and People His Spirit not coming upon them as on the Worthies of Old Nor was He pleased to give them that Resolution To make no Peace without the Security and Freedom for that which they accounted the True Christian Religion or with them who would and do now make Advantage of that Peace to the Persecution and Slavery of them with whom they are or ought to be of the same Character who keep the Commandments of God and hold the Testimony of Jesus So that this Peace was not at all to their Honour before God and His Servants although those under them ought to be Humbled because their want of Faith Love Holiness Peace and Union so Dishonoured God that He in Just Offence left Princes States Governments to themselves not to Appear for God as for their own Interests Object I know it may be said Because the Time was not come There was not that Spirit of Life from God foretold by Prophecy coming upon them and therefore they could not Act according to it And this alone was Argument enough Ninety Seven was not the Time of Accomplishing to Scatter nor of Beginning to Finish the Wonders Answ It is most True the Spirit of Life from God not coming down and Entering the Witnesses did shew It was not the Time But it is yet True the unsuitable Frame of Spirit in Protestants did Provoke God to Breach of Promise the culpable Cause of Mercies deny'd or delay'd is the want of that Holy Agreeable Frame although the Gift of such Grace is from God For in God alone is our Help yet still our Destruction is of our selves It is alway His Spirit that makes that other Spirit in us that was in Caleb and Joshua The want of such a Spirit as is Agreeable to what God hath promised to do provokes Him most Justly to Breach of Promise as to the Time held out to our Eye although he alone Gives that Spirit and Will at the very Time when the Promise must and shall certainly be Fulfilled Want of Holiness is a full Reason of Want of Deliverance although at the Time when Deliverance shall be Hâ—liness shall be also The peculiar Frame agreeing with the Kingdom of Christ is the Frame we find Obab 17. in the Church of Philadelphia not in our Sardis Rev. 3. 2. Let us now Consider the Delay or Translation of the great Effects expected at 97 from 97 to 1700 as the word Breach of Promise signifies Abruption or Breaking off the Series and Contexture God had pleased to have Begun and seem'd to be Going on in as therefore it cannot but be acknowledged There was not in 97 the glorious Appearance of the expected Effects So on the other side it cannot be deny'd There were such Beginnings that if God had pleased to go on in there had certainly been before this Time a very great Change and Revolution in the World But no sooner were those Offertures made but God shew'd his Abruption or Breaking off from any Thing he had Begun Two great Instances of which we had in that Year First The Treaty of Peace at Reswick was a very Remarkable Dispose of God bringing the Antichristian Princes to a Necessity of making Peace while Protestant Princes and States had a Ballance upon them and the Peace This looked very Hopefully that the Interests of Protestancy and the Reformation wherein the Glory of God of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Safety of His People and their Peace and Quiet was so undeniably Compriz'd should have found great Advantages and by an Embarrassement on all further Persecution on Protestancy there might have been an Accomplishment of Scattering This was a gracious Honorary Dispose on 97 and at the very Autumnal Equinox as the very Time that was to bear the Signal of the Witnesses Rising Herein God was pleased to set Judgment before those Protestant Sovereigns and to shew them what they were to do especially considering what Just Pleas they had to Insist upon as particularly and eminently that Edict of Nantz in behalf of the French Reformed where the Persecution hath since been Pursued with so great Barbarity But to shew God's Abruption as in the very Time and in the very Act of the Treaty concluded and so his Infraction in the very Year of Ninety Seven and of the Peace concluded And to Remonstrate both as before all the Nations about as he hath sometimes put a Word into the Mouth of his very Enemies especially when they are of Eminency as Balaam an exalted Prophet Caiaphas the High-Priest So it is much to be Reflected upon what the King of France that Prince of Persecution writ to the Arch-Bishop of Paris in the beginning of the Month called January in Popish Style 98 but in True Prophetic and even Protestant Style 97 Requiring the Thanksgiving of Te Deum after the Popish Manner for the Peace thus He Began The Time which Heaven hath Ordained How express for 97. for the Reconciliation of the Nations Sure the Protestants of each Nation made up the Nations This looked Fair for the Accomplishing to Scatter For the Protestants making up the Nations and the Time for the Reconciliation of the Nations being come their Scattering or Persecution was to Cease or to be Accomplished How else Reconciled But as if at the same Time God made an Abruption upon what was so promisingly Begun in 97 and put a Reproof into that Prince's Mouth upon the Protestant Princes and in them upon the Nations and even the Churches walking so much beneath the True Spirit of the Reformation and so provoking God to withdraw His mighty Spirit and Presence from the Princes That King thus expresses himself That which I Glory in most of all is the Worship of the true Religion as Authorized by a solemn Treaty under Sovereigns of a Different Faith the Author of so many Graces shews Himself too manifestly not to be Acknowledged and the Visible Characters of his Almighty Hand which they Bear seem to be the Seal he hath Affixed to them to Justify my Intentions Busied from this Time forward in Causing him to be truly Worshipped in all my Dominions In all which I have not the least Regard to the Assumings of that Haughty Monarch in which there is much of the Spirit and Style of the King of Assyria's Letter by Rabshakeh when he ask'd Am I come up without Jehovah All I consider is What of Agreement there can be Found between His Words and the Words of Prophecy As when he saith The Time for the Reconciliation of the Nations is Come a Word of great Extent in Scripture-Sense and Introducting a great Change indeed among the Nations and very Consonant to Scripture Predictions For I have all Reasons of Assurance to Conclude It was so in the First Institution of God and the Treaty of Peace was a Fit Method in Human View to it When the Treaty therefore was Concluded and a Peace so call'd made without Reconciliation of the
Judg'd For as the City and the Beast have been shewn to be Inseparable If the one be Roman So must the other be also so are they also as to the Time of their being Judg'd Herein they are Inseparable when the one is Judg'd So must the other also be Observ 5. That the Time of the Judgment of the City and of the Beast that carried her must needs be very near as will appear by that Account of Time I shall now present upon such Prophetical Grounds as I hope I cannot be mistaken in Observ 6. These Numbers all consider'd and Adiusted one to another Reach down to Sixteen Hundred Ninety Seven of Vulgar account and so as I have in another Discourse even to Demonstration made out That from Solomons Death to the very Glory of the Kingdom of Christ There lie in a due Series and Connexion of these Numbers 2730 Years and in a most Exact Succession of an 182 Indictions or Fifteens of Years of which Eighty Four make the Just Time Times and Half Time ending at 97 This with many other Assurances especially of the coming to pass of Events according to the Prophetic Figures and the Times setled for them so exactly agreeing shew that Year as the Year fixed for the Commencing from it of the happy Revolution of the Kingdom of Christ I have in many Discourses affirm'd this and find no Reason to Retract it That which will I know with all Severity be objected against it is That things have not come to pass according to Prediction and Expectation at that Year And from thence will be inforced That It is Presumption to enquire into Prophetic Time or to make any Determination upon it I will therefore endeavour to shew It is not Presumption but a Duty to Enquire what or what manner of Time The Spirit of Christ in his Prophecys hath signified Notwithstanding whatever can be Agravated against mistake And that it is better to search notwithstanding mistake then by Neglecting to search to think to be secure from mistake And then in the Second Place I shall apply my self to shew how the mistake is from Prophecy to be explained and set Right and yet Ninety Seven to be Vindicated as the Great Prophetic Year For the first That it is not a Presumption nor Daring to C. 49. 19. Jerem. C. 50 44. Appoint God a Time or to stand as a Shepherd or Governour of Time before him But Duty to search Scripture throughout even to the Prophetical Numbers given us therein It is not for us indeed to know the Times and Seasons God hath set in his own Power Yet to use all means even by Books to understand what ever God hath been pleased to give so far out of the Peculiar of his own Prerogative as to Reveal though in Mystic Numbers when he hath been pleased to Reveal Things They then belong to us And Hee that hath a Mind and Wisdom hath an Obligation by Command to Count and our Lord charges it as Sinful Rev. 13. 18. Hipocrisy not to search Discern those either Prophetic or Moral Signs of the Times And I cannot find what can be said against the Commendation the Apostle gives to them who give heed to the sure word of Prophecy as to a Light that Shines in a Dark Place Nor can I see Why it should be look'd on as an Offence that is placed as a Character of Honour on the Sons of Issachar 1 Chron. 12. 32. that they had understanding in the Times which they attain'd undoubtedly by enquiry into and Meditation upon any Oracles God had been pleas'd in those Times to vouchsafe Daniel thought it no Presumption to enquire further of the End of Wonders when he understood not what was first Reveal'd The C. 12. account of the 1290 and of the 1335 Days to the very Blessed State was then given to him not so much for himself who was to go his way to Rest until that End but for us the People of God in every Age. What can then be objected against Searching into the Mysteriousness of those Numbers and what may be from the difficulty of Interpretation Argued The very same may be objected against searching into any of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Scripture as the Apostle Peter calls them or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as The Apostle Paul Styles them Things hard to be understood Interpreted and so we should be Confined only to the most plain Scriptures and of most Indisputable Interpretation whereas the Apostle Resolv'd to Leave the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ as well secur'd And to go on to Perfection in search after the more Retyred Truths of the word of God as concerning Melchisedeec the Type of Christ though hard to be Interpreted Heb. 5. 11. 2 Pet. 3. 16. To the Objections Arising from the Danger and mischeif of mistakes It may be very well Answered by the due Consideration That in very many things without Error in the main Points we Darken Counsel by words without Knowledg And if the mistakes in Job 38. 2. the most Eminent and Learned Servants of Christ in Interpretation of Scripture and Explication of Extra-Fundamental Points most Inoffensively to Substantiali Principles were as Visible as mistakes in Computation of Prophetic Time we might if mistake were a Valuable Reason be Discourag'd from Researches either into Scripture Exposition or the Truths of it any further then in those most undoubted Points wherein all Holy Good Men agree It is True Prophetic mistakes are as I may say surviving and still in the Eyes of Men whereas the mistakes of the other sort are as they say of the Errors of Physitians under Ground and out of Sight Yet in themselves no more or Less Culpable being useful for the shewing the Weakness and Fallibility of Humane Understanding wherein it is not under the most certain Conducts of Truth And as in other Cases Variety of Sentiments and Enquiries shew the undoubted Excellency of Divine Truth And Search into the word of God speaks it the Greatest Business and Exercise of Understanding And is like the Running to and fro whereby knowledg is Increased whereas on the other hand a Kind Dan. 12. 4. of Resolved sullen Neglect in General brings forth Ignorance and Stupidity and either a Superstitious Dread of Intermeddling with Divine Things if some what Removed from Common Catechism or an Irreligious Carelessness And in particular In Prophetic Points of Time this kind of Reserving our selves from all the search we can make is as if God had given such parts of his word to be only a Sealed Book or the Cruces the Torment of all search and enquiry into them or that we were Prophanely Careless How Things are to be according to Prophecy with the Church of God and with the Kingdom of Christ or how the many and Great Predictions of Scripture and of the Spirit of God by the Prophets are to be Fullfill'd But much Light Knowledg
or Violation or as in our Translation My i. e. Gods Breach of promise Numb 14. 34. The same word signifies Abruption or breaking off the even Contexture of Events begun All which have been mentioned already I will now according to these Rules discourse this Head But that I may do it with Greater Clearness I find it most advantageous to shew that in the Two Last Rules the various Instances of Reserved Times in Scripture are Deposited viz. Reserves of Time in a way of Goodness and Mercy and in a way of Displeasure and Breach of Promise Of these Two Reservings of Time being the only Kinds viz. Mercy or Displeasure I will first give an Instance of God's Dispensations in a way of Goodness Grace and Mercy in such a Reserve of Time The Death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ was that very Fullness of Time that very To Day of his being Gal. 4. 4. made Known the only Begotten Son and for our Lords Entring into his Glory All Power in Heaven and Earth Psal 3. was Given to Him for his Spiritual Kingdom which He then Receiv'd and for the pouring out of his Spirit Then he Received the Sealed Book of all disposes over the Kingdoms of this World Rev. 5. And yet there were Fourty Days Surplusage of Time from the Resurrection of Christ to his Ascension And Fifty Days from his Death to the giving the Spirit Now the Death of Christ was plainly Foretold in the Middle of the Last Week And then he could not be Holden of Death but must Rise again the Third Day according to the Scriptures But that he should continue with his Disciples so long and that from his Death Fifty Days should be made up to the Giving of the Spirit was not so plainly Revealed Indeed if we could have laid our thoughts before or now closely consider the Distance of Time between the two Feasts of the Passover and Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks and that the Antitype must Answer the Type we might find some Ombrage of it But it was so obscure as hardly to be Traced till Reveal'd in the History of the Event though so prefigur'd at such a Dâ—stance Now this was in Mercy That our Lord Christ might give those many and Infallible Proofs of his Resurrection and speak to his Apostles whom he had chosen of the Things pertaining to the Kingdom of God But the Effect of Vision was herein much Lower then in his sitting down on the Right Hand of the Majesty on high in the Heavens and his making Intercession for us So the most Glorious Effects were not till such a Time after yet still the Principal Time was not Remov'd from its Dignity For the Death and Resurrection in that most Eminent Period of Time the Half Week Remains the very Base of the Forty Days and to all After-Time the very Hinge on which it turns till it shall come to the Fullness of All Times the Kingdom of Christ Ephes 1. 10. And as this was but such a short Time so it did but summ up and Recollect the Glorious Ministry of our Lord Jesus and could not be exceeded In the way of Judgment I give a Second Instance The very self same Night of the 430 Years Inclusive of the 400 Years assign'd to Abraham Gen 15. had indeed the Great Event of the Going out of Egypt yet that Glorious Constellation of Events Bringing into the Land of Promise and Casting out the Nations was not perform'd till Forty Years after This was indeed no way that we Know now to have been found but by God's so Immediate Revelation of Forty Days Prophetically given a Day for a Year It was but a short Time compar'd with the 430 Years And it could not be Transcended The Certainty of the Highest Complement of the Great Promise Fullfill'd was there to Begin And the Forty Days of Years was but a Surplusage of Time and a Recollection and Summing up of the Sojourning State of the 430 Years But that which I have especially to Remark upon it is That it was in the way of Infraction of Promise and Abruption of that Contexture or God's Breaking off from what he had begun to do in the Deliverance out of Egypt signified by that Hebrew Word so Emphatic hereof Numb 14. 34 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But yet this very End of the 430 Years Remain'd the Foundation of the Time following after and was not mov'd from its Dignity For the passing through the Red Sea and Pharoah's Overthrow in it the Victory over Amalâ—k the Nomothesia or the Giving of the Law the Rearing of the Tabernacle Rested All on this Time and its Great Event and the Forty Years are dated from it which were else but Thirty Eight Years from the Ill Report of the Spies to the Entry upon Canan and the Ending of the Following Course of Time to Solomon's so Resplendent Reign and the Building of the Temple is Dated from it 480 Years 1 Kings 6. 1. Even from the Going out of Egypt And this Instance is the more Remarkable Because although this Time was Known to and Resolved of God as before as all his Works from the Foundation of the World Yet it comes in by way of Infraction of Promise and it broke off the Contexture of Great Deliverances It is Given so in Prophetic Language therefore a Day for a Year as in our present Prophecy we are upon and was upon the Account of Provocation and unsuitable Frame to Deliverances and the End of this Surplusage of Time touches the Entring into the Land of Promise the Type of the Glorious Kingdom of Christ Another Instance of this Kind may be The Seventy Years of the Babylonish Captivity had their most Known and Celebrated Period in the First Year of Cyrus as the Vniversal Monarch in the Second of the Four Kingdoms the Persian Kingdom we find therefore his Proclamation Twice Recorded in Scripture viz. in the End of the Second Book of Chronicles and in the Beginning of the Book of Ezra But here was not the Complement of Effects The Spirit of God Gives Account of several stops and stays till the very Seventh Year of Artaxerxes There the word of Restoring Judah and Jerusalem had its full going forth It was all yet as one United Time of the Words going forth to Restore and to Build Jerusalem It began in the Decree First of Cyrus then of Darius then of Artaxerxes King of Persia Ezr. 6. 14. which so full decree of Artaxerxes we have C. 7. 12. c. This he makes as Successor to Cyrus in that Monarchy and of which Nebuchadnezzar was the Golden Head viz. of the Four Vniversal Kingdoms and so styles himself King of Kings Now here Great Abruption had been from what God begun in Cyrus So that the work was stayed to the Second Year of Darius Ezr. 6th 24. Then another Seventy Years had slid in Recorded by Zachariah C. 1. 12. Which had their Epoch or
Generally Count 98 but in the Prophetic Calendar 97 Just Ending I therefore as before so now again give the Account from 97 and to Ninety Eight in the same Prophetic Style one Year To 99 is Two Years To 1700 still in the same Prophetic Style is Three Years viz. at each Autumnal Equinox and at the Vernal Equinox of 1700 ending in Vulgar Account but in Prophetical the Half of 1700. The Last Half Year of the Three Years and a Half will Expire then in the very Middle of the Year at the Vernal Equinox The Time of our Lords Resurrection Illustrious I Humbly hope with mighty Effects of it in the Rising again of the Glory of the Gospel the Witnesses and all the People of Christ so long lying Dead in the Breadth of Babylon and its Antichristian Papacy then beginning to be Judg'd I have now with all Humble Reverence of the Divine Oracles Covering as it were my Face whatever of Light and Underâ—â—anding God hath given me as yet not Able to behold their Glory And my Feet in the sense of my Unworthyness and Great Darkness and Imperfections in Knowing or Prophecying I have yet with Reverence and Godly Fear shewn That there is a Frame of Prophecy Curiously and wonderfully made By which Insensibly however certainly foreknown to God which way every Thing would come to pass the Great Events should with such an Equal Ballance be made Inclinable to 97 or 1700 That Providence should with the Truth of Prophecy as it saw Fitt Determine upon either at the very Time I come therefore to the Fourth Head propos'd Viz. To consider the Reasons of the Translation of the Great Events to have been Expected at 97 from thence to 1700. Head 4th The Translation of the Great Effects of Prophecy The Accomplishing to Scatter the Power of the Holy People the Rising of the Witnesses and the beginning to Finish Wonders have been Translated from 97 and are Humbly to be expected e're the End of 1700 on this Threefold Account 1. Principally and in the First place by way of Infraction or what Scripture is pleased to call Gods Breach of Promise or Repenting of the Good he said He would Benefit his People with at such a Time Jreme 18 10. We know in strict sense The Faithful God who notwithstanding our Vnbelief cannot deny himself cannot Break promise nor can any of his Predictions Fail Yet he knows how so to order Things that the Sin of his Servants should be under such an Ordination of Providence as if both Promises and Prophecyes did fail for the Punishment of their Unbeleif and Disobedience and Unsuitable Frame I have Reason therefore more to bewail the Disagreeable Frame of my own and other the Hearts of those who are called Protestants and the Reformed in not being more Ready for those Great Effects at the Time then the being mistaken iâ— the Explanation of Pr ophecy and the Prophetic Numbers or even the Determination upon Ninety Seven For it is most Evident God hath Reserved to himself a Prerogative of Pronouncing Evil very possitively as in the Case of Nineveh Jonah 3d. Yet Fourty Days and Nineveh shall be destroyed And yet God seeing their Turning from their Evil ways also Repented of the Evil that he thought to do unto them So on the other side he makes a seeming Breach of Promise in Delay of the Good he intended at such a Time And yet as I have before Argued in Nathan So it is plain no Blame could lie on Jonah for the mistake of Time but for his too high Resentment of the Dishonour as he Apprehended on himself of being Accounted a False Prophet However God Justified him not long after by the Irrepealable Prophecy of Ninevehs utter Destruction by Zephaniah The Delay or Translation of the Great Effects of Vision from 97 to 1700 I Impute therefore in the First place to Infraction or Gods Breach of Promise with Great Assurance and Boldness of Speech as to the manner of Expression Because God hath been pleas'd to use it else I should not have Dared make use of it and then as to the Thing it self I am Bold because I Find so Great Reasons for 97 as the most Central Time of Prophecy and such Fair Delineations and so Curious a Hand of Prophecy Reserving a Liberty and Freedom of so Uniting 1700 within it as Providential Righteousness and Justice by way of Infraction or Abruption Or Wisdom in a way of Mercy and Glorious Illustration of Vengeance on the Enemies of the People of God saw Fit To give therefore a more full Account of Infraction or Breach of Promise I would offer my Apprehension with all Humility and Modesty and yet with Uprightness and Sincerity I say therefore God had by the Prophecys of his word Pointed to 97 as the Ending of the Sackcloth of the Witness Prophecy in their Prophecy Fulfil'd in the Kingdom of Christ and of other the Great Effects but with a Conditional Reserve if there were a Suitable Frame in the Witnesses both the Sufferers and the more self-Subsistent Protestancy under Reformed Princes Nations and their Laws I say If there were a Frame and Activity Suitable to so Great a Revolution Such a Frame as Agrees with the Spirit of Life from God with their standing on their Feet with their Appearing with the Lamb on Mount Zion having the Fathers Name written on their Foreheads But there was not such a Frame among Protestants of any Distinction or Denomlnation of any Title Order or Degree Hereupon Rises the Lords Breach of Promise For in the Room of such a Spirit of Life the Sardian State lies heavy upon the whole They have a Name to Live and yet are Dead They do not Fill up the Things that Remain and are in order to the Kingdom of Christ They are in a very Sleepy and Vnwatchful Temper as to the coming of Christ so that it is like to come upon them at an Hour they know not When the Lord saw this it displeased Him then said He they shall know my Breach of Promise What I had Determin'd at 97 shall be as a Further Delay If they had been in a Condition to have Smitten as often as they would with a high Impulse of Will the Antichristian Earth with Plagues to have Shot with all the Arrows of the Lord's Deliverance their Accomplishment to Scatter should have immediately commenc'd with Finishing of Wonders But even the Suffering Part of Protestants and much more the Generality being found in the Condition before describ'd without any Reflection on the Protestant Princes It looks as if in David's Numbering the People the Lord was Displeased and left him under Effectual Motives so to Number which brought a Plague on All So God Provoked Justly with the Universal Declination of the Reformation from His Truth and the Purity of His Worship and the Holiness of His Ways withdrew that Spirit of Zeal Courage and Resolution in the Cause and Interest of God His Gospel