belonging to the Martyrs whether the words of the Text do not exquisitely well fit it which therefore must be if true the most natural and easie sense thereof Consider that Saying of our Saviour Christ to the Church of Smyrna which is that interval of the Church wherein so many suffered Martyrdom He that overcometh namely by couragiously suffering Martyrdom shall not be hurt of the second death and compare it with what occurs here Chap. 20. v. 6. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection on such the second death hath no power Where Holy Sanctus Grotius interprets thus Sanctus hîc idem quod semotus ab omni malo Omne enim quod inviolabile est sanctum dicitur Therefore this is a peculiar Priviledge of security to the Martyrs Which Grotius upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 explains thus Animae quae sunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non dicuntur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sed eae demum quae translatae sunt sub solium gloriae ut loquuntur Hebraei sic vocant perfectissimum statum animarum ante Resurrectionem Vniversalem And upon those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says he Illa Martyrum in Caelum evectio potest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dici Wherefore it is plain that not a Political nor Moral but a Physical sense here in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is acknowledged also by Grotius But is it not more full easie and natural to take it in the proper physical sense than in this more maimed and dwindling sense and to confess that this first Resurrection is also a Resuscitation of the Soul into a perfect blessed Immortality by her union with an Heavenly or glorified Body And your self also acknowledges that there is a great fitness in the thing that when the Millennial state takes the Martyrs should receive some Crown or Triumphal honour in Heaven And if then be their evectio in Coelum as Grotius speaks how fitly does it fall in that they should then be invested in Heavenly bodies Think seriously on that Heaven is the fittest place for an Heavenly body Is it not But you 'll say If they be thus afore-hand cloathed with Heavenly bodies this seems to anticipate the general Day of Judgment which our Saviour Luke 14.14 emphatically calls the Resurrection of the Just till which time the Crown or their being cloathed with Celestial bodies is a Depostium which S. Paul did not expect from the hands of the righteous Judge till that day 2 Tim. 4.8 viz. till the day of his appearing as is said in the following words of the Text. But to these two places of Scripture I briefly answer thus To the first That it rather implies a first Resurrection distinct from the Vniversal than contradicts it For if it were meant of the day of the Vniversal Resurrection our Saviour would rather have said the Resurrection of the dead than the Resurrection of the just But there being supposed two distinct parts of time the first when none but the just arise the other when both just and unjust the former of these will naturally be called the Resurrection of the just by themselves as the other the Vniversal Resurrection or at large the Resurrection of the dead Which former part though it be most peculiar to the Martyrs yet other singularly sanctified men and that have the deepest dye of the Christian Spirit in them viz. of Humility and Charity the fruits whereof our Saviour commends in that place Luke 14.13 may commence Coelicolae at the same time and be invested with Heavenly bodies Though a man give all away to the poor and profess voluntary poverty himself or give his body to be burnt and have not this Spirit of Humility and Charity he is nothing esteemed Therefore they that excel in these may well with the Martyrs have a share in the first Resurrection This is one solid way of answering that place of Scripture But it may be also briefly answered thus That the Resurrection of the just
appearing is Christ That this third Introductory Vision is a kind of Transitionary Introduction to the Opened Book Prophecy Proved briefly from the Oath of the Angel that the Sealed Book Prophecy reaches to the End of the World FOrasmuch as I am fully perswaded in my own judgment that I have suggested in my Exposition of the Apocalypse touching that Volume of Divine Visions is true namely that the whole in a manner consists of three main Prophecies which reach each of them from the beginning of the Church to the End of the World viz. the Epistolar Prophecy to the Seven Churches the Sealed Book-Prophecy and the Opened Book-Prophecy and of three Introductory Visions each of the three Prophecies having prefixed to it one And because this is so fundamental a Truth that no man with success can interpret any part of the Apocalypse repugnantly thereto yet knowing certainly and experimentally that men of Learning Wit and Parts and of a Genius to these kind of studies have notwithstanding overlooked this necessary Principle and thereby have bewildred themselves and lost themselves in inextricable Labyrinths therefore for the more sure inculcating so sound and necessary a Notion I have thought fit something more fully here to insist on the proof thereof but more especially that those three Visions prefixed to these three Prophecies are rather Introductions to the said Prophecies than Prophecies themselves That the Epistles to the Seven Churches is a Prophecy I have in my Exposition demonstrated by no Iess than twenty solid Arguments which are also set down at the end of my Exposition of the Visions of Daniel and the scope thereof is enforced by Notes thereon But that it is a Prophecy reaching from the beginning of the Church to the End of the World that one Consideration might assure any one that is not hoodwinkt with prejudice viz. that these Seven Churches imply seven Intervals from the beginning of the Church as any will grant that is convinced it is a Prophecy and the Number Seven every where in the Apocalypse implies All from the Terminus whence the Reckoning is and therefore it necessarily implies all the intervals of the Church from the beginning to the end thereof This must be indubitable to him that understands the stile of the Apocalypse And taking this ground and observing the intervals we have chosen and applying History to each of them the Epistles are found an exquisite Prefiguration of the things in each interval and the Paronomastical allusions hugely expressive of the Events of every interval which is as full a confirmation as one can desire that the Epistolar Prophecy reaches from the beginning of the Church to the end of the World And now that the Sealed Book-Prophecy does so too it is evident from the same Argument drawn from the Septenary which is an Apocalyptick Symbol of Vniversality taking in from the term it commences all the space of mundane Affairs wherein the Church may be concerned and Divine Providence and Prophecy imployed which therefore is to the end of the World And thus not only the seven Seals reach to the end of the World but by the same reason the seven Trumpets commencing with the seventh Seal and seven Thunders commencing with the seventh Trumpet must reach to the end of the World And the Angel Chap. 10. swears to this Truth That there shall be no more time saving that wherein the seventh Angel shall sound and the Mystery of God be finished as I shall make good afterwards Wherefore here is abundance of Evidence that the Sealed Book-Prophecy reaches from the beginning of the Church to the end of the World And that the Opened Book-Prophecy does the like that is reaches to the end of the World is manifest because it reaches to the last Judgment and Conflagration Chap. 20. And that the Visions of Chap. 12. respect the beginning of the Church viz. the Woman in Childbirth and the Fight of Michael with the Dragon no man of common sense can deny From whence yet it will naturally follow That the measuring of the Temple of God and the Altar c. respects also or reaches the beginning of the Church for the Church was Symmetral as soon as it began But these three Points there was less need to insist upon they being sufficiently made out elsewhere The chief thing intended here is to prove that the three Visions prefixed to these three main Prophecies are Introductions only to those Prophecies and not properly Prophecies themselves For the better clearing this Truth we will take our rise from the Title of the Book comprized in vers 1. The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass and he sent and signified viz. the things to come to pass some sooner some later by his Angel to his servant John Here we see how methodically in a plain vulgar stile is set down the summ of this Book viz. that the Book is a Book predicting things to come that is to say a Book of Prophecies That this Book of Prophecies is a Revelation of Jesus Christ that he is the Revealer of these things to come and that unto John by Angelical Ministry But that the Man Christ Jesus had this Revelation from God it being the high Priviledge of the Soul of the Messias to have such Secrets revealed unto him The two main things therefore included in this Title are these That this Book is a Revelation of things to come That this Revelation is from the Man Christ or through the Humanity of Christ but by the Gift of the Eternal Godhead Both these things are set down here in an ordinary vulgar stile But forasmuch as those Predictions in the three main Prophecies which might have been made also or expressed in such a vulgar plain stile but yet are not but in pompous and Aenigmatical Phrases it was very suitable and congruous that the signifying that these three Prophecies were the Revelation of the Man Jesus Christ by the gift of God should be expressed with correspondent Pomp and Magnificency And this is the thing I contend for that those Visions prefixed to these three main Prophecies that the main design of them is to intitle the succeeding Prophecy to the Revelation of Jesus Christ by the gift of God and that the Godhead is joined with him in every one of these three Introductory Visions and so makes good that part of the general Title of the whole Book and in as magnificent a manner as the Prophetical part it self is set out therein That there are such Introductory Visions prefixed before eminent Prophecies is observable in very illustrious Examples thereof As Isai Chap. 6. I saw the Lord sitting upon a Throne high and lifted up and his train filled the Temple Above stood the Seraphims c. Which Vision is no Prophecy but a signification of Isaiah's Mission and Inspiration from God whereby he was inabled to utter infallible Prophecies The
Synchronal thereto reacheth to the end of the World and consequently the Sealed Book-Prophecy reacheth thither also which is the thing that was to be demonstrated And it suits mighty well with the last Thunder reaching to the end of the World which falls in with the Conflagration or Lake of Fire and with the Exit of the Laodicean interval so called in allusion to Ptolemy's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laodicea combusta Wherefore the distribution of the main of the Apocalypse into those three Prophecies which from the beginning of the Church reach unto the end of the World viz. the Epistolar Prophecy the Sealed Book-Prophecy and the Opened Book-Prophecy and the Introductory Visions belonging to each of them being thus demonstrably true I do again pronounce as at first whoever goes about to interpret the Apocalypse repugnantly to this grand Principle he must necessarily run himself into the Briars and fall into such Labyrinths as he will never be able handsomly to get out of CHAP. XXII A Mechanical frame of the Seven-sealed Book so contrived as is requisite for no more Writing than what belongs to the present Seal to be seen at once The different Opinions of Interpreters what this Book signifies The mistake of the Ancients in conceiving it to be the Bible What this Book really is the Symbol of That this Book its being said to be written within and without denotes a twofold sense that of the Symbolical Letter and that of the inward Prophetical meaning of those Symbols Arguments to prove this to be the right sense of being writ within and without Ezekiel 's Roll writ within and without compared with this Seven-sealed Book of the Apocalypse Three useful Consectaries deduced therefrom IT is a matter of no slight moment to understand clearly and assuredly what is the right meaning of the Book in the right hand of him that sits upon the Throne Apoc. 5. its being said to be writ within and without to be Liber Opisthographus In order to which we are first to take notice what was the fashion of the Books of the Ancients viz. that they were one Membrane some longer some shorter rolled upon a round stick or some stiff thing as we sometimes do Maps Which makes me conceive that this Book with seven Seals consisted of at least twice seven such Membranes Parchments or Papers fastned together so at one end that it might be stiff enough to have all those leaves of paper rolled about it And I say there must be at least twice seven that no more Writing may be seen than what belongs to each Seal in their order by opening Therefore there is to be a leaf of paper with a Label at it to cover the leaf that has the Vision of the first Seal and then another leaf with a Label at it to cover the leaf of the Vision of the second Seal and so a Label-leaf before the Vision-leaf till you come to the Number of seven in each that no more of the Writing may be seen at a time than what belongs to each present Seal saving in the last where you breaking open the Seal that belongs to the seventh Label not only the Vision of the seventh Seal is discoverable which are the seven Trumpets and the seven Thunders but all the Visions of the Opened Book-Prophecy So that there must be as many leaves without Labels placed after the seventh Label-leaf as will serve to contain all the Visions of the seven Trumpets and also all the Opened Book-Prophecy Which must be some number of leaves though writ within and without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 within and on the back-side as the foregoing Vision-leaves are conceived to be that is written on the concave and convex side of this Roll of leaves And thus in the breaking open the Seals the convex side of the Vision-leaf will occur first in every unsealing This I conceive is the most probable Mechanical frame of this Book written within and without and sealed with seven Seals But what this Book is a Symbol of there is a wide difference amongst Expositors The generality of the Ancients as A Lapide has noted take it to be the Bible and that which is writ without to be the Old Testament and that within the New the Old Testament being as it were the Velamentum or Covering of the New Or that which is writ without to be the literal sense that within the Spiritual or Mystical But this general Conceit of the Ancients is but a general Mistake because this Book was sealed up till the Apocalypse was communicated to S. John which was at the end of Domitian's Reign and therefore would imply that the Old and New Testament or Gospel were a sealed Book not to be understood till then Which yet certainly the Apostles understood and taught the people rightly to understand it so that it was no sealed Book to them But that this sealed Book is a Book that contains all the Prophetick Visions set down after the opening of it in the Apocalypse is so exceeding plain that it would amaze a man how it should come into the thoughts of so many of the Ancients that this Book with seven Seals should be the entire Bible whenas it is not so much as the entire Apocalypse but contains only the sealed Book and the Opened Book-Prophecies but that the being written within and without intimates a literal and mystical sense of the Book how near they come to the Truth therein we shall observe in the main Point we drive at In the mean time I cannot but approve of Cornelius A Lapide's Verdict in the Case who says Liber hic non est aliud quà m Divinae Providentiae consilium praefinitio c. This Book is nothing else but the Counsel and Determination of Divine Providence whereby God has purposed with himself either to permit or effect things in the World wherein his Church is concerned in such a way as is prefigured in this Book of Prophecies Which is to the same sense that the Answerer to S. E. has declared touching the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth that it is what is decreed and recorded in the Divine Mind The standing Intellect of God in which are described all the Laws and Decrees of his Providence is that Writing or Book of God which is so often mentioned in the Bible as Exod. 32. Psal 56. and 139. And this Book represented to John sealed and unsealed is but a Symbol of part of this Book or Writing as I may so speak And to the Scripture of Truth in Daniel as well as to the Roll in Ezekiel in all likelihood may this Apocalyptick sealed and unsealed Book allude And now to come more near to the main Point in hand though I have given such a Mechanical account of this sealed Book written within and without yet I am still utterly of the mind of the Answerer to S. E. his Remarks Apoc. Chap. 5. that it is a childish thing to think that
a Prophetick Henopoeia in this part of the Vision the Rising of the Witnesses For though in the fulfilling of the Prediction the Witnesses rose in several places and at several times successively one part after another and with some Intervals of time betwixt though still within the last Semi-time yet by an Henopoeia all these Risings are represented as one Rising this is acknowledged But here we are carefully to observe that all these Risings put together is by the Vision it self restrained to a partial Rising forasmuch as it is said That the tenth part at the self same hour of the great City fell and it is most certain the Rising was extended no further than the falling of the City But this partial Fall and Rising was after the three days and an half and consequently after the forty two months and twelve hundred and sixty days equipollent only to Daniel's three Times and an half or seven Semi-times and the Reformation is this partial Fall of the City and Rising of the Witnesses commensurate thereto nor any other than a partial Reformation is represented by the Prophecy wherefore the Reformation being said to fall out after the three days and an half current it is hence evident that both the Reformation is the final issue of the three Times and an half 's prosperous War of the Beast and that we are to reckon the Medial Visions the time of their Event by Semi-times the Reformation being both begun and ended within the last Semi-time and taking so large a space therein This wants nothing but freely and closely thinking of and it will appear as clear as the Sun If the Rising of the Witnesses were universal or there were a total Fall of the great City at the close of the sixth Trumpet when this is forasmuch as the Vials certainly follow the sixth Trumpet there would yet be then no Kingdom of the Beast left for them to be poured upon as I noted above Think seriously on this CHAP. XXVIII Hints of an Answer to a third Letter Further Victories against Antichrist after the Reformation not to be called any Rising of the Witnesses Who Competitors for being the seventh Head or eighth King An Hierarchical Pagano-Christian Head how easily conceived to precede in order of Nature before the Caesarean and that it was as soon as the Apostasie came in That the Author affirms not that the Caesars continued purely Christian an hundred and twenty years That the Christian Caesars complied with the Apostasie of the Church from the beginning amply made out by Reason and History In what sense the forty two months War of the Beast may be said to commence as early as the Apostasie The Beast is in being before the ten Kings the Empire ipso facto becoming a Beast by the Apostasie which commenced before they were risen That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apoc. 13.5 does not signifie to continue at large not supposed by the Author but proved by him 1. WE are both agreed that there will be further Victories over the Beast besides this of the Reformation But I absolutely deny that those Victories belong to the forty two months War or that they are if we speak properly and keep to the Apocalyptick stile to be called the Rising of the Witnesses but are to take their denomination from the Vials they happen under 2. Whereas you say it does not appear to you difficult at all to determine whether the two-horned or ten-horned Beast be the seventh Head or eighth King I say it is impossible the Ten-horned Beast should be the eighth King or seventh Head because the Beast is not his Head But it is a figurative Speech when it is said The Beast that was and is not he is the eighth By a Synecdoche the whole Beast is put for part viz. his Head Therefore the Competition is not betwixt the two-horned Beast and Ten-horned that is betwixt the Whore or Apostatized Hierarchy and the Empire divided into ten Kingdoms but betwixt the said Hierarchy and the Apostatizing Caesars 3. There was an Hierarchical apostatizing Head so soon as the Apostasie came in viz. the two-horned Beast the same with the Whore that rides and guides the Beast and therefore has the Office of an Head as I noted in my former And Vigilantius who lived about the end of the fourth Century how he was against the worshipping of the Relicks of Martyrs how he said the Miracles done at their Monuments were the prestigious delusion of Devils that he condemned also the burning of Wax-Candles at their Altars in the day-time and how sharply he was inveighed against by S. Jerome for this is too too well known in History These Idolatrous Superstitions therefore coming in and being thus countenanced by the lapsing Hierarchy and the Hierarchy being the Head of the Empire quoad Spiritualia it is plain there is a Pagano-Christian Head so soon as the Apostasie came in And it is the two-horned Beast Rev. 13. that is the Maker of the Image of the Beast And as for the little Horn appearing after the ten Horns in Daniel Chap. 7. it is said v. 8. that he appeared or came up amongst them Nor is he said to come up after them v. 20. and v. 24. where he is said to rise after them from the Greek and Hebrew it may signifie no more than behind them he stealing his growth upon them and with them or it may refer to the time of his more eminent and conspicuous growth respecting by an Idiconoea the Papacy chiefly And though the Vision of the Rise of the two-horned Beast follow that of the Ten-horned Beast Chap. 13. yet the Method of thus placing them is good the Effect being notius nobis than the Cause Wherefore this strange Phaenomenon of the Re-paganizing Empire is represented in the first place and the Efficient cause thereof the Apostatical Hierarchy in the second which is the two-horned Beast and Maker of the Image of the Pagan Beast which the ten-horned is So easie is it to conceive an Hierarchical Pagano-Christian Head at least in order of Nature before a Caesarean But there is no likelihood but the Caesars Religion was immediately conformed to the prevailing Hierarchy all along and Mr. Mede you know makes the two-horned and ten-horned Beasts to synchronize 4. Now for the Christian Caesars continuing purely Christian for an hundred twenty years according to my own account this is an odd passage and to be wondred at and contrary to what I precisely profess in the place you allude to Synops Prophet lib. 2. cap. 5. Consect 2. and Sect. 4. where are these very words But what I leave more lax here will be more particularly bounded in the proportion of the Inner and Outer Court of the Temple which will gird in this time a little within four hundred years And do not three hundred ninety three years do so Which is the Epocha I stand to 5. That is also somewhat harshly said That it does not
the Earth and such as are in the Sea and all that are in them to him that sits upon the Throne and unto the Lamb to what times possibly can this belong but to the holy happy and glorious Millennial Reign of Christ in his Saints upon Earth The Song of the twenty four Elders and four Beasts prefigure the Joy of the Millennial Monarchs and People that of the Angels the Joy of the Angels in Heaven at this flourishing State of the Church on Earth and that of the rest of the Creatures the Conviction of all the World that the Lord Jesus was no less than he declared himself to be the Son of God and Saviour of the World to whom the Father had given all Power in Heaven and Earth of which this Millennial State of the Church is a most illustrious and glorious Effect filling all the World with wonder and amazement And this I hope may satisfie the eighth Query 9. Ninthly To the ninth Allegation I answer That the Doxology of the Angelical Quires does prefigure the Joy of Angels in Heaven for that blessed condition of the Church in the New Jerusalem state on Earth So that though this Vision which is a Representation of the glory of the God of Israel in his Spiritual or Angelical Kingdom in the Dramatical frame of things is so contrived that the four and twenty crowned Elders and four Beasts prefigure also the Monarchs and People of the Millennium yet there are left numerous Quires of Angels in counterdistinction to these to signifie Angels literally so called and the Song is to signifie their Joy at this State of the Church on Earth Nor has that strong Angel that makes the Proclamation any other sense than so that he was one of the Angelical Retinue of the God of Israel in Heaven Nor is that Rule of interpreting Angels of men in the Apocalypse universally true I am sure not in the Introductory Visions The word Angel occurs in several places of the Introductory Visions where it stands for an Angel literally so called not for a man to say nothing of other places So little force has this ninth Allegation 10. And lastly for the tenth which urges That if there had been any such universal Doxology to Him that sits on the Throne and to the Lamb after he had taken the Book that there would have been some traces or footsteps of it in History To this I answer That it is a marvellous groundless conceit and expectation that what is here Parabolically and Dramatically set down only to express that Joy and Happiness which would redound to the whole Creation from Christ's being invested with this Power of opening the seven-sealed Book that is to be enabled both to foretel and guide the affairs of his Church so as that the state thereof will be so glorious and prosperous at last here upon Earth that all the World will be convinced of his stupendious Foresight Wisdom and Power that therefore there shall be such an universal Te Deum sung to him throughout the whole Universe at once so that the Solemnity might be recorded in History This is not the meaning of the Prophetick Stile And besides if it were the time is not yet come when this is to be For such expressions as these can suit with no meaner State of the Church on the Earth than that of the Millennial Reign when the four and twenty Millennial Monarchs including both the Jewish and Gentile Sovereigns or Princes may seasonably sing this Song Thou hast redeemed us with thy blood and made us Kings and Priests and we shall reign upon Earth viz. in Christ's Millennial Empire But to expect Records of such a Doxology in History before the Doxology has been is a great Incongruity Wherefore I hope any indifferent eye may easily discern that notwithstanding all these ten Allegations my Exposition of this Vision comprized in the fourth and fifth Chapters of the Apocalypse is unexceptionably true CHAP. XXXV Three Objections from a considerate hand The first against our making the three Times and an Half the forty two months and twelve hundred and sixty days to be the same time The second against oun affirming the Euphratean Horsemen to have subdued the Eastern Roman Empire with Fire-Guns The last against our making the Aegyptian year to consist only of three hundred and sixty days in Arithmetica Apocalyptica but in Apocalypsis Apocalypseos of three hundred and sixty five with Answers to all three THE first Objection Every day in the forty two months signifying a year makes in the whole twelve hundred seventy seven years at least there being really in every year not three hundred and sixty but three hundred and sixty five days This seems to make the three Times and an Half or forty two months and twelve hundred and sixty days not to be the same Answ That the forty two months are Aegyptian Months and consist of just thirty days apiece is manifest in that thirty times forty two make just twelve hundred and sixty days And these days and those months are the time of the mourning of the Witnesses and of that which all along occasions their mourning viz. the outer Court being trodden down by the Gentiles which is a plain indication that the twelve hundred and sixty days are a note of no more nor less time than the forty two months and that therefore they must be Aegyptian Months And as it is plain that the months are Aegyptian so we must conceive that the years in the three Times and an Half are so many Aegyptian years and an half consisting of Aegyptian Months which therefore make each of them three hundred and sixty days See Rev. Chap. 12. v. 6 14. This is their solid Year consisting of so many months to which they add the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are called the Dies adjectitii which are five which here the Spirit of Prophecy takes no notice of but resolving the forty two Aegyptian months which is three solid Aegyptian Years and an half into just twelve hundred and sixty days shows that no more years than so are to be understood thereby And this not respecting at all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or five adjectitious days in this Compute of the Time of the Medial Visions all which synchronize one with another complies excellently well with that Truth which I have made out viz. That the eventual measure of the Medial Visions is not a Year which has been thought hitherto so to be but a Semi-time in respect of which seventeen years or more is not at all considerable So that there was no need of being so precise as to take the Dies adjectitii into the Reckoning and so to make the whole twelve hundred and seventy seven years at least as you would infer Wherefore though every day in the forty two months stands for a year yet these months being Aegyptian months and consisting of just thirty days apiece and there is the
third part of men will expire Answ This Objection looks handsomly and ingeniously on 't at the first sight and it is a very desirable thing to us Christians that it should be solid and true But the grounds thereof I conceive are not firm For it only supposes does not prove that the loosing the four Angels An. Dom. 1289. is the precedent year to the Epocha of three hundred ninety six years at the ending whereof they shall have slain the third part of men For first though three hundred ninety six added to twelve hundred eighty nine make sixteen hundred eighty five yet it is a precarious business to place the Epocha of the three hundred ninety six years after and not in the very Year 1289. Moreover if the Year 1289. be the Epocha of the three hundred ninety six years the Turks will have done their business of slaying the third part of men that is of abolishing the Eastern Roman Empire quite vanquishing it and possessing it to themselves and utterly extinguishing the Succession of the Constantinopolitan Emperours above two hundred years before the Expiration of these three hundred ninety six years wherein they were to do the Feat Whence there is a necessity of taking Mr. Mede's Epocha viz. the year of Togrulbec's Inauguration by Chaiim Biamrilla into the Turkish Empire And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being a Participle of the Preterperfect tense and signifying as much as having been prepared that intimates that the loosing them is after their being prepared and respects the time of their being bound in the great River Euphrates there forth-coming and in readiness being once loosed to slay the third part of men at the time appointed viz. at the Expiration of the three hundred ninety six years which commence from the Inauguration of Togrulbec and therefore terminate in the taking of Constantinople and so extinguishing the Eastern Roman Empire and Succession of the Constantinopolitan Emperours Togrulbec was inaugurated Emperour of the Turks in the Year 1057. and the Angels let loose in the Year 1289. so that the time of their being bound in the River Euphrates is two hundred thirty two years All which time they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 forth-coming or in readiness after they were once loosed to slay the third part of men at the Expiration of the three hundred ninety six years commencing from their first being bound or indeed from their first being a Turkish Kingdom upon the Inauguration of Togrulbec or Tangrolipix as others call him This is the genuine sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place But there is no Example in any Greek Author that I know where it signifies Commissioned And if it did and this Commission commenced with the loosing of the Angels in the Year 1289. whenas Constantinople was taken in the Year 1453. they must then have executed their Commission above two hundred years before they had Commission so to do as I noted above Add unto all this if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could signifie Commissioned viz. to slay the third part of men for three hundred ninety six years only it does not at all thence follow that when they have slain that is quite vanquished the Eastern Empire and seized on it that they may possess it no longer than so but on the contrary it seems improbable but that they should enjoy the possession of it some considerable time And I must confess I find no limitation of their time in the Visions but that it may reach into the seventh Vial when they with other Nations will be vanquished by the Army of that Divine Heros on the white Horse with a Sword coming out of his mouth And the Turks according to the general consent of the best Interpreters are concerned in the sixth Vial which is next to the seventh And most certainly the Exitus of the sixth Trumpet as being past at the Rising of the Witnesses and partial Fall of Babylon does not terminate the Turkish Empire But the entire Visum of the sixth Trumpet is the Turks vanquishing and possessing themselves of the Eastern Roman Empire and the general Impenitence of the Western thereupon Which general Impenitence ceased to be in the Rising of the Witnesses and partial Fall of the great City which is the Close of the sixth Trumpet as is evident Apoc. 11.14 Whence we see that the killing of the third part of men was past before that as appears from Chap. 9. v. 18 20. and the supposed Commission executed and expired before the Reformation So that the Turks have continued about the matter of an hundred years from the Exitus of the sixth Trumpet already and how much longer they may continue God alone knows And therefore for any thing hence appears the Turk may some time plant the Tabernacle of his Palace in Rome according to what I have declared but yet only by way of a rational Conjecture upon Dan. 11. v. 45. But whether the Conjecture be really true Time alone can discover A general Repentance of those sins that are charged upon the Western Empire Rev. Chap. 9. v. 20 21. why may it not prevent so great a Judgment and I wish the experiment were tryed For surely it must be very acceptable to the God of Truth and Mercy that those that profess to worship him abstain from Idolatry and the Effusion of innocent Blood CHAP. XXXVII Why the Author of the Apocalypsis Apocalypseos did only take up as an Hypothesis but not formally prove that when there is any promise or threatning before the Epiphonema in the Epistles to the seven Churches it indicates things Political touching the State on Earth but if placed after the Epiphonema an invisible State or Concerns of the other World and yet adventured to argue therefrom THIS mentioned in the Argument I must confess is taken up as an Hypothesis nor did I ever go about to prove it the fitness of the application of it proving it self to be a true Hypothesis that is not a mere Hypothesis but a real Truth And what way was there to prove it but by Induction advertising it was true in every part Which I will now intimate to make a supply for the former defect And first we will consider those promises that come after the Epiphonema they being the fewest and respecting only the three first Epistles It is evident that the Promise after the Epiphonema in the Epistle to the Ephesine Church I will give to eat of the Tree of Life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God is understood of the state of the other Life viz. of Heaven as is manifest from Luke 23.43 and 2 Cor. 12.4 And so the promise after the Epiphonema to the Church in Smyrna Shall not be hurt by the second Death this is plainly a promise of being made partakers of the first Resurrection as appears from Apoc. Chap. 20.6 And it is the sense of the Primitive Church on this place as you may see in Mr. Mede
sort of men by their Faith Patience and powerful preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom will at last have so glorious and victorious success that they with their Successours shall bring in the New Jerusalem-state or Millennial Empire of Christ so that all that is predicted of the New Jerusalem shall be fulfilled in them here on Earth while all Christ's suffering Adherents in the mean that are dead enjoy themselves in Heaven As for the Promise to the Laodicean Overcomers it is not the promise of an Earthly Throne but an Heavenly as to be Assistents of Christ coming to judge the People as the Word signifies in the Close of this Interval of the Laodicean Church which Interval may be so denominated as for other reasons so haply by way of Allusion to Ptolemy's Laodicea combusta as I have more than once noted the Conflagration closing this Interval Object 4. Notwithstanding the great Learning which you have employ'd Sir in the Exposition of the seven Churches it seems a somewhat lubricous business But the rest of your Exposition is matter of much greater Certainty But it is no disparagement for any man that is thus assured of the truth and meaning of the Apocalypse as to the main purport of it to acknowledge there is great difficulty in interpreting several particular passages Touching the New Jerusalem I cannot but observe that there are a great many passages in the Apocalypse which seem to argue the time will come when God and the Son of God will hold his Estate and Court here upon Earth Which how strange soever it may seem is not so strange as that the Son of God should be crucified here upon Earth And if this Hypothesis might be thought solid and well grounded all the passages of this Book aforementioned and many more would be sufficiently clear and the description of the New Jerusalem in the two last Chapters would be easily intelligible which I think cannot be well understood without it These places Rev. 21. v. 3 4 5 6 12 13 15. and Chap. 22. v. 3 4 5 6 14 15. sound this way at such a rate that they almost force me whether I will or no to believe some such thing But how far and in what manner these things may be true may be troublesom to conceive Answ This business would not seem so lubricous to the learned Objector if his Reason and Phancy was but once well inured to that Figure of the Prophetick Stile which we call Henopoeia which takes not place only in a Man Woman or Beast made the Symbols of some Society or Body Politick But the Pronoun He which so often occurs in these Epistles to the Churches has also in it this Figure and signifies not a single Person but such a Body or Society of men so or so behaving themselves together with their Successours This successive Body by a Prophetick Henopoeia is represented as one single Person by the Pronoun He He that overcometh This once admitted all difficulties vanish as to the seven Churches And if the Objector did but observe how full of Hylasmus's and Israelismus's the Apocalyptick Stile is he would easily be reconciled to such a sense of these places of the twenty first and twenty second of the Apocalypse as the Expositor has given of them though they bear so hard upon his Phancy for the present as to drive him to expect a personal Reign of Christ upon Earth Consider also here what we intimated above That the Description of the New Jerusalem is so drawn as to be a Type also of the Church Triumphant in Heaven But to proceed We averr moreover That Christ's Personal Reign here on Earth would be infinitely more strange than his Suffering here because the Reasons of this latter are so palpable But I see no reason at all for a Personal Reign of Christ upon Earth whenas the Spirit of Christ within us in that measure and efficacy it will be in those days will serve all intents and purposes that his Personal Reign can be supposed to serve to And this reigning by his Spirit is a greater perfection in his Church than if he should guide them by his personal Presence and Voice here on Earth Inward Regeneration by the operation of the Spirit into the living Image of Christ is a greater Priviledge I say than to be guided by the external Person and Voice of Christ amongst us sounding in our ears As if the thing could be it were better for an Horse to be turned into a perfect man than to be rid by the bravest Heros that is And lastly That Opinion touching all the suffering Adherents to Christ that they should become Citizens of this New Jerusalem on Earth which is conjoined with the Opinion of Christ's personal Reign is not agreeable to Reason in that it brings down the persecuted Saints great Reward in Heaven which Christ promiseth Matt. 5.12 to a lesser reward here on Earth CHAP. XXXIX Two Objections more out of the same Letter The first touching the Palm-bearing Company whether they synchronize with the New Jerusalem The other touching the Intricateness and Obscurity of the Vision of the two Witnesses With Answers to both Objections THE first Objection is upon pag. 67. Mr. Mede's Arguments saith he for the Synchronism of the Palm-bearing Company with the New Jerusalem seems not firm If they were and we could be assured that the Palm-bearing Company were personally Citizens of the New Jerusalem it would argue that the New Jerusalem-state is designed to be premiant to the suffering Christians And indeed it seems to be the main scope of the Apocalypse to predict that Divine state of things But however the Palm-bearing Company are plainly the Triumphant Army of Martyrs and are of great affinity with those Rev. 20.4 saving only that the latter are the Martyrs under Antichrist the former seem to be the Martyrs under Paganism And since these Martyrs are described as personally rewarded with their white Robes c. it would be strange for us to think they are rewarded by Proxy in the prosperity of others in the Jerusalem-state Besides that it is too early of the Apocalypse to have a formal Vision of the New Jerusalem state Answ That the Palm-bearing Company synchronizes in part with the New Jerusalem besides what Mr. Mede alledges the Methodicalness of the Apocalypse may assure us For the prefixing of the 144000 sealed ones with the Residue of that Vision in that Chapter before the seven Trumpets is according to exquisite Method the seven Trumpets being a more distinct and particular Representation of the affairs of the same Time Nor does it follow from the Palm-bearing Company 's being Citizens of the New Jerusalem that those individual Martyrs that suffered either under Paganism or Antichrist that they live in the New Jerusalem here on Earth but by a Prophetick Henopoeia the whole successive Body of the pure Apostolick suffering Church under the Persecution of Antichrist being understood when this one
Prophetick Henopoeia that embellishes the RIND of the Prophecy Which consideration destroys also all the force of the fourth and fifth Particulars For there was a successive Political and sometimes Natural death inflicted on the Witnesses in a manner all along the three days or three times and an half or twelve hundred and sixty Prophetical days There was tormenting with their Testimony and suffering a political Death at least in a large sense for their Testimony and rejoicing at their suffering all along in a manner nor was the Beast any long time provoked till he took his revenge in some degree or other These are intangling Inferences from the blending or confounding the Pulp with the Rind And to the sixth I say That during the time of their Prophecy they might be dead according to that 〈◊〉 the Prophecy intimates them to be so namely politically as having no power or stroke to reform things amiss in the Church and God's Worship and yet in the mean time though at their own peril might prophesie and testifie against the miscarriage of things and might in that sense which is intended be Olive-trees Candlesticks and in a mystical sense do such Wonders as relate to Elias and Moses methinks there is no difficulty at all in this And now to the last Their political Death and sometimes being martyred is an effect of their Prophetick Testimony but both the Cause and the Effect is successional through many Ages and one did not begin considerably later than the other their political Death later than their Testimony but went on continuedly and repeatedly in a manner hand in hand though by a Prophetick Henopoeia in the Rind the Death seems inflicted at the end only and at once Wherefore if the Objector consider well what is said hitherto he will easily find it possible that the Witnesses should be as dead Carcasses as to any political Power or Efficacy and yet as to another life of Spirit and Prophecy as occasion required be in action all the while they were politically dead and lay as Carcasses in the street As a man may be dead as to this World but alive to the other according as I noted above If we but heed not to confound the Pith and the Rind these things will appear as clear as the Sun Consider the latter part of Chapter the twenty sixth where we define what is the fullest and largest sense of the Witnesses political Death CHAP. XL. Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apoc. Chap. 11. may signifie the sacred Revenue of the City of Babylon How far the Woman was helped from being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Spue of the Dragon through the Nicene Council Of the dead dying in the Lord Apoc. Ch. 14. and of the Harvest and Vintage And whether the Prophecy of the destruction of Babylon Chap. 17 and 18. imply the ruine of the Material City of Rome in Answer to three more Objections from the same hand in the abovesaid Letter OBjection the first upon pag. 108. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems not to bear the Exposition of Tythe if we consider the sence of Language and no more But Earthquakes shake Cities and ruine them Wherefore an Event analogous thereto must come to pass in this great Earthquake and another correspondent to the slaying of seven thousand Names of men consequent thereupon These things naturally cohere And it seems to be upon the account of these Events that those words are immediately subjoyned The second wo is past It seems Sir a great force upon the Text to make seven thousand Names of men signifie no more than Estates of men belonging to the seventh Head of the Beast Answ That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may not signifie Tythe and that the sacred Revenue of the Church I see no Reason For the same Tythe may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in reference to the Substantive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Neuter Gender as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in reference either to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Feminine Nay we may see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 promiscuously used in one and the same Verse Levit. Chap. 27. v. 32. And concerning the Tythe or Tenth of the Herd of the Flock even of whatsoever passeth under the Rod the tenth shall be holy to the Lord. In the first place it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in the latter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in both places by Vatablus rendred Decima And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 occurs frequently in the Books of Moses Numb Chap. 18. v. 24 26 28. Deut. 12. v. 11. and Chap. 26. v. 12. Also 2 Chron. Chap. 31. v. 6 12. and elsewhere So that about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there can be no scruple But now these Tythes or sacred Revenues could not fall from the Pontifician Party but that part of the City where they fell would fall with them and the Earthquake requires it should as the ingenious Objector well observes and I will allow that it chiefly implies the Ruine of the tenth part of the City it self or Roman Polity being an analogous effect to that of the Earthquake But this Fall of the City being nothing else but the dissolution of such a share of the Papal Hierarchy which was not by killing of men but dissolving that Pontifician Power to such an extent under the seventh Head of the Beast nothing can be more natural than the expounding the seven thousand Names slain of extinguishing those several Orders and Offices of men and nulling their power in such and such Kingdoms or Countries so that they were only Politically slain as the Witnesses most-what were before This is extremely congruous and natural Consider what is said on the Text in Apocalypsis Apocalypseos Object 2. Upon pag. 120. It ought to be considered how much the Council of Nice help'd the Woman Rev. 12.16 who was never in so much danger and distress as after that time all the World almost turning Arian and Christendome was made a Cock pit of fighting Rage and all manner of Enormities What if we should wave the Council of Nice with their term of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may be of good Interpretation but it may be also of bad Interpretation and refer this help that was afforded the Woman to Julian's defeat by the Persians Which was a signal help to the Woman indeed Answ This is a material Objection But I answer That the Dragon spuing out such a Floud of Heresie and Contention that the Woman might be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thereby that is might be carried away drowned and lost the most proper means to obviate this Evil was an Oecumenical Council And though the Council of Nice did not so far absorb this Floud as that the Heresie and Contention utterly ceased
In the Year 410. or the eighteenth day of the first month of this first Hexamenon Honorius sent express word to Heraclianus concerning the Donatists that if they met contrary to his Decree they should be punished poena proscriptionis sanguinis The severity of which Decree of Honorius against the Donatists no man of equity can wonder at that reflects upon what was observed before out of Alstedius Nor where-ever I produce Instances of the severity of the Orthodox Power against Heterodox Christians even to sanguinary Penalties or what may be equivalent thereto is it to perstringe their proceedings any further than that there seems no provision made to secure the purely conscientious and peaceful Heterodox Christians nor any difference put betwixt them and such as are for Tumult Violence and Persecution themselves For sanguinary severity against such Heterodox Christians that are merely conscientiously such as they are and are peaceful and loyal Subjects cannot but feel harsh to a truly Christian Spirit In the twenty first day of this month or the year 413. Theodosius Imp. in Oriente Eunomianos saepe damnatos novo Rescripto exagitavit simulque Anabaptistas ultimo supplicio afficiendos decrevit And Honorius the year after declares the Donatists Infames Intestabiles and inflicts Banishment on their Bishops and Clergy and the same punishment on as many as conceal them In the twenty third day of this month this memorable Instance of Hieratical Cruelty happened Hypatia a famous She-Philosopher Daughter of Theon and a wise grave and discreet Matron venerated for her Wisdom even by Princes and great Persons out of mere suspicion that she hindred Orestes the Governour of Alexandria from being reconciled to Cyrillus the Bishop thereof after his Monks from Mount Nitria had broke the Governour 's Pate was by one Peter the Reader and a number of other Zealots for the Bishop which followed Peter their Ring-leader pulled out of her Chariot by main force carried into the Church called Caesareum and there stript of her cloaths had her skin and flesh torn off with sharp shells till she died And then quartering of her body they carried the members thereof to a place called Cinaron and there burnt them to ashes Socrat. Histor Eccles lib. 7. cap. 15. In the Year 428. or the sixth day of the second month of the first Hexamenon that grandisonant Speech was uttered by Nestorius upon his being chosen Patriarch of Constantinople unto the Emperour Give me O Emperour the Earth cleared of Hereticks and I will give thee Heaven do thou assist me in routing the Hereticks and I will succour thee in vanquishing the Persians But full little then did this valiant Man think how easie a thing it is for one that will be curious in Speculation beyond necessity or usefulness to fall into Errour and how far more easie to be thought to do so by others whether it be so or no. But why mistakes in unnecessary decisions should be deemed Heresies I believe this great Man could hardly give a good Reason But this persecutive Zeal against whatsoever has the Luck to be called Heresie himself tasted at last of the bitter fruit of that Tree who lost his Patriarchate and was banished for that Heresie he is deemed the Author of and gave name to viz. Nestorianism In the Year 436. or the fourteenth day of the second month of the first hexamenon Nestorius was by the Command of the Emperour Theodosius banished to Petrae or Oasis in Aegypt the worst and most infamous place for Exuls In the fifteenth day of this month Gensericus King of the Vandals raised a sore Persecution in Africk against the Orthodox he with his Bishops being Arians Amongst other Sufferers four Spanish Noblemen Arcadius Probus Paschasius and Eutychius first proscribed then banished afterwards tortured and at last cruelly put to death all four of them Spond out of Prosper And yet it is said of these Vandals that they so thoroughly reformed Carthage from Paganism Vt ne vestigium quidem ibi relictum fuerit Gentilitiae impietatis Nor can this Instance of bloody Cruelty be excepted against as not being done by the Christian Hieratico-political Power For the Arians cannot be denied to be part of the Christian Church by Premiss the fifth For Arius himself soon relinquished that gross Errour of Erat quando non erat The Arians therefore acknowledging the Logos to be ab Aeterno 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Nicene Creed has it must acknowledge him to exist necessarily ab aeterno and nothing can do so but what is God Wherefore they being qualified according to the Conditions set down in the fifth Premiss it is manifest they must be allowed to be part of the Christian Church though not so Orthodox as they should be If they that are called Arians all along in History were in that first gross sense such the Apostasie of the Church would have begun with Arius as the Reformation is conceived to begin with Luther And then as one of the Fathers complains the whole world might well groan indeed to find it self turned Arian But this Supposition as it ill accords with History so far as I can discern so it is point-blank against the Testimony of the Apocalypse out of which may be clearly understood from the proportion of the outer Court to the inner Chap. 11. and from the Rising of the Beast that was is not and yet is at the same time in which the Ten Horns were catching at and obtaining Kingdoms Chap. 17. that the Apostasie came not in till about seventy years after that Arius appeared and his Opinion was condemned by the Council of Nice So true a Glass is the Apocalypse to discover the State of the Church all along In the twenty seventh day of this second month or in the year 449. Dioscorus Bishop of Alexandria presiding over the second Ephesine Council Flavianus Bishop of Constantinople and Eusebius Dorylaeus were violently kickt to compel them to subscribe but Flavianus so cruelly beaten and abused that he died upon it In the fifth day of the third month or in the year 457. Timotheus Aelurus getting into the Bishoprick of Alexandria raised all manner of cruel Persecutions against the Orthodox And his Myrmidons they were that so salvagely murdered Proterius the former Bishop even in the very Baptistry dragg'd his Corps thorough the streets of the City tore it into parts and like greedy Dogs forbore not to taste of his entrails After they burnt his body to ashes which they scattered in the wind In the twenty fourth day of the said month or the year 476. Basiliscus the Tyrant burnt amongst others Plato Groom of his Chamber for opposing Timotheus Aelurus an Eutychian Bishop In the first day of the fourth month or Anno 483. Hunericus King of the Vandals renews a most direful Persecution against the Orthodox Bishops and Clergy that would not turn Arians Banishments torturings and cruel treatings even unto death numbers of them suffered
but five or six years after and about twenty years after Daniel's receiving the Vision that pretty Congruity of the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings commencing with the destruction of the literal Babylon and ending in the final desolation of the Mystical Babylon and so of the rebuilding the literal Jerusalem and the mystical is quite spoiled Fourthly And as for the seventy five years commencing from the Epocha of the Evening-Mornings and reaching to the seventy Weeks this first Collateral Line as he manages the business is rather the imagination of a Line than a real Line as himself seems in a manner to confess pag. 16. For he derives it from just so many years as are named of the Persian Monarchy in the Scriptures Which is a pretty phancy but precarious to leave out the rest of the years unmentioned and the whole Reign of Cambyses and Darius Hystaspis Besides the one and twenty days of Daniel's fasting Chap. 10.2 are drawn in to make up the Number as if they were Prophetick days whenas it is expresly said three weeks of days to distinguish them from Daniel's seventy Weeks of years which they signifie the mention of days being not added to them nor is it to be thought that Daniel fasted so for twenty one years together But pag. 17. he attempts a more real Account of the seventy five years which he will have commence with Cyrus his Monarchy and end with the seventh of Artaxerxes Longimanus But he differs in his Compute from Petavius by two years from Calvisius by five from Ptolemy's Canon by six and from Thomas Lydiat by three years over besides that he places the beginning of the seventy Weeks in the seventh of Artaxerxes whenas that Epocha is to be placed in the twentieth of his Reign as I hope I have sufficiently proved in the sixteen first Chapters of this Book Besides that we are to remember that the ending of the two thousand three hundred Evening Mornings being according to him in the Year of our Lord 1772. that is Anno Periodi Julianae 6485. reckoning thence backward the Epocha of the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings will be Anno Periodi Julianae 4186. that is in the second year of Cambyses which quite spoils this placing of the Epocha of this first Collateral Line seventy five in the beginning of Cyrus his Monarchy We pass to the second Collateral Line the seventy Weeks of Daniel Fifthly therefore There seems to be a palpable flaw in that Line forasmuch as the ingenious Computer is fain to lop off four days of the last Week of the seventy and make them end but with that defect in the Resurrection of Christ whenas that whole last Week is dedicated in the Prophecy to the making of a Covenant with many And besides they are not seventy complete weeks unless these four days be taken in which are left out only to make the Collateral Lines just end with the principal Line of the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings This therefore I conceive is a flaw in the Compute Sixthly As for the third Colluteral Line four hundred and four which begins in the year of the Resurrection of Christ and reaches to the commencement of the Reign of the Beast the forty two months or twelve hundred and sixty days Prophetical The pitching upon this number is admirably pretty and surprising I mean the Invention thereof pag. 43. of the Calendar upon Apoc. 6.6 which is thus 1 There is says he besides the usual Voice Come and see an extraordinary Note of Attention not by but to or in the midst of the four living Creatures A measure of Wheat c. to move extraordinary Enquiry after the meaning 2 By Enquiry into History it fits none as Alexander Severus so just a Prince 3 By Enquiry into the Time he died two hundred and two years after our Lord's Resurrection which doubled reaches to the Empire torn on all sides by the Barbarians and the Ten Kings Rising 4 By compare on our principal Line four hundred and four years neither more nor less from the Resurrection are necessary to adjust the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings to the last of Daniel's thirteen hundred thirty five days What then can we conclude but the Balances divide the Time as it were by exact weight one half against the other and so exactly define the time of the Beast's Rising or of the beginning of his forty two months Reign And again pag. 83. in his Postscript he says the purity of the Church was weighed as it were in the Scales in the two hundred and second year after the Resurrection or last year of Alexander Severus and was found just at that time doublted too light viz. at the four hundred and four years end or Anno vulgari 437. And what other account or meaning says he can be given of this place Apoc. 6.6 I desire any one to give I have not found its sense yet attempted by any Interpreter In answer to this I grant that Alexander Severus died Anno Dom. 235. according to Petavius or Anno P. J. 4948. and consequently that he died the year after the Resurrection 202. But that that Voice in the midst of the four Beasts A measure of wheat for a penny c. was to raise our attention and quicken our search into any such mystical meaning of the Balances as the Author would infer I utterly deny there being a pertinent sense so plain and material that belongs to that Cry and to the Balance in common that is of a just and provident administration of affairs in the Empire under the third Seal and the Voice in the midst of the four Beasts is the Fame of it and Joy at it amongst the People who then had so just and careful Emperours over them especially Alexander Severus Mammeae F. This therefore only signifies the special Character of the third Seal that the Church might compute their progress toward the sixth under which they were to have their deliverance from the Persecutions of the Red Dragon And to this sense the ingenious Author of the Calendar might have read in Mr. Mede upon the place To which we may add If the said Author had not violently torn off four days of the last week of the seventy but begun this third Collateral Line at the end of the seventieth week the two hundred and two years of this third Collateral Line would fall out four years after Severus his Death so that this quaint device of dividing this Line into two equal parts weighed as it were in a pair of Scales would be quite spoiled But if beginning this third Line four years later you will yet make the year of the Death of Severus half the time thereof viz. an hundred ninety eight then will this Collateral Line fall four years short of such an Epocha of the Reign of the Beast as from whence Daniel's thirteen hundred thirty five days may expire with the two thousand three hundred
co-extended to the very last day of the 1260 and cannot end sooner and therefore the days must over-rule the months as being more precisely fixt in the point of Time c. But to this I reply That the Answer is indeed ingenious saving that he was not aware that the partial Fall of the City and the then Rising of the Witnesses was after the three days and an half according to his own Emphatical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which plainly implies that the Vision points at no more than a partial Fall of Babylon and a commensurate Rising then of the Witnesses and that there is no such duration of the Event at large co-extended by the Prophecy to the very last day of the 1260 but that they signifie no more precisely than that Authentick measure of the Time and Times and half a Time in Daniel as I have demonstrated Chap. 25. And though this pretended preciseness to a day will not necessarily argue any improvements of Omnisciency in S. John's time above what was attained to in Daniel's yet it looking as if it did why may not the Divine Wisdom think good to prevent that Cavil in Atheistical men by keeping to Daniel's Authentick measure in these Medial Visions The second Objection is The greatness of the Events requires a larger scope than of a Prophetick day or year to be fulfilled in To which he answers The preparations to the Events may be so going on before that the Events themselves may as the Israelites going out of Aegypt be in the self-same day And so the Beast's last month may by its greater compass allow room for those preparations about its latter end though not fulfilled till the last day But when God will work who can let it Nullum tempus occurrit Regi But to this I briefly reply There is not a preparation to Rising only but a long succession of their actual Rising not confinable to a year as is apparent in the Reformation begun by Luther which I have demonstrated to be the Rising of the Witnesses Chap. 23. of this Treatise The third Objection is this The Expectation of the Witnesses yet to rise disquiets mens thoughts into Turbulency and gives them meaner esteems of the Reformation and the present Estate of the Church It would swell this Chapter into too great a bigness to set down all that he says in Answer to this I will therefore confine my self to the three first Particulars First therefore he answers That the Prophecy anathematizes all such disorderly motions whether the Witnesses are risen or not For it will be fulfilled by the Princes themselves Christian Princes and by Instruments in pure Linen not as in the Trumpets not by Mahometan much less by Popular Tumults Secondly The very hopes or desires that Babylon should fall as every one knows as yet it is not fallen may be charged with the same ill consequences Thirdly The Reformation is acknowledged within it self to be the Witnesses Risen and the Church out of the Wilderness but not to the full sense of the Prophecy the Beast being yet in power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To the first Particular I reply That it is ingenious and commendable that it does so expresly declare against popular Turbulency and Tumult But that the Witnesses are Risen already I have proved Chap. 23. and that they wear not Sack-cloth after their Rising Chap. 24. Wherefore what belongs to Princes themselves and their Instruments in pure Linen hath nothing to do with the Vision of the Witnesses but with the Vials which follow the Rising of the Witnesses Which may be the Political Event of the fourth Vial. To the second I deny that the hopes or desires of Babylon's further falling may be charged with the same ill consequences that a pretended set time of its farther Fall or Rising of the Witnesses suppose of twelve or thirteen years hence is chargeable with For there being no time set there is no Watch-word given to attempt nor any Expectation of people raised And to the third I briefly reply That though the Reformation is acknowledged within it self to be the Witnesses Risen and the Church out of the Wilderness by the better sort of knowing men yet others are of another opinion and most of the Sectarians in Protestant Countries are too apt to phansie themselves the mournful Witnesses in Sack-cloth and therefore if any set a time as if the 1260 days were not expired as yet but that they will expire so many years hence when there will be a complete Rising of the Witnesses or at least a putting off their Sack-cloth this must naturally raise the Expectation of the Sectarians and hazard Commotions even in Protestant Countries For the preventing of which inconvenience I have been so vigilant and industrious to represent a true and faithful sense of the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses and to demonstrate to all the World as I am certain I have done that the Completion of that Prophecy is perfectly past both the Rising of the Witnesses and their putting off their Sack-cloth at once And though the ingenious Calendarist has attempted many witty plausibilities in his adjusting his six Collateral Lines to his Principal Line of the 2300 Evening-Mornings mystically understood for the inferring that in the year 1697. that is about twelve or thirteen years hence the time of the Witnesses prophesying in Sack-cloth will expire and the Turkish Woe pass away And upon the seventh Trumpets sounding there will insue a most loud and publick administration of the Gospel beyond any time since the Apostles described as seven Voices or the seven Thunders unsealed And that thirty years after the beginning of this viz. in the year 1727. shall begin the final destruction of the Beast by the Vials accomplished in forty five years more at the year 1772. in the New Jerusalem yet the discovering so much of a witty peaceful and loyal good nature in this little Essay of his I am confident that he has that perspicacity that he will from what I have writ easily discern himself mistaken in his Account and that his Calendar of Prophetick Time though there be many useful and laudable things noted in the managing it has no firm ground to stand upon CHAP. XLVIII Of the Doctrine of the Nicolaitans in the Pergamenian Interval How the third Part comes to be a Symbol of the Roman Empire The hair of Women in the Locusts the Character of the Arabians or Saracens The full sense of the Voice of the Bridegroom and the Bride being heard no more in Babylon There shall be no more Curse Rev. 22.3 how to be expounded Several Scriptures produced to prove that in the New Jerusalem state there will be a Change in the World Natural as well as in the World Moral An Explication of Isaiah Chap. 56.20 As also of Rom. 8.21 What is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 3.21 which our English Translation renders Times of Restitution Arguments produced to prove That
should be excepted I see not Whence it follows that the Event of the Vision of Chap. 4. must follow that of the Church of Laodicea Wherefore the Church of Laodicea does not conclude the World 2. Besides unless 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 serves to shew the order of the Events of Visions it serves to no use at all For as for the order of S. John's receiving of them it is well enough known by his order of relating them 3. To which I may add That for sureness sake it is not only said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the Voice tells him withal that the things which he should see were such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whereby it seems to me that we are enjoined of necessity to expound that Vision of Chap. 4. of something that was to succeed the Vision of Laodicea For I hope you will not deny but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has respect to the things next before spoken as well here as in all other places 4. There are also other Considerations to prove the connexion and order of the Visions of the 3. and 4. Chapters Such as these Christ promises Philadelphia an open door which no man shall be able to shut i. e. he tells her he has set this door before her meaning as I conceive that the Church was not yet arrived to this open door but in some time she should In the next Epistle we have Christ knocking at this door for what other can it be to get it open In the very entrance of Chap. 4. the door is opened Are these three doors the same or no Surely the Text seems to intimate they are the same 5. Another Consideration may be this When Christ promises the Victor that he should sit with him in his Throne even as he was set down with his Father in his and then immediately after exhibits a most glorious Representation of this Throne viz. the Throne of God and of Christ does not this seem to look as if the Throne exhibited to view were that which were just before promised 6. That the Laodicean Interval does not reach to the end of the World may be evidenced from the placing of the Promise to the Victor before the Parabolical Epiphonema which argues it to be a Political promise when no such can take place that time when an end shall of course be put to all worldly Polity And therefore if it was not such a promise but simply a promise of Heaven it ought to have been placed after the Parabolical Epiphonema So that there is no evasion from the strength of this Argument allowing the Rule of placing the Parabolical Epiphonema to be true on Chap. 2.11 7. And lastly Supposing the Throne to be Heavenly in a literal sense will it not hence follow that the Victor shall sit in as high a place in Heaven as the Father and the Son do For it is promised to the Victor to sit with Christ in his Throne even in like manner as Christ sits with his Father in his and that must be one and the same Throne because Christ and the Father are one Wherefore it can be no Heavenly Throne and therefore it is an Earthly that is promised and consequently this Earthly Scene continues after the Interval of Laodicea These are his Arguments set off to the utmost advantage so far as my skill could reach But in Answer 1. To the first I demand how those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are but an Adverb of Order in Time the same that Postea in Latine as Beza here translates it should have that propriety of sense as never to suffer the Vision they belong to to be expounded of any Event antecedent to the Event of the Vision next before whenas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies no more than Afterwards or After this as our English Translation has it which is most easily and naturally understood of the Vision precedent as if he should say After this Vision I looked and behold c. But if you will have it After the Event of this Vision I looked I demand how could John in Domitian's time be said to look up c. after an Event in Queen Elizabeth's time which seems a plain Repugnancy whenas John's looking up is about fifteen hundred years on this side of that Event Wherefore it is not from any force or virtue of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Vision they belong to is not expounded of any Event antecedent to the Event of the Vision next before but from other clear circumstances or that the Visions are in the same order as the Events they prefigure and no weight of Reason appears to the contrary And for his Appeal to my Exposition of the Apocalyse his ground fails there also For Chap. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. some things there are expounded of what is antecedent to the Prediction Chap. 17. v. 14. of the Victory of the Lamb. But suppose all places where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is found had been so expounded by me as the Objector phansies it does not follow that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must be so expounded here because there are such notable indications to the contrary 1. For first there being seven Intervals from the beginning of the Church Apostolick it does both according to the Apocalyptick and Cabbalistick sense of Seven imply all the Intervals of the said Church from that first Term. As the seven Seals beginning from the same Term reach to the end of the World And so the seven Trumpets from the Term they do commence reach to the end of the World And the same I doubt not of the seven Thunders that they last to the very last the Conflagration it self And the seven Heads of the Beast take in all the Heads of him that are Wherefore it is rational that the seven Intervals of the Church take in all the Intervals of the Church that are And therefore I think I saw reason that this place however 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be expounded in others should be excepted 2. But again How harsh and absonous is it to make the Epistolar Prophecy to reach but to the Reformation and the Affairs of the Church and the Prophecies thereof to be continued in Visions and Prophecies of quite another mode and fashion Does not this look like a strange heterogeneous patch or botch And is it not infinitely more smooth and elegant to conceive the Epistolar Prophecy a complete Prophecy of its own kind and manner of contexture reaching from the beginning of the Church to the end of the World And that after this begins a new Prophecy of the same extent but of another Texture and Nature without any connexion to this Ne Gryphes jungantur equis 3. Thirdly If 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie after the Event of the Vision of the Church of Laodicea which according to him is the Reformation then all the whole Prophecy that follows at least that of
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