seven Churches that is proper and particular to the Church wherein the Churches as Symbols sustain the whole Prophecy which is worthy the Spirituality and Clearness of a New Testament Prophecy so to Order and of great Grace Elegancy and Condecency to God's great Regard to his Church The Second is that which embraces the whole State of the Church but propp'd and supported with such Imperial Events as most nearly related to the Church adorn'd with such Symbols such Notes of Time such Events as agree to those Times whereby History both Common and Ecclesiastick may be adjusted to and concerted with both and the Truth of the Prophecy and its true Interpretation justisted before and by all the World And this is that Systeme or Complex of Prophecies that first by the Seals runs through the Roman Empire till the sixth Seal Pagan and Christian in the sixth and seventh Seals in those things wherein the Kingdom and Church of Christ are most interessed until the Empire was blasted in the first Trumpet and true publick Worship also by the 1260 Days of the Daily taken away entring The Imperial City was thrown like a Mountain into the Sea in the second and in the third Trumpet when the Roman Empire expiring in the West was surrogated or new founded in the Beast succeeding in his forty two Months and so the Prophecy goes on in the other Trumpets till it comes to the Kingdom of Christ in the seventh Trumpet in its just Succession to the last State of the Roman fourth Monarchy according to all Prophecy And this till the thousand Years runs through the Voices of Preparation into the Vials and the Vials prepare to the thousand Years glorious Reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then this is the only true proper Division of this Prophecy into its two Systemes of the Churches and then rise the Seals Trumpets Voices Vials in another Systeme supporting all things relating to the Church by Imperial Motions Mutations and Times And in the latter Systeme all these Tubes of Time are each Sett of them and each of each Sett so united one to another that they can neither be disjoyn'd from their immediate sequence one upon another nor mov'd out of their order so that the Trumpets follow the Seals the Voices the Trumpets the Vials the Voices and each Seal Trumpet Voice and Vial follows immediately upon its foregoing Seal Trumpet Voice and Vial and every seventh comprehends the following Sevens the seventh Seal the seven Trumpets the seventh Trumpet the seven Voices the seventh Voice the seven Vials and each precedent Seventh hath some grasp on all the following Sevens So the seventh Seal comprehends the Trumpets the Voices the Vials the seventh Trumpet the Voices and Vials the seventh Voice the seven Vials so admirably is this Prophecy united and interwoven And to other Division than this of the second Systeme of Prophecies I can by no means subscribe as of the Prophecy divided into the sealed and open Book-prophecy or the Prophecy of the Empire first and then of the Church For that remarkable part of the sealed Book-prophecy viz. the palm-bearing Company by peculiar Right pertains to the open Book or that must be so if there were such an open Book-prophecy and much of the open Book-prophecy allowing such a one must needs pertain to the sealed but indeed there is no such Thing as an open Book-prophecy in that place where it is said to be open'd for the Book was no sooner open'd but it was eaten and so absconded assoon as open'd till open'd by the Voices c. 14. as shall be farther clear'd nor is there any Prophecy of the second Systeme but pertains properly to the Church as within first the Pagan then the Christian then the Bestian State of the one Roman Empire and lastly of the Vniversal Empire and Kingdom of Christ. Now in this Order apocalyptical Both Visions and Times in the first Systeme run through the six Churches In the second through those four Sets of prophetical Tubes Seals c. 6. c. 7. c. 8. to v. of Trumpets c. 8. v. 8. to the end of c. 11. of Voices c. 14. of the Vials c. 15. c. 16. and so laying these Chapters together the order is most exact except that in c. 7. There is an Anticipation of the Triumph of the New Jerusalem from v. 9. to the end In c. 11. there is a Collection of the whole State of the Apostasie during the six Trumpets into one Body together as it consists of the Sufferings of the Witnesses and the Tyranny of the Bestian Apostasie excepting some close Intimations in the very Composure of the Symbolisms of those Trumpets for the great Reasons hereafter to be given that refer to the same Apostacy and begin at the first Trumpet And then in the twelfth and thirteenth Chapters the extravasated Account of the Dragon watching the Woman and her manly Birth the Dragon cast down and the manly Birth caught up is to be reduc'd within its most proper Channel viz. the fifth and sixth Seals And this prepares for the right understanding of the Beast mention'd ch 11. as deriv'd from the Dragon c. 13. arriving his Number 666 which belongs to the six first Trumpets and it is there fitly set to prepare for the Vision of the Lambs Number c. 14. And as to the Chapters 17. 18. and 19. they are most evidently the Progress of the History of the seventh Vial and the full Relation of its Effects To prepare for which an extraordinary Description of the Woman or Great City reigning over the Kings of the Earth opposite to the Woman in the Wilderness is prefix'd and on her occasion a more perfect Portraicture of the Beast and of his ten Horns or Kings is given in preparation to the Judgment executed on all c. 19. And then the Milennial State being drawn up c. 20. it is carried on to the end of Apocalyptical Time as it reaches into the complemental State of Eternity which the Prophecy briefly absolves and then returns upon its more proper Subject or the 1000 Years of the New Jerusalem c. 21. c. 22. Now this Order began with the Preface to the Churches Vision of the first Systeme c. 1. and then the Preface of the second Systeme and lastly a Postscript returning especially c. 4. c. 5. c. 22. 16. to the Vials as given by the first Angel of the Vials This Order is I say the whole entire natural Order of this Apocalyptical Prophecy which is contriv'd indeed suitable to the Secrecy and Mysticness of the Prophecy so as often symbolically to declare when these Prophecies would have the clearest and most efficacious Discoveries in the Church viz. after the Half Time when the Thunders had utter'd their Voices and the Book open was shewn in the hand of Christ. That was the just Season for the Discovery of the Apostacy in the suffering of the Witnesses and the Tenthly Fall of the City and then after the seventh Trumpet
remove any seeming Objection arising from the sudden change from such a Glory into the Apostacy so soon after entring and the Witnesses going into Sackcloth and the Woman into the Wilderness SECT VII In which is given the description of the other Beast and his first Administration of the Witnesses and their first manner of Testimony both before the Beast's forty two Months with the Answer of an Objection and Reflections upon this Interval IN these Enquiries I have now explain'd whatever I can conceive needful from the Beginning of the Trumpets to the forty two Months of the Beast except the Delineation of that which the Prophecy calls the other Beast under whose Conduct the Gentiles were brought into the outer Court and Holy City so far as the Action of that other Beast led to the grand Apocalyptick Beast And to inlighten this Interval of Time the more viz. from the Apostasie beginning in the 1260 Days at 437 unto the Beasts 42 Months 475 I find it most convenient to consider most accurately the State of the Witnesses as Prophecy hath given any Light to the pointing of the Time of their whole Testimony and distinguishing the various States of it which Method I will endeavour to follow through this whole Line of Time viz. to observe the Advances and Declinations of the Bestian Kingdom and to adjust thereunto the Declinations and Descents of the Witnesses into the deepest of their obscure State and their Re-advances till their Resurrection and Ascension for the one and the other States rise and fall alternately whose motion herein the Woman the Church was exactly conform'd to being indeed the very same one with another except the Notion of Single and Collected Single in the Witnesses Collected in the Church as before said But because the Action especially was sustain'd by the Seed or the Witnesses the Line of that Action is most particularly drawn over them the Witnesses I begin then with the other Beast but I will adventure to lay no stress upon the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Another as if it did necessarily imply Another Order or a various Sub-specification of these two Beasts because I find this Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be according to this Prophecy significant of no more than a numerical individuating Difference But yet that these two are so different so solemn and great so momentously different Iconisms as are given of each of them and their Action by the holy Spirit sufficiently argue That we may then have the perfect Pourtracture of this other Beast who manag'd all things from the Beginning of the Apostacy during the wounded State of the Grand Beast in one viz. the sixth of its Heads call'd the Dragon and the Infancy of the Grand Beast viz. as united to its seventh Head call'd in this Prophecy most often The Beast We may thus behold Him the other Beast so far as his Description reaches while the Grand Beast lay wounded which was till the forty two Months began by which great Preparation will be made to understand that Grand Beast 1. This other Beast must as Beast does every where in Prophecy import a Body of Men under some Superiority of Power I must here remember again to except to the Translation of the Four not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 salvage Beasts but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gentle Animals or living Creatures Revel 4. and elsewhere least it should cause any mistake but else both in Daniel and the Apocal. Beast does imply a People under united to some Principality above and because here the Principality was in a Peerage or Aristocracy it resides in the two Horns 2. Because it is a Beast of Continuance as plainly appears by its Action from the very Apostasie to the Number of the Beast viz. from 437 to 725 and after that to the very Destruction of the Beast and false Prophet it must be a fluid successive Body as other Prophetical Beasts are 3. The inward sense of it must be a Body of False Prophets under Chiefs mitred Prophets for all the marks of false Prophetism are upon them this Beast therefore rises low mean feeble stilly out of the Earth without warlike force or noise it works Miracles pretends to call for Fire from Heaven like Elias that is it threatens Men with the Wrath and Judgments of God it deceives it caused men to do by saying or teaching After its Administration as a Beast is past because swallowed up in the Grand Bestianism it is several Times call'd the False Prophet as being expressive of its very Essence and wherein it is most nearly united to the Beast Revel c. 16. 13. c. 19 20. c. 20. 10. 4. It must be Antichristian and seeing Antichristianism is a false mock abused Christianity it must have of Christian also in it else it could not be Antichristian it hath therefore the Resemblance of a Lamb in its two Horns but it is Antichristian specifickly working by Fraud to surprise the Kingdom of Christ ambitious haughty idolatrous persecutory cruel thirsting after blood for it spake as a Dragon altho therefore it hath two Horns like a Lamb yet not the Lamb Christ Jesus for he hath seven Horns Revel 5. 6. agreeable to all the Apocalyptical Sevens except the Dragon 's and the Beast's seven Heads Seven not because They were symbolically but literally seven Successions of Government as the Rev. 17. Womans seven Mountains 5. Seeing the great Subject of the Apocalype is the Roman Empire in its last State when the Kingdom of Christ was begun in the Gospel and to appear in Glory after that last State of the Roman Empire the last of those four Imperial Canales of Time it must therefore be that this pseudo prophetical Beast under its two Horns is compounded of the upper and under the dignified and inferiour False Prophets of the Eastern and Western Empire And seeing we shall find that the Grand Beast is Roman it will thence appear This Beast must be so seeing its whole Ministry is about that Grand Beast which is Roman 6. It must be after the Grand Beast in some prophetical Respect or Notion of that Grand Beast for it is call'd the first Beast in compare with this other Beast yet this other Beast must be before it in regard of Action for it does all for it viz. It is after it as the Grand Beast is one from its very Beginning or Foundation of the Roman Empire under its seven Heads successively it is after it in regard of Procuration of the Cure of its Wound of the Exercise of its Power while it lay wounded all which speak it in being before this other Beast But it is before this very grand Beast as under its seventh Head for it erects it into its Headship by speaking as a Dragon by keeping alive the Bestian Power and in exercise while the sixth Head lay wounded till the VVound was heal'd by the seventh Head succeeding and then
Wither of all the Greenness of Religion For so Scripture Prophecy both designs before-hand for and after derives from it self The Distribution of their dreadful Effects to a five months of Torment upon men like the stroke of a Scorpion while it was a vexation to understand the Report we suppose according to History was their first invading the World in general and hovering over the Apostate Kingdom The swiftness of their Success was so prodigious that it could not but be thought that the Lord uttered his Voice before his Army and that as his Camp was very great so he was strong that executed his Word that the Day of the Lord was very terrible and none could abide it before their Face all People were much pained and all Faces gather'd Blackness The continual Tidings of their Victories and Successes was to be continually tormented as with Job's Messengers or with the stroak of a Scorpion a not being kill'd but a living in pain But when this Army drew nearer into Italy and even to Rome it self in the second five Months when it enter'd the very Gates of that great City they ran up the Walls and enter'd in at the Windows to pillage and plunder and were also perpetually striking with the Tails of not only their false Religion but in Contempt and Scorn of the Antichristian Idolatry and Image-worship it was worse than a speedy Death or a total Conquest the prophetical Death here intended especially when it came to cruel Slavery It was no wonder then men sought for Death that is a quiet State although of being conquered and in Subjection and could not find it it fled from them for God had determin'd them this lingring Torment and not a speedy Death or Conquest over them and even these Locusts could do no more than what was commanded them and given to them Now their Power the five second Months was more than the first it was not only to torment with their terrour and report but to hurt with a real Presence but it was only to hurt and not to kill as the Turkish Cavalry was to do at Constantinople so they could do no more than hurt they could not kill the Bestian Rome and Empire were to survive them Thus they had five Months and five Months of Action eminent grand Action but seeing they had the space of five Months more in their Fourhundred and thirty years they must be suppos'd to come out of a first Formation and rude Preparations or to be at a distance from the effects of Torment and Hurt upon the unsealed Anticbristian especially Western State And at their latter end of Power a winterly Torpor and Deadness seis'd them and the Turkish Power drove them into a desolate Land and their stink as of an Army of dead Serpents came up that yet in their Time had done great things and so is their Memory at this day And thus History and Prophecy will agree in the account of their Time at least in relation to the Bestian Kingdom besides supposable Interspersions or Truces of their Impressions upon the Earth of the fallen Star or Antichrist The just and natural ensuing Woe upon this first as close Arg. 4 as the two Bestian Times one to another and yet distinguish'd too under the very same Mahometan King or Angel of the bottomless Pit and in the Entail of the same serpentine Religion is a very persuasive Argument of the due Explication of these things in Prophecy whose Situation Connexion and Sequence one upon another even as the Hour Day Month and Year upon their Five Months Five Months and their Vacation or Non-Term of Action is close and inseparable but this will rise into a farther Observation upon that part of the Line in the mean time as a strong support it helps to sustain the Point we are upon The very great fitness of these Locusts under their King Mahomet is every way most admirable to be a Scourge and Arg. 5 Woe upon the Antichristian Empire and their Months or Half-Moon to be a portentous Paraselene or another Moon upon them They are a mock-mock-state every way to them by the severe Vengeance of God an Antichrist to Antichrist coming by Sergius the Monk out of their very Smoak let out by the Key-bearing fallen Star Their King an Angel of the bottomless Pit rivals the Star of the bottomless Pit the Monarchy of the Beast and his ten Horns is mated by the Monarchy of this King and one Vniversality by the other the pseudo or false Prophetism of the one by that of the other the Miracles of the one by those of the other the Superstition of the one and the Cruelty and Bloodiness of the one by those of the other both are sharers in the Roman Empire each hath his Rome one old Rome the other new Rome each of which Imperial Cities are in this prophetick Emblem Thirds of Men. Both aspire to the Possession of Jerusalem as having the promise of Universal Monarchy and Dominion but both mistake the Jerusalem in Bondage for that which comes down from above at which both will be vanish'd Both are Draconick and oppose and stave off the true Kingdom of Christ both oppress the Witnesses and Servants of God but the Beast by single War with them the King of the Locusts in the general and mistaking the false Church for the true and its earthly Glory for the Glory of Christ and so cannot hurt the true Glory both last the one as a Bestian Kingdom the other as a Woe till the end of the 1260 Days Both are to be utterly destroy'd before the Glorious Kingdom of Christ But the latter is a Judgment and a Woe-Trumpet on the former both as it is Christian in Pretence and Profession to which Mahomet is a profess'd Foe and as it is Antichristian Idolatrous and Superstitious for so it is scorned and abused and derided as well as persecuted by Mahometanism Now to ballance these two Antichristianisms one with another and the Interest of Satan in them it is thus to be settled in one Satan is as an Angel of Light falling from Heaven and making use of the Key of the bottomless Pit as if it were the Key of the Kingdom of Heaven in the other he is plainly the Angel of the bottomless Pit and acts as the Destroyâ—r Now the first must be necessarily the most hateful to God because it is the greatest Blasphemy its Moon eclipses the Kingdom of Christ most directly and as it were in the Draconick Nodi surpris'd it when it was to appear at the casting down Satan from Heaven and the manly Birth caught up to the Throne of God upon which Antichristianism as the Finess of Sathanism Mahometanism was provided as a Scourge and Woe of the coursest and thickest of the bottomless Pit and the blackest Appearance of the Angel of it and therefore though Mahometanism shall be finally destroyed and sent back to the bottomless Pit yet Antichristianism shall receive greater
A Scripture-Line OF TIME Drawn in Brief From the Lapsed Creation to the Restitutution of all Things Discours'd at large upon the 2300 Ev. Morn Dan. 8. 14. And their Collateral Lines From CYRVS to the Kingdom of CHRIST in the New Jerusalem By T Beverley Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the 1335 Dayes viz. the Last of the 2300. Dan. 12. 12. We are not of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Apostasie to Perdition but of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Apostolick Faith to the saving of the Soul Heb. 10. 39. Printed according to a Calendar 1684. ERRATA THE Errors in this Impression are either small by change of a Letter mispointings sometimes want of Points or of a Parenthesis which it is hop'd the considering Reader will easily over-rule by the sence The more notorious are thus to be corrected before the reading the Book p. 5. l. 6. before the end for 230 r. 2300. l. 4. before the end for as r. was p. 12. l. 23. for shape r. scope p. 20. l. 17. for Revelational r. Revelation p. 36. l. 13. before the end for 2302. r. 2300. p. 63. l. 23. for Kingdoms r. Kingdom p. 66. 16. blot of p. 82. l. 28. blot was Second Part. At p. 66. of the second part some more noted Errata's are mark'd which the Reader is desir'd to mend before Reading IN the Title for XXII r. XVI Sections p. 39. l. 11. before the end for 626. r. 622. p. 46. l. 11. after hundred blot the Comma p. 47. l. 25. for sufferings r. sufferers p. 58. l. 1. blot all of them p. 103. l. 12. after Tribunes blot of the People p. 110. l. 6. after Head blot Com. p. 11. l. 16. after by blot him p. 127. at l. 13. Marg. Argument 2. p. 128 at l. 7. Margent Argument 3. p. 135. l. 16. r. Surd p. 146. l. 23. r. Tempt one p. 151. l. 3. r. Grandiloquence p. 163. l. 11. remove the Colon after Smyrna to after camein p. 175. l. 20. blot the Figures after with In the Preface p. 4. l. 10. after Discourses r. without p. 4. l. 11. after compar'd r. with THE PREFACE TO Those who desire to Hear and Vnderstand the Words of Scripture Prophecy My very Honoured Friends THE Scripture Line of Time which I affirm is that which rises from the excellent State of All Things at Creation when followed an immediate Deordination flowing from the Apostasie and Fall of Man through the Serpents Temptation But by the interposal of the Promised Seed of the Woman That State was borne up from utter Ruine and sinking and a Prospect given of a Restitution of all Things by a new Creation when the Serpents Head should be bruis'd Now of this Restitution all the holy Prophets have been speaking since the Worlds Beginning and they have led along the Course of things to it in the Exaltation of Him whose Name is the Word of God the Alpha and Omega of the written Word till He appears encircled with many Crowns Revel 19. At which That old Serpent the Devil and Sathan is laid hold upon chain'd and seal'd up within his proper Abyss or Bottomless Pit and the New Creation is establish'd in the Kingdom of this Many-Crown'd King Which Kingdom can never be broken nor leaves a possibility of any Succession to it self But it is deliver'd up into the Hand of the Father from which it is receiv'd before which Delivery or Resignation shall be the perfect and final Contusion of the Serpents Head Himself and all his Off-spring not written in the Book of Life being cast with Death and Hell into the Lake of Fire which is the second Death Rev. 20. This blessed State therefore is not a single Sabbath but a Sabbatism of a thousand years that remains to the People of God conjoyn'd inseparably with the Sabbatism of Eternity even as the seventh day Sabbath of the Creation was connected with united in and immediately succeeded by the Christian first day Sabbath or Our Lords Day at his Resurrection This Line of Time I then avow is drawn from that former Sabbath of the First Creation to the Sabbatism of the New Creation as from Point to Point without Ostentation or formal Profession of such a Line yet so that it is all along and especially the Commissures and Joynts of the parcel and particular Lines are ennobled with some illustrious Symbols of the down fall of Sathans Kingdom and of the Glory of the Kingdom of the Seed or of the Teknogony of the Woman as may be abundantly made good in all Instances At what I have aim'd and for what end in the calculation of this Line I have prepared a full Discourse may be seen by the Calendar annexed to this Preface what I have perform'd may be seen hereafter if God permit the Publication of that Preparation upon the whole Line At this Time I have only presented my Endeavours upon that grand Prophetick Line of Daniels 2300 Evenings Mornings which is by the admirable contrivance of the Divine Wisdom given first entire and so preserv'd as not to be under any such Prejudice from the formidable variation of Copies as the Ages of the Patriarks are and then the parcel or collateral Lines either in number'd Numbers or as I hope will appear on very good Proof rise exactly adequate to the 2300 so that the whole and the Parts demonstrate and assure one another besides I vouch those undoubted and indisputable Lines delineated in the Calendar as far as to Cyrus indisputable I do not mean so much when they began or how much Time they comprehend For so I know there are many Doubts through Difference of Copies or otherwise but in this indisputable that Holy Writ hath taken care there should be an Account of Time so far And this I vouch as an Argument That he who begun a Line from the Creation continued it to Cyrus and defin'd by seventy weeks the space from the word going forth to the Messiah hath every where fill'd it up and continued it to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ seeing he as easily commands Time future by Prophecy as Time past by History and I do find both are certain and definite to that preciseness as to be twice once in History once in Prophecy said to be the self same day viz. the coming out of Egypt Exod. 12. 40. and the Vision of the New Jerusalem Ezek. 40. 1. And that very Charactarism of Ezekiels 390 and 40 days lying on his two sides I look upon as an especial contrivance of the Holy Spirit to mediate between the Historical and Prophetick Pares of Time that being part Historick viz. to the Time of the Siege especially and more or less so to that Vision of the New Jerusalem and of very great Symbolical Importance also concerning the state of the Twelve Tribes till the Times of the Gentiles that entred in Nebuchadnezzars Universal Monarchy were fulfill'd of all which with the answer of all Doubts
come But now the next Vision of the Four Beasts gives us in Prophetick Cypher the very measure of the Beast's Duration as that Beast is symboll'd by the little Horn viz. Time Times and half a Time But because this does not assure us when those Days begin nor consequently where they end the Vision we are now entring upon will teach us that And it hath a threefold Aspect upon Time to this end 1. It continues the principal Line of Time from Creation which because there will not be Scripture History to maintain it and also because and especially because the Times of the Gentiles in whose History Scripture little concerns it self are drawn by it without lesser Periods but as the Accounts of the Churches Case in relation to them after requires it they are given in one entire Line or Sum 2300 Days beginning contiguously from Ezekiel's 430 Days and continuously also to so many Days for Years uniting with the former parcel-lines and with the 430 as the last given Line and so one whole Line from the Creation is constituted by uniting these several Parcels by a divine Certainty 2. It determines the particular Time from the beginning of the Persian Monarchy at literal Babylon fallen to mystical Babylon falling as also at literal Jerusalem restor'd to new Jerusalem appearing for Antichrist broken intends the former and the Sanctuary cleans'd the latter 3. It is a measure of the length of particular Lines given after this from Time to Time as they are given in Scripture that as it self is distinguish'd into several Periods by them so it is a Boundary to them when to begin and end that together they may be symmetral to this whole Line neither longer nor shorter and therein be justly proportion'd to one another even till this Line call'd most emphatically by our Lord the Times of the Gentiles Luc. 21. 24. be fulfill'd That the Vision then and the Line of Time it carries away be rightly understood these things are necessary to be premised 1. That the principal thing in these Visions of Daniel except that single Vision next in order to that we are upon that centers in Messiah's Coming and Death is the glorious Kingdom of Christ and of his Saints having the Dominion throughout the Earth and the Destruction of that peculiar Enemy of his Kingdom who is justly call'd Antichrist immediately preceeding his Kingdom and before which it could not appear Upon the Account of this Kingdom of Christ having its way made by the Destruction of Antichrist there are so many Representations of the other Monarchies of which else we may conceive the Holy Spirit had no more touch'd their Prophecy than it does their History which it never does but in relation to the Church or to set out God's Government Universal over the World and his Judgment on sinful Nations We find therefore in these Visions of the Monarchies Antichrist next to the Kingdom of Christ is the greatest Subject and more Words laid out upon him than upon all the rest so it is in Nebuchadnezzar's Dream The Feet and Toes Dan. 2. v. 34. 41. c. take up a greater Proportion of the Dream and Exposition than all the rest and then the Kingdom of Christ flows out upon the Image broken in the Feet So in the Vision of the four Beasts the fourth Beast and in that the little Horn imploys the greatest part of the whole Vision in its Description and Judgment and the Kingdom of Christ then breaks out upon it so proportionably in this Vision He then that would understand it must be arm'd with this Rule as preparatory 2. It must be worthy our Advertency that the Antichristian State in these Prophecies and in the Revelation is rank'd with Heathenism and Gentilism and treated with much less regard than even Idolatrous Israel or Judah God not taking any notice of them as his People but as mere Gentiles so that I do not remember any Parallelism of them with the People of Israel even in their Apostacy but altogether with those that were Aliens as Balaam Jezebel the Daughter of Elth Baal King of the Sydonians with Sodom Egypt and most notoriously Babylon and so is represented by the Gentiles treading the outward Court And thus the Corruptions of Divine Worship among the Jews were express'd by entertaining the manners of the Gentiles defiling themselves with them falling in love with them bringing them into the Sanctuary The Beast united with the heathen idolatrous Monarchy coming into the Seat of the Dragon is the grand Apocalyptick Figure for Antichrist and nothing of Christ allow'd him except to the other Beast having borns as a Lamb while he spake as a Dragon nor of the Jews to the Antichristian Rev. 13. 11. Gentiles but that in the Beginning of the Apostacy within the prophetical Church of Smyrna Rev. 2. 9. They said They were Jews but were not but lyed and were the Synagogue of Sathan nor any thing of Jerusalem to the Seat of Antichrist except one only allusion to the City where Our Lord was crucified where a Heathen Power presided in Revel 11. 8. his Condemnation and that a Roman too to signifie its extream Hate to the True Christ It s deep dye in Blood and its irrecoverable Destruction for which Jerusalem was so infamous and for which the Roman Church like the Jewish Church was broken off from the true Olive and all consider'd as a Church in Conjunction with it as the Apostle had foretold Rom. 11. 6. make the Allusion On the other side The True Christianity and Worship of it are symboliz'd by the pure Jewish Worship The Temple its Measures Ordinances as they stood in Israels best Estate are the Ichnography of the Perfect Pure Christian Church But the drawing men from True Christianity to Antichristianism the Persecution of Men for it the last Deliverance from Anti-Christianism and its Persecutions are continually given out in Parallellismes betwixt the same Things heretofore between the Jews and the Gentiles and unite with the Jews great Deliverance and the New Jerusalem at last These two things are most necessary to be premonish'd for the true Interpretation of this Vision and other Visions also as we shall see as we pass along to preserve all clear and free from Confusion And upon this Premonition I say this Vision beginning with the Persian Reign goes on through the Grecian and so passes through the whole Roman Monarchy first and last and describes a Line running parallel with the whole Times of the Gentiles after the Babylonish Empire at the end of which Ezekiels 430 Days ended as hath been made to appear And they being the last Joynt of the Line from Creation this Line of 230 Days joyns with it and continues the whole Acts. 3. 21. Line from Creation to the Restitution of all Things Upon this Premonition I say further That Antiochus as the most Infamous Heathen Prince for treading down the holy and pure Jewish Worship from
The great attendance of the Divine Spirit is to the Line of Time which it joyns to the Jewish Lines that went before and particularly to Ezekiels 430 Days or Years which just comprehended and ended with the Babylonish Monarchy which Monarchy in a real Calendar I have before more than once said began the Gentiles Times during which Jerusalem lay and was to lye under Foot but just here the Babylonish Monarchy is no farther given in Type although it remains in the former Types to the last but the Future Line of Time is given in 2300 Evenings Mornings from the Persian Monarchy beginning And this latter could not have been given with Prophetick Secrecy and yet also without Confusion if the former had not been omitted whose Time given before could not enter into this but it must confound Time every way But thus this principal Line reaches from Literal Babylon fallen to mystical Babylon fallen from Literal Jerusalem near to be rebuilt with its Temple to the New Jerusalem which much adorns this Line of Time and sets these two just even from Point to Point It is true The Four as Vniversal Monarchies are together the great Canale of Time till the glorious Kingdom of Christ whatever great States or Kingdoms were coexistent with them or any of them at any Time or have arisen since do not mingle with this Stream which runs strait on to this end nor are any of themselves adopted into it sooner than the just Time of their Succession into Vniversal Monarchy nor do they abide any longer in it as a Calendar of Time after once they are fallen from that Vniversal Monarchy each successive Monarchy subduing the precedent takes it up and in the Roman Monarchy the Dragon resigns his Seat and Power to the Beast the Imperial to the Antichristian without any Conquest to whom as the seventh Roman Head and Vniversal King the ten Kings giving their Power the fourth Beast still survives differently from all the rest of the Successions for each Succession was by Force besides this so in This the whole Line is continued to the Kingdom of Christ But if any of these Kingdoms falls in its order of Succession and becomes great afterwards on another Bottom as the Persian subdued by the Grecian the Grecian by the Roman the one afterwards rising in its own Name the other in Mahomet's yet they disturb not this order nor so much as enter a-new into this Calendar of Time And because of this real substantial Calendar of Time in these Monarchies the first Act of Christ's Kingdom is recorded by the Apostle Paul to be the putting down all Rule Authority 1 Cor. 15. â—6 and Power referring especially to these four Monarchies the great Emblem of such Rule and Power viz. when the Kingdoms of this World become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ Rev. 11. 15. Then all this Calendar of Rule and Power is at an end That therefore which is most considerable in the Explanation of this Course of Time farther to us is That whereas the Gentiles Times viz. this substantial Calendar of the four Monarchies began in the Babylonian so long as that Calendar is in presenting the Babylonian is never omitted but is the Capital in it but when it comes to this Numeral Line or the 2300 Ev. Mor. it is then omitted because the Numeral Line runs not upon any Revolutions of these Monarchies but upon some eminent Providence of God towards his Church either of Mercy towards it or its suffering under the Tyranny of some of these Monarchies especially the Bestian as will be seen all along which is a very clear Reason why the Babylonian is first so chief in the Calendar of the Monarchies for that being one and the first it must be so in the Real But when it comes to the Numeral it is of no use because it had been given in the last numeral Line as then existing it is not given in the following Numeral because it was then past and would disorder the Account The real Calendar is taken from each Vniversal Monarchy that had the Jews particularly the Tribe of Judah in Subjection and so oppress'd Christ's Kingdom here the Babylonian was the first the Persian the second the Grecian the third the fourth the Roman under which as Imperial first the Jews were desolated The manly Birth or Christ as King was watch'd as by a Dragon Christians lay as martyr'd under the Altar and then under it as Antichristian lies subdued the spiritual Israel till both That and the Twelve Tribes are restor'd by Christ's Kingdom So these are the Times of the Gentiles before which neither the twelve Tribes nor the Apostolical Church are fully restor'd or can be From all which it is most evident that though the Vision is not dated from the Persian Monarchy as if it was given for the Persian Monarchy's sake yet the 2300 Ev. Morn begin just when that begins and very fitly because the Persian Cyrus found the Temple fallen and the daily Service of the Jews taken away and proclaims the Restoration which makes the Date as we shall see And this is the first thing that was to be prov'd The second Proposition follows viz. That the twenty Propos 2. three hundred days of this Vision as also the Things contained in it run down and reach to the end of All or to the Glorious Kingdom of Christ. Of this we have many Arguments in the Vision it self which having briefly directed first unto I will endeavour by farther strong Proof from the whole course of Prophecy to establish it Every Vision of Daniel's except the following Vision of the Argu. 1 seventy Weeks which hath the high and noble Subject of the Death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ making an end of Sin and bringing in everlasting Righteousness but else every Vision runs expresly to the last End and Kingdom of Christ. And whether even that does not after the Desolation of Judaism give a Prospect of their Restoration also signified by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or until the Consummation until which their Desolations are to last and no longer I leave to the Learned however It certainly bears its part in carrying on Time to that end But the very Shape and Design of all the other Visions is most apparently That End and therefore I conclude of This also The often mention of the End Three Times the Vision and Argu. 2 the End are conjoyn'd At the time of the End the Vision shall Dan. 8. be and the Exposition of the Vision is to make Daniel know what shall be in the last end of the Indignation and at the Time appointed the End shall be Now what End can be so absolute as to be understood by its naming only except that End of Christ's Kingdom so well known by the former Visions and by the following Vision chap. 11. v. 27. When because of this End to which every thing has led and made no
is summ'd up in Ev. and Mor. And all this we may conceive least the 2300 Ev. Mor. should be misapplied to that part viz. of the Daily which is proper only to the whole So then if the Line be commensurate with the Vision it must begin with the Persian Monarchy and not with the daily taken away for That in whatever sense expounded was not till long after in the same manner If the Vision goes on to the great visional End in Daniel viz. the breaking of all the Monarchies in Antichrist and the Kingdom of Christ appearing in the Sanctuary cleans'd it cannot be applied to any taking that was begun and ended long before that End as all takings away of what kind soever that have been thought of did and most particularly that of Antiochus except that taking away by Antichrist which therefore is the only taking away here to be understood And from every Particular of this Discourse it undeniably appears These Ev. and Mor. are not mere Natural Nycthemers but 2300 Ev. and Mor. importing so many Years for a less space of Time could not contain so great a Vision and its Charge If a Line of Time were given applicable only to the Time Argu. 3 of the daily Sacrifice taken away there would be some certain Time fix'd when that taking away was to begin according to all Usage in this Prophecy The 70 Weeks are dated from the going forth of the Word the 1335 from the taking away of the daily And in the Apocalyptick Prophecy we shall find some certain Epoch of each numeral Line but there being no Epoch to these 2300 Ev. Mor. but the general Epoch of the Vision one and the same as we shall find with the seventy Weeks That must be the Epoch Seeing the Answer And the Sanctuary shall ba cleans'd Argu. 4 and the Exposition of the Vision touching the King exercising the Tyranny Broken without hand gives the full End of all Tyranny on the Saints and of all taking away their daily Worship as it was under Babylon continued to be taken away at that Time and after by Antiochus last of all by Antichrist it is plain according to Scripture-Usage The End is principally intended which such a course of Time is to attain As the complemental End of the 70 Weeks making an end of Sin c. is chiefly pursued in the next Vision The end of Wonders and the State of Blessedness in the 1335 Days of the last Vision and here the Sanctuary cleans'd and Antichrist broken is the main Intention and from the present Vision at that NOW given to those Ends there would be 2300 Ev. and Mor. So that the taking away the daily does not spread it self upon the whole 2300 Ev. Mor. and so end with them but e're all such Things as a tyrannous taking away the daily Worship of the Saints would be at an end it would be so many for the Vision indeed spreads it self upon all the 2300 being for those many days but the taking away begun but at its own Time as we shall see and ended at the 2300 ending so many from the Time of the Vision and so was unto them that is whenever it began it reached to the end of the 2300 of the whole Vision e're the Sanctuary was cleans'd That these 2300 Ev. Mor. are a Line of Time of so great Argu. 5 comprehension as from Literal to Mystical Babylon's Fall from the Restoration of Literal Jerusalem to the New Jerusalem may be argued from several extraordinary Notes of Honour upon this Line and the Vision of it 1. The very drawing it out to so great and unusual a length is unparallel'd in all the Scripture so that if it were not great in its Beginning as that State of Things would admit great in the End as that State of Things imports and great in its subordinate Lines it could no ways answer the Magnificence of so great a Number especially when the prophetical Abbreviation of Time was come into use by so peculiar an Ordination of God in Ezekiel Even this does sufficiently argue where it begins whither it tends what space of Time it spans Cypher or short-hand was of Old in prophetick use a Week for seven Years Gen. 29. 27. c. 41. v. 26. Numb 14. 34. fourty Days for forty Years in the Wilderness seven Ears of Corn for seven Years seven Times for seven Years Dan. 4. 22. But God declar'd and promulg'd it as the Law of Interpretation of prophetick Time Ezek. 4. So we understand seventy Weeks Weeks of Years without controul or 490 Years Dan. 9. 24. Now if contrary to so many Instances of the prophetical Usage of such Abbreviatures it should draw out Years into their full Length or Number of Days How could we understand the Divine Mind in it especially on no greater occasion than Antiochus's Tyranny as shall be after argued Prophecy that amasses Time by giving Years in Days cannot rationally be suppos'd to wiredraw Years into Days But this is not All There are fourty Days for fourty Years 390 and 40 Days for so many Years seventy Weeks for 490 Years 1260 Days for so many Years and Months proportionable But 2300 Ev. Mor. taken for so many Years is very august and speaks a divine Zeal to grasp that great End of putting down all Rule and Authority and Power and Christ taking his Power to himself and Reigning yet not so as to diminish from Government but to perfect it to its highest Ends under himself and his Supreme and Universal Monarchy To grasp this I say within so great a Line given from the very Time in which it was given This great Number is given by the divine Numberer 2. For Jesus Christ the Lord of this Prophecy hath the peculiar Title of Palmoni to which whatever sense we give it Dan. 8. 13. admonishes us to enquire for something extraordinary and if we rest in what is every way nearest The wonderful Numberer it comes exactly to the wonderful Line and the great Secrets to be found in it 3. Gabriel the heavenly Envoy upon all Declarations of the Kingdom of Christ as Dan. 9. Luc. 1. is employ'd in its Exposition 4. Daniel's extraordinary Title Son of Man allowed him only in this Vision as bringing to him the glorious Appearance of Christ of which Glory Ezekiel being more often an Eye-witness Cap. 1. Cap. 10. Cap. 43. 2 3. is more often call'd Son of Man For if the Learned Dr. Lightfoot's Account of this Title as a Chaldaism were good Daniel who was the more eminent Chaldean should be oftnest invested with it On the contrary He only in this Vision is so stiled but Ezekiel often and they alone enjoy it under the supreme Son of Man of all the Prophets and Daniel never but here shewing the high pitch this Vision makes and its close approach to Christ's Kingdom from which his other Visions do but derive or are but preparatory to it Nor is Daniel's Attention and
sort of Idolatrous Worship of Christ ecclips'd and drowned And all this was fulfill'd especially from that War concerning the Worship of Saints and Images 725 or 26 at the famous 666 as is after to be shewn Now the Pourtray of these Things is admirable in this prophetical Table and the Travers from the God who is superiour that is Christ to the whole Gentry of Saints in such a confused manner as the Text gives it The Maozzim and the strange God whom he shall acknowledge and encrease with Glory and shall cause them to rule over many so passing out of one into another that the very Frame of the Context does above all Expression by the Elegancy of the Scheme exquisitely present it and it hath been with wonderful Fidelity expounded by that ever to be acknowledg'd Duumvirate of Prophetical Interpreters Dr. More and Mr. Mede 5. It is very extraordinary in this Prophecy that upon this very Idolatry and at the very Time when it was contested by the Iconoclastick Emperours so profess'd Enemies to Images and Worship of Saints and yet sanction'd by the second Council of Nice however palliated by that of Frankford Cabbasut Notitia Eccles p. 314. which Palliation is yet abhorr'd and the Truth of the History of that Council decried at this Day At that very Time the Mahometan King of the South by the Saracens or Locusts and after the King of the North the Turkish Horsemen according to the Military Language of Daniel's Time with his Chariots and Horsemen like a Whirlwind and with his Gallies or Ships pass'd and overflow'd And this in the same order the Apocalyps after describes and at the same Degrees of Elevation The King of the South first does but push he torments and hurts but does not kill or swallow up in Conquest The King of the North comes after and does overflow and pass over and inherit a great part of the Antichristian Territory as the Beast would have it that is the Grecian Empire and yet leaves to the Beast his proper Bestian Demesne still for the sake of which Mahometan Kings of the South and the North as well as to draw a Line of prophetick History upon the sixty two Weeks from the Wall built to Messiah There is so much said of the King of the North and the South the Seleucidean and Lagidean Potentacies in the Prophecy 6. It is very observable after a Description of the very great Conquests and vast Tracts of the Turkish Empire v. 42. c. given His End is foretold upon the Mountains of Tzebi or the pleasant Holy Land and from thence the last end of Things and the glorious state of the Kingdom of Christ in the Lustre of his Saints and the Shame and Contempt of his Enemies seems to be given and not from the breaking the Image in the Bestian State of it which both here and in the Revelation is the most definite Thing that can be that the End should be so plac'd on the Beast These two Considerations yet will make a perfect Reconciliation of that Objection 1. That indeed The End of Things is not given from the Turkish End but from the Day of great Trouble such as never Dan. 12. 1. was since there was a Nation Now that Day of Trouble is the same with the Battel of Armageddon under the seventh Rev. 16. 16. c. v. 12. Vial. The Turkish Power therefore coming to its End and none helping it is under the sixth Vial poured out upon the River Euphrates that the way of the Kings of the East the Jews upon the Mountains of Tzebi might be prepar'd where the Turk receives his final Overthrow except the last Remainders of him rallied from this Fatal Blow on the Mountains of Tzebi may be congregated by the Spirit like a Frog that shall immediately after it go out of the mouth of the Dragon to the Battel of Armageddon upon which immediately follows that Resurrection describ'd in the Glory of the Saints the Ministers of Divine Truth who have turn'd many to Righteousness in an Excellency and the Enemies of Christ rising to everlasting Shame and Contempt according to Dan. 12. 1 2. c. and Revel 20. 4. c. to v. 7. Where we may observe the use of the Word Many to shew there is another Determination of the Future State of Mankind at the end of the 1000 Years both of them written in the Book and whose Names are not found in the Book of Life compare this with Apoc. 20. 15. From hence therefore compar'd with the Turkish Woe going off at the end of the sixth Trumpet Rev. 11. 14. It seems most probable but I dare not in Particulars be too definitive There is a reducing of the Turkish Power at that Trumpets end sending it to Euphrates from whence it came at the Beginning of it and a DE-PORTING it from Constantinople At the sixth Vial there is a drying it up in his proper Euphrates in some Encounter on the Mountains of Tzebi or Judea and what Mahometan Tail may remain shall be wholly cut off at Armageddon when neither Head nor Tail Tyranny nor False Prophetism to hurt with shall be left in the World 2. After the End had been thus given leading from the sixth Vial to the seventh Then the true orderly native course of that End is drawn within its proper Channels and Successions of Prophetick Time as is now in the next place to be demonstrated upon this Danielian Prophecy SECT VII Of the whole Line of Time from the Resurrection of Messiah unto the Time of Blessedness in the Lotts of the New Jerusalem and its Royal Priesthood On Dan. 12. v. 4. c. to the End AFter the full and ample Discovery according to the Allowance of Prophecy of the State of the Honourable Resurrection of the Servants of Christ and the despicable Resuscitation of the Wicked inclusive of all Misery follows the Delineation of Time Immediately upon this Declaration of this Resurrection Christ commands Daniel to shut the Book and seal it to the time of the End which End must be that End When many of them that sleep shall so awake But in regard of the Laxitude of the Expression The Time of the End we must understand The whole Time from Christ's Resurrection to this Resurrection is call'd The last Time The End The End of the World The last Days frequently in Scripture All Progresses in which Time are still yet nearer the End and so more the Time of the End and the last Days than the former Parts are This then being first conceiv'd Under some sealing more or less The Book must continue till Christ says Seal not the Sayings of this Book for the Time is at hand relating just to the Time of the Vials when the Kingdom of Christ was not only entred and proclaim'd and all Things were in finishing in the seventh Trumpet but the Time of the Dead that they should be judged was nigh when the
Reason such an Apostasie Apostate Church and falling Star must have a Foundation in Antiquity even while the Church was pure and in Sufferings and that very Church and its Bishop bore a part in it and yet was every day more and more under the Aspect of that Caution given to it Rom. 11. 17 18 c. and cspecially when it was crown'd in Constantine The Apostasie must come to be such a high enthron'd Apostacy Arg. 7 and so obscuring over-shadowing covering the true Church under its self that the very Apostatiz'd Synagogue usurp'd the Title of the true Church and yet because God owns the true Church only he speaks only to that as having under it in his Account the false Church and as bearing in the Type of the false Church polluted with Idolatry spiritual Fornication horrible Corruption of Manners while indeed the true Church is oppress'd and its Members martyred and slain as Antipapal Witnesses by the false Church and the Antipas true Church carries the Name of the enthron'd false Church the high and lofty Pergamus and therefore the Things that would be great if the Church were directly guilty of them are call'd small things and the threatning diverts from that true Church and falls on the false Church only I will come to thee and slay THEM with the Sword of my Mouth and as a Church partly abhorring the Pollutions of the false Church partly excommunicated and anathematiz'd hath the Promise of hidden Manna in the former case and of the white Stone of Absolution as to the latter Now I appeal to all Protestants Whether this was not truly the State of Things in the depth of the Apostasie And I appeal to all judicious Considerers of the Epistle to the Church of Pergamus Whether such a State could be given in more expressive and significant Shades It is then most evident There must be a Time wherein the Mystery of Iniquity began to work seeing it did begin gradually and that Beginning must be within the Apostolical Times for the Apostle declares it so to begin besides from this Neighbourhood it derives a Pretence of Authority tho' indeed there can be from thence no Authority gain'd to Antichristianism seeing the Scripture and not Neighbourhood to the Apostles Time is our Rule and seeing any Authority no higher deriv'd is stain'd and blemish'd by that Apostolical Declaration yet a Face a Countenance of Authority will be thence deriv'd to deceive and delude with It is also most evident The Progress of it must afterwards grow so high to be a Synagogue of Sathan and after to be a Throne of Sathan so that from hence may arise the Symbols of Ephesus Smyrna Pergamus After the Time that Antichristianism did thus prevail seeing Argu. 8 it was not to be perpetual and everlasting however long and that the Ruine of it is first to be gradual and then at last sudden there must be some preparatory Wrestles and Struggles for the Eluctation and Recovery of the true Church after this Oppression and being muffled up under the Name of a false Church call'd Catholick and Vniversal and HOLY MOTHER CHURCH at the same Time yet in regard of the remaining Power of Antichristianism united with the Powers of the Kings of the Earth the state of the true Church must needs be still cover'd under the Appearance of such a false Vniversal Church over and above it and so must in that regard bear in Type the Name of that apostate Daughter Thyatyra while in the mean time its Charity Jezebel Daughter of Ethbaal c. Faith Patience Service Works against that false Church grow continually greater and greater to the very last and its disownings of the Depths of Sathan and not accepting them for Deeps of Religion are very evident and eminent to its Praise The suffering Jezebel therefore or the false Church regnant over it because it cannot help it are small things against it because but Types for yet it is accounted so perfect as to be commanded only to hold its own and no other Burden of Command impos'd on it but to hold fast what it had already whereas to suffer Jezebel had it not been over-power'd had been a very heinous thing Now so much therefore of this True Church as did so eluctate and force its way out of the False was while it was forcing its way under one Notion or Denomination and when it had forc'd its way under another and while it in any parts and portions of it continues in the midst and within the Bowels of Kingdoms and States still keeping up and submitting themselves to the Power of Antichrist It may still retain its name Thyatyra and although the Time or interval it properly measures when the whole True Church was compris'd in it may be past yet it may continue in Being in no higher State then of Thyatyra till the appearance of the Morning Star and the fall of the Tenth of the Great City Now it is most evident there have been such earnest Motions of the True Church from under the Tyranny of Antichristianism There still continue such in Antichristian States and Kingdoms according to their Power I demand therefore what more agreeable and expressive Lineaments hereof could be given then in the Church of Thyatyra first espying and as under Affliction looking for the first dawns of Light and after advanc'd to Rule the Nations c. in the New Jerusalem After the Emersion and actual manumission of several parts of the True Church from Antichristianism and a settlement Argu. 9 in Recess and Separation from it some Churches through the Favour of Princes States and their Laws entred into a Condition of outward Splendor and Glory Riches Power and Authority of which the Sardius Stone may be a fit emblem But this outward Elevation not so becoming nor agreeable to the Patience of Christs Kingdom such a Church may be too much taken up about Rites and Jurisdictions and such extern Decencies and not press forward upon Things that remain in an order and sequence to the Kingdom of Christ and so fall under severe Censures This Church represents Churches which are yet accepted by Christ as True Churches they have on their own proper Title Names though but few that have not defiled their Garments And these few though best are not yet made the Church but the whole though in a sleepy and defiled State are the Church that has the few Names that had not defiled their Garments contrariwise in Pergamus and Thyatyra the false Church that calls it self the universal is not the Church but the Few suppress'd overcome Witnesses are yet the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the whole Earth which is a most remarkable Difference shewing Sardis a True Church Now since the Reformation it is known by general Observation There are such Churches that are in a State and Splendor Sardian but let the Application of the Characters remain till he comes that says He will Come
at an Hour this Splendid secure Symbolical Church thinks not of except the few undefiled Names and they of it that overcome who have Promises of greater Glory with Christ then this outward but this Church in its own Name hath the Honour to make a Line of Time from the Reformation to this Day and shall till that sudden coming of Christ upon it when such a State will be at an End There have been Societies of Christians that since the Reformation Arg. 10 have subsisted only upon the Principles of brotherly Love whose Door hath been attempted to be shut upon them as not allowed Churches of Christ or not in such a way of Worship who have had little outward strength who have yet kept the word of Christ and not denyed his Name in a strict adherence to his word only who have Enemies even of the Reformed who are relaps'd down to the same Pitch the Apostacy was at when styl'd the Synagogue of Sathan in the Church of Smyrna not receiving indeed the Beasts Number of 666. but too far link'd with the Corruptions of Antiquity after the Empire becoming Christian soon Antichristianis'd who though for the present at least seem irreconcileable with the Apostacy advanc'd to its Number yet have great Indignation against Philadelphia and its Members These shall at the Kingdom of Christ appearing come and worship at this Churches Feet and be forc'd to acknowledge Christ lov'd it whose Crown of Honour it is that it hath kept the Word of Christ's patience embrac'd the Purity of Christianity in a low and mean State and therefore the Glory the Kingdom the New Jerusalem shall crown it when the Hour of Temptation comes upon all the rest of the Earth and detects the Vanity of their Religion even of their false or defiled Christianity and the Church-state of those who have not overcome the Impurities of them who call'd themselves Churches Christians Reform'd and were not so but did lye This Church is not yet come to its proper space upon the Line of Time nor can do till the Witnesses rise out of their Sackcloth and the Kingdom of Christ be proclaim'd at the seventh Trumpet And how excellent a Type of all this is the Church Philadelphia There shall be a most perfect happy and glorious State Arg. 11 of the Church before the Resignation of the Kingdom to God and the Father during the thousand years the very first Recidivations from which shall be spew'd out of Christ's Mouth and the whole of Church-States drawn up into Eternity of which Loadicea is a clear Emblem viz. of the Recidivation and spewing out in that last State Now from All this it is most evident The Church of Ephesus may have place from the first preaching the Gospel till the cruel Persecution of Dioclesian into which last and most cruel One All the Christian Blood shed from the Resurrection sunk down as the Blood from Abel to Zacharias upon the Generation of the Jews in the Time of our Saviour and was requir'd of it therefore here Smyrna began to compleat the Churches Sufferings in being faithful unto Death and receiv'd the Crown of Life in the Symbol of Constantine's Christian Empire and so down to Theodosius the Great all which Time the Church continued pure although it began to be check'd by a Synagogue of Sathan Thus these two Churches contemporiz'd with the Seals Pergamus and Thyatyra ran along with the six first Trumpets under the Apostasie and Bestian Tyranny till in the latter part of the sixth Trumpet Thyatyra eluctated into the Reformation then several of the reform'd Churches settled into the Sardian state and draw the Line of Time with the last 180 of the 1260 Years in Conjunction with Thyatyra still existent tho' not intitled any longer to bear this Line and with Philadelphia not yet come to bear the Line of Time which last shall bear the last 75 Years from the Witnesses Rising and the Kingdom of Christ proclaim'd till the New Jerusalem and its thousand Years settle upon it and that new Cube of Time begin at the End of which the Laodicean Church no sooner begins but ends and an Amen is set to all Time by Eternity receiving it All which makes apparent There is no Inconsistency but a high Condecency in these seven representative Churches bearing a Line of Time contemporary with all Apocalyptical Time which ought to be shewn Hereby we see The Excellency of the Christian Church Remark and of our Union with it and Freedom from Schism depends not upon the Greatness the Antiquity the Primitiveness of Churches but upon the Divine Apostolickness of the Doctrine Worship Rules of Holy Life truly Christian Discipline wherein we unite with them The overcoming that evil of leaving the first Love that Christ had against the very first Church of Ephesus not made diminutive as in Pergamus and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 small or few things Thyatyra was more as to the Excellency of true Christianity than being of that Church The not mingling with the Synagogue of Sathan in the Church of Smyrna gave the Inculpableness and Honour to it and its Members The not being of the Apostate Church when it call'd its self Catholick in Pergamus and Thyatyra but keeping to the Truth of the Gospel constituted the true Church when the Proselites and Disciples of that Apostacy were the Proselites and Disciples of Balaam and the Children of Jezebel The few undefiled Names and Overcomers in Sardis tho' a Reform'd Church were of greater Estimation with Christ than the whole Church besides some of whose rigid Zealots of its Splendour and Power Uniformity of Rites it is to be fear'd made the Synagogue of Sathan and Philadelphia tho' of little outward Power or Splendour yet holding fast the Word of Christ and not denying his Name and keeping the Word of Christ's Patience is preferr'd much before it and honour'd with the New Jerusalem from which Blessed State Laodicea abating and growing cool All Church-states in this World are so distasted by Christ that He spews them out of his Mouth and receives only the Overcomers to his Throne and his whole Church into Eternity SECT X. Of the Third Line of Time in the Grand Line of 2300 Even Morn or of the Seven Seals from the Resurrection shewing it extends to a space of 400 Years Apoc. Cap. 4. cap. 5. cap. 6. cap. 7. cap. 8. I Have now finish'd the first Real and General Line of Time that runs from Stem to Stern from the Beginning to the End of Apocalyptical Time I come now to the second giving of the same Lines which is not uniform and entire as the former of the Churches but made up not only of various Parts as that was of seven Churches but of various Representations of each part as Seals Trumpets Voices and Vials and each of these comprehends its following Order viz. the Seals the Trumpets the Voices the Vials under the Seventh of each former as hath been already clear'd
final Judgment over the Book is quite unseal'd in Death the last Enemy overcome and then the Book the Symbol of the Kingdom is resign'd with the Kingdom it self into the Hand of the Father 9. Hereupon the State of the Christian Church in its Apostolical Purity with the Order of the Living Creatures first and then drawing that of the Elders along with it in a Song of Redemption in Praise of the Lamb with a Prophecy of his Kingdom in which his Servants and Saints shall reign above the Earth or over it as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies in several Places of the New Testament joyn'd with a Genitive Case particularly Matt. 25. 21. 23. I will make thee Ruler over many things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 10. To sum up all The State of the Church in the thousand Years Kingdom of Christ is given in a second Song of Praise wherein all things bow in the Name of Christ as Lord and that not ceremonially but in real Subjection Phil. 2. 10. Things in Heaven and in Earth and under the Earth and that to the Glory of the Father For the four Living Creatures having said Amen to this high Celebration of Christ the four and twenty Elders as having by the Apostolical Church receiv'd an explicate Knowledge of Christ to shew The New Testament did not at all derogate from the Old The four and twenty Elders after they had fallen down with the four Living Creatures and joyn'd in a Song of Praise to the Lamb now as making up the Concent worship him that liveth for ever and ever and conclude that which the four Living Creatures or the Apostolical Ministry began and herein shew the Resignation of the Kingdom of God at last that he may be All in All Rev. 4. 10. compar'd with Rev. 5. 8. 14. For as all began in God that made all things so here it ends in him The sealed Book being now in the Hands of Christ and all due Acknowledgments made to him that sits on the Throne and to the Lamb immediately follows the opening of the Seals and therein the Course of Time flows out and so flows on of which we are now to take a particular and strict Account only I would desire every Person that sets his Mind and Thoughts to view this so august Inthronization of God and of the Lamb That he would ponder within himself Whether the desolating either the Jews or the Heathen Empire can be Events great enough for so stupendious a Pre-Representation or any thing less than the Glorious Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ could answer to it And now that we may establish the Line of Time according to these Seals and the Time of their opening there are three Things to be consider'd 1. What it is that is the principal Jewel and Treasure that lies under these Seals and so to be set free by the unloosing them 2. What is the principal and supream Visum or Thing to be seen in every Seal and the opening of it and how it serves the disclosing that Jewel 3. What is the true method of fixing the certain Time that the whole Course of the Seals took up and how it is to be measur'd and fix'd If we can now determine and settle aright upon the Resolution of each of these Particulars we shall be able to understand this first Sett of Apocalyptical Visions and to have ample satisfaction concerning them and have great Light into the following Visions also 1. As to the First then That great Treasure and Jewel of Truth that is inclos'd within these Seals and so also as we shall see that the Trumpets ultimately sounded unto is the Glorious Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ Every Event and the Stage of Time it was to pass over is as a Seal or Stop upon this Kingdom till it opens into Glory and the opening of every Seal was an Advance towards it and although when the seven Seals were open'd there appeared a greater and more prodigious Cause of Delay viz. the Antichristian Kingdom yet every Trumpet was as an Alarm of War to the subduing that Mock-Kingdom that rose in Despight and Opposition to the Kingdom of Christ And because all things were so set and placed in their Season and Order that no one thing could come to pass before that which was set before it had had its free Egress and Event therefore every of these Events and the opening of the Seals to let them out though they did not in the Issue open to the true Appearance of that Kingdom yet because they did as it were what they could and there was a Remove of so many Prohibents or Obstacles to that Kingdom and Time so advanc'd from Point to Point that by the opening every Seal the Kingdom of Christ might be nearer to its Appearance therefore they are justly understood and expounded to be Seals unloos'd and opening to the Kingdom of Christ Now besides those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or IT IS DONE IT IS DONE at the End of the Apocalyptical Time and all its Events whither they one and all run together besides this there is this absolute Assurance That the Kingdom of Christ was under the Seals The Kingdom made so magnificent a show of it self at the sixth Seal that had not the Servants of God been seal'd in their Fore-heads that they should not then appear with him in Glory the Kingdom had even then appear'd for in Constantine's Christian Empire to the End of the Reign or at the Victory of Theodosius the Great over Heathenism of which he endeavour'd the utter Extirpation that Kingdom so far came out of its Retirement that there was a solemn and loud Doxology in Heaven that the Kingdom of God and the Power of Christ were come and yet at the very same time the Woman is recorded as fled into the Wilderness Rev. 12. 10. 2. The first Particular then being resolved with so much Evidence and Assurance we may with the greatest Clearness resolve concerning the second or the principal Visum of every Seal open'd for it must be some State of the Kingdom of Christ defin'd by the joyning together the Voices that summoned to the Sight and Observation so far as these Voices continued and then when they ceased the State of the Kingdom of Christ must be considered by the Visa themselves as under the Cessation of those Voices and by any sort of Voices we can find equivalent to them And in this Method and no other that I can understand we may justly and truly comprehend the Intention and Signification of the Seals For if all the Seals carry on the Kingdom of Christ by so many Degrees and Steps of Advance as I have in some measure I hope made evident they do By undeniable Proof then it must needs be That every Seal hath some State of that Kingdom protuberant or swelling out in its Appearance upon that opening and that the Voice that says Come and see calls to observe it and
of its Greatness and Power of Revenges especially upon the Jews those Murtherers and Enemies that would not have Christ reign over them and it returned back upon the Gentiles also and the Roman Empire guilty of the same Opposition to the Kingdom of Christ though not against the same Light nor with the same unnaturalness for as to them He came more particularly to his own and his own receiv'd him not and therefore having after the crucifying of him rejected his Dominion the People of that Prince Vespasian Came and destroyed the City and the Sanctuary as with a Flood and Torrent of Vengeance and now unto the End of the War Desolations upon the Jews were determin'd and by the overspread of the abominable Armies was pour'd upon the Desolate by Hadrian after the Desolation of Titus Daniel 9. ult Now this great Judgment and Desolation as a grand Argument of the Truth of Christianity in Revenge of which this Desolation came upon the Jews and the Reverberations or Repercussions and Returnings of it upon the Heathen Empire and their Persecutions of Christians was a great Subject for the Apostolical Voice to enlarge it self upon and to perswade Men to pay Homage to the King of Kings who could thus avenge himself and so of great Use was that Sound of the Voice Come and See that beholding the Desolations that were made by Christ in the Earth they might be still and know that He was God and exalt him in the very Heathen Earth After this severe Vengeance of Christ by the Rider of the Seal 3 Red Horse there ensues the opening of the third Seal and the Thing to be seen under it was a Black Horse and He that sat upon it had a pair of Ballances in his Hand and the Apostolical Voice continuing as under the last former Seals Come and See and it was the Voice of the third living Creature the Voice as of a Man Now that we may judge of the State of the Kingdom under this Seal it is to be closely examined what this Visum or Thing to be seen imports even the Black Horse and the Rider with a Pair of Ballances in his Hand and then the distinct Voice in the midst of the Living Creatures It hath been generally interpreted all to Famine as if the Seals were a Course of Judgments but besides that neither the First nor the Fifth Seals carry any Signification of Judgment by a more sagacious Inspection into the spectacle of this Seal after that forenam'd excellent Duumvirate of Apocalyptical Interpreters Mr. Mede and Dr. More and compare of it with the Voice of the third living Creature as of a Man I am abundantly satisfied the Black Horse and the Ballances in the Hand of the Rider are an Emblem of that solemn Imperatorial Justice of the Emperours of this Third Seal the Antonines especially that great Mirror of Justice to Magistrates Alexander Severus in whom I account the interval of this Seal to End who bore in his Hand continually in all Administrations that great Ballance of the World that Ballance of commutative Justice given by our Saviour Do as you would have done to you and no otherwise and this as so remarkable in it self and of a higher Prophetical Vse as we shall Discourse when we come to the Time affix'd to these Seals and particularly to this A Voice in the midst of the living Creatures calls to the more solemn Observation of a Measure of Wheat for a Penny Three Measures of Barley for a Penny and see that thou hurt not the Oyl and the Wine And now the State of the Kingdom in Relation to this Visum I estimate by those highly Rational and Apocalyptick Discourses for Christianity by Justin Martyr Athenagoras Apollonius in his publick Account of Christianity to the Roman Senate Clemens Alexandrius Tertullian Origen Minutius Felix who all appeal'd to these Just and Manly Emperors and offer'd to lay Christianity before them as Equal Judges and that would but shew themselves Men. And Alexander Son of Mammaea a Christian Lady Severus was so far prevail'd upon by those weighty Reasons that History hath reported him to have decided for Christianity and as he shewed a constant Reverence to that great Apothegme of the Saviour of the World so to have built a Temple in Honour to him upon which very last particular yet I lay no weight as being too doubtful But the other Parts of the State of this Kingdom of Christ born up by the manliest Efforts of Reason manag'd by those Apostolick Persons before nam'd before those forenam'd Emperours and Alexander particularly are so beyond all Historical Dispute as to sway me much more than those inquisitive searches for some Dearth or Famine that might be adjusted to the Time of this Seal For I account it a Rule in this and all other parts of this Prophecy That the Interpretation depend not upon dark and obscure Parts of History but upon the most Conspicuous Open and Clear and that are most known and notorious in it And it is to me a just Suspition upon any Interpretation that is otherwise grounded After this gracious Tryal and Essay upon the Heathen Empire Seal 4 to draw it by the Cords of a Man and by the Bands of Reason immediately follows the Fourth Seal In which open'd the Visum or Thing to be seen is the Pale Horse and in the Place of any Imperial Rider sits Death and Hades the Grave or Hell followes it as its attendant Emblem and the Voice of the Fourth living Creature as an Eagle drawn by the Carcase says Come and see This imports that Complication of Evils and Judgments The Sword the Famine the Pestilence and the Beasts of the Earth and Power was given to Death over a fourth part of the Earth or every fourth of it that is upon all Quarters of it Under this Seal then in the Time of those many cruel and short liv'd Emperours between Alexander Severus and Dioclesian which were as Beasts of the Earth for savageness and so are a most famous Historical Commentary upon this Seal is shewen the mighty Vengeance and Wrath of God upon an impenitent and imperswasible Empire and this by that Apostolical Voice to Come and See or to consider it the State of the Kingdom vindicating it self is so far declar'd that it was even ready to break in with Fury upon the Heathen World and that Patience so much injur'd and abus'd was now about to flame out in utmost Wrath so far therefore the Kingdom of Christ was advanc'd as to have made its last Tryal of Grace upon Pagan Rome and upon this undoubtedly the Apostolical Ministry insisted in its Come and See as Ezekiel Ezek. 14. from 12 to 22. of old as God saith there When I bring my four great Judgments The Sword Pestilence Famine and the Beasts of the Earth though Noah Job and Daniel stood before me to turn away my Wrath They should deliver only their own Souls And now
as to the State of the Church all along these Seals past There was a plain Appearance of it in the Apostolick Voices till just the Entrance of the fourth Seal From that Time these Voices ceas'd which had so far as supported by the Characters of Imperial History declar'd to us the Times and States of the Church as before drawn out in the Labour and Patience and Sufferings of the Ephesine Church while those Apostolical Voices lasted although there was such a Leaven of the Apostacy hid in it that it was charg'd to have left its first Love one great Instance of which was in Victor's Excommunication of the Asian Churches upon the score of the unwritten Ceremony of keeping Easter at all much more unwritten as to Criticism of Time which made that so great Fewd The Fifth Seal so plainly opens in the Sufferings of the Seal 5 Christian Martyrs as to assure us This Prophecy as also other Scripture-prophecies and Notes of Time are for the sake of the Church and not of Heathen Empires and States yet by the Course of the Seals we may easily know at what hour of the Empire it was as by referring to the peculiar foregoing Church-prophecy we know under what Symbol of the Church it lies and from both That it was the last and cruel ten Years Persecution or ten Days Tribulation begun by Dioclesian while the Christian Church was under that peculiar Symbol of the Church of Smyrna That it was about the Time of Dioclesian the Current of the former Seals and the immediately following Desolation of Heathenism under Constantine assure us That it was under the Symbol of the Church of Smyrna its peculiar Character of Sufferings and ten Days Tribulation make out as also in that there was no longer any Apostolical Voice but the Voice of Souls that were gone out of martyr'd Bodies it signifies the Synagogue of Sathan near an height and from that very occasion of the Tombs Relicks Memories and Veneration of Martyrs and Trust in their Negotiation out of the Body for those they left behind in it growing much higher However God graciously accepts this Suffering Church and lays no Imputation upon it but only on the Sathanick Synagogue He seems to have more respect to the Souls Complaint than to the Survivers of that Church He appoints them white Robes but as unconcern'd in Mediations for any in this World they are commanded to rest and there is on their Instance a Signification of a new Roll of Martyrs under Antichrist when the whole Number of those of the first Resurrection should be compleat over whom the second Death should have no Power This Seal then is the very Joynt betwixt the Kingdom of Paganism falling but not yet fallen and that short Appearance of Christ's Kingdom in the Christian Empire till Theodosius the Great The Army of Martyrs had not yet overcome by the Word of the Testimony which they held The Kingdom of Christ was not yet celebrated with that Doxology chap. 12. But there was nothing came between this Cry of the Souls and that Kingdom although speedily surpris'd by Antichristianism into which Pagan Demonolatry was first transplanted on this very occasion of Martyrs Sufferings compleated within this Seal especially And thus we have the State of the Kingdom of Christ in the Church within this Seal assur'd by one of the most famous Monuments of Ecclesiastick History The sixth Seal is that great Seal opened by which the Heathen Seal 6 State of the Roman Empire was demolish'd and which carries most abundant Instruction of this whole Time of the Seals and also of the Kingdom of Christ in his Church during that Time 1. That Heathen Idolatry that had seated it self as in the Heavens and from thence reach'd down it self into the Earth and in the Deep is as by an Earthquake remov'd from below and as by a Tempest above is dismounted and deposed from thence so that here Sathan as the Dragon was cast down from Heaven as by Lightning according to the Vision chap. 12. 2. The Emperours or Kings of the Earth and all its great Men lay'd aside their Greatness even to their Imperial Purple and Diadems as particularly Dioclesian the Arch-Persecutor and Maximian with him mov'd not so much by any thing as by a divine Terror by the Fear of him that sate on the Throne and of the Lamb. And this is given as a lively Type of Christ's glorious Appearance in the Destruction of his Enemies Who will be able to stand in that Day of his Wrath What Mountains Dens or Caves will then open to receive affrighted men 3. From hence it plainly appears What was to be open'd by Christ's opening of these Seals even no other than the glorious visible Kingdom of Christ and not his spiritual Kingdom only As an eminent Assurance of which He declar'd himself in the preaching of the Gospel and a Crown was given to him as an Acknowledgment of his Right though to obtain it he was to go out conquering and to conquer Here then in this Christian Empire beginning at the sixth Seal and so going on in the seventh Seal to Theodostus's Victory over all the Remains of Heathenism after Julian in the Senate Magistracy and People of Rome gather'd to a Head in Eugenius and Argobastes This Kingdom appear'd as in an Emblem and earnest of it self and so it is celebrated chap. 12. with Praise and Triumph as in Heaven though even there surpris'd 4. Here the State of Christ's Kingdom in the Church is solemnly declar'd and also as in the Christian Empire In the Church to shew the high towring Synagogue of Sathan There is no Voice of the Church but of an Angel crying to the four Angels not to hurt c. a certain Indication of bad Symptoms appearing at this in it self happy Change 2. There was a pure Church and Kingdom of Christ yet publick and visible but upon the Retreat for it was just now retiring and about to be seal'd that is under that over-growing Synagogue 3. This Kingdom of Christ in his Church was to have abating the general Unhappiness of fallen sinful Man a more quiet and illustrious State than heretofore viz. in a Christian Empire for till the whole Time of sealing the Servants of God was past the four Angels that had the four first Trumpets were commanded to hold the Wind that no such Hurt could be done upon the Empire as was after to be done when they sounded This was Smyrna's Crown So that tho' God had determin'd the Period of the Blood-guilty Roman Western Empire as Imperial yet it was kept off till it became Pagan-Antichristian a new Paganism Then God gave it in Wrath after a Time an Antichristian King its former Imperial King being taken away in Wrath first 5. The precise Time of Sealing that is of covering all the True visible Glory of Christianity in the Christian Empire is hereby set viz. until the First Trumpet For till all was sealed no
Usage by Pharaoh argued against their Deliverance by Moses All the Disaffection in the Age to Interpretation of Prophecies or its insensibleness of them can no more disprove them than Christ's coming as a Thief upon Sardis at an Hour it knew not shall be disprov'd by the Sleepiness and Unwatchfulness of that Church Let us then with Resolution Constancy of Obedience Strength of Faith Labour of Love Patience of Hope wait for and come to the end of these ten days and from them to the 1335 Days where Blessedness shall certainly be But if we should say We may dye before those Ten Years are come to their Period and there is no Probability or Possibility we should live to the seventy five beyond or the 1335 of Blessedness I answer The Saints of God living on Earth shall receive their share in all the Glories of his Kingdom and the several degrees of it and they that dye hoping waiting desiring praying shall be rais'd in the very same posture of Soul wherein they died so that they who by a general Faith and Obedience waited and came in Daniel's Time and ever since viz. by earnest Prayers Come Lord Jesus Come quickly shall be blessed even as they who by particular Faith and Obedience wait and come at the Time it self And in the mean time the Souls of Saints above the Spirits of just men who shall be perfected at that time celebrate in Heaven all the Advances of Christ's Kingdom even as they pray for it as the Souls under the Altar cry How long Lord c. so they rejoyce at every Rising of Christ's Kingdom so do the same Souls Rev. 12. 10. So Rev. 14. 3. They that sing that new song harping with their Harps So They Rev. 15. 3. So they Rev. 19 c. Such is the universal Song of Triumph of the Palm-bearing company Revel 7. 10. Let us not therefore despond but be abundant in the work of the Lord knowing our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. Why should it be thought an incredible thing that God Remark 6 should draw in his Word the Plot of Future Time to so great a Period as the Kingdom of Christ That all Futurity is within the Grasp of Infinite Omniscience cannot be doubted Known to God are all his Works from the beginning to the end The Scheme of all that hath been before it was or that shall be is always with Him as if it just now was in all the circumstances and Life of a present Appearance in whose Eternity All present past to come are all one The whole Table of Time is always before Him Does it then pertain to the Prerogative of Omniscience that Future Things should be known only to himself It does so indeed any further than he is pleas'd to reveal them But He that challenges the false Divinities of the Heathen that they could not declare things to come hath certainly given Isa 42. 23. Instances of his own Prescience and Demonstrations of it to his People Hath he not done so in all Ages by his Servants the Prophets Is he not as Liberal to the Ages of Christianity to the state of things under the Gospel of his Son whom he hath constituted Heir of all things and put in subjection to him the World to come of which we speak Or is the Glory of Divine Truth so great that even as immediate Appearances the Power of Miracles and extraordinary Revelations have ceas'd since the full Settlement and Sealing the Volume of Truth in the Gospel so Prophecy needs not now This indeed hath much of Reason yet even as all Truth is compriz'd in that Volume so are the Grand Revolutions pertaining to the Christian Church in the same Volume and therefore whatever God hath done for the former World the very same hath he summ'd up in the New Testament When therefore we have besides the Interspersion of Prophecy in several places of it a Book wholly Dedicated to Prophecy Blessed is he that heareth and readeth the words of this Prophecy Have we not reason then to expect the course of things to the very end in it But does not the Prophecy it self say The Things were shortly to come to pass So that what is to be found in it pertain'd to the primitive Age the Destruction of Jerusalem to the Time when Christianity was well settled and till Pagan Rome became Christian It is true indeed The Divine Revelator Jesus Christ our Lord does say the things were shortly to come to pass that is to begin to come to pass They were then upon motion but as a great Army is said to come immediately when the Avant-Corriers are coming or come although the whole Body and Rear may be considerable distances off so this whole Series and Chain of Events in the Revelation come quickly although the first and the last part differ so many Ages Is it not clear and visible that there is the Beginning of Things and the End of Things in every mans Apprehension plain and evident that is from the Resurrection and to the Day of Judgment and why then should we not believe there is the Middle of Things also Why should we imagine Prophecy hath made such a Leap over the Between Lying Times seeing they were very great Did it not behove his Church and Servants to know of so great and wide spreading an Imposture as Mahometanisme Was it nothing to it Christianity should be in so low and dark a state as it was from the lowest Fall of the Western Empire to the Ruine of the Eastern Empire in both which the principal Residences of it were and so long space as from 666 to 1453. But still it may be said If such a Prophecy be it does not become us to pry into it it is the Ark of secret things that do not belong to us Why then does Christ say Blessed is he that heareth the words of this Prophecy Why doth he command him that hath Wisdom and Vnderstanding to count the Number of the Beast Why doth He in explication of the Seven Heads say Here is the Mind that hath Wisdom Why had Christ the Revelation to shew to his Servants But was it not all one as if they had not been reveal'd since the Revelation was not pretended to be understood in former Times I answer we do not know what was understood the Apostacy so cover'd and muffled all Things and does yet so darken them The universal prejudice against the Explanation of this Prophecy is I doubt not the effects of this Apostasie But that there hath gone a stream of Light from hence to the Servants of Christ by the Witnesses in every Age is to me out of all question and that it hath discover'd the Things most necessary to that Age although the Light hath been not only clearer but the knowledge that such a Light hath been more certain to us since the last Age and Half and shall be every day clearer and clearer When
or sell that hath not the Mark or Name on his Right-hand or on his Fore-head or the Name or the Number of the Name nor so much as live if he doth not worship the Image The end of which intimate Time is by Proportion 1517 and so on Rev. 13. 15. to the end But now besides this measure of intimate Time because the Beast is Lord of Time Times Half a Time and so constituted by God his Forty two Months are an exact Measure also of the whole Line beginning at that most famous Epoch so well known to History the Cessation of the Western Empire 475 whence his Forty two Months to be set as Lunar Time to the 1260 Days of Solar Time must be 1222 and so beginning at 475 must end at 1697 with the 1260 Days beginning 437 thirty eight Years before them with the Gentiles Forty two Months according to the Laws of this Line of Time and of the Sun 's and Moon 's Motion collated one with another And to confirm the right Calculation of this whole Time to us Imperial Time is adjusted to it by the Emblems of the falling Empire in the West till the vulgar 606 when the Beast as a Star falling to the Earth enlightned that Western Empire so darkned before that neither Sun nor Moon or Stars shined in its third part and presently after arose the Mahometan Hegira or Account of Time at 626 the which Imperial Time is accounted till the Fall of the Eastern Empire under the same Emblem of the third part of Men which also is to be cleared within seventy Years of which intimate Time ceases and that Change we call the Reformation ensu'd at 1517 represented by its most significant Emblems and the Mahometan Power still continued and yet is to continue to the end of the whole Line 1260 which goes to 1290 and so to 1335 the happy end of all the 2300 Ev. Morn All which I cannot but hope will be acknowledg'd a rational and clear Account of this admirable Line Now of every of these particulars I undertake particularly to discourse and although I confess the Order of Nature is first to speak of the Kernel of Time or the intimate Time to which the Fore-going Time at large is but a Preparation and After-Time but an Accomplishment yet because I must follow as the Divine Spirit hath gone before I begin with the Ambient Time of the Gentiles Forty two Months and of the Witnesses twelve hundred sixty Days in Sack-cloth and of the Woman in the Wilderness that first appear and are plac'd as in Complex one with another before the Inner Time or Season In beginning with which Sacred Prophecy is pleas'd to make the way plainer to us To begin then first with the Gentiles Treading the Holy Court and City which as hath been declared does not run as a principal Character but at farthest to the first part of the intimate State or Season and there is supported by the latter Forty two Months of the Beast to the very end of the whole 1260 dayes Now the knowledge of this either State or Character of Time is peculiarly given by the Apocalypse and hath no other Intimation in Daniel than what is common to the Time Times Semi-Time and to the Twelve hundred sixty joyn'd with the Thirty more and so making Twelve hundred ninety at the taking away the Daily and yet because it is of very great Use and Necessity in this Account of Time therefore is given so distinct and express in this excellent Apocalyptick Prophecy which surpasses Daniel even as the New Testament exceeds the Old and as Revelation however mystical excells Type and Figure of an older date Now the great Use of this Character is this When the Beast does neither in the Account of Prophecy nor Accord of History rise till some years after the Twelve hundred sixty years began nor reach his State especially design'd to be set out by Daniels Prophecy till many years after the 1260 years began viz. the very beginning of his most intimate State at his so often mentioned 666 in prevision of which it is said The Saints Times and Laws are given into his hand Season Seasons Dan. 7. 25 and half a Season meaning this intimate Time Upon all this it may well be ask'd How came the Daily to be Taken so early away what is the occasion of the Witnesses putting on Sack-cloth or the Womans flying into the wilderness seeing all these belong to the Beasts Tyranny who did not yet exist nor till so long after appear'd Regnant or why are the Twelve hundred sixty days made to begin so much sooner than the Beasts Forty two months Now in Answer to this The Gentiles treading under foot the holy Court and City appears timely to give cause to all these things and to shew the Agreement of Prophecy herein with it self These Gentiles are no other than they that are said Revel 13. to dwell on the Earth whose Names are not written from the foundation of the world in the Lambs Book of Life whom that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that other Beast ver 11. of whose two Horns like a Lamb was spoken before and who is hereafter further to be explain'd instructed to worship the Grand Apocalyptick Beast as one with the Pagan Roman Empire in its Idolatrous Universality call'd therefore the First Beast and to make an Image to it viz. an Image unto its Idolatry and to its Monarchy which Things are hereafter to be explain'd upon the Beast but at present it is easie to be understood The newly Christianiz'd Pagans of the Roman Empire were under the Change of the Emperours to Christians violently chang'd to the Profession of Christianity and yet at the same time fond of their Ancient Pagan Rites and Customs as also of the Glory of their Vniversal Empire East and West Now meeting with that Two-horn'd Lamb-like Beast fond of the same Sensual Religion but in another sort of Imagery as also of the Earthly Universality and Glory but of it in another Appearance also it may very readily be conceiv'd how complyant they were one with the other in both these things so as immediately to fill up the Outward Court and to Take away the true Datly Publick Worship of God and so to prepare for the Bestian Kingdom under the Seventh Head before his Existence in his own Forty two months and much more before his Regnancy to which he himself as a principal or chief Member of the other Beast though not yet the Grand Beast and after in his own Infancy when his 42 Months began as that Grand Beast was never wanting in his Contributions All which rightly conceiv'd does wonderfully conciliate the Prophecy to the History especially when I come to clear all Doubts upon those two Beasts Apoc. 13. For thus according to Daniel All these things were negotiating for the Beast who was the Prince design'd and on whom all redounded in the Issue and these Gentiles under
same time aggress'd were all taken from the Maccabean Words we mention'd before although it is evident they have their Ground of Allusion chiefly from Sacred Writ it self yet by way of Argument ad Homines to the Men themselves this is no unworthy Observation nor can it seem undesign'd by Providence 4. There is in this very Epoch of the wonderful Line we are upon such a Concurrence of Prophetical Notes both of the States and of the Times adjusted that it is as if the Holy Spirit of Prophecy had said to us Observe it This is the Beginning the Era and Epoch of it For first the treading the Holy City and the Court is in words the very same with the place of the Sanctuary cast down and the Sanctuary and the Host given to be trodden under foot Dan. 8. v. 11. 13. in the Vision of the Daily taken away and of the 2300 Ev. Morn From whence is to be concluded that the Forty two Months must as was before asserted be detach'd from the 2300 Even and that there the Daily taken away begins The 1260 Days immediately following in Account as concurrent with the 42 Months shew They are taken out of the 2300 Morn and confirm this to be the Time of the Daily taken away because the Daily taken away is the Character of the first Point of Time to the Twelve hundred ninety of which Twelve hundred sixty must needs be part seeing they go on to 1335 at the end of all and so many cannot be found in the 2300 which is the Date of the whole Vision of the daily taken away or in so great a Number but in these 1290 joyn'd with 1335. The twelve hundred sixty being joyn'd and the same twelve hundred sixty with those of the Womans dwelling in the Wilderness do both set the Era or beginning of that State to be even with the Daily taken away and do also shew the Equality of Time Times half a Time with the twelve hundred sixty days if taken at their full extent for they are joyn'd Dan. 12. with the scattering the Power of the Holy People which scattering was 1260 Days Revel 12. 6. * And Time Times half Time compare v. 14. there being not a plainer Expression of the Wilderness-state in an Old Testament mystical Prophecy than scattering and that Word accomplishing to scatter does subindicate some Power that began this scattering which was this of the Gentiles and then that the Antichristian Prince accomplish'd this scattering both to the highest degree and to the utmost moment it was to last and because he as hath been said is Lord of the Time Times Half Time the very naming them is naming of him And now if all this be not demonstrative of the Epoch or Beginning of these 1260 Days I shall be bold to say Nothing in Prophetical Scripture is capable of being demonstrated so much as by and within Prophetick Scripture it self which to assert must needs weaken the Evidence of Scripture by and from it self throughout I confess it may seem the Church is sooner in the Wilderness than the Witnesses are in Sackcloth for assoon as the Woman brought forth the Man-child it was caught up to the Throne of God which Bringing forth and Enthroning was certainly when the Empire became Christian in Constantine and that was long before 437 when the Witnesses put on Sackcloth as I assert But to clear this it is to be consider'd there are three synchronous Descriptions of the very Beginning of this Line of Time or of the Apostacy The first is bottom'd upon the substantial and sensible Foundations of Imperial History under prophetick Figures viz. Of the blasted Western Empire embellish'd with very curious Types of the Apostacy then beginning as shall be shewn upon the first Trumpet sounding when we come to it The second is by the more Scriptural Images of the Witnesses putting on Sackcloth on account of the Gentiles treading the Holy City or Court And the third by the parallel Shade of the Woman flying into the Wilderness The First hath a plain distinct Indication of things preparing to the Apostate State in the Declaration of a new Roll of Martyrs * Revel 6. 11. c. 7. c. 8. v. 1. in the sealing the 144000 Sufferings after the Christian Empire in the Silence in Heaven for only half an Hour in the Angels preparing to sound all which were so many distinct Steps towards the Apostacy This is the most full and clear The Second hath one like it in the Reed given to John with a Command to measure the Temple which was parallel and contemporary to the Sealing by all Rules of Proportion as we shall see The Third is the Womans flying into the Wilderness where indeed there is no open mention of a Preparation but the Event is given in one view viz. The Woman flying into the Wilderness yet in that the Woman having been first spoken of her History as to the utmost extended Time of the Apostacy is given together so as to make it evident the so sudden Assignation of the 1260 Days in the Wilderness is given both to match the Preparation of the two former Types to the Apostacy as also to joyn the Witnesses and the Womans twelve hundred sixty Days into one and the true Order both of that Preparation and Vergency as also of the 1260 Days beginning is given in the second giving of the Womans Times and Half Time as shall be made most clear when we come to parallel these three synchronous Descriptions in their Events at the First Trumpet Now as to the Involution of these Three States and Characters as necessarily contemporizing one with another it is even self-demonstrative for when the Daily Service of God is taken away and the Bestian Gentiles delay the Kingdom of Christ in Preparation to the Antichristian Prince the Witnesses must if there be such a prophetick Type prophecy in Sackcloth and retire to the Altar of Incense as to private Worship and if the Woman be the same with the Witnesses or her Seed if They are hid in Sackcloth and there be such a Type as of her self in the Wilderness fed with hidden Manna how can both be but at the same Time And if the Witnesses be in Sackcloth and the VVoman in the VVilderness and there be such a Type as of the Gentiles treading the Holy Court That and That only being then in view the Beast being not risen must be the occasion of it And if there be such a Type as Sealing which signifies Secrecy Retirement and Delay the efficacy of that must be at the same Time with the parallel Symbols for this ought to be a Standard throughout The Gentiles and the Beast causing the Sufferings of God's Servants and the Servants of God the Sufferers must in all things parallel one another according to the Degrees of Elevation for the Action of the one necessarily produces Sufferings the State of the other receives Sufferings as necessarily so
it protected the Infancy or low beginning of that seventh Head as will be seen under the beginning of the forty two Months to which it hath led us From the whole then these two Things arise to our main Purpose 1. That this other Beast must be the whole prophetick Office of the VVestern and Eastern Roman Empire under its Superiors or Hierarchy so far as it was grown Apostatical Antichristian and Pseudo prophetick or into false Prophecy from the very beginning of the Apostacy at 437 to the end of it at 1697 and beyond that in what State soever it shall be till it is cast into the Lake with the Beast With this Exception before the Beasts coming to the Image and Number of it self this Beast hath the Regency and so the Type of a Beast after that it subsides into bare false Prophetism but such as is inseparable from the Beast and the Beast from it so that they rule together but the Supremacy is in the Beast and they fall and are cast into the Lake together 2. The Action of this other Beast till the forty two months is its shaping its own Bestianism both into the Body under it and its Superiority over its own Body It s speaking as a Dragon and governing the Gentiles who are call'd the Earth and them that dwell therein herein exercising the Power of the wounded Beast before him viz. the former Paganish Beast that with all its Heads and Populacy according to the prophetical Emblem liv'd in a wounded State for want of a Bestian Head or Prince from the Empire becoming Christian till the Antichristian King became its Head at the beginning of the forty two Months And this other Beast guided them rul'd and conducted them as paganishly affected to a new Antichristian Paganism in preparation for the seventh Head without whose Succession the Grand Beast had been extinct In all which by Head is meant Head in Power It may be objected against this whole State of Things Object That here is no view of that Arrian Heresie and Persecution which could not be untaken in the Notices of this Prophecy This Prophecy is not to be suppos'd to take notice of All Answer the disorders in the Profession of Christianity any more than of all the Governments or Changes of Government in the World It minds its own Pursuit runs in its own Channel which was the fourth Monarchy and in that the Antichristian Surprisal of the Kingdom of Christ after the Destruction of pure Paganism so that Paganism first under the Pagan Empire Antichristian Paganism punish'd with the Barbarian and Mahometan Inundations from which the True Church was hidden and its Seed persecuted under the Bestian Kingdom is the only Symmetral Even Proportionate Course of this Prophecy till the end of the 1260 Days I come now to the last Thing necessary before the Entry into the Beasts forty two Months that is to settle the State of the Witnesses as in its general view under the whole 1260 Days and more particularly in this Interval from the Apostacy beginning unto the Beasts forty two Months The Witnesses as hath been already declar'd are the Seed of the VVoman the True Church who keep the Commandments of God and hold the Testimony the VVitness the Martyry of Jesus These are in Sackcloth as the best of their State the whole 1260 Days but their Time is distinguish'd by three great Pairs of VVitnesses in the Old Testament whose History explains the varying Types of their Condition Joshua and Zerubbabel Elijah and Elisha Moses and Aaron The first is of Joshua and Zerubbabel who though in mournful Garments as Joshua and in union with him Zerubbabel is represented Zech. 3. 1. c. yet They were as two Olive Branches to the Church of the Jews which was at that Time the Candlestick standing before the God of the whole Earth And this is the first Representation of the VVitnesses for they are also the two Olive Trees and the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the Earth Revel 11. 6. compar'd with Zech. c. 4. And it comprises the certain Assurance and Expectation of the New Jerusalem and its glorious Sanctuary even as the typical Temple and its Jerusalem were so far settled by those two great personages But beyond that They had the Promises of the New Jerusalem State peculiarly made to them to Joshua Zech. 3. 7. places among the Angels standing by in that Vision as Attendants on Christ to Zerubbabel Haggai 2. 21. c. When that Overthrow of Kingdoms should be which could be no other than that at the seventh Vial. Zerubbabel shall be a Signet and to all God's People throughout the Prophecy of Zechar. the same Promises are confirmed and so to these two Witnesses The VVitnesses then at this Time by holy Doctrine pure VVorship unspotted Sanctity begin their Testimony and are truly Christian Prophets or Persons of a magistratical Character and Eminency or truly fit for such a Dignity and as the Sons of Oyl or anointed ones Zech. 4. ult They empty the golden Oyl into the two golden Candlesticks into the Souls of the Servants and People of God the Seed of the VVoman who from the beginning of the Apostacy to the end of it are Members and make up those two Churches Pergamus and Thyatyra which as I have shewn in its Place run parallel in Pergamus at the beginning and Thyatyra in the latter part with the whole Apostacy although the Church of Sardis first and Philadelphia at last do indeed undertake the Line drawn by the Churches through the whole Apocalypse before the Church of Thyatyra in its real Subsistence shall cease to bear that Type of the Christian Church it is appointed to sustain Now how admirably does this agree with the state of the true Christian Witnesses for some considerable space after the Apostacy beginning They did indeed put on Sackcloth in God's Account assoon as the Gentiles came into the holy ground with their unhallowed feet shod with Paganish Superstition But They at first and for some space of time rather emptied the golden Oyl out of themselves than were under Persecution and Sufferings They sent out the Holy Doctrine and chrystal Stream of Evangelical Truth The Worship of God they directed was transparent clear and pure without Paganish Mixtures and Ceremonies and the Conversation they preach'd and gave Example of was not foul ranck fetid but holy gracious pellucid of an excellent Odour and Fragrancy And although History is not just and sincere enough to give account hereof passing through the Feculencies of the beginning Apostacy and suffering under all its particular Injuries more than those of Time and obscur'd as under that cover'd State in which the Church now was yet we are not under a total want of such Monuments of the Witnesses Testimony But for the Corruptions they were to testifie against they are too notorious to be denied as such Beginnings of the Apostacy even at this very joynt of
which makes the Lunar year 354 days so many Hours and Scruples nor by rating the 1260 days as three Years and half which wants about five days of the true Solar Year and then proportioning the Lunar Year of 364 Days odd Hours and Scruples to a Year of only 360 days But the true Scale of Time between the Sun and Moons motion in that which is call'd the middle course of each respecting their Conjunction one with another is to be taken and I affirm to the most rigid Arithmetician concerning it it will prove exact to about half a years distance That 1260 years of the Sun will exceed forty two Months space of the Moon prophetically understood thirty eight years For as Maimonides the most learned accountant of Jewish Time settles this matter in his severe computation of Time in order to their new moons Solemnities There is eleven days within some hours difference betwixt the lunar year and the solar naturally given as 365 days judge then how little can the want of the five days to make up the solar year 365 days alter the account of 11 days difference in a year betwixt the Sun and Moon which rises from above 72 five days in a year to make them nearer equal one to the other than eleven days difference carries with it of inequality But I fear to be over tedious in this matter although the wonderful exactness of the account does detain my Thoughts assuring a Line of Time confirmed so many ways besides to have its Epoch at 437 and its Period at 1697 by even so unexpected an agreement of the Beasts forty two months certainly beginning at 475 and therefore the Witnesses twelve hundred sixty days thirty eight years before them while the Gentiles forty two months are ready to set out with those 1260 days that so the time of the Bestian Tyranny and the sufferings of the Servants of God may begin and end together as they ought to do I come therefore to the fourth head to consider the state of the Empire of the Beast at his first rising or his forty two Months beginning thus at 475 and to compare therewith the Administration of the other Beast and the Prophecy of the Witnesses as they stood in the interval from 475 to 606 For indeed there is very little of a new scene of things opening till then and therefore the great business of this head will be to settle the essential Lineaments of the grand Apocalyptical Beast according to the prophetical Iconismes of chap. 11. c. 13. c. 17. of the Revel and to compare therewith the Imagery given Dan. c. 2. c. 7. c. 8. c. 11. and the Apostle Paul's Prediction 2. Thes 2. and the Apostle John's short Accounts of Antichrist in his Epistles wherein I do not yet so much intend to display the Quality and Action of the Beast which will be more advantagiously done hereafter for at this time they were but seminal and so not discoverable nor open and there was an accidental Variableness therein But I design those invariable and unalterable Essentials which are unmoveable although they appear each in their just Seasons and which are fundamental to the Beast Now herein I do solemnly avow I will bring no preconceiv'd Idea or Shape of the Beast to the Prophecy but search for that true one Prophecy gives and receive it from its hand as wholly unpossess'd of any Notions of Him before-hand and then referr to general and uncontroverted History as to an Umpirage most impartial the Agreement of Things with Prophecy Nor do I design to prove any Name or kind of Power in the World to be this Beast but only to prove That there hath been and must be such a one to sustain the Prophetick Characters during these forty two Months and what will necessarily follow I can't Fore-Fend To this Purpose I must make these three Premisals 1. That when Prophecy gives an entire prophetical Scheme of a Monarchy or this Bestianism it represents as entire and essential to that Scheme Things that did not fill it first as History giving the Character of an Empire gives it at full or so of any Prince and not as things were in their mere Infancy Thus those things are given into the Possession of the Beast at his forty two Months beginning which were not compleat till many Years after as his Ten Horns his Great Power and Authority c. Now this ought to be no prejudice to the Prophetick Scheme no more than that the Picture of Charles the Great as a Man or an Emperour would not fit his Infancy especially when Prophecy defines the Time when he shall attain that Image viz. 666. 2. When Prophecy gives the Portraicture of a particular last state of a Monarchy that had a variety of States before it it unites that last State as so one with the former and especially with that just before it as that they are spoken of as one common State just at one Time for this belongs to the Glory of Prophecies Prescience and Omniscience to which past and present and to come are one to give things thus entire in one Thus Prophecy gives the Dragon the sixth Head in the Beast of seven Heads seven Heads when it wanted one as to present Event and if it had to do with any of the five fallen Heads in the Time of the Apocalypse given it had done the same undoubtedly because the Scheme is but one although it be at several Times filled up so the Scheme has always 7 Heads And thus it gives the grand Apocalyptick Beast whatever was before it the five fallen Heads in the Lump that they make a Character of it nay the whole Image Dan. 2. in the three Beasts Dan. 7. the Grecian Leopard the Persian Bear and the Babylonian Lyon are united to this last State of the Rev. 13. 2. fourth Monarchy and even whole entire Bestianism because in it that Image was to be beaten to Powder Dan. 2. 34 35. and the Lyon the Bear and the Leopard who had their Lives prolonged Time at large and intimate Time or Season were now to be kill'd with the Sword of Christ's Mouth when the Beast the Little Horn is given to the consuming Flames or to the Lake Dan. 7. 11 12. with Apoc. 19. v. 21. So that it is no wonder it is called the Beast wounded in one of its Heads viz. the sixth Head before it came unto its Succession or forty two months that it is called in the same manner the first Beast twice Revel 13. 12. for all Bestianism is so totally his that the Dragon with whom he is more especially united as his immediate Predecessor that hath the seven Heads and ten Horns because it was the Roman Beast under the sixth Head yet is carefully forepriz'd from the Name Beast that it might not derogate from the Universal Bestianism of this grand Beast yea though it is he in whom this Beast was wounded There is only a short
to 1697. We have found the order in which it hath come on very clear brought down by Prophecy in Symbols so justly proportionate to matters of Fact and Events all along History first to the Apostacy and from thence by as unquestionable a Chain of Events during that Apostacy as hath been before describ'd till the Reformation and now we shall find the Reformation as admirably set out and no other things in the whole course of Time answering to each Representation as those Cardinal Points of History do What greater Demonstration then can we have that we are upon the right sense and scope of Prophecy Since such admirable Correspondencies as if we our selves by our own Judgments had been to contrive the one for the other we could not under Veils have desired so much and therefore they can no more be suspected of chance then that the Letters Sillables and Words of the Apocaliptick Prophecy should come out by chance into that exact System wherein we now find them I pray therefore which of these grand Events can by History be contested or what fitter prophetical Symbols could be found out for them or in such a Succession And so we shall find in this particular of the Reformation so recent and fresh in History and all most in Memory at this day and at this day running on so that the Instances of it are most notorious confess'd and even to be admired in the Wonders of Providence that brought it to pass and yet sustain it When therefore the Bestian or Antichristian Kingdom was coming so near its number as that the Image of Supremacy had been made to the Beast at the 606 confirmed to it and Life given to it to speak and to cause c. by the Lateran Councel at 649. come to its very number at 725. The War was between the Beast and the Witnesses represented by the Jeconoclastick Emperours and their Constantinopolitan Councel damning Image Worship 754 but then the Witnesses were overcome by the Cessation of those Emperours and by that Councel of Nice 787 and so they lying dead till their first motion to a rising 1517. While all these things were the Judgment of God in just Degrees and Measures pursued with Vengeance this Antichristian Kindom First by Mahomets setting up his false Prophetism as near the Supremacy given by Phocas as 622 to 606 by the Locusts or Mahometan Saracens ready to enter their first five Months and to strike as a Serpion about the Time of the War with the Witnesses especially at their Death 787 And together with the Apostacy strengthning it self they advanc'd into their second five Months of hurting with the stings of their Tails and when a winterly torpidness seiz'd them then by the Turks as a far greater and more severe as also more continuing Scourge God Executed his Judgments on this Antichristian Empire But the Impenitency still continuing Christ Appears as it were from Heaven in the Reformation and how evident is it that the Reformation followed on such a state of the Latine or strictly Roman World for can any pretend there was after the taking of Constantinople any shew of Repentance Repentance of their worshiping Demons departed Spirits or Images and Pictures of Gold or Silver Wood or Stone which neither hear see or walk nor did they repent of their Murthers those cruel Butcheries of the Saints and Servants of God nor of their Sorceries those bewitchings of Men with a false sensual Religion their lying or magical and Necromantick Miracles ascrib'd to Relicks Images and the Idolized Host nor of their Fornications allowed Concubinacies and Stews nor of their Thefts their pious Frauds and wiping men of their Goods and Estates by Cheats and to false and impious Ends and that this high and avowed impenitency was not only then but hath continued ever since appears too much by the Councel of Trent and the whole Tract of time after the Reformation 1. Let us then consider the Appearance as it were of Christ from Heaven against this Impenitency He the mighty supream Angel of the divine Presence comes down from Heaven though sitting in Heaven in his mighty Administrations 2. He is cloathed with a Cloud his Face as the Sun breaking out of the Cloud and creating a Bow as in the day of Rain These Appearances are as after a Flood not yet removed the Clouds were yet hovering and flying the Rain not yet gon the Brightness watery and yet with significations of Mercy and the Grace of the Covenant That the Flood should be drawn off and return no more to cover the Earth 3. His Feet as Pillars of Fire signifying both the refining and purification of his Servants as also their Vivi Comburin their Death in the midst of Flames as we know how frequent they were at that Time 4. He had in his Hand an open Book the Book of his Kingdom as if he were now ready to publish the Decree of his universal Psal 2. 7. Reign which had been so often stay'd by sealing and now after the Seals opened and the six Trumpets sounding ready to reveal it self 5. As a signal of his unbounded Dominion He sets his Dan. 12. 6. right Foot on the Sea and his left Foot on the Earth as from the Sea to the end of the Earth 6. He cried with a Loud Voice as when a Lion roars when he received the Book He is call'd the Lion of the Tribe of Judah Then he prevail'd to open the seven Seals now as the same Revel 5. 5. Lyon he holds the Book open shewing his just right to the Throne of David the Throne and Empire of the new Jerusalem and roars from his Holy Habitation 7. When he had thus roared seven thunders utter their Voices as in an Eccho or resound of Heaven above to his just 2 Sam. 2. 10. claim and as Hannah prophecyed of old The Lord shall thunder from Heaven on his Adversaries so he on the Adversaries of his Kingdom when he comes to judge the end of the Earth when God gives strength to this his King and exalts the Horn of his Anointed Now all these things were that powerful sound of the Gospel and divine Truth by Luther and the first Reformers like the Angels coming down from Heaven and rouling away the Stone in Preparation of the Lords Resurrection This arous'd Matt. 28. 1. and amaz'd the World then even as the Keepers of the Grave were as dead Men when Christ arose and this was more a dreadful stroke upon the Bestian Kingdom then Mahometanism it self For this was an Arrow levell'd at the Heart of his Kingdom and declared it to be Antichristian an Usurpation upon the Glory of Christ This was a dawn of the most terrifying Appearance of Christ and shaked the very Foundations of his State This accompanied with the Separation of so many Princes and States from that Antichristian Empire was more formidable then all the Assaults of a false and barbarous Religion however
late Other Parts of the reform'd Church have not pursued the true Principles of the Reformation the Regulation of all Things in Doctrine Worship Conversation and Discipline according to the pure and perfect Rule of the Word of God but that Word in many things is regulated by Antiquity not considering how early the Mystery of Iniquity was at work and where the Foot of the account of the Beast's Number ought to be plac'd even at 25 or 26 from the Resurrection Revel 3. v. 1. c. so that these as in the Church of Sardis affecting too much outward Pomp and Grandieur are to strengthen the Remainders which are ready to dye that are to fill up the Reformation to endeavour to open the Voices of the Thunders among themselves and to prophecy more vigorously before Peoples Nations Tongues and Kings concerning which Things the generality are so asleep That there are but a few Names who have not defiled their Garments but will be in great danger of a shameful Devestiture or Degradation when Christ appears Revel 3. 3. compar'd with Revel 16. 15. The Church of Philadelphia although in a general Zeal to have a perfect Square with pure Evangelical Truth be indeed v. 7. c. in Being yet not come to make the Apocalyptick Line of Time by its proper Interval or space nor can do before the end of the 1260 days as it is drawn upon these Churches to the New Jerusalem which appears in Philadeph and the Right of a Church Their Door of the Profession of Christ according to his Word is endeavoured to be shut although Christ as by immediate Power hath hitherto kept it open yet They of this Church have but a little strength outward Power or Glory Revel 3. 7. c. The Synagogue of Sathan is ready on all Accounts and at all Advantages to Dissinagogue them and cast them out to controul and brow-beat them and that Synagogue must be of the Reformed so the naming them Jews imports as in the Church of Smyrna Jews signified Christians in Profession but becoming Gentiles so here it signifies Reformed but so far relaps'd as to be falsly so call'd who are at the same elevation of Corruption the Apostacy was at in the Church of Smyrna Not long before the 1260 dark days came in so that though they disallow the Apostacy since that time yet they are ready to Cannonize it so far as to that Time it had proceeded and might if they had Time find the same Path to the same End Yet still they escape the Beasts Number 666. Now in regard of all these things it is most evident The Witnesses must be yet in Sack-cloth but they are if they are not wanting to their own Priviledges and Office like Moses and Aaron commission'd to smite with Plagues as often at they will that is to declare the foulness of the Apostacy to Revel 11. 6. remonstrate the Bestianism and Antichristianism of it and to foretel the seventh Trumpet and its Voices and Vials in Ruine of the Kingdom of the Beast and the great Judgments to be executed on his City Church Himself and his false Prophet and all the Impenitents of his Kingdom from first to last and also to declare the Redemption of the whole Israel of God from this spiritual Egypt and its Slavery the opening the Temple that the Ark of the Testament the Tabernacle of Testimony may be seen in Heaven and the Kingdom of Christ appear in the New Jerusalem And this they may do as often as they will That is There is abundant Evidence of Prophetick Truth to do it by There are abundant Promises of Acceptance Favour and Support in the doing of it so that it is a Remisness of Will that is of Zeal not to do it For Blessed is he that heareth and they that read the Words of this Prophecy especially when the Time is so near at Hand The last part of this Time is the most Glorious because Revel 11. 11. c. it issues out into the seventh Trumpet and then those great things will come to pass in Preparation of which all that was at the beginning of that Time was but a shade and semblance Then the Spirit of Life in full and perfect measure shall enter into the Witnesses and set them on their Feet and great fear shall fall on them that see them there will be then so wonderful an appearance of divine Power and Judgment as upon the Apostles Doctrine and Miracles in the very first Times Where if things had gone on with the same Power from Heaven as at first the Kingdom of Christ had then appear'd but the Mystery of Iniquity surpris'd them at 25 or 26. There shall be a Voice calling them up to Heaven and as in the Cloud wherein Christ himself ascended They shall Ascend and whereas only the Servants of Christ beheld Him Their Enemies shall behold them which speaks the publickness of their Ascention and the mighty Influences it will have And in the same Hour the Tenth that is the Decem Principality of the great City viz. most necessarily That great City in which the Witnesses lay dead in the breadth of it fell For when the Ten Horns that give State and Altitude to the Beast fall off from his seventh Head the Woman that sits on the Beast which is this very same City-Church must needs fall from that Height with which the Beast carried it while exalted with his Ten Horns which substantial Reason will recompence for the seeming Impropriety of such a use of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Tenth being both in Dan and this Prophecy so essential to the Beast that carries the Woman The Ascent of the Witnesses into Heaven I understand to be some Exemplification on Earth of the Glory and Triumph The Witnesses of Christ that have gone out of the World suffering for Christ in any degrees of Martyrdome have at this time in Heaven upon this change of the World to Christ's Kingdom as undoubtedly the Saints have on all such Changes even as the Angels joy in the Repentance of Sinners As the Saints in Heaven triumph'd at the Desolation of Heathenism or the casting down of the Dragon The Exemplification then of this on Earth by the exalted state of the true Servants of Christ there is the Importance of these Symbols And in the same Hour oppos'd to the same or one Hour of Revel 17. 12 13. the Ten Kings receiving Power with the Beast and giving then their Kingdom to him and therefore comes now into a fit Counter-parallel There shall be an Earth-quake such a mighty Concussion shake and change of the State of the Christian World that Cities shall be removed as it were and not be the same they were before That great City although it shall remain on its Heap yet its tenthly or Ten kingdom'd-Kingdom'd-state shall utterly fall seven thousand not Names only but Names of Men shall be slain They shall be slain in
their Corrupt Antichristian state and utterly abolished and an Apocalyptical Evangelical seven shall take their Room so that the Successours in their Places shall have such a Sense of this Great Judgment on them as to Give Glory to God For that at this Time the whole Antichristian State was converted and repented I cannot understand because of the after course of this Prophecy But a great alteraiion in the Posture of the Christian World will then be made It will be of another Model as great a change as seven thousand Orders of Men falling under the sense and influence of this Apocalyptical Prophecy and modelled according to that can make shall then be so that in the whole Succession to the Kingdom of Christ signified by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They shall give Glory to God the God of Heaven in place of the Man of Sin who sat in the Temple of God shewing himself that He is God and in place of Idols of Gold and Silver Then the second Woe shall pass away Mahometanism whatever Existence it may have in the World shall no longer remain the Woe of the Christian World because when Antichristianity the Provocation of so great a Judgment is fallen the Judgment it self shall also remove although Euphrates may yet continue a River till at the sixth Vial it is dried up yet it shall not so overflow as hitherto it hath done And this Woe is always to be esteem'd the Boundary of the 1260 Days for their ending for till that Woe is past they cannot end for till then the Witnesses do not rise perfectly nor come out of Sackcloth till then the Beasts forty two Months of being a Bestian Power do not end nor the 1260 of the Woman in the Wilderness but then they shall all end together Therefore the Crashings and Smoaking of the Mahometan Mountain at this Time gives an alarm to the Expectation of these things and however the Antichristian Power by its Contributions concurr with the Ten Kings to the passing away of that Woe yet let it certainly know that at that very same time and by those very Ten Kings falling off from it it s own Decarchy or Ten-horn'd Supremacy shall fall into the Dust also For as we may be assured The Reformation the rising of the Witnesses are not yet at their top because that Woe is not yet pass'd so we may be assur'd All the Symbols and Emblems of the Antichristian City and Prince as roll'd down from their height and of the Kingdom of Christ rising although being future we cannot so certainly expound them yet they shall in their significancy be fulfill'd and made good to the utmost as those have been before them which we more fully comprehend by History And that all must be fulfill'd within the 180 Years from 1517 or from the Reformation begun then which must be by 1697. For that so the mouth of the Lord hath spoken by this Prophecy I now proceed to argue I must rely upon the proof I have already offer'd along this Line That I have made true motions and progresses upon it in Events of so great Concernment and universal Notoriety to the Christian World as to be most worthy to be the Discoveries of so Sovereign and Imperial a Prophecy given by the Prince of the Kings of the Earth receiv'd from his Father to shew to his Servants digested into a methâ—â—â— and Series of Time most exact and contriv'd into such â—onderful and self-demonstrating Symbols as that they may be found out by them that are stirr'd up by God to Read and so propos'd to those whom God enclines to Hear that Both may come to the Blessedness promis'd by understanding them aright Rev. 1. 3. In comparison of which Events and their order and series as I have presented them the little and close the private and particular points of Story without an equal and just Admensuration to Apocalyptical Time upon which some Names so great that for Reverence I dare not Name have fallen are but as Relations fit for private Discourse and unfit for a grave History or like the Description of small Rivers Hills or Vills unworthy the Title of a Geography and yet such a Prophecy so much below its own Majesty do such Interpretations make it Now according to this so illustrious so orderly Series of Events it will easily appear by Reflection on what is written The Reformation must necessarily be determin'd to the last 180 of the 1260 Years so as to determine at 1697. But I shall yet offer these two particular Arguments The very Time of the Pillar of the Beasts Number erected Argu. 1 I date to 725 or 26 as the solemn Representation of it by the beginning of the Iconoclastick War and so of the Beasts War with the Witnesses The very Time of the Death of the Witnesses I date to 787 represented by the second Council of Nice damning all that refus'd to worship Images the one 72 Years before the two Times of 360 Years a-piece the other only ten Years before Let us now by proportion of the three Years and a half of Elijah's Drought and the three days of our Lord's Death adjust the Expiration of the Intimate Time Times half a Time and as near Ten years after the two whole Times of intimate Time expir'd at 1517 we find the Witnesses standing on their Feet so eminently as that they began to esteem the Thunderbolts of Antichristian Excommunication brutish and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a solemn and Oracular manner as from this very Prophecy to be called Protestants Which Appellation however it began on particular occasion and as only in a providential Representation to agree History with Prophecy as I all along observe yet it hath been espous'd by the whole Reformation and it is by secret instinct derived probably beyond their Intention from these two Apocalyptical Witnesses For what is Protestation or Protestancy but a publick avowed Witness against the Tyranny of the Beast And that so solemn a Denomination is of no small Account appears by that so great Memorial of the Disciples being call'd Christians Acts 11. 26. And as the Pillar of Intimate Time was erected at 725 or 26 71 or 72 Years before the two whole Times so seventy one or seventy two Years after the two whole Times at 1517 lead us to the famous 1588 from which Time the most Catholick Kingdoms so call'd decay'd in Pomp and Reputation not to say the whole Austrian Family And had not the Thunders been seal'd and the Book retired into Prophecy the Parallels had been more illustrious but Sixteen hundred ninety seven shall I am fully assur'd answer for all The Disposal of this Time of the Reformation as it hath Argu. 2 been given is so demonstrative as not to be avoided for the Witnesses Prophecy in Sackcloth 1260 days Twelve hundred sixty days we are assur'd are three times and a half at their full extent for so long the Woman is in the
motion and zealous of finishing the Mystery of God and that within so short a Time as 75 Years so that as the Voices and Vials cannot have yet been since the Reformation so they cannot take up above 75 Years after it For to shew them quick they are styl'd Voices soon given and Vials suddenly pour'd out and what is quicker than the Voice of God's Thunder than the Spouts and Cataracts of Heaven 5. If there be seven Voices or Thunders they must needs unite with the seventh Trumpet and the seven Vials must issue from the seventh Voice or else the admirable Contexture of this Prophecy its Symmetry and Harmony must needs be lost as therefore the seventh Seal comprehends the seven Trumpets during which the Kingdom remains seal'd even so must the seventh Trumpet the Voices and to shew the Voices are seven Voices the seven Vials are fill'd from the Blood of the Wine-press of the seventh Voice 6. It is most impossible the Bestian or Antichristian Power should be in such a State as at this day it is If the seventh Trumpet with its Voices and Vials had made their Impressions on it it must needs have been torn and rent in pieces thereby But because that so illustrious End of the sixth Trumpet and the seventh Trumpet are to come and that the seventh Trumpet is so expresly styl'd Mystery I shall with all Humility Modesty and Brevity undertake not any thing in their Explication as to the very manner or precise sense of Particulars but only in the general demonstrate their Order and Sequence and observe their necessary main Importance but whether even that Fall of the Tenth of the City and the concomitant mighty Works do not with a great notice of themselves only given at the end of the sixth issue into the seventh Trumpet and so are gradually fulfill'd in the Voices and the Vials and how the Bestian Power or the spiritual Pharaoh and his Egypt is so much as kept in a State of Being or Existence at all and survives as Pharaoh and Egypt of old under such Voices and Vials to the last or as the City where our Lord was crucified did under such a Ministry and a course of Miracles and Prophecies fulfilling upon it till destroy'd by Titus I confess my self unable to account but must leave it to that Time it self that will be so full of Light to explain it But that the Prophecy gives us an orderly course of seven Voices although in reverence as it were of the Prophecy it self to its own Type of the Thunders once seal'd they and their Order is so much cover'd I shall thus argue There are in this Apocal. Prophecy ch 14. seven distinct Issues Arg. 1 or Emanations following in a Connexion and yet to v. 1. v. 13. v. 6. v. 14 15. each is annex'd its signal Note of Distinction so that while they are in a Connexion they are also under a Distinction v. 8. v. 18. v. 9. and they are just seven and most undeniably so From hence it appears they concert with all the Apocalyptick Sevens in which Number the whole Prophecy is all along conveyed To each of these there is applied either a Voice from Heaven Arg. 2 a loud Voice or a loud Cry according to the Note of the seventh Trumpet There were great Voices in Heaven Every one of these Sevens hath therefore this Note except the Third concerning the Fall of Babylon omitted then as it were on purpose to distinguish it and that it might not be mistaken for the Execution of this Voice by the seventh Vial c. 18. else it cannot but be thought That Angel discharg'd his Office and Trust with the same Zeal the other Angels did and that a Point of so great Concernment to the Kingdom of Christ as Babylon's Fall was neither whisper'd in a low Accent nor coolley or so much as calmly pronounced To shew there is a Connexion of the Seven when there had been no mention of any Angel in the first Voice yet it is Arg. 3 said in the second Voice Another Angel Now seeing he cannot be call'd Another with respect to any precedent Angel it must undoubtedly be with Relation to the first Voice and thus as there is a Connexion so there is an Order in the fourth Voice therefore the Angel is call'd the third Angel to shew there is a design'd Order And as to shew the same Order also the first Angel was called not the first but another and if Another there must be a former another can't be without a first other for Another is a second other So it appears again there is an order of Voices signified in this third Angel but fourth Voice for the Order is again express'd by Third a most express Note of Order The very Importance of each Voice carries a Succession to Arg. 4 the Kingdom of Christ which that we may better understand we must consider Voice and Voices and Thunder in their general Notation in Scripture signifie Doctrine and an Emanation of Doctrine so John Baptist is called a Voice and those two Apostles Boanerges or Sons of Thunder and especially in this Prophecy Thunders and Voices are always big with some Appearance of Christ's Kingdom This course of Voices must therefore be a course of Doctrines very productive of Christ's Kingdom and in the two last of earnest Prayers for it that were returned to as Christ's Prayer Glorifie Joh. 12. 28. thy Name by a Voice of Thunder I have both glorified it and will glorifie it again and as the Place where the Apostles prayed was shaken so these Petitions will be to the Acts 4. 31. World as a Thunder and Earthquake and yet the Kingdom it self after these Preparations is in a still Voice of Grace and Peace We must then enquire from whence these Voices rise and spring and we may find three Origins of them 1. They rise from the Church of Philadelphia whose proper Interval or Support of the Line of Time is at the seventh Trumpet as hath been affirmed And it is said Christ set it an open door viz. of divine Doctrine reaching to Christ's Kingdom So the Apostle calls the Propagation of the Gospel 1 Cor. 16. 9. Col. 4. 3. by his Ministry the opening to him a door wide and effectual and the very Publication it self a door of Vtterance 2. They spring from the seven Thunders that uttered their Voices but as not in due time to proceed nor in the order of the Apocal. Sevens were then sealed but are now written The first Voice therefore as the Voice of Thunder allies the whole Course of them to the Thunders and the Persons from whom the Voice of the first Thunder proceeds had the Name of the Lambs Father Written which Number was first under Seal at the Apostacy beginning then they shewed themselves at the Thunders but immediately were seal'd again and now unseal'd and written at the Thunders unseal'd and written in these Voices So in
his mighty ones according to Rev. 19. comes down and the whole Air is full of Divine Judgments so that this Battel just before the Kingdom v. 17. of Christ is with Burning and Fewel of Fire and not Garments roll'd in Blood of which all the immediate Judgments from Heaven as on Midian as on the Assyrians Esa 9. 5. are Types which last is joyn'd to a clear Prophecy of this Glorious Kingdom of Christ. I can give no fitter Remark upon so unfathomable a course Remark of Judgments than the recording that Song of Moses the Servant of God at the final Overthrow of the Egpptians in the Red Sea and of the Lamb c. 15. 9. Great and marvellous are thy Works Lord God Almighty just and true are thy ways oh King of Saints Who shall not fear thee Oh Lord and glorifie thy Name for thou only art Holy and all Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy Judgments are made manifest And this course of Judgments comprehends all the Dead both small and great to that very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 IT IS DONE and at last to these Dead at the seventh Vial are gathered All whose Names are not found written in the Book of Life and are cast with Death it self into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone which is the second Death SECT XVI Wherein is given in a most brief Account the state of the thousand Years both as to Time and Excellency On c. 20. THE Time of the Duration of the Kingdom which is the Sabbath of Time when all Anti-sabbatical Time shall be at an end and NO MORE is a thousand Years Now it may be a great doubt How this Time is to be understood whether literally or mystically if literally How then will it agree with the whole Frame of the Prophecy which hath very little that is not mystical and of a typical Signification and most particularly all the Lines of Time But if the thousand Years be mystical either they shall express no definite Time or they shall if mystically multiplied set the State of Eternity at incomputable Distances yet from the last Time and Ends of the World we are now subsisting upon contrary to all the Reason and Faith of Christians and the whole Analogy of the Scriptures Now that which I would reconcile the Thoughts of all the serious Considerers of Prophecy in this matter by is That here The literal and the mystical Sense conspire and closely embrace one another The literal 1000 Years comprises highest Mystery in it for besides that in round Number as we compute Time it comes in as the sabbatical thousand for which I perceive there is a general Favour of all Christians if not Jews that have any Estimation of mystick Types of Prophecy Besides this and that the millenary Number hath great Reputation in Pythagorick mystick Numbers as a cubical Number rising from 10 and filling up the Perfection of Number even as the millenary State is the perfectest State of Conformity to the Law of Creation given by God in the 10 Words we call the Decalogue in which Sabbatism hath so great Place and Reason It is also the Time wherein Sathan is bound chain'd and seal'd up the Sanctuary is cleans'd in the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or IT IS DONE in the New Jerusalem Besides all this It is the great Emblem God hath chosen to represent his own and his Servants blessed Eternity in This thousand Years is as one day to him to represent his and his SECT VIII Wherein the 42 Months are measur'd by the exactest Rule of Prophecy and found to begin at the Cessation of the Christian Western Empire and to end whenever the 1260 Days end the Date of the Kingdom of Christ immediately ensuing and by compare with the 1260 Days at 1697. Page 90. SECT IX In which the Time from the 42 Months beginning is set out till 622 or the Mahometan Hegira by Rome's dark State in the fourth Trumpet by the Angels proclaiming the three Woe Trumpets by the Beast becoming a fallen Star at 606 and the Key of the Abyss given him viz. in the universal Pastorship by Phocas and the Ministry of the other Beast to him herein and the State of the Witnesses are also declar'd Revel c. 8. v. 12. c. c. 9. v. 1. c. Page 114. SECT X. Wherein is undertaken to be proved That the Mahometan Saracens are the Locusts design'd in the fifth Apocalyptical Trumpet and that the 25 Months given to them comprehend 435 Years from the Mahometan Hegire at 622 and so reach â—o 1057. Vpon Rev. c. 9. v. 1. c. Page 124. SECT XI Of the Number 666 shewing the Certainty it gives to the whole Line of Time both as to the Nature and Time of the Beast upon a true and right Explanation of it Rev. 13. v. 15 16 17 18. Page 132. SECT XII In which is given an Explication of the Woe of the sixth Trumpet especially to the taking of Constantinople and by proportion to the Reformation and to the End of that Woe and an Adjustment of the Hour Day Month and Year to the whole Time Vpon Revel 9. 12 13 14 c. Page 149. SECT XIII This Section enters into the Half-time of the Reformation and by the Agreement of Prophecy with the Event demonstrates the Beginning and End of that Time On Rev. c. 10. Page 155. SECT XIV Wherein is contained a brief Disquisition upon the seven Voices as they run along Apoc. c. 14. Page 177. SECT XV. VVherein is given a very brief Display on the Vials Page 185. SECT XVI VVherein is given in most brief Account the Time of the 1000 Years both as to Time and Excellency Page 189. FINIS