believe nevertheless that you will find that Truth better cleared and made more manifest than hitherto it hath been This Controversie about Antichrist hath languisht for an hundred years it hath been unhappily abandon'd on a politick account and in obedience to Popish Princes 'T is a wicked Complaisance for which we are punisht and which hath cost us very dear for if we had perpetually exposed this Great and important Truth before the Eyes of the Protestants that the Papacy is Antichristianism they would not have fallen into that degeneracy and apostacy which we see at present How could they have resolved within themselves to submit to Antichrist and return to his Party But 't is so long since they heard it so called that they have forgot it They thought it was only a transport of zeal in the first Reformers from which we were now come off There was something in that neglect and forgetfullness which seems to discover the finger of God He would that this horrible catastrophe should happen and to that end permitted that this important Truth should be neglected and those controversies only which were but accessory should be minded and that this should be pass't over that the Papacy is the Antichristian Empire they who for want of giving heed to that Truth are fallen ought now to think of it and tremble to consider that they have voluntarily plung'd themselves again into that Babylon out of which God had so wonderfully delivered them In my opinion this is so fundamental a Truth that without it a man cannot be a true Christian to confound the Kingdom of J. Christ with that of Antichrist is an unsufferable Fault in some Ages for certain God hath permitted that Ignorance but we are not now in those times we must now declare for one party and stand our ground There is no Communion between Christ and Belial between the Prince of light and that Destroyer who is truly an Angel of Darkness that Controversy was so much stifled and laid asleep that our Adversaries believed it dead and thought that we had renounc't that Principle and the ground of all our Reformation for I cannot believe the Reformation to have been on a good foundation but on this account Some Protestants the reproach and shame not only of the Reformation but of the Christian name have contributed to efface these Ideas from the minds of men by turning to another sense what the H. Ghost saith of the Antichristian Empire making such Commentaries of the scripture as overthrow the design and meaning of it forging Histories at pleasure by that means to find the accomplishment of S. Iohn's Prophecies in the first ages of the Church At present therfore we must revive that Truth which we had almost suffered to dye This is the Time when we must indeavour to open the Eyes of the Princes and People of the Earth for behold now is the Time when they ought to eat the flesh of the Beast and burn it with fire strip naked the whore and tear off her ornaments and make a full end of Babylon Within a little while these great Things must come to pass 't is high time then to awaken men in order to it This is what I attempt in the first part of this work wherein I discover after another manner than hath been done hitherto the true Characters of that Antichristian Empire In which I must acknowledg my great obligations to my forementioned Author Joseph Mede for no man hath taken pains upon that subject with so much success as he You will see the admirable Type of Antichrist in the famous Antiochus carried farther than ever it hath been and the explication of the three years and half or 1260 days much clearer than ever hitherto it hath been made But I must here advertise that to comprehend the full force of my Arguments to prove the Papacy to be the Antichristian Empire to the reading of this work you must add that of my Lawful Prejudices against Popery for in that book you will find the proof of all the Characters of the Antichristian Empire inlarged I mean not only those Chapters wherein the explication of some passages in the Prophecies concerning Antichrist I apply them to the Pope and his Empire I speak principally of those Chapters where I describe the Corruption Covetousness Pride Idolatry Paganism the fabulous and lying Spirit of Popery all characters of Antichristianism as in this work is shown I desire all those who have any care of their salvation to Read those two pieces and I dare be confident that all those who have not a seared Conscience will be sensibly affected with what they shall there find and conceive a just Horror for that Religion which hath held the Truth under so long and cruel a Captivity That I may render my Lawfull Prejudices the more usefull to my design which is to make the Papacy appear to be the true Antichristianism I am resolved according to the advice that hath been given me to abridge it but instead of making a pure and simple abridgment I shall in contracting it change the Prejudices into so many Characters of Antichristianism and show that there is no one of those Prejudices but is a character of the Antichristian Empire If any thing retards this design it will be my desire to see whether Mr. Arnaud will make good the promise of F. Simon and reply to that Book So that when I Abridge that Book I may at the same time refute the Sophisms Mr. Arnaud is preparing This first part regards the Time past The second part contains the explication of Things Future or rather of those which we believe are yet to come there are many things therin which will certainly be surprizing to you as they were to me and if you read with any favourable opinion what I say upon the 11th 14th and 16th Chapters of the Apocalyps I cannot believe you will have much different Thoughts from mine I will not call them Conjectures let them be such to others I consent but as to me there is something more for I think I have discovered which are the two parts of the Fall of Babylon whereof one is called the Harvest the other the Vintage I believe that I have found the seven viols of the 16th Chap. to be already poured out which were supposed to be yet to come which to me is an argument that the Reign of Antichrist is near its end I know not whether others have discovered any thing of this before me I pretend not to have perused all the Modern Commentators on the Apocalyps on the Contrary I have read very few of them having experienc't that the diversity of Ideas that remain in the mind serve but to obscure the Truth and cause one to lose it Some I consulted before I made this second Ediction but I found nothing capable to make me alter my sentiments or that could furnish me with any new light Dr. Moore is
The proofs of it may be seen in our just prejudices against Popery for there I have shewed these excesses that smell of the spirit of reprobation and that they have had for their authors a Saint Dominick and his Jacobins a Saint Francis and his Cordeliers and generally all the order of the Monks The Idolatry of the Papism was establisht by the Fables and fictions of the Monks By what means did these persons establish Idolatry by hypocrisy and lying by the hypocrisy of liars seared in their consciences Behold preciesely the very way by which the Roman Clergy and generally the Priests and Monks as well those of the East as of the West have establisht Idolatry by profound hypocrisy by lies and fables How many false visions were there to establish the invocation of Saints How may false miracles You should consult the Legends on this point and if any will not give himself that trouble let him read eleven Chapters of our prejudices in the second part from the 11th to the 23th We have given our selves the trouble to make a considerable collection of the horrid filthy shamefull falsities which the Papism its Priests and Monks have advanced to uphold the idolatrous worship of Saints Reliques and Images And it should be observ'd that this spirit of fables was introduced into the Church exactly at the same time that the Antichristian Idolatry began to enter into it The lives of the ancient Monks Paul Anthony Hilarion c. were written by St. Jerom without honesty and judgment The History of the Church from this very time begins to be a Romance where 't is extreme difficult to distinguish truth from lies Under Julian the Apostate Babylas the Martyr begins to work miracles by his Reliques For near 350. years there was not a miracle wrought by Reliques ever heard of But under the reign of Julian the Apostate who succeeded the children of Constantine Babylas the Martyr sometime Bishop of Antioch made a martyr in Decius's persecution interred in a Suburb of Antioch called Daphne more than a hundred years after his death thought of working the first miracles Julian the Apostate would consult the Oracle of Apollo of Daphne who not being willing to answer and conjured at least to tell the reason of his silence said it came from hence that the bones of the Martyr Babylas were interr'd near his Temple This is the most ancient History of a miracle wrought by Reliques that we have been able to discover So the corruption of Christianity began in the same place where the faithfull began to be called Christians It was not very long before miracles were seen wrought by other Reliques St. Ambrose was inform'd in a vision where the bones of the Martyrs Gervais and Protais were interred they went to seek them they carried them in great pomp to the Church and they did not fail immediately to work great miracles This was found so good and so proper to beat down the remainders of Heathenism that this torrent gained ground every where Miracles wrought by Reliques were look'd upon as new in the 4th Age. Orat. adversus Games But that which is highly observable is that the Authors who report these facts as true confess that this was new and had not been seen since the Apostles time St. Chrysostom speaking of Babylas saith if any one will not believe the things done by the Apostles let him mind those that are done in this age and cease impudently to deny the truth He doth not send them back to the times immediately fore-going he doth not say if any one will not believe the Miracles that are always wrought in the Church let him believe that which he sees at present But he sends them back to the Apostles as if nothing of the like nature had been seen since them St. Ambrose also saith it plainly enough speaking of the Miracles wrought by the Reliques of Gervais and Protais He reckons up the Miracles of these two Saints Epist and Marcell Soror l. 7. and finds nothing like it since the Apostles time Wherefore after he hath made an enumeration of the Miracles of these Saints he makes one of those of Jesus Christ and his Apostles which he sees renewed and saith nothing of any that were wrought in the ages immediately fore-going St. Austin that was very fond of the same superstition makes the same acknowledgement in the 8th Chapter of the 22th Book of the City of God whence the Papists pretend to draw so great advantage to themselves 'T is true he there makes a History of many Miracles wrought by Reliques but he acknowledgeth this is all new We have given order saith he for the making publick memoirs and books for the reading of these Miracles before the people seeing that in our time the signs and miracles of the ancient times were renewed It was therefore new and had not been since the ancient times Now it is certain that these pretend miracles had for their Author the Spirit of lying and for their spring the Hypocrisy of Lyars It was the Devil that abused these good men The fable of Protais and Gervais very plain in St. Ambrose to lead them to superstition and idolatry that which St. Ambrose himself saith of those Saints Gervais and St. Protais is very proper to make one suspect a cheat The inhabitants of Milane desire him to build in their City a Temple like that at Rome I Ubi supra will do it saith he provided I can but find some Reliques He had them not as yet he knew not where to find them but lo he is in quest of them and hereupon subiit veluti cujusdam ardor praesagii behold he was inflamed with a certain fire that savoured of presage and inspiration He makes them search in a certain place he there finds two bodies of Gyants We found two men of extraordinary bigness such as the ancient time did yield In-venimus mirae magnitudinis viros duos ut prisca aetas serebat Ossa integra sanguinis plurimum The bones were yet entire and there was a great deal of blood Would you not say that he speaks of the time wherein Polyphemus and the old Giants lived Men I warrant you were much bigger in the third Age under the Empire of Decius than under that of Gratian and Valentinian I don't know whether it be apparent that God chose martyrs from among the Giants They are a sort of people the enormous mass of whose bodies dies is usually a sign of the vices of their souls at is usually a sign of the vices of their souls at least of that fury and warlike heat which is not the Character of a Saint But it was necessary every thing in the fable should be great even to the bodies of those that were found This spirit of lying and fables increased and grew with the reign of Idolatry In the sixth Age the two Gregories one the Bishop of Rome the other
the Earth Besides all other inconveniencies this system hath this further viz. that besides these seven Periods an eighth must be added for the reign of the Church on the Earth This is a thing that was never heard of the times were never in any prophecy divided into eight The mystery of the seven Churches according to Dr. Hen. More Dr. Henry More is one of the last that hath spent his Labours on the Revelation He believes also that these seven Epistles are mystical prophetical see how he understands them The Church of Ephesus is the Period that ran out from J. Christ's time to the tenth year of Nero's Empire See here a Period short enough There is not usually so great an inequality between the Periods that divide the times in the Prophecies Moreover one may be assured that there is not so much as one word in this Epistle that may not as happily be applyed to the two following Ages as to the first so that this Application is purely Arbitrary and without any Ground The Church of Smyrna is the Period from the tenth year of Nero to the year 324. i. e. to the Reign of Constantine and the Council of Nice This falls in with Cocceius's Notion wherefore I cannot approve of it for the Reason above-mention'd Pergamus according to Dr. More signifies the Church from the year 324. to the year 1242. during which time the Empire of Antichrist was establisht taking in the time in which the Waldenses and Albigenses appear'd in the World and were extinguisht The Foundation of this Explication is the Seat of Satan I know where thou dwellest even where Satan's Seat is And the Martyr Antipas that signifies according to this Author Anti-Pope or contrary to the Pope This is a little glittering Light but I am much afraid 't is a Deceitful one For First Why should we comprehend in this Empire of Satan the Reigns of Constantine and Theodosius which were so happy for the Church 2dly Why should it be said to this Antichristian Period I know thy Good Works and that thou hast not Denyed my Name seeing there never were fewer that made profession of the Truth than in this Period If ever the Church may be accused of having renounced the Name of Jesus Christ 't is in the time of Antichristianism which is called an Apostacy so that this Article doth not hit well but that which follows doth much worse Thyatira according to this Author is the Church from the time that the Albigenses were destroyed to that time that entire Nations abandon'd the Communion of Rome 'T is it may be a time the most barren in Virtue and the most overwhelm'd with Superstition that ever was since Jesus Christ yet must this great Praise be attributed to it I know thy Works and thy Patience and thy Charity and that thy last Works are more than the first What is said to the Church of Ephesus which 't is pretended is the Apostolical Church is not so honourable nor so great Thou sufferest the Woman Iezabel that calls her self a Prophetess How can this be applied to those Ages that have run out since the Ruin of the Albigenses to the Reformation Jezabel that Roman Whore hath not only been suffer'd and tolerated she hath reigned with less Contradiction than in any Age. Sardis is the fifth Church which signifies the fifth Period according to Dr. More and this Period is that of the Reformation to the last Vial i.e. to the last Ruin of Antichrist 'T is to this Church that the Holy Spirit saith Thou hast a Name to live but behold thou art dead Can it be imagin'd that God should give such great Praises to the Church that was since the Ruin of the Albigenses till the Reformation and that the Holy Spirit should be made to speak with so much Disdain of the Reformed Church What comparison is there between the Church in its Reformation that corrupted Church wherein hardly any was to be found that preserv'd himself from the mighty Corruption of Error and Vice Philadelphia which is the sixth Church signifies a sixth Period wherein Antichrist shall be entirely ruin'd and the Infidel Nations be converted This is to divine and that which the Holy Spirit saith to the sixth Church doth not exactly import any such thing Lastly Laodicea of which the Holy Spirit speaks in such disadvantageous terms is the Church that must fall into decay after the Fall of Antichrist and the Conversion of the People And this Decay must bring the Church to the coming of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ on the Earth See here a new Period and of which there is not the least foot-step in all the Prophecies 'T is a Period that must run out from the Ruin of Antichrist and the Conversion of the People All the Prophecies foretell that the Reign of Jesus Christ shall come immediately after the Fall of Babylon and the Fulness of the Gentiles Yet here behold a Period that separates these two Events which ought to be joyned together Lastly this System is subject to the same inconveniencies as that of Cocceius There must be supposed an eighth Period for the reign of the thousand years which Dr. More acknowledges Now it must be confessed that this eighth Period is altogether unknown to the Prophets for we do not any where find that the time hath been divided into Eight parts Those that will attentively reflect on what we have just now said will confess if I am not much mistaken either that these Epistles to the seven Churches are not prophetical or that the Mystery hath not yet been discovered For nothing that hath been said about them hath this certain Character of Truth which is obvious to every one The Prophecies must be like Aenigma's which till they have been well explained seem unintelligible but when one hath hit right upon them they appear so clear that they cannot otherwise be understood CHAP. II. An Explication of the Vision of the four living Creatures of the twenty four Elders contained in the fourth Chapter SEeing there 's nothing propheticall in the three first chapters of the Revelation we may go on to the fourth Chapter One may say that this is the opening of this great divine Theater on which these admirable prophetical Visions will immediatly appear The entrance is like that of the Prophet Ezekiel God appears in the Temple which is in heaven sitting on a magnificent Throne Round about the throne there is a Rainbow this is the Symbol of Peace Before the Throne there was a Sea of Glass like to Chrystal This may signify the Purity of the Doctrine of the Gospel by which we are washed justified It is of Glass of Chrystal because of its firmness For the Gospel is an eternal Covenant that shall not be done away by a new covenant But that which is most considerable here is the four living Creatures the twenty four Elders that are round about
it self and its own safety The enemies of France shal hinder the destroying of the Reformation Languages Tribes and Nations always signify several Peoples and never one only people Thus it is evident by this Prophecy that the people who are neighbours to France nay those who are distant from her shall stop her in this furious design of destroying the Reformed Religion But after what manner they shall hinder her this Prophecy speaks not perhaps it shall be by causing some trouble to France during which the persecuted faithful one shall have opportunity of breathing and of giving a new birth to the Truth We shall quickly know whether God is preparing this already all the Protestants every where have united their Interests and it cannot be doubted this good understanding between them which appears is owing unto the persecution in France The house of Austria it self begins to understand its true Interest There is ground to hope that the late Truce which gave opportunity for this persecution will not be calm enough to give the Persecutors leasure wholly to extinguish the Truth Perhaps if shall be by another Method that the several Nations shall hinder the ruin of the Reformation in France Without doubt they do something toward it by the shelters and succors which they afford to the fugitives and particularly to the Pastors whom God reserves that they may again kindle the torch of the Doctrine of Truth Yea in France it self which is the street of the great City God will preserve a number of the faithfull who shall hinder the burial of the two witnesses and the utter perishing of the Truth There have been persecutions in which the Truth hath been as it were quite sunk to the bottom and buried in certain places This must not happen in this last persecution The truth will be oppressed yea suppressed but it shall be most clearly discerned and those who shall hold it in their hearts shall be most evidently seen and known As in dead bodies unburied they are dead and yet men do see them as clearly as if they were alive This persecution shall not come as far as a final suppression of the Truth as happened in the time of the Albigenses when not only the Witnesses were killed but were buried and disappear'd for several Ages for tho some of them being dispersed did preserve and carry the Truth into several desert places nevertheless the body of them was buried and disappeared in the streets of the popish Kingdom which shall not happen in this last persecution And they that dwell upon the Earth shall rejoyce over them and shall send gifts one to another because these two Prophets tormented them that dwell upon the Earth Observe it well these are not the same with those who hindred the dead bodies of the two witnesses from being buried Those are called They of the people and kindred and tongues these are called They that dwell upon the Earth the former hindred the burial out of piety these rejoyce over their death out of impiety In this whole Prophesy the Earth always signifies the territories and extent of the papacy and Antichristian Kingdom They are the Inhabitants of these territories of the Antichristian Kingdom who rejoyce At this day we see this Prophecy fulfilled Popery triumphs every where yea they who live in Protestant States are full of hopes to see quickly their Religion uppermost and nothing is more arrogant and insulting than their carriage But in a few years they shall see their pride brought very low which we are about to shew in the following Chapter CHAP. XIII The resurrection of the two Witnesses The Reformation shall within a few years rise again in FRANCE after that it shall be establisht by Royal Authority FRANCE shall renounce Popery and that Kingdom shall be converted THe bodies of the two Witnesses must remain dead only three days and a half and after these three days and a half the spirit of life from God shall enter into them and they shall stand upon their feet In my Prejud against Popery I fixed these three days and a half upon that space of time which lasted from the Council of Basil and destruction of the Taborites untill Luther during which time it seem'd as if the witnesses had been dead But I have wholly abandoned that conjecture after I had seriously considered it First because in that space of time the Witnesses were buried as well as slain 't is true there continued some remainders of Calixtins in Bohemia but they deserve not to be reckoned as a body Again 't is not usual in Scripture to take a broken number as this of three years and a half to denote an uncertain and indefinite number as I observed above so that I am perswaded that these three days and a half are three years and a half a day standing for a year as the three years and a half are 1260 years taking a year for a day 'T is therefore three years and a half during which the external profession of the Truth must be altogether suppressed and after which it shall be rais'd again to life And as I reject my own notions I would not that any should embrace those of Dr. More who hath lately wrote upon the Revelation He will have the three days and a half here to signify the same thing which the three years and a half do viz. 1260 years of the reign of Antichrist But truly he did not well consider this point when he wrote this First this would be an affected and very profound obscurity after he had reduced the 1260 years to 1260 days which make three years and a half then to reduce the same 1260 years to three days and a half We cannot find an example where the Holy Ghost sets forth the same space of time and in the same place after so different a manner But above all we must take notice that the Holy Ghost does here in a most exact manner distinguish these four things 1. The preaching of the Witnesses they shall prophesy cloathed in sackcloth 2. The death of the Witnesses and after this their bodies lye dead in the street of the great City 3. The duration of their Prophecy and testimony they shall prophesy cloathed in sackcloth 1260 days 4. And lastly the duration of their death they shall see their dead bodies in the streets of the City three days and a half He that will confound the two last of these viz. the 1260 years and the three days and a half must also confound the two first viz. the prophesying cloathed in sackcloth and the lying dead in the street of the City but certainly nothing is more different then to prophesy and to lye dead at least it must be supposed that the Witnesses prophesy while they are dead For their prophesying and their death being exactly fixed on the same period denoted by 1260 days and by three days and a half they must happen at the same time But
absolved them know well enough that they are Impenitent and Heretiques and persevering in their Heresy nevertheless they give them absolution Moreover they bring them to their Altars by force and violence they must be confest they must desire the Sacraments and they are given them In the mean time they know that they detest and abhor from their very hearts as a meer Idol that which is given them to eat and worship as a God. So that all these are Sacrilegious Communions and in plain terms the most abominable Sacriledge that can be imagined what conscience can we suppose these men to have who are guilty of such abominations so directly contrary to their own Principles But by what name shall we call the Oath which they force men to take and which they have publickly printed in which the new Converts swear by the name of God and upon the H. Evangelists that they have willingly abjured and without constraint or force And yet the Bishops know and all the World is acquainted with it that they have been forc't to this abjuration by armies of Butchers and Executioners let loose upon them Where are any principles of Morality even those of the greatest latitude that will permit this can there be any more horrible prophanation of an Oath than which nothing is more sacred and venerable In what a state must such mens Consciences needs be who force these poor men to commit so execrable a perjury and cause the name of God to be used for the assuring the Truth of a Thing which is most notoriously false I confess I shall never comprehend this and will alway say there is something in it more than humane that Men should make profession of a Religion and contradict the most inviolable rules of it openly before all the World. But to what a pitch of Impudence must they be arrived who Print and publish that no violence at all hath been imployed to make these Conversions All France abounds with strangers who are witnesses of it the Ministers of the Princes of Europe behold in forreign Merchants see and know it An hundred thousand witnesses who have themselves escapt out of the hands of these Executioners carry tidings of it to all the ends of the Earth and yet there are some who have the confidence to deny a matter of Fact that was done in the sight of all Europe We read the Arrests we see the Ordonnanees of the Intendants we see Woods cut down and Houses rased we behold twelve or fifteen thousand Prisoners in all the Prisons of the Kingdom and yet they tell us there is no such thing as Persecution This is one thing which is very singular in this Persecution and which hath no example I could not read without trembling what Mr. de Brueys saith in his last piece that the success there hath been of the Methods imployed for the Conversion of the Reformed make it evident that they were altogether disposed to receive the Catholick Truth I know not what those dispositions were as to himself but I question not but by the same means to make him turn Turk and afterwards Heathen in a very little time What Judgement can one make of such men as Mr. Brueys and Mr. Maimbourg who in the Epistle Dedicatory to the Life of Gregory I. complements and congratulates the King to this purpose that he sees the Period of Calvinism without having made use of any means to bring it about but those of Grace and sweetness mild and gentle methods 'T is these kind and gracious proceedings that hath forc't persons of good birth and quality accustomed to all the best accommodations of Life to leave ten twenty thirty forty thousand Livres per annum to expose themselves to all sorts of suffering and disgrace 'T is these sweet and obliging ways that hath forc't women of every age quality to come away disguis'd in the habit of Peasants some on foot some on horseback some by Post some who were eight or nine moneths with child in the night through all the Fatigues of the winter I say once more that I cannot understand how men that have any honour to lose or at least who believe they have can declare that to be false which is so evident and notorious that nothing is more publickly known or more undeniable This is a sort of Lying that in my opinion is very perticular But it the mean while 't is an homage paid to Truth and Justice 't is a confession that such Actions are most black and abominable because though they are committed in the face of the Sun they dare not own them they deny them before those who were eye-witnesses of them No man of honour after the reading of Mr. Maimbourg's Epistle to the King prefixt to the Life of St. Gregory but must judge him to be one of the most base and dishonest Writers in the world It had been more pardonable if he had only by the by dropt such a falsehood without insisting on it But to write a large Epistle Dedicatory on that subject to complement the King for the Conversions he hath made without using any other means than sweetness and Charity this is to put the most patient Readers out of all patience If we consider the manner of this persecution it is no less extraordinary 'T is new 't is without example 'T is no new thing to condemn people to dye or to offer incense to Idols and to go to Mass to banish Christians or massacre them because they will not joyn in with the Religion that is uppermost this hath been seen an hundred times But I maintain there was never any thing seen like this Persecution which we see at present They tell People they will not kill them on the contrary we will say they that you live but you shall go to Mass or you shall be tortured you shall be confined within the Kingdom you shall not be suffered to go away if you attempt an escape you shall be sent to the Gallies while you stay you shall have fifty Soldiers or rather Executioners to maintain if fifty be not sufficient you shall have an hundred with express orders not to let you alone by day or night to omit no pillage no blows no punishments no torments till you have renounc't your Religion This I say is what hath never been seen before The success hath made many believe that this infernal method was the most happily invented by the Clergy that could be to promote the design of the Converters and to ruin the Reformation But I am quite of another opinion and 't is one of the most extraordinary things which I find in this persecution that any persons of good sense should believe this to be a likely method to abolish a Religion The persecution was well enough begun in order to the end and design of the Persecutors And had they been contented by little and little to deprive us of our Temples to banish our Ministers to
forbid all Assemblies to leave us in ignorance and deprive us of all the other advantages which others Subjects injoy the Reformed Religion would have been almost extinguisht before ten years were over such being the coldness and declension of Piety to which the Protestants were already come But God who would not that his Truth should perish suffer'd not that things should remain in that posture 'T is well known that humane passions are a great help to Christian vertues The fury which these persons are now in who feel this violence the torment they suffer in their Consciences the rage which they are in for being forced do all concur to fortify the hatred they had of Idolatry and their love and inclination for the Truth So that by means of these violent Passions the Truth makes the more indelible impressions on their hearts He must be very ignorant in the History of the World and of the Heart of man who can think this to be a likely way to extinguish a Religion The means to extirpate an Heresy pretended or real is to cut off the Heads to shed a great deal of blood and to stifle the most zealous of them by a massacre for if you suffer them to live and are content only to draw from them a feigned abjuration you thereby make them irreconcileable Hereticks 'T was by fire and sword the Albigenses were destroyed There is yet another very effectual way of extinguishing an Heresy which is to take away from them all means of increase and growth by preaching and instruction after this manner the Arrian Heresy was supprest by the Emperors This way they began to take in France for these twenty years last past and which could not have failed of success as I observed if it had been continued But he must be very blind that can believe that Persons into whose Heads and Hearts you would force the Truth by blows and violence will not recover themselves again assoon as possible and by all manner of ways But it will be said there are other methods used which you grant to be effectual The People are deprived of all the means of Instruction and so in a little time the Truth must dye This would prove so if their Consciences were not under such a violence as they are and if that posture of things could last long the Truth would then be extinguisht by little and little But that state of things is too violent to continue long and within a few years you will see the Light of that fire which is shut up without being extinguisht There is another thing very extraordinary in this Persecution and wherein the finger of God doth manifestly appear that is the way they have taken in their dealing with the Pastors These are the men that must be supprest if you would extinguish a Religion because they are capable of recovering it Therefore in all former Ages the severest part of the storm hath fallen on them and even in this Age likewise witness the History of the Persecutions in Hungary But here is the quite contrary the People ruined and the Ministers suffered to go free They must carry nothing away with them but their Souls and Consciences are given them as a prey which so many Laiks would desire and rejoyce to obtain These banished Pastors carry the account of the miseries of their several Flocks into all parts of the World. They are in all the Protestant Courts of Europe the unreproveable Witnesses of the violence of the Persecution their miseries stir up compassion towards the afflicted and Indignation against their Persecutors Besides this they are always ready and kept in reserve to return into France and bring back the Light of Truth again there whenever God shall please to open the door This is such a thing as speaks plainly that God preserves them in safety in order to his great work and till then This is not the effect of the Compassion of their Persecutors for they are destitute of any and are cruel to the utmost degree 'T is not a piece of policy neither for that would have made them secure the Pastors in such a place wherein they should have been condemned to an eternal silence 'T is then a secret Providence of God which leads persons farther than they would go and to do that which they would not have otherwise done and 't is observable that Bishop Vsher in his prophecy doth expresly take notice of this particular that in this last persecution the Pastors shall be spared God reserving them for the Great work he hath farther to do which makes me give the more heed to that prophecy Lastly that we may see how extraordinary this persecution is in all its Circumstances let us consider it in its success and with respect to those on whom it hath succeeded I look upon that general Desertion an whole Kingdom in a manner changing its Religion in four moneths time as a thing that cannot be parallel'd 'T is true the Roman Empire hath been seen to become Arrian in a very little while by the persecution of the Emperors But Arrianism was a speculative Heresy and the Arrians cheated the People by equivocal Confessions of Faith which taken in good sense might now be subscribed unto And for other things their Worship Prayers Ceremonies Altars Bishops Government 't was all alike and so the passage from one to another was very easy But here is the greatest difference imaginable in worship the object of adoration the manner of it in Ceremonies Government and Discipline The Reformed Religion and the Roman differ as Day and Night so that there must have been a prodigious Current for the passage from one to another in so little time 'T is a frightfull and surprizing thing to see People make less difficulty to change their God than good Subjects would do to change their Prince in case an Enemy break into any Country he would not find People so ready to abjure their former Oath of Fidelity 'T is true this kind of persecution which is made use of against the reformed seems to me more cruel and more likely to overcome their constancy then Massacres and Fires Wheels and Gibbets When a man can see to the end of his sufferings though that end be death he may be able to stand his ground but when he is given over to an hundred Executioners who are commissioned to torment him by turns without giving him the least repose I confess this is the ready way to despair If they did nothing more than hinder a man from sleep it were sufficient to make him distracted and to make him do what ever they would have him 'T is certain then that several of those who have yielded would more willingly have suffer'd death for their Religion and have earnestly and seriously desired it But what is very strange is that the greatest part have not tarried for these Persecutors At the very approach of the Dragoons they cowardly complied and a
small number of True Believets remain'd victims exposed to the Rage of an Army of an hundred thousand men which were let loose upon the Kingdom This I say again is without Example in any Histsry S. Cyprian in his Treatise de Lapsis seems to say that some such thing happened in the persecution of Decius but he himself in his Epistles makes it evident that the Apostacy was not so general for he remits those who had fallen to be judged at the return of Peace in the Assemblics of the Faithful who persevered so that the number of those that persevered must have been considerable In our time it would be difficult out of every Flock to make up an Assembly of such as persevere to judge the rest 'T is therefore an Event wherein we must admire the depth of Divine Providence 'T is a speaking Prodigy which tells us we are now in those last days when Christ should come and not find true Piety or true Faith upon Earth This is a Touch-stone for all Protestants their Brethren of France were not more wicked than others Wherefore we may believe that the same thing would happen in any other place on supposition of the same Circumstances and consequently that Christian courage and true Faith are at this day very rare and few Instances to be found Lastly this Affair tells us that God would melt the Heart of that People and suffer them to sink and be swallowed up that he may shortly raise to himself another a new People These are the Characters of this persecution which makes me regard it as very singular and extraordinary in its kind and consequently as a presage that God will shortly finish the establishment of his Kingdom and the Ruin of that of Antichrist If we only consider how this Persecution hath been more effectual than any the Church ever suffer'd it were enough to make us judge that the Devil now imploys his utmost force and power as apprehending 't is the last Time and that the ruin of his Kingdom is at hand When Paganism was ready to fall under Constantine he then excited the sharpest persecution under the Emperor Dioclesian These are the different Reflexions that conspired to possess me that the coming of our Lord was near to destroy the wicked one by the Breath of his Mouth I had a strong inclination to be certain and assured of the truth of these Thoughts which could no otherwise be done but by finding in the Apocalypse the accomplishment of those Circumstances which were to precede and accompany the fall of the Babylonish Empire With this design I betook my self to read over the Apocalipse not the several Commentators on that Book but the Book it self only with the Exposition of Ioseph Mede whom I formerly look't upon as a man inspired for the Interpretation of the Prophecies His Key of the Apocalypse and annexed commentary did heretofore charm me I could find nothing like it in all the other Expositors I added that of his Chronicles and his Book called The Apostacy of the latter Times which is a large Commentary on 1 Tim. Chap. 4. v. 1 2 3 4. And the Spirit saith expresly that in the last times there shall be some who shall depart from the Faith. Besides several excellent and curious things a part whereof you will find in this Treatise I met with in that Author the thing which I so eagerly sought for viz. the true Epocha of the 1260 years during which Time the Antichristian Empire should last he makes them to begin about the year of our Lord 450. or 455. by dateing them from thence they must end about the year 1710 or 1715. which agrees very well with my conjecture But Ioseph Mede who set me right at first in the beginning of the true path forsook me in the middle of the way and when the circumstances and preliminaries of the fall of Babylon were to be adjusted according to this Calculation which are so exactly described in the Apocalypse I found no assistance at all from him on the contrary he led me out of the way wherin he himself had put me and to make me wander and go astray According to the Epocha which he himself had mark't for the beginning of the 1260 years for the reign of Antichrist I should see the end of it in 25 or 30 years but according to Mr. Mede there must be many Ages to accomplish all things which are to be fulfilled before the period of the Kingdom of Antichrist In the 11th 14th 16th Chapters we have an account of the Circumstances and degrees of the Fall of that Empire the Eleventh Chapter speaks of the death of the two Witnesses for three days and half of their Resurrection and of the fall of the tenth part of the City c. In the 14 Chap. where the Fall of Babylon is divided into two Acts one is called the Vintage the other the Harvest In the 16th Chap. where the seven Periods of the declension and Fall of the Antichristian Empire are set forth by seven viols and seven Plagues of all this Ioseph Mede understood nothing yea supposing as he doth that of those seven Plagues not above two or three were come to pass in his Time he remits us far enough off for the accomplishment of the five others The Periods described by every Viol are each of them more than one Age so that we should have four or five hundred years yet to come before the end of the Kingdom of Antichrist If every one of the four viols that remain to be poured out were but of fifty years we should have yet two hundred years longer to wait I confess that after having read those places of the Apocalypse and reviewed them twenty times I understood nothing more therin I was only more and more confirmed that no man had rightly understood them In the midst of these distractions I yet begun my work without knowing well where I went. But I can say that God so opened mine eyes in the way that gave me unexpressible consolation for after having consulted the Eternal Truth above an hundred times with a deep Humility and very great Attention at length I received an answer at least I believe so and think it very plain that all that must precede the last Fall of the Antichristian Empire is fully accomplisht I have no right to require the same assurance from others neither do I require it But that which I demand at least is a little of that attention which I imployed in the meditation of those divine Oracles and then I am perswaded that if you are not as fully convinc'd as I am you will yet see reason enough not to condemn me of rashness In the first part of this work you will find nothing new for the substance of it for 't is a long time that Rome hath been called Babylon and that the Characters of the Antichristian Empire have been confest to be found in the Papacy I
into the lesser waters For here a Mountain of fire is much more than a star of fire tho in truth a star is a thousand a thousand times bigger than a Mountain But the H. Spirit frames his speech according to appearances hath chiefly are spect to those fires that are often seen falling from heaven which are called Falling-stars Joseph Mede with all other Interpreters would find in this Mountain of fire this Starlike a Lamp much more of mystery than is in it pretending that this means some great person distinguisht by his dignity as a king or an Emperour or by his knowledg as a great Doctor Therfore many by this star understand a great Prophet But 't is not so This must be explain'd with relation to the first Trumpet we must know that this is but the sequel of the history of the destruction of the Roman Empire by the Barbarians The first part of this destruction was but Hail mingled with Fire a common storm such as often happens in summer wherin thunder lightning in hot countries are always mingled with the hail But afterwards this inundation of the Barbarians increased in such a manner that it was no longer an ordinary storm There fell not only Fire mingled with Water Hail this Storm becomes wholly pure fire a fall of terrible Lightning a true Mountain of Fire that fell on the Roman Empire over-whelm'd it Afterwards the fire continued to fall on a third part in truth no longer as a Mountain but as a fire-brand such as the stars are that appear to fall in the air See therfore here three fires The First is mingled with Hail The second is meer fire great as a mountain The third is as a great Lamp. The First afflicts the Trees of Europe or of the third part of the World. The second falls into the sea changes it into blood The third falls on the rivers fountains makes their waters bitter This evidently signifies the three first degrees of the Barbarians invasion They come at First like fire mingled with hail which burns the trees like a storm that spoils the fruits of the Earth They pillaged the Goods the Riches of the Empire The mountain of fire that falls into the sea is Alario that made Italy desolate took Rome 2ly They come like a meet fire that consumes devours They fell on the sea By that I understand the people of Italy the taking of Rome by Alaric Italy was in respect to the Roman Empire what the sea is in respect to the rivers The sea is the center the rivers are all round about it The sea is the gulf the rivers come from all parts to pay their tribute to this gulf Rome Italy was the midst of the Empire Rome was the sea whither all the Provinces came to pay their tribute their riches Alaric his Goths falls like a burning mountain on Italy the city of Rome he takes it and sacks it This sea becomes blood Italy was filled with slaughter After this the Barbarians suffer'd themselves to be appeased Alaric after he had taken Rome and made there a new Emperour named Attalus with whom he went to besiege Honorius in Ravenna gave peace to Honorius quitted Italy retired among the Gaulls where with his Goths he establishthimself The Vandals possessed Spain The Burgundians staid on the Rhone The Huns inhabited Pannonia And then the Fountains the Waters i.e. the people that depended on Rome felt the force of this fire of the judgment of God. But this fire did not turn the waters into Blood because then the slaughter ceased the opposition ceasing the Barbarians saw themselves Masters But they turned the Rivers and the Fountains into Wormwood i. e. They reduced the Roman Provinces into a bitter Servitude And by reason of this the name of Wormwood is given this last Fire that is to say this last Judgment and Punishment less than the former but yet so great as to make the people live in Bitterness For the Goths spoiled them of their Lands Goods See the Mystery of the second and third Trumpet I have no need to give notice that the third part of the Sea and the third part of the Rivers signifie the Sea and the Rivers of the third part of the World i. e. of Europe For I have given notice already of that once for all In truth they were the People of Europe that suffered these Desolations V. 12. And the fourth Angel sounded and a third part of the Sun was smitten and the third part of the Moon and the third part of the Stars so as the third part of them was darkened and the Day shone not for a third part of it and the Night likewise The Fall of the Reman Empire 'T is still the same Figure that rules that is to say that the Sun of Europe which is the third part of the World was darkened in like manner the Moon and Stars We must remember that in the Prophecies the Sun Moon and Stars alwayes signifie the Powers of a State. The Heaven of the politick World is the superior Region of Dignities that sheds kind or malignant Influences on the People We shall see this constantly observed in this Book in such manner that in all places where the Sun Moon and Eclypses are spoken of 't is unquestionable that we must understand the darkening and destruction of the sovereign Powers in the State or Empire spoken of Now what Empire is it that is here spoken of 'T is the Empire of Rome For yet once more we must stick to this Principle as one of the principal Keys of the Revelation viz. that it moves wholly on the Roman Empire and that 't is properly nothing but a Comment on what is said of the fourth Beast in the 7th chap. of Daniel The Roman Empire and în part the Invasions of it by the Goths and other Barbarians being here treated of there is no room for doubting but that the Sun of the third part of the World which is smitten signifies the Sovereign of Rome the Roman Emperor the Moon is the Imperial Dignity the Stars are the Grandees of the Empire And 't is the Extinction of the Roman Empire of Italy that happen'd in the year 455. after the Death of Valentinian the 3d when Genseric came from Africa with his Vandals took Rome and sackt it fifteen days one after another after which the Empire was torn among tell Kings according as St. John foretold it in the sequel of this Book CHAP. VII An Explication of the Visions of the fifth sixth Trumpet wherin are seen the Empires of the Saracens Turks THis fall of the Imperial dignity at Rome in the fourth Monarchy is a great affair Therfore the H. Spirit stays upon it makes a pause as a mark of distinction as we have before observed But that which follows also is a great affair
five things are co-temporary in the third Period Five things cotemporary in the Period of the reign of the thousand years I. The reign of the Saints for a 1000 Years Rev. 20.4 II. The Dragon that is bound whose power is broken Rev. 20.2 3. III. The New Jerusalem the description wherof we have Rev. 21. 22. Chapters IV. The company of Saints that are clothed in white garments who carry Palms in their hands singing this song Salvation to our God that sits upon the throne Rev. 7.10 Rev. 7.17 unto the Lamb and of whom it is said they shall hunger no more neither thirst any more neither shall the sun light on them nor any heat the Lamb shall feed them shall lead them unto living fountains of waters For these are not the 144 thousand Sealed persons spoken of in the beginning â—f the 7th Chap. St. John saith expressely After this v. 9. i. e. after these 144 thousand sealed persons I beheld lo a great multitude which no man could number of all nations kindreds people tongues stood before the throne before the Lamb c. This plainly shews that these are not the persons that were Sealed For they might easily be numbred because they were not above 144 thousand wheras these here spoken of are innumerable In truth these are the same that are spoken of in the 20th of the Revel who are there called the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Iesus for the word of God here they are called they which came out of great tribulation C. 7.14 have washed their robes made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They are therfore co-temporary with the reign of Christ for a 1000 Years as the 144 thousand that were sealed are co-temporary with the reign of Babylon for 1260 Days V. The fifth and last thing co-temporary is the duration of the seventh Trumpet And the seventh Angel sounded with a Trumpet there were great voices in heaven Rev. 11.15 saying the Kingdoms of this world are become the Kingdoms of the Lord. For at the sound of the Last Trumpet the last blow must be given to the Babylonish Empire at the same time shall begin the reign of Iesus Christ to which is assign'd a Period of 1000 Years And the influence of this seventh and last Trumpet must reach even to the end of the World. Thus you have the Chronology of the twelve last Chapters of the Revelation We proceed to consider the History CHAP. X. A short System of the Events foretold in the Revelation concerning the Church as to the Historical part A short explanation of the 11th Chap. IN the 11th Ch. where the Destinies of the Church do begin the H. Ghost in the first place gives us an abridgment of these Destinies Events nothing is more methodical than that First to give a general Idea of those things that are afterwards more particularly to be explained So this Chapter from the 2d. v. to the end contains a short History of the 1260 Years of Antichrist's reign of the 1000 Years of Christ's reign as in the first verse he had described the first Period of 360 Years as we just now observed in the foregoing Chapter This reign of Antichrist is here described by this Paganism that was to tread under foot the Holy City for 42 Months v. 2. The afflictions of the Church its perpetuall subsistence in the midst of those afflictions during this reign of Antichrist are signified by the two Witnesses clothed in sack-cloth A great persecution that must befall the Church at the end of these 1260 Years of Antichrist's reign v. 3. is there also predicted The total suppression of the profession of the truth by that persecution is signified by the death of these two Witnesses v. 7. who must remain dead in the territories of Babylon the great for three prophetical days and a half i. e. three Years a half We shall see afterwards what that means where we must place this great event At the end of three years a half these two Witnesses i. e. the publique profession of the truth shall rise again and be gloriously reestablisht For the H. Ghost saith that the two Witnesses shall ascend again up into Heaven i. e. shall be exalted glorified upon the Earth In the same time the tenth part of the City shall fall v. 13. i. e. one of those ten Kings that gave their power to the Beast shall revolt from him And a little after the seventh Trumpet shall sound which will give the last blow to the Babylonish Empire v. 15. After which the Reign of the Saints shall commence which shall continue to the end of the World. This is the Epitome of the whole History of the Church the sense of the 11th Chapter After this general idea of the History of the Church Ch. 12. its explication the Prophet enters upon the particulars In the 12th Ch. God shews him the vision of the Woman that was with child deliver'd of a Son persecuted by the Red Dragon who fain would devour the Child of the Woman Afterwards there is a battle fought by Michael his Angells against the Dragon The Dragon is overcome and cast to the Earth but as much overcome as he was he ceaseth not to persecute the Woman She is forced to escape into the Wilderness where she is nourisht 1260 Days The Dragon not being able to reach her vomited out a flood after her but the Earth open'd swallow'd up the flood saved the Woman This Woman is the Apostolical Church this Child of which she is deliver'd is pure holy Christianity The Dragon is the Devil who by the authority of the Roman Empire would devour extinguish Christianity in its birth Michael his Angells are Jesus Christ his Ministers celestial as well as terrestrial The combat of the Red Dragon Michael is the combat of 300 Years that was between God the Devil during the ten persecutions of the Roman Heathen Emperours The Devil endeavouring on one hand to destroy the Christian Church by the cruelty of the Emperours God on the other hand defending it by his Martyrs Teachers The victory gotten over the Red Dragon is the casting down of Heathenism which falls to the Earth is cast from Heaven i. e. 't is tumbled down from the throne by Constantine his successors to the reign of Theodosius The great flood which the Red Dragon casts after the Woman when he was thrown down on the Earth is those inundations of Heresies that Arrianism that cover'd the Christian World immediatly after the fall of Heathenism under Constantine The Earth swallowed up this flood in favour of the Woman these Heresies were destroyed swallowed up as in a moment the Church remained deliver'd from them by a kind of
see what they say viz. that that Rome that now is towards the end of the World shall be corrupted become idolatrous debauched that she shall shake off the yoke of Jesus Christ and carry her disorders as far as Rome Pagan But yet however that it must not be the seat of Antichrist who must be accompanied with his ten Kings have his habitation at Jerusalem and come to Rome when it is turn'd Idolatrous and Pagan to destroy and ruin it as he will also do See the words of Viega on the eighteenth of the Revelation One may plainly gather from the infinite number of precious merchandises and of all sorts that are here noted that Rome in the last times after her Apostacy shall attain to soveraign power and great riches and that her Empire shall extend it self throughout the World upon the ten Kings so often named For that these mighty riches do not belong to Rome Pagan it is clear by these words Come forth of Babylon my people For this shews that 't is not ancient Rome that is here spoken of in which there were no faithfull ones but that Rome that shall flourish in the last times Then therefore the City of Rome shall greatly flourish and its Empire shall be very large She shall live in pleasures and have great abundance of all things And at the same time she shall be enslaved to Idolatry be full of Superstitions sacrifice to Doemons and false Deities And by reason of the vast quantity of the blood of the Saints that shall be shed by her under the Emperours of Rome by a terrible but a very righteous judgement of God she shall at last be made desolate and burnt by ten Kings See what the force and evidence of the truth hath drawn from the mouth of the worshippers of Rome What prodigious whimsies are these To what extremity must these men have been reduced The Scripture speaks of but one Antichristian Empire The Church never imagin'd there was more than one and lo here are men that make a couple The first shall be in Rome corrupted for according to them Rome in the last days must have a great Empire must subdue Kingdoms and draw them together with her self into a revolt from Jesus Christ Lo therefore there 's one Antichristian Empire at Rome what need have we of another Antichrist sitting at Jerusalem Moreover this Chimaera is founded on this principle that the Beast in the 13th Chapt. which according to them represents Antichrist is not the same with the Beast in the 17th Chap. with the great City that ruleth over the Kings of the Earth and with Babylon spoken of in the 14th and the 18th Chapt. Now we have confuted this ridiculous imagination and have demonstrated that Babylon the great City the Beast of the 13th and the 18th Chapter are the same thing This Chimaera is so ill to be defended that the more modern Papists have abandon'd it and at last have been forced to acknowledge that Rome must be the seat of Antichrist that the great City spoken of in the 11th Chapter where Jesus Christ was crucified is not Jerusalem but spiritual Babylon spoken of afterwards and Bernard de Montreuil that hath write since the rest though he retains that ancient dream that Antichrist must come out of Jerusalem yet he confesses however that the Babylonish Empire and the Antichristian are not two Empires that must succeed one another and the one destroy the other according to the supposition of those we were just now speaking of He confesseth that Rome shall be the chief City of Antichrist's party that Antichrist must defend it and that the ten Kings of the Beast are the subjects of its grandeure and that of Antichrist the head of the League the Monarch of the time He calls Antichrist the Prince of the Apocalyptical Babylon And he confesseth that this Babylon is Rome therefore he acknowledgeth that Rome must be Antichristian and the capital City of Antichrist Babylon saith he is the Mistress the Queen the Empress of the kingdom of Antichrist Not daring to call Rome Babylon On the 24. Chapt. he defines it however by Western Babylon who being perverted instead of obeying the Laws of the piety of the first age shall in her pride cause her self to be called the great and the independant and shall become much worse under the reign of Antichrist than ever Eastern Babylon was After these confessions there remains no other help for the popish Doctors to hinder their Rome from being acknowledged to be Rome Antichristian but the Chimaera of the three years and a half 's duration of Antichrists kingdom It is true say they that Rome must be possessed by Antichrist that he must establish Idolatry there that Rome must become worse than Rome Pagan was in the time of St. John and than Eastern Babylon in the time of the Prophets but this must last but three years and a half When therefore we have destroyed this ridiculous dream of three natural years and a half we shall have demonstrated that Rome at this day is the true Seat of Antichrist and then I shall make them this Argument Babylon in the Revelation is the seat of the Antichristian Empire the same thing with the prostitute Woman with the Beast with seven heads and ten horns All this is Rome become Antichristian and the seat of Antichrist Which is plain either by what hath been invincibly proved or what the Papists themselves have confessed Now this Antichristian Roman Empire must endure not 1260. natural days but 1260. prophetical days i. e. 1260. years Therefore it is evident that the Antichristian Empire which must be at Rome cannot be that chimerical Empire of Antichrist of three years and a half that must conclude 45. days before the end of the World and that 't is that of Rome which hath endured so long already The consequence is plain because all do acknowledge the World must not and cannot according to the decrees of God endure yet twelve or thirteen hundred years to make room for the reign of Antichrist and a thousand years more at the end of that to make room for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ the truth and certainty of which we shall prove So that if the reign of Antichrist must endure 1260. years it is necessary that it subsist at this present time and that it hath begun a long time since This is I say a demonstration which I have in readiness for these Gentlemen when I shall have proved the only thing in this argument that can be called in question viz. that the 1260. days of Antichrist cannot be understood of so many natural days I would prove this truth presently were it not that it regards the time of the duration of the Antichristian Empire of which we shall have occasion afterwards to speak Wherefore now we shall continue to give you the explication of the Prophecies that contain the Character of this Antichristian Empire CHAP. XVIII
that were designed to make known I. Christ were in part the cause why he was not acknowledged For if in some places he be represented to us in his natural and true estate in others he is represented in lively bright colours with magnificent and pompous figures So that by these descriptions one would have taken him for a King of this World and his Empire for an earthly one The Iews stretching these descriptions of the H. Spirit not comprehending the sense of them and not entring into the meaning of those figures had an Idea of the Messiah quite different from what in truth he was to be in his first coming In like manner the Prophecies concerning Antichrist are exprest sometimes in terms plain and natural enough but at other times in high terms borrowed from the most hideous objects that are in the Old Testament of Sodom Egypt Babylon the apostacy a revolt from the faith the Doctrine of Daemons the Cup of abominations adulteries whoredoms every thing is brought in here and upon these high expressions men have stretcht the Idea of Antichrist The two comings of I. Christ that gave occasion to these two sorts of Prophecies The chief reason why Antichrist was not known was the means of his original and the insensibleness of his growth were the occasion of the mistake I. Christ was to come in a state of humiliation and abasement and he must come in a state of grandeur and glory The Prophets often speak of this last state the Iews give heed only to this sort of Prophecies and neglect the others affixing them to another subject The two degrees of Antichrist's coming have done the same thing The Antichristian Empire in its beginning was low creeping its first years did savour of weakness and infancy The malice the corruption the pride the tyranny the Idolatry of this Empire were but in their beginning they were buds and the first draughts which men did not perceive And this is the great reason why Antichrist hath not been known If the Papism in the fourth age had endeavoured to introduce into the Church both the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and the idolatrous worship of the creatures such as it was afterwards all the world would have revolted from him and the Antichristianism would easily have been observ'd But in that way that the Devil took it was impossible that it should not succeed The first degree of tyranny and superstition was so small that though it was new yet it was not at all perceived What evil could one imagine for instance in having a respect for the memory of the Martyrs and making an honourable mention of them in the celebration of the mysteries How could one have been on ones guard when nothing was treated of a yet but some honour of precedency between a Bishop and a Priest and between a Bishop of one see and of another I am also sure that the mystery of iniquity was advanced by ways where the Apostles had no suspicion of evil For instance it was the custome in the Apostles time sometimes to hold their assemblies in the Dormitories and on the tombs of the martyrs I believe 't is to this that Saint Paul referrs in that famous passage in the 15th of the first Epist to the Corint If the dead rise not why are they then haptized for the dead That is to say to what purpose do you honour the martyrs so as to celebrare the mysteries on their tombs if they are no longer any thing This did appear the most innocent thing in the world and must never return a To pray to God in a Dormitory and upon the tomb of a dead man to testify that one would dye in the same faith wherein the Martyr died Yet this was the first fountain of the popish Idolatry about Saints From the first degree to the second there is but one step in like manner the passage is insensible from the second to the third And men found themselves sunk down into superstition and swallowed up in tyranny without perceiving it and without its being possible for them to perceive it When corruptions are insensible in their progress those that are engaged in them cannot know them They must be without When one is carried in a vessel one doth not perceive its motion one must be out of the vessel and in a fixed point to discern it In this manner it was that the Devil laboured about this mystery of iniquity in the time of St. Paul he began to work as he speaks he began with vending a little wicked Philosophy about the mediation and intercession of Angels Coloss 2. Platonick Philosophy which is the very same that the Apostle calls the Doctrine of Daemons by which some would introduce the serving of Angles from which Saint Paul would remove the Colossians Ch. 2. v. 8. in saying to them beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit v. 18. after the tradition of men c. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels intruding into those things which he hath not seen Satan also beat out a path for tyranny by those disputes for precedency and honours of which we may see a pattern in the differences that reign'd in the Church of Corinth where one said I am of Apollo I am of Paul and I am of Christ But who would have suspected that things could have gone so far as they have since proceeded The false Idea which the ancients had of Antichrist before he was revealed hath been one cause of Antichrist's not being known when he did come Lastly The ancient Writers and the prejudices which men took from their errours and oversights did mightily serve to the causing Antichrist not to be known The further one is removed from the accomplishment of the Prophecies the less one understands them So 't is certain the Fathers of the second and third age understood almost nothing of the Revelation Yet they did busy themselves to interpret it and have vented nothing but vain imaginations about it They had in their minds a Chimaera of an earthly paradise yet in being This terrestrial Paradise must not be useless one dream draws another after iâ— as one deep calls on another This earthly paraâ—â—se then must be designed to receive souls and â—ontain them before they were translated into the Heavenly paradise which was not to be till after the day of judgement Into this terrestrial Paradise were translated in body and in soul according to them Enoch and Elias For there was no colour for the putting them in the superiour Paradise while all the Saints and Patriarchs were only in the inferiour one Now why were Enoch and Elias translated both body and soul into that place It hath been found very convenient to place them there expecting the last day of judgement to be sent back into the World to encounter Antichrist And so Enoch and
Elias are transformed into those two witnesses that were to prophecy clothed in sack-cloth for three years and a half which are the days of Antichrist There was no colour for making Enoch and Elias sojourn on the Earth 1260. years So that it was necessary to take the 1260 years of which the Revelation speaks for so many natural days which make three natural years and a half The name of Antichrist made them believe he would call himself Christ The Temple of God where St. Paul saith that the son of perdition must sit hath made them think of the Temple of Solomon and they have concluded that Jerusalem was to be the seat of this Empire Consequently that Antichrist must be a Jew and for the reasons we have observ'd above he must moreover be of the tribe of Dan and by consequence a single person Behold the visions which St. Irenaeus vends in his fifth book against Haeresies Why Antichrist was not known fooner The Fathers did copy one another without consideration visions for which we are apparently indebted to him that forged the false Oracles of the Sibyls in the second age They that came after him adopted these vain imaginations and added others to them The Ancients did copy one another almost without any judgement and always without consideration Those that were very fond of this vain phantome of a Chimerical Antichrist could not discern the Character of the true Antichrist The later ages have been much more enlightned The differences of the Popes with the Kings of Europe particularly with the Emperors open'd the eyes of many and made them see the Antichristian Empire in Rome Christian But being in part very fond of the old Idea of Antichrist in part being kept in by that respect they had for a See which they believed was once the Chair of Saint Peter in part through cowardice and want of zeal and above all because the time designed by providence was not yet come they stopt in the way and never reached to a perfect Idea of the Antichristian Empire And in this manner the prejudices the ignorance the passions the interest of the flesh and the subtilty of the Devil have detain'd the truth in profound darkness till in these later times God hath set them in a perfect light But one can't sufficiently wonder that in so great a light yet there have been two persons sufficiently prepossessed or ill enough disposed for the mistaking this Antichrist The learned Grotius and Dr. Hammond have unhappily and to the scandal of all Protestants used great endeavours to turn these prophecies of the Revelation another way The one through his being wedded to the papism which he defended with all his might against the late Andrew Rivet And the other apparently for the same reason as Grotius and it may be so through his jealousy for the Episcopal order imagining that if the Pope who caâ—â—â— himself the head of the Bishops should be made Antichrist some disgrace would redound thence to the whole Episcopal order But Joseph Mede the learned Vsher Arch-bishop of Armagh the learned Andrew Willet and so many other learned English men that appear so zealously for the government and order of Bishops have continued to find Antichrist and the Pope in the descriptions which the prophecies have left us of him And to speak freely I am so strongly perswaded of this as an Article of the faith of the true Christians that I can't hold them for good ones who deny this truth after the events and the labours of so many great men have made it so very evident I reckon the blindness of the papists and of their favourers in this point among those prodigies wherein we must acknowledge something super-natural The end of the First Part. THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROPHECIES OR THE Approaching Deliverance of the CHURCH A work wherein it is proved that the Papism is the Antichristian Empire that that Empire is not far from its ruin that the present persecution may end in three years and a half After which the destruction of Antichrist shall begin which shall be finished in the beginning of the next Age and lastly the Kingdom of Jesus Christ shall come on the Earth The second Edition Corrected and Enlarged by almost a third part and the explication of all the Visions of the Revelation and of many Chapters concerning mystical Theology Tome the second Written in French by Mr. PETER JURIEU the present Minister of the French Church at Rotterdam And from this second Edition faithfully Englished LONDON Printed in the Year 1687. THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROPHECIES OR THE Approaching Deliverance of the CHURCH THE SECOND PART Of the end of the Antichristian Empire when it must be destroyed the circumstances of its ruin and what shall be the Estate of the Church after the ruin of that Empire CHAP. I. Of the duration of the Kingdom of Antichrist A refutation of that dream that it must last but three years and a half Ten Arguments which demonstrate that that supposition is false and impossible IN the First Part of this Work we have found Antichrist and the Antichristian Empire in this we proceed to seek out the time and the circumstances of its end That we may succeed well in this enquiry we must do four things I. We must know how long the Antichristian Empire must last II. We must see where we ought to begin the 1260 days which the Holy Spirit assigns it III. After-wards we shall see where they must end IV. And lastly we shall seek for that which hath not yet been found in the Revelation that is the circumstances of the fall of that Antichristian Empire We shall begin with that question which we have above laid down as the chiefest one that is The time of the duration of that Antichristian Empire The importance of this question whether Antichrist must reign 1260 days or 1260 years The Roman Church supposeth that this duration cannot be above three years and a half i. e. 1260. natural days and we pretend this must be understood of 1260. prophetical days which are 1260. years 'T is so important a matter that on this all the rest depends If this supposition of the duration of Antichrist meerly and simply for three years and a half be false all that the Roman Church saith of Antichrist is false And if we have reason to say that the Antichristian Empire must endure 1260. years this Empire must of necessity have begun a long time since and having begun a long time ago it must of necessity also be the papism This is therefore a particular which we must carefully mind and in the beginning we must lay down these three indisputable principles I. That the duration of the 1260. days wherein the woman in the 12th Chapt. of the Revelation must be fed in the desart which is also called in the same place a time The 1260 days The 42 months The three years and half a time
v. 16. The second is called the vintage v. 19. And the other Angel thrust in his sickle into the Earth and gathered the Vine of the Earth and cast it into the great wine-press of the wrath of God. It is plain at least that these two periods must be distant one from the other as much as ordinarily the harvest is from the vintage Now 't is well known that the prophecies represent in a little what the events shew in the great and consequently as the harvest is many days distant from the vintage it will be necessary that the two parts of the fall of the Antichristian Empire should be many years distant one from the other Now if meerly the fall of the Babylonish Empire takes up many years the flourishing and the strength of this Empire must take up much more time An Empire so strong can't be ruin'd in the twinckling of an eye and in one months time Moreover there must be an interval of rest between the harvest and the vintage All this necessarily supposeth more than three years and a half The 15th and 16th Chapt. contain the vision of the seven viols of the wrath of God that must be poured out on the Earth It is evident that all these seven viols respect the Antichristian Empire The first plague is an ulcer that seizes on the men that had the mark of the beast c. 16.2 The 15th viol is cast on the seat of the beast v. 10. at the seventh v. 19. the great City which is the same beast c. 15.2 is divided into three parts And before the viols were given to the seven Angels they that had obtained victory over the beast over his image over his mark and over his name are represented as rejoycing in the presence of the seven Angels that had received the seven plagues The fifth Argument the seven viols of the 15th Chap. are seven periods of the fall of the Antichristian Empire every one of these periods contains more than an Age. Fifthly All this makes it appear that these seven viols are seven periods included in the duration of Antichrists Empire under which God must pour out his terrible judgements on that Empire These seven periods must divide his duration into seven parts very near equal even though one should suppose that the seven periods contain this whole duration every viol and every period would have but six months to last according to the supposition of the Romish Doctors The truth is that these seven viols are included in the half of the duration of Antichrists Empire or a little more For 't is the History of the fall of that Empire If it lasts but three years and a half it is necessary that at the least it should be two years a growing so there will remain no more than eighteen months for these seven viols and to every period we must assign a little more than two months This is very plainly absurd There is no example of the like matter in all the Prophecies The seven seals the seven trumpets of the Revelation contain many ages 't is ridiculous to suppose that the seven viols contain but some months We shall see afterward that every viol extends it self to more than a 100 years The sixth Argument what is foretold in the 17th Chap. cannot come to pass in three years and a half Sixthly The 17th Chapt. represents to us the Empire and the Religion of Antichrist under the emblem of a woman sitting on a beast with seven heads and ten horns 'T is said this woman must make her self drunk with the blood of the Martyrs That first of all the ten Kings must give their power to the beast that afterwards c. 17.6 they must fight against the Lamb in favour of the beast v. 13. and that at last v. 14. these very same Kings must change their side and their opinion v. 16. Strip the whore make her desolate eat her flesh burn her with fire can so many changes in mens spirits and in the world can so many revolutions happen in three years and a half In the same Chapt. we find a head that lasts a little v. 10. The seven heads are seven Kings five are fallen the other is not yet come and when he cometh he must continue a short space I once believed that he that was to come and was to continue a little time was Antichrist But looking more carefully into the Text with reference to the events 't is plain that that can't be We must therefore v. 11. by him that was to continue a little time understand the eighth King. And the beast that was and is not even he is the eighth King. And this King is the second part of the head of the Emperors which being divided into two Christian Emperors and Pagan ones makes eight heads or eight Kings together with the other six This eighth head which is that of the Christian Emperors in truth lasted but a very little while viz. from Constantine to Valentinian who was assassinated by Maximus about 130 or 140 years See what the Holy Spirit calls a little time Judge if the Empire of Antichrist that must last longer than the eighth head must last but three years and a half The 7th Argument the duration of the Empire of old Babel is the figure of the duration of the Antichristian Empire Seventhly The 18th Chap. contains a larger description of the last ruin of this Antichristian Empire 'T is there represented as a great City called Babylon rich merchandizing pufft up with the concourse of people and of their riches carried thither for many ages Its inhabitants are described as Merchants grown rich by its commerce She is described as a City abounding in pleasure as well as in riches For all that contributes to pleasure and luxury enters into this description Chap. 1â— v. 12.15 Gold silver precious stones pearls purple silk sweet smelling vessels and most precious wood brass iron marble cinnamon v. 22. perfumes ointments incense wine oil musicians players on the harp pipers trumpetters In conscience is this the description of an Empire and of a City that must last but three years and a half that in that little space of time must be built raised enriched and ruined First of all the Antichristian Empire is called Babylon because ancient Babylon was its type and figure That Empire of old Babel lasted many ages and should these many ages be the type and figure of these three years and a half Can this be said or thought It happens well that the Prophets represent future things that are great by types that are much less This is the very nature of types They are little draughts of that which the event must produce at large So days in the types must naturally represent years But 't is absurd to say that years in the types represent but days in the things signified by the types
five days The mystery of the four numbers I do not know whether any Interpreters have understood the mystery but see how I explain it First we must know that the first number of 2300 mornings and evenings must not be taken for 2300 days as Interpreters take it which forces them to go back to the very beginning of the reign of Antiochus Two thousand three hundred mornings and evenings taken for so many days 2300 mornings and evenings make but 1150 days make six years four months twenty days The prophanation ended in the 148th year of the Aera of the Seleucidae as we shall see So that we must go back even to the 142 year to find there the beginning of these six years four months and twenty days And it were necessary that the prophanation of the Sanctuary and the cessation of the daily sacrifice should then begin For the Prophet speaks expresly of the cessation of the daily sacrifice How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice And he receives this Answer for 2300 evening and mornings Yet 't is certain by the History of the Macchabees and by the Prophecy of the twelfth Chapter of Daniel that the prophanation of the Sanctuary and the cessation of the daily sacrifice begin not till three years after viz. the 145 year of the Aera of the Seleucidae I am perswaded therefore that we must understand by it two thousand three hundred sacrifices of the evening and the morning And this will not be scrupled by him that shall consider First That it is not usual in the holy Tongue nor in any other to say two evenings and mornings or three evenings and mornings meaning two days three days c. Secondly That the cessation of this daily sacrifice that was offered morning and evening being here spoken of to this question How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice a more proper and intelligible answer than this cannot be given viz. It shall be for two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings That is to say There shall be an interruption of two thousand three hundred sacrifices So that this number makes one thousand one hundred and fifty days See then these four numbers 1. Eleven hundred and fifty days which make three years two months and ten days 2. A time times and half a time which are three years and six months 3. One thousand two hundred fourscore and ten days which make three years and seven months 4. One thousand three hundred thirty five days that make three years eight months and fifteen days In the whole taking thirty days for every month a round number which the Holy Spirit hath chosen to avoid broken numbers arising from the inequality of the months Which appears by this that in the Revelat. 42 months and 1260 days are taken for the same thing 'T is so if 30 days be assigned to every month These four numbers are different and the later always exceeds the former There is six months and five days difference between the least and the greatest How can we reconcile this with the History We find this history in the four first Chap. of the first book of Macchabees The first Book of Macchabees is a book that deserveth esteem Though this book be not Canonical it deserves however a very great esteem and I do not at all doubt but it was left to the Church by a singular Providence of God that by it we might see the truth of Daniel's Prophecy and at the same time to instruct us in the different periods of the duration and end of Antichrist's Kingdom shadowed forth by that of Antiochus See then how we must frame the Chronology of the four first Chapters of this Book to the end we may find an admirable agreement between the events and these four numbers in the Prophecy To understand what we are about to say it must in the first place be observed that two things usually are Confounded that must be very carefully distinguisht in the persecution of Antiochus We must observe four periods in the persecution of Antiochus the first is the prophanation of the Sanctuary the second is the cessation of the daily sacrifice 'T is supposed that they are the same thing or at least that these two things lasted one as long as the other Which is not so for the prophanation of the Sanctuary began some months before the cessation of the daily sacrifice also it ceased sooner For the daily sacrifice began not again till some months after the sanctuary had ceased from being prophan'd see then the four Periods that must be observ'd in the persecution of the Jewish Church by Antiochus The first from the ceasing of the daily Sacrifice till its first beginning again The second from the beginning of the prophanation of the Temple by the Gentiles to the purification of the Temple begun by Macchabaeus The third from the beginning of the prophanation of the Temple by the Gentiles to the finishing the purification of the Temple by Judas Macchabaeus The fourth from the beginning the first prophanation of the Temple by the Geniles to its dedication consecration which was the very same day that the first daily sacrifice began again The four numbers in the Prophecy answer to these four Periods 1. The first number of 2300. evenings and mornings answers to the cessation of the daily sacrifice as is clear and this signifies that from the ceasing of the last daily sacrifice to the first beginning again of the daily sacrifice there was to be an interruption of 2300. sacrifices i. e. 1150 days which make three years two months ten days 2. The number of a time times and half a time i. e. three years and six months answers to the period that ran out from the first prophanation of the Temple by the Gentiles to the beginning of the purification of it by Judas Macchabaeus And this signifies that from the first prophanation to the beginning of the purification there were exactly 3 Years and 6 Months 3. The third Number which is 1290. days answers to the period that ran out from the first prophanation of the Temple by the Gentiles to the finishing the purification by Macchabaeus and this signifies that from the first prophanation of the Temple to the finishing its purification there were 1290 days i. e. three Years and seven months 4. Lastly the fourth number which is 1335. days answers to the period that ran out from the first prophanation of the Temple to its dedication and consecration And this signifies that from this first prophanation to the feast of the dedication there were 1335 days i. e. three years eight months and fifteen days The three last periods begin at the same point viz. the prophanation of the Temple by the Gentiles but they end at three different points One at the beginning of the cleansing of the Temple the other at the end of this cleansing and the third at the
certain that the corruption was greatly encreased Lastly if we take the last account and reckon from the year 94 in which Saint John composed his Prophecy the 360 years will end about the year 454 and 't is about that time that Theodoret wrote in whose words we have seen that the false worship of the Saints and the Doctrine of secondary intercessors were so well formed Which of the four points we must chuse If we place the birth of Antichristianism in the 360 year of our Lord when men began to render a religious worship to Reliques this Antichristian Empire being to last 1260 years 't is clear that they should have ended in the year 1620. i. e. 65 years ago If we began it according to the second computation in the year 393 or 394 it should have ended in the year 1653 or 1654. If we began it according to the third calculation at the year 430 it should end in the year 1690 about four or five years hence Lastly if following the last computation we begin it about the 450 or 454th year it must end in the year 1710 or one of the following years to 1714. 'T is clear by the event that we must not begin the 1260 years neither from the year 360 nor that of 393. For the Antichristian Empire did not fall in the years 1620 and 1653 as it should have done according to these calculations In those times in the year 360 and the year 393 superstition was yet but in its birth the worship of the creatures was not yet establisht in the publick service Great cautions also were used not to confound the service of God with the service of the creatures which was just ready to receive its birth Moreover the pride of the Bishops of Rome was moderate and their tyranny did not yet extend it self very far Men reckon the years of the life of a man from the time of his birth not from that of his conception Idolatry and tyranny were as yet but like a faetus's that were forming and perfecting but were not yet perfected The principal reason why God will not have the 1260 years of the reign of Antichrist begin but in the 4th Age. Rev. 17.12 But the principal reason why God would not have us count the birth of Antichristianism from the years 360 and 393 is because there was a fourth Character of the birth of that Antichristian Empire that had not yet happen'd that is the ten Kings that were to take their power together with the Beast These ten Kings are ten Kingdoms into which the Roman Empire was to be subdivided And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten Kings which have received no Kingdom as yet but receive power as Kings one hour with the Beast These words are admirable to me they appear express and I am astonisht that it hath not been observed that they precisely mark the time wherein we must begin to reckon the reign of the Beast Especially if we consider them with the words of St. Paul he who now letteth or possesseth will let or possess untill he be taken out of the way then shall that wicked one be revealed That is to say till the time that the head of the Roman Emperors be destroyed These two passages signify expresly from what time we must compute the 1260 years 'T is from the time that the Goths Vandals c. after having a long time harrassed and rent the Roman Empire at last divided it into ten pieces Moreover the falsification of the translation of the Port-Royal that render it thus the ten Kings shall take power for a little time with the Beast would not destroy the evidence of the Oracle though we should suffer the ill translation of these Gentlemen to pass For if we must translate it for a little time by that little time we must understand the three years and a half of Antichrist's duration And seeing we have invincibly proved that these three years and a half consist of 1260 Prophetical days i. e. 1260. years 't is clear we must understand that little time in a prophetical and compendious sense for three years and a half That which is essential here and which the rashness of men hath not been able to take away is that the ten Kings were to receive their power together with the Beast that is to say at the same time Whethey it be for a short or a long one 't is still certain that this Oracle plainly teaches us that we must seek for the birth of the Antichristian Empire in the time when we find ten Kingdoms arise from the dismembred Roman Empire We must therefore see when that was thus dismembred The greatest part of men make the Roman Empire to subsist till the year 475 under certain petty Kings that retained the name of Roman Emperors because they did yet possess the City of Rome from Valentinian the third to Augustulus But the truth of it is that the Roman Empire was parcelled out and rent in pieces and entirely destroyed immediately after the death of this Valentinian who was killed by Maximus Genseric King of the Vandals comes from Africk being called in by the Empress Eudoxia to revenge the death of her husband He takes Rome carries away all the riches precious things and rarities of it They spent fifteen whole days in spoiling it of its treasures Genseric transported them into Africa together with the Empress her daughters and the principal men of Rome Just in the same manner as Nebuchadnezzar carried away the vessels of the Temple and led the flower of the people into captivity 'T is assuredly from this very time that we must compute the entire ruin of the Empire of the City of Rome though it had still a shadow of a Kingdom under the images of Emperours that lasted about twenty years Jeremy reckons 70 years for the captivity of Babylon Yet it is certain the from the last ruin of Jerusalem till the return there were not sixty years But the Prophet counts upon Jerusalem as destroyed and its Kingdom as entirely ruined from Jehojakim's time under whom in truth was the first transportation of the people And since whose time the Kingdom of Judah under Zedekiah was but a shadow of that of his Predecessors because he was the Chaldaeans vassal On this account I say God reckons it for nothing By the like reason we must reckon for nothing those petty Kings of Rome who having as it were nothing more than the City of that name retained however the name of Roman Emperors to Augustulus's time We must reckon the dismembring of the Roman Empire into ten Kingdoms from the death of Valentinian the third Then therefore from the wrecks of the Roman Empire were formed 1. The Kingdom of the Britains in Britanny 2. Of the Saxons 3. Of the Franks 4. Of the Burgundians in the Gauls 5. Of the Visigoths in the South of Gaul and in Spain 6. Of the Sueves in Gallicia
the hand of God to inflict the plagues Thus in the second and third plagues which are the Croisades the Pope is not the sufferer 't is he who makes others suffer 't is he who sends many millions of his subjects to be murther'd and slain yea this very thing proved a great augmentation of his power In the same manner this fourth plague falls upon the Antichristian people and therefore in the following plague the Spirit saith that the viol was pour'd on the seat of the Beast to signify that the people or subjects of the Beast should not be the chief sufferers by it The abuse of the papal Authority did tend to its ruin I answer in the second place that the prodigious advancement of the papal Authority which in truth brought Antichristianism unto its perfection yet not withstanding was one step to its ruin If the Popes had kept within the bounds which they did in the preceding ages if they had not medled with secular affairs to dispose absolutely concerning them perhaps the See of Rome had not been thought to be Antichrist but then it was that this truth became so sensible that every one perceiv'd it The abuse of the Ecclesiastical power in the ninth age made some perceive that Rome was the mystical Babylon Thus Gontier Bishop of Colen and Thetgaut Arch-bishop of Triers nam'd it in the ninth Age. But after the eleventh Age this truth was so demonstrated that we of this Age do not speak it more plainly and confidently We may judge by that excellent passage of Eberard Bishop of Saltsburg See Aventin Annal. Boior lib. 4 pag. 330. which we cited out of Aventin in the tenth Chapter of the first Part of our Prejudg After that time there never wanted those who asserted the same thing Thus the dismal abuse of the papal Authority was and is still a sore plague to that See for 't is one of the strong Arguments by which we prove that it is Antichrist Men were scorcht but they repented not to give glory to God. The Germans cryed out very much against Babylon and Antichrist but they did not forsake them or renounce their Idolatry on the contary they blasphemed the name of God who had power over these plagues for those Ages were exceeding wicked and corrupt v. 10. And the fifth Angel pour'd out his viol upon the seat of the Beast and his Kingdom was sull of darkness and they gnawed their tongues for pain v. 11. And blasphemed the God of Heaven because of their pains and their sores and repented not of their deeds This is the fifth plague I ask not any favour for my conceptions about it let them be examined with the utmost rigour if they are not liked let them be disregarded but for my part I cannot abandon them untill the times and events do undeceive me but those events shall never be seen Who can doubt that by the seat of the Beast is meant Rome and when was it that the viol of the wrath of God fell upon this seat i.e. Rome It was when it lost its Sun the Sun which is spoken of in the preceding plague i.e. its Pope the papal Court that like a gulf or whirle pool drew to it all the riches of the Kingdoms of Europe A prophecy of what fell out when the Popes left Rome to go to Avignon In the year 1305 Clement V. left Rome to go and dwell at Avignon The City that was mistress of the World became desolate a very desert and a shadow of its self during those 74 years when its Masters kept their Seat at Avignon The viol fell upon the Seat of the Beast and his Kingdom was full of darkness 'T is not only said that his Seat was darkned but his Kingdom And indeed till that time the Kingdom of the Beast the Authority of the Pope the Glory of the Holy See as'tis call'd had never suffer'd such a strange and terrible an eclipse This removal of the papal Seat unto Avignon was the cause of a Schism At the end of 74 years Gregory XI compelled by the complaints of the Romans brought back the Seat to their City But after his death the Cardinals who were â—lmost all French resolved to have a Pope of their own Nation the Citizens of Rome fearing lest a French Pope should return into France forced the Colledge of Cardinals to chuse an Italian to be Pope who call'd himself Vurban VI. The Cardinals incensed at the force which was used in the election contrived to revolt which they did and chose another Pope who call'd himself Clement VII he held his Seat at Avignon and his Successors for 40 years in the mean while Vrban VI. and his Successors at Rome had one part of the Church of Rome under their obedience At that time the Sun of the Antichristian World was divided into two The great Schism of the West was a terrible plague to the Antichristian Empire as it happens to the Sun and the Moon when they are eclipsed it was eclipsed and darkned The Church of Rome suffer'd the greatest reproach imaginable Jesus Christ had no less then three or four Spouses at one time This is a piece of History which confounds popery even at this day which destroys its foolish pretences unto an uninterrupted succession an undivided unity and infallibility from hence we draw a conclusion against it which cannot be avoided Then the Kingdom of the Beast was darkned Princes despised the Popes and made themselves their Judges whereas formerly Popes had judged Kings They made them be deposed they call'd by their own Authority the Council of Constance where Popes were subjected to Councils and accounted deposable as in effect there were three who were there actually deposed Till that time Censures and Excommunications had been the strongest beams of the Antichristian Sun the most efficacious methods of his domination But then men began to despise them There was nothing but excommunicating of one another the Western Church was divided into two Obediences that which obeyed one Pope was excommunicated by the other and by this means all Europe lay under excommunication which made it contemptible and the people who once respected the Censures with incredible trembling began to discern that these thunderbolts were vain and empty things And this brought a considerable darkness upon the seat of the Beast and the papal power for all Europe groaning under the slavery of the Popes every one began to think of recovering their liberty Germany refused to submit to Reservations and Expectations means which the Court of Rome make use of to make her self Mistress of all Benefices France not only rejected Reservations and Expectations but annull'd Annats Provisions and all other exactions of the Court of Rome Then were laid the foundations of the pragmatick Sanction which gave the Popes so much trouble because it cut off all the simonaical tricks which the Court of Rome used to enrich her self even Italy it self during
the Schisme did shake off they yoke the City of Bolonia made a Law that the Benefices of that Church should be conferred upon none but of that City and Territory To conclude it cannot be expressed by how many ways that grand Schisme which divided the Sun of the Antichristian World did spoil it of its strength and lustre After this time the Authority which the Popes had so mischievously used to ruin the Kings and Kingdoms of Europe did scarce do any more mischief 'T is evident that then the Kingdom of the Beast was darkned because by this Eclipse it lost half of its beams i.e. of its Authority They grawed their tongues for pain History must be consulted to know how many calamities wars combats how much shedding of blood rage and fury did spring from this shameful Schisme Every one of these Popes gnasht his teeth and bit his tongue against the Antipope There were nothing but thunderbolts excommunications Croisades wars and combats of one against another Nay still to this day the slaves of the papal Seat are vext to the death when we prefs them with this thing But under all their sorrows they blasphemed the God of Heaven and repented not of their deeds In those Ages Idolatry was so far from loosing any thing that it encreased then was the reign of Monks of superstition of Fables of Legends and a thousand abominations In that age Simony was come to its height While the Court of Rome sate at Avignon is invented a thousand wayes of selling holy and prophane things Crimes Paradise Sacraments Minisâ—ry Marriages and in a word everything Then came abroad that famous book the Tax of the Roman Chancery and Penitentiary which at that time and yet every day forces to make the Kingdom of the Beast full of darkness This period lasted from 1305 untill 1440. CHAP. IX The sixth Plague are the Turks who pass aver the Bosphorus and invade the Greek and Latin Empires The three unclean spirits which come out from the mouth of the false Prophet are the papal Laws armed with Excommunications I Have carried on my conjectures untill I came hither and did somewhat content my self in what I had said about the five first Plagues The certainly of what hath been said ought to be encreased by that which follows but I confess that the remainder of this Chapter was thick darkness to me And understanding nothing of it I put it among those things that are to come according to the usual custome of them who Interpret Prophecies who say of every thing which they understand not that it is not yet come to pass And this made me ready to think that my perswasion as to the five first plagues was but a meer opinion For in the framing of systems whether they be of Principles and conclusions or of Events contain'd in Prophecies we must pierce through them all that we may see them clearly and be assured of their truth Whilest I thought that the remainder of the Chapter concerned the time to come I was content to understand nothing of it but I was afflicted with the fear that the end of Antichristianism was not at hand But at last after I had knockt twice thrice four five yea six times with devout attention and deep humility I believe that the door is open'd to me I dare speak thus though I know that some have said that this savours of Enthusiasme to whom I answer that there is one Article at least more in my Creed then there is in theirs viz. I believe in the Holy Ghost and his operations I am in this matter a Disciple of the Author of the enquiry after Truth and am perswaded that we see no truths but in God and by the assistance of God we contribute nothing besides our attention our prayers and our desires However I think that I have found out the two plagues that follow in this Chapter and by this means that which was only a conjecture of mine concerning the five fore-going is risen to a real perswasion I am therefore perswaded that through the Divine assistance I have pierced into the Systeme of the seven periods a favour for which I will render to him immortal thanks as long as I live For I confess that I cannot express the ravishing consolation that my heart hath felt in seeing such evident reasons to perswade me of the approaching deliverance of the Church If these two plagues had been yet to come I felt my heart began to fà int at the prospect of the dismal calamities which now oppress the Church without reckoning those which do still threaten her Hope deferred maketh the heart sick saith the Wise man. Sixth plague v. 12. And the sixth Angel pour'd out his viol upon the great river Euphrates and the water there of was dryed up that the way of the Kings of the East might be prepared The Kings of the East and the river Euphrates do give light to this Text. As for the Kings of the East we cannot doubt but that they are the Turks for they are the only Kings of our East They possess exactly that part of the Roman Empire which is called the East and hath kept the name of Natolia in the Text they might have been translated the Kings of Anatolia for that is the word which is used Now all know that the Turks are the Kings of Natolia As for Euphrates we find it in the sixth Trumpet as it is here in the sixth plague v. 13. And the sixth Angel sounded and I heard a voyce from the four horns of the golden Altar Revel ch 9. which is before God. v. 14. Saying to the sixth Angel which had the Trumpet loose the four Angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates v. 15. And the four Angels were loosed which were prepared for an hour and a day and a moneth and a year for to slay the third pare of men v. 16. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand and I heard the number of them v. 17. And thus I saw the horses in the vision and them that sate on them having brest-plates of fire and of jacinct and brimstone and the heads of the horses were as the heads of Lions and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone The most skillful Interpreters have in this Metaphorical description discerned the Turkish Cavalry which was formerly so formidable The Turks and their invasions are foretold in the 9th chapt of the Revelation and after the reading of what Joseph Mede hath wrote upon this I think it cannot be doubted that the thing is so This barbarous Nation which came out of Tartary had carried on its conquests even to Euphrates nigh to which if formed four Dynasties or Governments and there it abode a long time these are the four Angels who were bound behind Euphrates This River for some time served as a boundary or barriere of the Empire of
Constantinople against the Turks But they leapt over this barriere and spread themselves as far as the Euxine Sea and the Bosphorus and the Aegean Sea or the Archipelago The Croisades about the end of the eleventh Age drove them back took from them Nice and a part of the lesser Asia But afterwards they came again and wasting the Grecian Empire they took all away from it as far as the Sea called Bosphorus and as far as the Archipelago Behold these are the Kings of the East which appear again in our sixth viol behold the Euphrates which again comes upon the stage But what is this Euphrates Here Euphrates is the Thracian Bosphorus the second barriere of the Turks In this Prophecy whatever serves as a barriere to the Turks is called Euphrates because this River was the first barriere which did seperate that people from Christendom After the Turks had got over that River they find another Euphrates viz. the Bosphorus This in their last irruptions was the same that Euphrates had been in their first namely a barriere that for a little while stopt their course though at last they leapt over it This figure is very ordinary in Orators and consequently there is ground to seek it in Prophets whose style is much more figurative Thus one will say Here are my Herculis's pillars meaning here I will bound my conquests another will say Here are my East-Indies meaning here I will bound my longest voyages A third says This is my Louure meaning this is my Palace or residence So it might be said of the Turks stopt behind the Bosphorus This was their Euphrates therefore the Sea call'd Archipel and the Bosphorus of Thrace in the thirteenth age were the barriere that parted the remainder of the Greek Empire and the Empire of the Turks But at the end of the 14th age the Turks under the conduct of the proud Bajazet and by means of the treachery of the Genuese who let their Gallies to them they passed the Bosphorus made themselves masters of all Thrace fixed the Seat of their Empire at Adrianople and plundred all Greece insomuch that the Greek Emperor had scarce any thing left besides the City of Constantinople Tamerlain tamed the pride of Bajazet and for a while stopt the fury of this torrent But the Children and Successors of Bajazet soon after carried on their conquests and 50 years after quite ruin'd the remainder of the Greek Empire Mahomet II. took Constantinople in the year 1452. After which the Turks overflowed as a torrent conquer'd all Greece Macedonia Albania Slavonia Croatia Bulgaria Hungary and extended the bounds of their Empire even unto the borders of Germany Here therefore the Archipel and the Bosphorus which is joyn'd to it are called Euphrates because this Sea served as a barriere against the Turks as Euphrates formerly had done this was the Euphrates of that time and the Holy Ghost kept the name of Euphrates in this second barriere that we might in this Text the more certainly discern the Turks who had passed over Euphrates when they first invaded the Greek Empire and Christendom The Latin Church suffered infinitely by the passage of the Turks into Europe This is the sixth plague which may be well called the plague upon the Kingdom of the Beast for that Kingdom did infinitely suffer by it 'T is true the first desolations fell upon the Greek Empire but as I have already remarkt the great Idolatries which reigned in the Greek Church had made it become a Province of the Antichristian Empire it was indeed separated by a schisme from the Latin Church notwithstanding it was a Province Besides this the Latin Church the Kingdom of the beast was infinitely a loser How many fair Provinces and brave Kingdoms were rent off from the West by the Turks How often have the Turks vexed Italy nay even Christian Princes have used them to mortify the Popes besides what they have already done we know not what they must do hereafter The Holy Ghost seems to intimate that God hath placed them there for some greater work than that which they have already performed for the Spirit saith that the way of the Kings of the East might be prepared without telling us what work they are to do and the reason is because their greatest work must not be done under the sixth plague but at the end of the seventh God hath thought it sufficient to tell us that he hath placed them on this side the Bosphorus and brought them even to the borders of Germany to be the instruments of his great work at least this is the opinion of many who are taken with the Prophecies of Drabicius They are perswaded that the Turk must destroy Rome The present state of his affairs does not promise this for since the Ottoman Empire was founded he was never brought so low But I confess that this is far from weakning my opinion that the Turk must be the Instrument of the vengeance of God against Rome for 't is this that does confirm me in it for I look on this year 1685 as a Critical year in this great affair God hath brought low the Protestants and the Turks at the same time that he may raise them up at the same time and make them the Instruments of his vengeance against the Babylonian Empire Notwithstanding as I do not found my predictions upon the visions of Drabicius but upon those of Saint John and he saith nothing that does determine me I am in suspence whether the Turks have been placed so nigh the Kingdom of the Beast to bear a part in destroying him or to be honoured with the blessing of conversion upon the sight of that great work of God. I am perswaded that a few years will inform us which of these is the truth From 1390 until 1526. The duration of this period is about 125 or 130 years In the year 1529 the Turks came and besieged Vienna Charles the fifth made them raise teir siege Since that time they have not made any great progress into the Kingdom of the Beast And this sixth plague exactly brings that Kingdom unto the time of Luthers preaching of which the consequences are fore-told in the seventh plague as I hope a Parenthesis of a great depth and obscurity V. 13. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the Dragon and out of the mouth of the Beast and out of the mouth of the false Prophet V. 14. For they are the spirits of Devils working miracles which go forth unto the Kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battel of that great day of God Almighty V. 15. Behold I come as a thief c. V. 16. And he gathers them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armegeddon Behold great affairs untill now finding nothing better I was contented with the conjecture of those who by these three unclean spirits understand the
how can it enter into any mans head that dead men can prophesy And who sees not that their death does imply a cessation and interruption of their testimony But what need is there to reason about this thing when the Text saith expresly and in plain words that the death of the Witnesses must not happen untill after their prophesying and their witness-bearing 1260 days And I will give power to my two witnesses and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days cloathed in sackcloth And when they shall have finish'd their testimony the Beast c. shall kill them And their bodies shall lye dead three days and a half There needs no commentary to let us see that here is spoken of a persecution that must happen at the end of the 1260 years in which the faithful who dwell within the bounds of the Babylonian Kingdom must be brought to an extremity that may be called death We are in my opinion certainly in this persecution which must extinguish the true Religion for three years and a half if we will reckon these three years and a half from the abrogating of the Edict of Nantes in the moneth of October 1685. the deliverance of the Church will fall out in the year 1689 and this is absolutely the conjecture of Monsieur du Moulin in his Accomplishment of Prophecies he hopes that the persecution of the Church by the Antichristian party shall cease in the year 1689. A conjecture of M. du Moulin which may prove true tho built upon false foundations If this should happen it would be a purely casual event for the foundation on which he builds is altogether void of solidity he takes these three days and a half for six hundred and third years He supposeth that the whole duration of Antichrists reign which is 1260 years is considered as one week now a week is seven days the half of seven days is three days and a half and if this signifies the half of 1260 years it is 630 years He supposeth therefore that the Holy Ghost intended to say that the persecution made by Antichrist shall last the half of his reign After this he finds that the first persecution for the sake of Religion was that which was rais'd against Berenger in the eleventh Age on the account of his sentiment concerning the real presence in the year 1059. Add to 1059 the number 630 this makes 1689 in which year all persecution must cease so as never to begin again though in his opinion Antichrists Kingdom and the Papacy must continue still after this above 300 years for he makes them last untill the year 2015. 'T is plain his suppositions destroy themselves or are not strong First 't is not true that the first persecution on the account of Religion was that which the Popes rais'd against Berenger that which was rais'd by the Image-worshippers against those whom they call'd Iconoclasts or Image-breakers was more cruel and happened a long while before Again what probability that the Popedom can reign or subsist 326 years without persecuting the true Christians as this hypothesis supposeth Besides what is meant by that which is said that the Witnesses after three years and a half must ascend into heaven After the year 1689. the faithfull shall reign and be exalted and notwithstanding the Popedom shall last still 326 years these things are incompatible Lastly to take three years and a half for 630 years is a thing that hath no example in all the Prophecies The persecution may cease in the year 1689. Nevertheless after all this 't is not wholly improbable that the persecution may cease in the year 1689. but this depends upon reasons much differing from those now mentioned For God if he pleaseth may reckon the three years and a half of the death of the Witnesses from the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes made in the year 1685. in the moneth of October We know not from what time God will reckon the three years and a half but we have no certainty that God will do so Who knows whether God will not extinguish the Reformation in all the Countries where the Dominion of France does or shall reach Without doubt the Protestant Religion will be extinguisht in Strasburg which depends upon France and in other places But this not being as yet done the death of the Witnesses in the reckoning of God perhaps must not begin till the time in which this work shall be finished The Court of France desires also to extinguish the Protestant Religion in the Vallies of Piedmont which are under the Duke of Savoy and this is now a doing France making herself the executioner of those thundring Arrests which she had procured at the Court of the Duke which perhaps is the most singular example of the spirit of persecution which was ever seen All other persecutors have been content to persecute their own Subjects or Countrey-men But behold persons who after they have reduced the Subjects of their own King to the utmost extremities go and make themselves the Hangmen Murtherers of the Subjects of Forreign Princes If the three years and a half of the death of the Witnesses must be reckon'd from the destruction of these Waldenses here is one years delay of the deliverance of the French Churches Who knows whether there be not other Countries which we do not know or are not willing to name in which the Profession of the Truth must be extinguisht before we enter upon the three years of the death of the Witnesses Who knows if God will not reckon these three years and a half from the time in which there shall not be so much as one in France who stands firm and is not fallen We know not whether such a misery must come tho I hope it shall not There are as yet in France more then a hundred thousand persons who either have not signed or have repented after their signing If all these must fall off there is yet a long time to tarry Lastly who knows whether God will not begin to reckon the three years and a half untill other Princes have wholly extinguisht the Reformation in their Dominions 'T is therefore rashness to affirm that deliverance must exactly come in such a year But that which I am perswaded of and believe that others may be perswaded of without rashness is that we are now in the last persecution that this persecution shall be most effectual as it is the most terrible that was even see that the Witnesses of the truth that is to say all preaching of the purity of the Gospel under the Cross and under popish Princes will shortly be suppressed that from that time the three years and a half must be reckon'd at the end of which we shall see come to pass the most wonderful events of our days Many now alive shall without doubt see them for I believe the thing is very near at hand
Among the considerations laid down by me in the Preface which induce me to believe that this persecution is the last I mention'd the singularities of it I named several such Behold one which in my judgement deserves to be added to the rest 'T is the horrible Edict which commands that the new Converts being sick shall communicate after the popish way This is the worst effect that ever was produced by the spirit of rage and reprobation And 't is not conceivable how a Clergy that will be called Christian can do such horrible actions The Edict ordains that they who will not communicate shall be sent to the Galleys if they recover There is none who is so mortally sick that is sure that he shall dye and fearing to recover he will also fear to go to the Gallies and this affrighting object is able to induce a sick man to communicate without faith and to worship that which he judgeth to be a piece of bread that is to say to commit a horrible sacriledge and an act of Idolatry and consequently to damn himself certainly So that properly this Edict is a trick of the Clergy to procure the damnation of all the new Converts This is perfectly to imitate that Italian who that he might take a compleat vengeance having his enemy in his power promis'd him his life on condition that he would deny God which having done he murther'd both his body and soul Will men never open their eyes to behold such objects as these The Reformation is foretold by three figures signifying three Methods And the spirit of life from God entred into them These words teach us how the Reformation shall be re-establisht in France for in these Prophecies I find three ways by which the Truth is establisht or re-establisht The first is by lightnings voyces and thunders thus after the seventh viol was pour'd on the air the Reformation in the last Age was made by lightnings voyces and thunders i. e. by the preaching of the Divine Oracles And the seventh Angel pour'd out his viol into the air and there were voyces and lightnings and thunders In this Prophecy thunders always signify the Divine Oracles The seven thunders that uttered their voyces in the tenth Chapter are the Oracles of God which ought to be uttered in the sequel Thus the Reformation was made in the last Age in a most sensible manner by the preaching of the word The Reformation shall come into France by way of internal grace But behold a second way of reforming A Spirit of life from God enters again into the dead Witnesses i. e. those who are at this day under oppression shall suddenly rise up again by a secret operation of grace and an extraordinary motion not by the means of preaching the word not by the ministry of some new Preachers but by a heavenly operation that shall open the eyes of them who are as yet in darkness and strengthen again the hearts of those who at this day have fallen through weakness At that time in all appearance the yoke of the Persecutor shall be broken a time of ease shall come and all those who at this day groan under the Captivity of Babylon shall lift up their heads and shall improve that season of calm to repair that which they are now forced to do by violence 'T is these words signify a Spirit of life from God not from any man nor by the ministry of any man but from God entred into them and their zeal was enlivened again But things shall not stay there God is preparing other wonders There is a third Reformation which shall be set on foot by way of Authority by the Royal power and this is expressed in the words that follow And the Witnesses heard a great voyce from heaven saying unto them Come up hither and they ascended up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies beheld them What heaven and lifting up to heaven signify in the Prophecies In the style of the Prophets heaven and lifted up to heaven is the Throne and to be exalted to dignity greatness and power even in the language of heathen Prophets for Apomasar in his Apostelismata insomniorum saith If a King dreams that he sits upon the clouds and is carried where ever he pleaseth this signifies that his enemies shall serve him But if he fancieth that he is carried up to heaven where the stars are this presages that he shall be lift up above all Kings The Prophets of God do also make use of these representations to signify the same thing Isa 14.13 Isaiah describes the exaltation of the King of Babylon by an ascending up into heaven I will ascend into heaven I will exalt my Throne above the stars And Jesus Christ saith of Capernaum that she had been lift up unto heaven but should be brought down unto hell 'T is therefore evident that God does here signify that some time after these three years and a half of death the Reformation shall be lifted up to a great glory but not every where 't is only in that place which is called the street of the great City and is after called the tenth part of the City for the total destruction of the Antichristian Kingdom must not happen untill some years afterward There will shortly be a Reformation in France by the Royal Authority And after These words signify that when the Reformation shall be establisht again in France by way of Divine immediate operation by which the zeal of the Apostates and of others who know the truth but with-hold it in unrighteousness shall be quickned again some space of time shall pass probably some years before France shall wholly throw off the yoke of popery That Kingdom shall not be entirely Reformed by way of Authority immedately after out Reformation shall be again set on foot by way of inspiration and recovering of zeal For and after signifies an interval of time but whether it shall be short or long is not expressed notwithstanding I see no likelihood that it shall be very long nor do I believe so They heard a great voyce from heaven Yet once again Heaven is the Throne 't is the Soveraign dignity which in a State is exactly the same that Heaven is to the Earth in light in lustre in good or bad influences in scituation and in elevation From Heaven i.e. from Authority and the Prince who reigns they heard a voyce they received an order not a small clandestinsilent voyce but a great voyce i.e. a publick command a solemn Edict and this voyce said to them Come up hither Then the Truth shall get up into the Throne and as God hath contrary to all probability given a popish Prince to England so God will give a Protestant Prince to France in spight of all oppositions of the Papists And the ascended up to heaven in a cloud i.e. Their elevation and that of the Reformed Religion shall be made publickly as the
Maimbourg should publish one history upon another of the declining of the Empire Of the Croisades Of the Schism of the Greeks Of the great Schism of the West Of Lutheranism and Of Calvinism for this purpose to raise our attention unto these great events of the seven plagues which without this perhaps none would have thought of I earnestly beseech them I say seriously to consider this heap of circumstances and to tell me in their Consciences whether Chance can produce and agreement of above a hundred or two hundred points relating to the same subject None can ever make this reflection seriously but he must be convinced CHAP. XVI Of the thousand years reign That in all the past time there is not a time to be found wherin Satan hath been bound Four heads of arguments to prove this reign The first is the fifth Monarchy so plainly promised to the saints WE have done examining that which relates to the fall of the Antichristian Kingdom That we may keep our word that we gave in the Title of our second part we must now enquire what must happen to the Church after that great event This laid down in the 20 chapter of the Revelation in these terms v. 1. And I saw an Angel come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand v. 2. And he laid hold on the dragon that old serpent which is the devil and Satan and bound him a thousand years v. 3. And cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set a seal upon him that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled and after that he must be loosed a little season v. 4. And I saw thrones and they sat upon them and judgment was given unto them and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Iesus and for the word of God and which had not worshipped the beast neither his image neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years v. 5. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished This is the first resurrection Behold the Text which is the subject to so many doubts and so many controversies Behold that which hath made the pretended Hereticks who are call'd Chiliasts and Millenaries I mean not those Chiliasts who have believed a thousand years reign of the Church during which time it must enjoy according to their opinion the carnal and sinful pleasures of the world these were filthy spirits which came out of the Dragons mouth A distinction between carnal and spiritual Millenaries But as for those who believe that after the ruin of Antichrist and before the end of the world God reserves to himself a period of a thousand years in which he must reign by himself and his people pour out upon them an abundance of his spirit bring al Nations to his knowledge govern them with a golden scepter and no longer with an iron one secure them from all evil and from all danger of corruption as for these I say the time is coming and that very shortly that men shall be ashamed that they have branded them with the names of Chiliasts of Millenaries and fifth Monarchymen I have former by observed that there is something that is surprizing and divine in the due understanding of Prophecies We wonder at the strange stupidity of the Jews who do not discern in their own Oracles our Jesus and their Messias We are Astonisht at the dismal blindness of the Papists who do not see the Beast and Antichrist in that which they call their Holy See and their Holy Church God hath had reasons why he hath given these men eyes that they should not see and a heart void of understanding Certainly here is the same thing There must be a blindness greater then can be imagined 'T is surprising that men have not seen in the Scripture the Reign of Jesus Christ on the earth in those who see not this Kingdom of Iesus Christ and the Church which must make the seventh Period of the world There is something supernaturall in this blindness I had this favour from God that I saw this Reign in the Scriptures ever since I was able to read and understand them without having read either any Commentaries upon the Revelation or writings of the Millenaries I hope to make out the truth of this Reign with such clearness that if shall be difficult to shake any doubt of it It is impossible to find in the time by-past room for the Period of a thousand years in which Satant must be bound First it is agreed on all hands that within the duration of the Church we must necessarily find a Period of a thousand years in which it may be said that Satan hath been bound i.e. hindred in his designs which are seduction and persecution This it too plain to be denyed But where shall we find this Period I am sorry to see so great so learned and so holy a person as Vsher Archbishop of Armagh to place this period of a thousand years within the time of Christs Incarnation and the eleventh Age. How can any one say that the Devil was bound during that space Is it with respect to seduction In the three first Ages did he not seduce men Were not the Pagans seduced Their Religion was it not the Ruling Religion There were Christians I grant but I am perswaded that they were not the fiftieth part of the whole Roman Empire In the succeeding Ages hath he not set on foot that grand seduction that is called the Beast the False Prophet the Kingdom of Antichrist Hath he not brought Idolatry into the Church the abomination into the sanctuary such tyranny pride and corruption of manners that there was never greater among the Pagans With respect to persecution hath he been bound how much blood hath shed how many Butcheries hath he acted how many Massacres what a great number of Martyrs Can it enter into any mans thoughts that this should be called the Period of Satans binding He was never so broken loose The falsity of their hypothesis who begin them at Constantin What do those gain who come three hundred years lower and hold that Santan began to be bound at the time of Constantin They must upon that principle place their ending at the year thirteen hundred and so include within their Period of the thousand years the rage of the Beast who hath fed upon the blood of the saints the seductions of the false Prophet who makes the Image of the Beast to be worshipped and the whole world to run after him who obligeth all men to bear his mark upon their foreheads who makes war against the Saints and overcometh them In one word they must take in into their Period of Santans binding that space of time in which
first Subject They say 't is the Kingdom of the Father we pray for i. e. of the Heavenly Paradise the Eternal Kingdom But we need only read what follows in the Lords prayer to be assured that it must be understood of a Kingdom upon earth Thy Name be hallowed Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven That clause on Earth as in Heaven is common to all three Petitions Thy Kingdom come upon Earth as it is already come in Heaven 'T is reasonable to think that God hath reserv'd a time for the Kingdom of grace which hath not yet 12-ken place So great a difficulty have these Gentlemen the Antimillenaries to conceive a Kingdom of God upon earth and for my own part I find as great a one not to conceive it How can we reconcile it to the wisdom and goodness of God to have abandon'd and forsaken the World thorowout all the duration of it without preserving a certain time in that duration for himself and his own Kingdom Now when was it that God did reign in the world by his Kingdom of grace It was not in the first World before the Flood where wickedness prevailed to that degree that obliged him to destroy it by the Deluge It was not in the Time from Noah to Moses for in those Ages Idolatry sprung up increas't and multiplied Much less in those Ages from Moses to Iesus Christ for the Devil reigned every where oftentimes not excepting that little corner of the Earth which God had reserved to himself It is not from the Appearance of Christ to that of Antichrist for saving about one hundred years since the Emperors were Christians Paganism hath always been uppermost and the prevailing Religion It cannot be since the birth of Antichrist for the 1260 years of his reign are the Empire of the Beast and of the Dragon and this will lead us even to the end of the World according to these Gentlemen And the course of the World will be finisht and God and his Kingdom of Grace have found no place in it I confess that in all ages God hath saved some persons but that is not to Reign for Truth and Grace have never yet ruled and been uppermost They never had the Empire the number and the multitude of their side The number of wicked and worldly men hath always carried it How much more reasonable then is it to conceive that God after having abandon'd six periods to the World and the Dragon hath at least reserved one seventh to himself wherein Truth and Grace shall rule and prevail whereas in the other preceding they have been supprest The conversion of the nations and of the Iews shall form the Kingdom of Christ I find nothing more odd and singular than the Hypothesis of these Gentlemen They acknowledge that all the Nations hitherto under Infidelity shall be converted St. Paul hath expresly said it in the eleventh Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans according to them also the Iews are to be converted Behold the fairest Empire of Grace which can be imagined why should we make it fall assoon as it is raised and make the World it self to end soon after Is it not more reasonable to conceive that God will preserve the Church in that glorious state for several ages to injoy as it were the fruit of his Labours and see the Intelligible World compleated and brought to its perfection Since the Iews the fullness of the Gentiles are to be brought in to J. Christ as all the World grants is it not reasonable that in that period of the re-union of all People that they who have been an holy People to whom we owe the Patriarchs and the sacred Oracles for observe it there is no one book of the N. Testament any more then of the Old but was made by a Iew is it not just I say that that Nation should then have the Pre-eminence above all other Nations There is then in my opinion a Kingdom of God to be expected and this Kingdom is that of the Messiah the Kingdom of the Iews The Reign of the Messiah which is not yet come for to speak properly we cannot say that Christ hath hitherto reigned upon Earth His party as yet hath been in no place or part of the World the prevailing ruling Party the wheat hath been always buried in the Tares The Kingdom of the Iews promised by the Prophets so often and in so many different manners And these two Kingdoms that of the Messiah and that of the Iews are to take place at the same time 'T is true we may compute the beginning of Christ's Kingdom from the fall of the Kingdom of Antichrist and 't is manifest that from that point God will reckon the thousand years Nevertheless the Kingdom of Christ cannnot be well said to be come till all Nations shall be converted now the Iews are not to be converted till the last of all People J. Christ hath not yet reigned upon earth in a proper sense Ioseph Mede hath a reflection thereupon which I confess I am pleased with 'T is but a Conjecture but I find it to be very well framed 'T is this that the Conversion of St. Paul a zealous and bigotted Iew in the highest degree is the Type of the future conversion of the whole Nation 1. He was a great zealot for the Law and a furious Persecutor of Christianity The Iews are also very zealous for Moses and irreconcileable enemies to Iesus Christ 2. Paul was converted not as other men The conversion of S. Pauls a type of that of the Iewish nation by the bare preaching of the Gospel and the sight of Miracles but by the glorious appearing of Christ to him from Heaven 'T is likewise very probable that the Conversion of the Iews will not be in an ordinary way as by preaching for the Hearts of that People are under an invincible obduracy So that 't is likely that Christ will convert them by some glorious and surprizing apparition and will appear clothed with those Characters the Prophets have given him that they may no longer be able to disown and refuse him 3. Those who accompanied St. Paul saw indeed the Light but Christ did not appear to them the Gentiles and Christians who shall then be may have some part in that glorious Apparition but it may be shall not see it all 4. Paul was instructed by way of inspiration in all Mysteries assoon as Iesus Christ had appear'd to him The Iews shall have their minds inlightned and the vail which is now on their hearts shall be taken away and on a sudden shall see clearly into the Oracles of their Law and Prophets 5. St. Paul was the last of the Apostles who was converted the Iews will be called the last of all People 6. Paul after Conversion was the most zealous of any the Iews when converted shall be the most affectionate and zealous of all Christians 7. St. Paul