and Himself to Rest in Spirit with Christ and his Body in the Grave Now then seeing these Thirty are added to the Times and Half which the Spirit of Prophecy hath Expounded into 1260 Days of Years And that there can be no Time between the Times and Half and Finishing by the Express Word except the space of Accomplishing to Scatter and that the same Spirit of Prophecy hath given no other so much as supposeable space but the Three Days of Years and a Half Either those Three Days and a Half must be supposed to Unite with the Three Times and Half and to be One with them or they must Extend themselves upon the Thirty and be the First Three Days of Years and a Half of them For they cannot lye between them as a part of Neither If so either the 1260 must be 1263 and a Half or the 1290 must be 1293 and a Half Either of which is very contrary to Prophecy which is most express in each viz. Times and Half or 1260 Days and 1260 with Thirty added 1290 Days and no more of Either Now here is the Equipoize of Prophecy It could not be Determined before the Event whether the Accomplishing to Scatter might Unite with Time Times Half Time as the last scattering Or go further within the 30. But the Event hath Determined The Three Years and Half Extend upon the First Three Years and a Half of the Thirty making 1260 1290. And the Curious Artifice of Prophecy is herein seen For thus the 1260 and 1290 are joyn'd in the Taking away the Dayly by those Three Years and Half being the Accomplishing to Scatter and so carrying the wearing out of the Saints so much further then the Times and Half or 1260 Years even unto the 3 Years and Half First of the 30 and then their Remainder Unites with the last 45 in Finishing For as I have shewn there can be no Distance between in the 1335 of Scattering and Finishing And the whole 1335 are Joyn'd as leading by various Delays and Appearances since especially the last Half Time of the Reformation to the Kingdom of Christ And this is an Artifice of the Divine Hand of Scripture most Curious and Admirable And the same both Equipoize and Artifice are also most Conspicuous in the 1260 Days of Years and the Three Days and Half of Tears Rev. 11. These 3 Days and Half Hold the only Possible Addition of Time beyond the 1260 Days or Three Times and a Half for Accomplishing to Scatter For we find no other Measured space of Time Mentioned either in Daniel or the Revelation that can be so much as supposed to lie at the End of the 1260 Days and before the Seventh Trumpet Except these Days and Half alone But these with all Harmony and Symmetry of Prophecy are Placed there For they are Scituated near to the 1260 Days to give a Mantissa or Surplusage of Time to them for the Accomplishing the Scattering and wearing out the Holy People that had been During their whole Space And they must be as near the Seventh Trumpet because the Holy Spirit is Express Immediately upon the Accomplishing to Scatter The Wonders shall be Finished And he is as Express The Seventh Trumpet is the Trumpet of Finishing For when the Seventh Angel begins to sound The Mystery of God shall be Finished as he hath Evangeliz'd by all his Servants the Prophets Thus as in Daniel The Accomplishing Revel 10. to Scatter lies between the Times and Half of Weaing out the Saints and the Finishing Wonders So in the Revelation the Three Days and Half lie between the 1260 Days of the Sackcloth Prophecy which are also Three Times and a Half and thâ—â—e Seventh Trumpet of Finishing And they must be One either with the 1260 or with the First of those Thirty making 1260 1290 Or else they could have no Room For the Divine Spirit Clasping 1260 so close as to make it immediately 1290 There can come in no Three Years and a Half possibly between that is not United with one of the Numbers Which is even Arithmetic Demonstration But now as to the Equipoize of Prophecy It must be Acknowledg'd that before the Event Determin'd the contrary the Three Days and Half might have been Intended to be Incorporated with the 1260 Days of the Sackcloth Prophecy and the Beasts Victory over the Witnesses answering to the Three Times and a Half of the 1260 Days of the Church in the Wilderness The Witnesses and the Woman being one and the Sackcloth Being Overcome Kill'd worn out Scattered the Wilderness State being one as to the main Intention also Only the Deepest Time of Sufferings express'd by one more then the other and so the Three Days and Half the Three Times and Half the two 1260 Days had been all one Time and had begun and ended together And I must Ereely and Humbly Confess This was my Apprehension and my hope it would be so although I had always a Jealous Eye upon these three Days and Half But nothing but Event could Determine to the other side The Ballance of Prophecy stands so even concerning the Case And indeed if Ninety Seven as I affirm and see no Reason to Retract be the end of the 1260 Days It must needs be that when the Three Days and Half have done the Service of Three Times and a Half Coequal with the whole 1260 Days and pointing to a deepest Time of Suffering and so Pararelling one another The latter then do the Service of an Epitome a Mantissa a Recollection of the whole and Run so far as upon the Three First Years and Half of the Thirty which Thirty are Principally for Finishing And though they suffer the Cloud of the Witnesses Summ'd up Scattering Yet they are Recompens'd with the Glory of the Constellation of Great and Illustrious Events at their Rising Now the Three Days and Half doing this Manifold Service and bearing this variety of Aspects is most usual in Scriptures Improvement of its Types so that I need not Insist further on it I will give only one Instance in a Case of near Affinity with this The Three Hundred Ninety Years C. 4. of Ezekiels Bearing the Iniquity of the House of Israel gave the very Chronological space from the Death of Solomon to Ezekiels Temple It first set out the Sin of the House of Israel in the Ten Tribes making Defection from the House of David and then turns as it were back and settles the standard of Prophetic Time a Day for a Year as an Epitomizing of Prophetic Time to the very End To Summ up this Point of Discourse then I look upon the End of the Times and Half or 1260 Days of Years as the most Unmoveable Rest of the Three Years and Half And that They are but as a Summary and Recollection of them or a little Surplusage added to them And that the 1260 Ended at 97. And That Ninety Seven began in the Autumnal Equinox of what we
Nations in that great Interest of the People of God the Freedom and Peace of the Reformation in France Piedmont Savoy the Palatinate and other Parts and He Himself the Principal Persecutor under the miserable Bigotry of Thinking He Does God Good Service in Persecuting as the Tenor of his Letter Imports wherein he Appears Drunk with the Wine of Babylonish Fornication Secondly Another Instance of Divine Abruption and so of Insraction in the same Year was that Monumental Victory over the Mahometan Army and the Ottoman Sultan in Person with it Now seeing That Tyranny more immediately presses the Grecian Professors of Christianity and Hath laid them under so great Slavery and Darkness This Eastern Part of the Christian Church Falling into a like Superstitious Ignorance Any True Servants of God among them were carried as with the other of the Two Wings into a Wilderness-State and fell into Re. 12. 14. great Darkness from the Light and Purity of the Gospel and so into Slavery under Mahometan Imposture and Tyranny and thus have continued to this Day And in how Lethargic or rather a State of Death All those whom we call the Greek Churches or Grecian Christians do at this Time lie None that know them can be Ignorant There being only Remainders and the Ruins of those Ancient Churches even as of their Cities The Prophesies and Promises of Scripture Reach yet unto them and at that very Year 97. Accordingly therefore about the same Autumnal Equinox of it It pleased Infinite Wisdom and Goodness to Arm with a Mighty Power and Spirit the Imperial Army and the Leaders of it and to give them a very Monumental Victory even a Victory like as in the Day of Midâ—aâ— or upon any other of the Ancient Enemies of the People of Israel to their Greatest Consternation and the Breaking all their Measures and Designs Hereto Add what God was pleas'd not far from the same Time to do by the Czar of Moscovy a Prince of the very Grecian Profession of Christianity These Victoriousnesses had undoubtedly been carryed to the very Gates of Constantinople Had there been but that Spirit of Life from God upon them But all lying in that Dead State The Emperor in the very God of Popish Antichristianism and the Bond of that Evil The Russian Prince in all the Superstition and Blindness of that Profession There was then First Gods Infraction as to the Year 97 The Great and Complemental Effects shone not to expectation that Year as Light Day And therefore there was an Abruption a Breaking off that Series and Contexture God had began So all is laid still in a Peace between the Port and the Empire and a Truce betwixt the Ottoman and Moscovian Princes Which how God will Dispose of we are yet to observe in the following Course of Providence Disposes of God with Relation to the Ottoman Signiory are the more to be observed on these Great Prophetic Considerations 1. It pleased the Divine Spirit to place the very opening of the Kingdom of Christ and Finishing of Wonders on that Mahometane Potentacy coming to its End and none to help it Dan. 11. Last with C. 12. 1. c. 2. That the Grecian Churches as we Style them Are the sad Remains of those Seven Apoclyptic Churhches made the Types and Emblems of all Christian Churches till the Glory of the New Jerusalem And therefore from the Time of that given However under such a Rejection Now Yet are Beloved for the Fathers sakes I mean Those Primitive Churches 3. The Hour the Day the Month the Year allowed to the Turkish Empire to stand Arm'd and in Procinctu Reaches Rev. 9. Just to 97 as hath been by other Apocalyptic Interpreters as by my self Less than the Least made out 4. From the passing away of the Second or Turkish Woe That great and Blessed Sound Commences The C. 11. Kingdoms of this World are Become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ But as Mahometism came first as a Rev. 11. Judgment on the Latine as it is to be Distinctly call'd or Western Antichristianism So it is to be Preferr'd in the Expectation of Judgment First upon it self That so Tyrannous a Pseudo-Prophâ—tism that came upon it may not be Removed before the Provocatiâ—n of the Sin Oh how much Reason have we then to cry to Heaven for that Spirit of Life upon us all I hope I much more Desâ—re it upon my self then the Honour of being a True Prophet concerning it If one could be Separated from the other Although I am afraid to defer any thing to Phantastry I cannot yet but Just Mention That That so unaccountable even Phrenetic Superstition of the Turkish Procession was order'd on the First New Moon in the Month called Decemb. 97. and fell out on its Third Day That Procession was a Publick Declaration Their Affairs were come to Extremity Their Deprecation of the Displeasure of Heaven so Vehemently spoke an Apprehension of the Tottering and Ruine of their Port and Empire Thus Providence Discover'd what was in the Womb of Prophecy if there had not been an Abruption And that Abruption shew'd it self in that So great a Victory was not made an Advance to further Victoriousness and even Ruine of that Empire And indeed I cannot but make a Paralell of it with Esay 16. 21. Moabs wearying himself on his High Place and then coming to his Sanctuary to pray And the word of the Lord since and from that Time is That within Three Years as exactly Numbred as the Days of an Hireling and the Glory of the Ottoman Power shall be Contemned And all that great Multitude and the Remnant shall be very Small and feeble Now these Three Years are to be Accounted to End in the Month December in the Year 1700. Objec But may there not be on continuing Provocation and Unpreparedness for Mercy a further Infraction and Abruption even at the Year 1700. Answ By That Scituation of the Three Years and a Half between the 1260 and the Seventh Trumpet and the so closely Conterminating on each and Prophecy so express and positive therein That it should be Subjected to any such Ballance of Prophecy is utterly Impossible For though when there is an Equilibration of Prophecy there Providence does as it sees fit although all way in it self Determin'd Yet where Prophecy is Peremptory and Absolute Providence alway Acts according to it And so it is here that there can be no Fear of an Infraction or an Abruption Having thus discours'd the delay according to the Scripture words Gods Infraction and Abruption For he is pleas'd so to Style it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My Breach The True and Faithful God takes such a Prerogative to speak his Intentions of Grace at such a Time under the Reservation of a Condition That there should be a Suitable Agreeable Frame in his People to his Promises Or else a further Time Reserved But as I have made out there is also a
beginning as may be Computed from Nebuchadnezzars 23 d Year Jerem. 50. 30. At the last Captivation And here the Provocation was as may be Collected from the Holy Writers at that Time the unwillingness of the Jews to Leave their Babylonish Plantations And those who did go up to Judah neglected the House of God to Hag. 1. 4. Zech. 2. 6. Build their own Ceiled Houses The Great Delay of the Glorious Kingdom of Christ due to him at his Resurrection is so Transcendental to all other Cases and for which delay Vision and Prophecy was sealed at his Death until the very Time we are now waiting for I do not undertake to Insist upon at this Time being so ordain'd by the Father and by the Mediator for Holy and Wisest Reasons too large for the present Now in these Reserved Times they are so given in Prophecy That they might wholly have United with the Principal Times beginning and ending together but when they by the Event Run out beyond such Principal Times It then appears they were so Design'd by Prophecy to do And when they are in Judgment They seem as it were to Usurp upon the Time immediately following Those Principal Times As the Forty Years in the Wilderness Invaded so much Time of enjoying Canaan before the Reigns of David and Solomon Abridging and cutting it 40 Years shorter In The stay of the Building and Restoring the House of God from Cyrus to Darius and the full Restoration not made till Artaxerxes's Seventh Year The following Time of enjoying that Restored State was so much Decurtated Abbreviated and Retrench'd When such a Delay is in Mercy as in our Lords stay upon the Earth beyond his Resurrection The Time following the Principal Time as the Fourty Days of Christ with His is Enrich'd with Great Appearances of the Bridegroom not taken from the Children of the Bride Chamber And yet it was a Delay of Christs Appearance in Heaven and of the Spirit poured out I look upon these Instances as full Proof That there are such Mantissa's or Surplusages such Recollections or Epitomes of Reserved Time beyond the most Noted and Principal Times before which the high Events may not be Compleated but then most certainly shall I shall now in the following Heads apply my self to Ninety Seven whose Great Events have not yet been fill'd up Head 3 d. I come therefore to the Third Head And most particularly to shew the Curious Artifice and Contrivance of the Divine Spirit in the so giving the Times and Half in the 1260 Days That there may be a Reserved Time and under such an Equipoize of Interpretation that the Reserved Time may be drawn up into and within the Principal Time Or may be extended beyond it into some further Time and no Determination but by the Providential Event The Time that may be Reserv'd and Extended beyond the 1260 Days I have already assign'd to be the Three Days of Years and a Half The end of which shall have the whole Constellation of Events Transferr'd from the End or Period of the 1260 Days upon it self viz. from 1697 to 1700 As on purpose to Fulfil I trust the word of the Lord That what Time Babylon saith I sit a Queen her Plagues should begin to come in one Day And herein I cannot but hope The Beauty and Symmetry of Prophecy shall be seen between 97 as the Principal Time and the Three Years and a Half as the Recollectionary Time ending with the Jubilee 1700 To this very great purpose I lay down the following Scheme of Prophecy concerning this Point as in its Equipoize between 97 and 1700. 1. The first thing I observe herein is That after the Great High Preist and Apostle of our Profession The Man Cloathed in Linnen had given in Answer to the Angels who asked How Long to the End of these Wonders Dan. 12. 5. c. That there should be a Delay of Finishing for Time and Times and a Half He also added when He i. e. the Scatterer shall have accomplished to scatter the Power of the Holy People All These viz. Wonders shall be Finish'd Daniel complains He heard but he understood not Now it is true the Prophets did not understand the Particularities of All that was Reveal'd to them concerning Time but were left to search what or what manner of Time the Spirit of Christ which was 1 Pet. 1. in them did signifie Yet even their Doubts Recorded in Scripture were under Divine Inspiration and are so order'd as to give Occasion to Further Revelation But Time Times and Half were Reveal'd to Daniel before to be given to the Little Horn to wear out the C. 7. Saints of the Most High which was the same thing with scattering the Hand of the Holy People That then needed not a New Repetition The Thing therefore he understood not was What Time the Accomplishing to scatter might take up He Appeals therefore to his Lord and our Lord My Lord saith he what shall the End of These i. e. Wonders be His Question is directed upon the very Point he understood not and Receives Answer in Three Particulars 1. That there will be a Closedness and a Seal of Secrecy set upon the Determinate Time of Wonders Finishing viz. till the Event determines it The Seal on the Foreheads of the Servants of God Remains till the End and till the End or very Accomplishing to scatter They cannot be distinctly known For till then the Witnesses appear not Vnseal'd or with the Father's Name writ on their Foreheads in a Risen State on Mount Zion 2. It is Given as a Diagnostic or distinct Note of the Time between the End of the Times and Half or the 1260 Days and the Time of Accomplishing to scatter Many shall be Purified and made White and Tryed which we may very well understand of those they call The New Converts or the Re-united who have since been made White by Repentance and Purifying Grace who have been made Wise by Remembring what they had Receiv'd and Heard of the Gospel-Purity and Return'd to it coming a new out of Babylon while Persecutors will not understand but do more and more wickedly Persecuting and Scattering till the Vtmost End and Accomplishment of Scattering 3. The Great Palmoni or Wonderful Numberer of Time insensibly and yet as in Answer to Daniel's Question gives a further Delineation of Time in Thirty Days added to the 1260 making them 1290 under an Epoch or Beginning Characteriz'd with the Taking away the Daily viz. Sacrifice and the Abomination that maketh Desolate set up which I look upon most Undoubtedly to be argued to be the Antichristian Apostacy by the Papal Gentiles Entring into the Outer Court and so Taking away the Truly Christian Worship And to these Thirty of the 1260 are added Forty Five making the 1290 1335. Reaching to the very Blessed State of the New Jerusalem in which Daniel is assured a Lot and in the mean time to rest his Further Enquiries
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