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
into perdition See here an eighth King that belongs to the Roman Empire And this eighth King is of the seven he is of the number of the seven Governments It must necessarily be that this eighth King must come from hence that one of the seven is divided into two And 't is the Head of the Roman Emperours divided into two For the Roman Emperours are either Pagans or Christians The conversion of the Emperours made so great a change that the Christian Emperours deserved to be reckon'd for an eighth head However because they last but a short space and because in respect of their Temporal they were perfectly like the fore-going Emperours the Holy Spirit ranks them under the seventh head And when he cometh he must continue a short space That is to say when the second part of the Head of the Emperours shall become viz. the Christian Emperours it shall not continue long Indeed the Christian Emperours did not possess the Empire but from the conversion of Constantine to Valentinian the third about 130 or 135. years Besides the transposition of the words which I have supposed doth not make any difficulty here for if I made a commentary I could easily bring examples much more harsh in the writings only of the N. Testament And the ten Horns which thou sawest v. 12. are ten Kings which have received no Kingdom as yet but receive power as Kings one hour with the Beast These are the ten Kings or the ten Kingdoms into which the Roman Empire was rent when the Imperial power was destroyed in the West And the same time that the ten Kings were made the Beast that is to say the second Beast of the 13th Chapter the Beast with two Horns the Roman Church began to form its Empire This is one of the most remarkable places of the Prophecies to find the point of the birth of the Antichristian Empire Therfore it deserves a larger reflection which shall be found afterwards in its proper place v. 13. These have one mind and shall give their power and strength unto the Beast These ten Kings or these ten Kingdoms shall voluntarily submit themselves to the yoke of the Roman Church For she shall not obtain her dominion by the way of Conquest but by the way of illusion of seduction and perswasion She shall perswade the Kings of the Earth to give her their power In truth this did so happen The Princes doating on this Idol of St. Peter's Chair the Apostolical See raised this throne so high that it was like afterwards to have swallowed them up These shall make war with the Lamb and the Lamb shall overcome them v. 14. They shall lend their arms and their power to the Roman Church to smother the truth But the truth of Jesus Christ shall surmount them shall enlighten them and get such a victory over them as shall be happy for those that are overcome England Sweden Denmark and many other States have been already overcome in this manner And he saith unto me v. 15. the waters which thou sawest where the whore sitteth are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues This Woman this corrupted Church shall have the multitude for her she shall ascribe great honour to her self from thence and make use of that as an argument that she is the true Spouse of Jesus Christ And the ten Horns which thou sawst upon the Beast these shall hate the whore v. 16. and make her desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire c. We shall have occasion afterwards more than once to reflect on these words Therfore we shall say nothing of them at present The woman which thou sawest is that great City v. 1◠which reigneth over the Kings of the Earth The great City is not precisely the City of Rome 't is the Roman Church that hath its seat at Rome on the seven Mountains This is an important truth that the great City in the Revelation signifies not Rome precisely but Rome conjunctly with its Ecclesiastical Empire It should be proved but we must reserve the proofs for another place where it will be very material for us to fix this what the City signifies CHAP. XVII Babylon in the 17th and 18th Chapters of the Revelation is Rome Antichristian and Papal and not Rome Pagan THe 17th Chapter is one of those wherin the description of the Antichristian Empire is certainly contained We have applied it to the See of Rome with the same success as we have done the foregoing Prophecies But we have some considerations to add to prove that that City spoken of in that Chapter is Rome together with its Empire of Christian become Antichristian That Rome Christian and not Pagan is Spiritual Babylon the seat of Antichrist 'T is a place where the Papists find themselves reduced to mighty straits They have confessed that the 11th and 13th Chap. of the Revelation spoke concerning Antichrist But because in the 11th Chap. the seat of Antichrist is called the City where I. Christ was crucified they will not acknowledg it to be Rome And because in the 13th Chap. Rome is not named they will by no means have it to be found there But in this 17th Chap. they are forced to see Rome in the city on seven Mountains and in that great city that reigned over the kings of the Earth This brings them to the last extremity and we need but see what they say on this point to convince them that their Holy Roman See is the seat of the Antichristian Empire 1st They say that Rome in this 17th Chap. is Rome Pagan and not Rome Christian Bellarm. l. 3. de Pontif Rom. c. 13. The falsness of this supposition is evident First it is clear that the Beast which carries the woman The first Beast of the 13th Ch. and that of the 17th are the same is the same with that Beast that ariseth out of the Sea in the 13th Ch. This had seven heads and ten horns and upon his horns ten Crowns and upon his heads the name of blasphemy The Beast in the 17th Ch. is described after the same manner The Woman sate upon a scarlet-coloured Beast full of names of blasphemy having seven heads and ten Horns Secondly the Beast of the 13th Ch. ariseth out of the Sea. C. 13.1 C. 17.3 And I saw à Beast rise up out of the Sea. That of the 17th Ch. ascends out of the bottomless pit or the deep Chap. 17.8 The Beast that thou sawest was and is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit or the deep Now the deep and the sea in the visions are the same thing Thirdly Chap. 13.3 'T is said of the first Beast that all the World wonders after the Beast That all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him v. 8. whose names are not written in the book of Life 'T is said also of that in the
honourable women upon thy right hand did stand the Queen in gold of Ophir v. 14. c. She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needle-work the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee Supposing the Spouse to be the Church it will be very difficult to tell what these daughters signify that are introduced to Jesus Christ different from the Church I know well indeed one may easily imagine something thereupon but I do not believe that it would be solid 'T is the fault which they fall into that do explain the types they stretch the parallels and fain would have the pictures in every thing resemble the original Whereas we must not search after the resemblance but in the principal subject All the rest is but as the leaves that do adorn the picture 'T is according to these principles that we must explain the Prophecies of the eighth eleventh and twelfth of Daniel As to the latter 't is the history of Antiochus This Antiochus having been the most considerable type of Antichrist as David was the most glorious type of Iesus Christ 't is not to be doubted but that there are in the Prophecies that respect Antiochus many things that must have a mystical reference to Antichrist But 't is not necessary that all that is said of Antiochus in the literal sense must be applied to Antichrist in a mystical sense In some places Antichrist is there with Antiochus in some other places Antiochus is there alone and it may be there are some places where Antichrist is alone Let us briefly review them From one of the four hsrns of the he-goat Ch. 8. v. 9. Why Antiochus is called a litle horn which signified the Empire of the Greeks came forth another little horn toward the South and toward the East and toward the pleasant Land. 'T is certain this little Horns is Antiochus He is described by a little Horn because he climbed the throne not by the lawful right of succession publickly and with full right but by subtilty he ravisht the Kingdom from Demetrius the son of his brother Seleucus Therefore the H. Spirit explaining the Prophecy in the following part of the 8th Ch. saith and at the end of their Kingdom v. 23. a King of a fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences shall stand up And in the 11th Ch. where the History of Antiochus is more large it is said v. 21. And in his estate shall stand up a vile person to whom they shall not give the honour of the Kingdom but he shall come in peaceably and obtain the Kingdom by flatteries It was because Antiochus was an hostage at Rome that he was reputed as a stranger and that he had no right to the crown of Asia having an elder Brother who left a Son a lawful heir of his Estate Antiochus being returned from Italy applies himself to be liberal to the people He was affable and familier he bathed in the publick baths and by these means he got away the Kingdom from his Nephew This agrees well enough to the head of the Antichristian Empire who is also called a little Horn in the 7th Ch. This is plainly that which hath deceived two of our Interpreters who would have the little Horn in the 17th Ch. also to be Antiochus The little Horn in the 17th Ch. is not Antiochus A strange oversight of some Interpreters Which I call a mighty great oversight and utterly unworthy of great men For for this we must metamorphose the 4th Beast and wheras by the consent of all Interpreters it signifies the Empire of the Romans it must be made the Empire of the Greeks in despight of as great evidence as can be found in the Prophecies For one must be blind not to see the Roman Empire the 4th Monarchy in this 4th Beast The Pope is mystically the little Horn. The Empire of Antichrist therfore is a little Horn despicable in appearance that raiseth it self up from a low place and from a beginning that seemed to promise nothing that was great is mounted to that grandeur that hath given it both the form and the power of an Empire The head of this Empire is of understanding in dark sentences c. it is by subtilty that he made himself master of the Western Empire The little Horn of the 8th Ch. which signifies Antiochus The Pope exalts himself against God. waxed great even to the host of Heaven cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground and stamped upon them Yea he magnified himself even to the Prince of the host These words agree to Antiochus and to Antichrist To Antiochus because he insolently exalted himself against God the head of the heavenly armies and of the Church made a great part of the nation and even some of the Priestly race fall into Apostacy To Antichrist and the Papism because he hath exalted himself against J. Christ and engaged the whole Church in his revolt The Pope makes the daily Sacrifice to cease Antiochus makes the daily sacrifice to cease by reason of transgression and casteth down the truth to the ground and prospers The history of the Macchabees informs us that this was accomplisht according to the literal sense of it And the same thing hath been accomplisht by the Antichristian Empire that hath abolisht the continual service because it hath destroyed the true service of God and the sacrifices of pure prayers in mingling with them the worship of creatures the invocation of he and she saints the adoration of Images and their reliques and in establishing a new continual sacrifice in the room of the true one It hath prosper'd for its successes have been prodigious for 8 or ten Ages In the 11th Ch. the Prophet begins from the 21th verse to speak of Antiochus But we must not look for Antichrist therein till the 34. v. The ten first verses are a description of the victories which Antiochus obtain'd over his neighbours and of his quarrels with the Kings of Egypt quarrels which in my opinion had nothing Typical in them And the reason of it is clear because Antiochus was not a Type but in what he did against the Church For the strange nations had no reference to the Church nothing that the Tyrants did against them is mysticall At the 31. v. begin the violences which this persecuting Prince was to offer to the Church of Israel Arms shall stand on his part and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength and shall take away the daily sacrifice This is what was already said in the 8th Ch. and what we have applied to the Papism and its head The Prophet adds v. 32.33 And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatterier and they that understand among the people shall instruct many He continues to the 36th v. to describe the ways full of fraud and violence The Papism was established by
pass over the Archipel and the Bosphorus they went still forward untill the year 1526. when they ceased to gain ground upon the West Now 't was at this time that the body of the papal Laws styl'd the Canon Law was compleated the Clementines had been publisht by John XXII about the year 1320. he likewise publisht the Extravagants But the Common or the common Extravagants appeared not nor were compiled till the end of the fifteenth Century So that 't is properly in this sixth period of the viols that this work of darkness was wholly finisht Now 't is natural when something is to be brought upon a great Theatre that it may be shown to stay till it be finisht and therefore the Prophet ought not to speak sooner of these papal Laws Second reason The 15th Censury was an Age of Excommunications Besides there never had been any age or time wherein there were more Armageddons Anathema's and Excommunications then in this period The Popes at Rome and Avignon did excommunicate one another Within this period the Councils of Pisa Constance Basil Florence and the Lateran under Julius II. and Leo X. were held and it s was nothing but anathema's excommunications canons decisions censures either against Popes or pretended hereticks as the Wickliffites Bohemians Taborites and lastly against Luther c. Lastly these spirits are most fitly placed under the period of the sixth viol because then the Bulls Third Reason decisions decrees of the Church of Rome gathered the Kings of the Earth to battel against the Bohemians And Zisca having gain'd such signal victories that they might well be called the battels of the great day of God Almighty a Croisade was publisht against him and all those who stood for the Truth in Bohemia and the neighbouring Countries CHAP. X. The seventh plague is the preaching of Luther and other Reformers by which the Latin Church was divided into three parts Papists Lutherans and Reformed ANd thus behold we are come to the seventh and last viol V. 17. And the seventh Angel pour'd out his viol into the air and there came a great voyce out of the Temple of Heaven from the Throne saying It is done It is done does not signify the final ruin of Antichrist This expression It is done hath deceived all the Interpreters who have confounded this moment or space of time with that of the seventh trumpet when it must be proclaim'd It is done the Kingdoms are brought under our Lord Jesus Christ The great Babylon is wholly destroyed c. They have believed that this expression It is done signified the total destruction of the Antichristian Kingdom at that very moment But certainly they are mistaken It is done is nothing else but It is done with the viols The viols comprehend and signify periods of some length this is the last this is the last period of the Antichristian Kingdom and which shall comprehend its total ruin We have remarkt already that every period contained in every viol took in a considerable space of time a hundred a hundred and forty a hundred and fifty years and more Therefore there is no reason not to allow some length of time to this seventh viol it ought to have as much as least as the others yea more because 't is the last and consequently it must have about two hundred years allowed to it And this is the period that comprehends the total ruin of Antichrist which ruin as we shall see anon is divided into two parts the harvest and the vintage the harvest hath been in the age last past the vintage must be at the end of this and the beginning of the next age This last viol begins exactly at the preaching of Luther and as an hour-glass must run untill the total destruction of popery And I hope none will doubt of this when we shall have made out how exactly all that follows in the Prophecy agrees with the times and things which have been seen since the Reformation This seventh viol is pour'd not upon the Earth or the Sea or the Sun or the Seat of the Beast as the others were but on the air which is the seat of the voyce of sounds and thunders and we shall presently give you the reasons V. 18. And there were voyces and thunders and lightnings and there was a great Earthquake such as was not since men were upon the Earth so mighty an Earthquake and so great These voyces The seventh viol raiseth Preachers and voyces for the ruin of Antichrist these lightnings and these thunders are the voyces of Preachers who labour'd in Reforming the Church we shall afterward see that there are three ways of Reforming the Church the way of Inspiration the way of Authority the way of Preaching this last is signified by voyces and thunders And 't was this way that God used to reform the Church in the last age These voyces glittered like lightnings and passed with a prodigious swiftness from one end of the Antichristian Kingdom to the other All men saw them and would see them men studied Religion The very Grandees of the World persons who despise knowledge were concerned in these affairs Henry VIII wrote a book against Luther Charles the fifth made Laws about Religion now on the account of these lightnings i.e. the voyces of Preachers this seventh viol is said to be poured on the air for the air is the seat and vehicle of the voyce There was a great Earthquake In the Prophetick style this signifies a change of the face of the World the Earth plainly signifies here the frame and face of the Antichristian Kingdom We have already seen and shall afterward have occasion to see that Earthquakes in the figurative style of the Prophets always signify a change of the face of the World because Earthquakes do overturn not only Cities but Mountains Forrests hilly Countries and Vallies they set Mountains where Vallies stood and Vallies where Mountains stood in so much that the face of a whole Country is changed Now all know what a change the reformation made in the face of popery It took away from it at one clap several Kingdoms and a great number of Soveraign States And this Earthquake i. e. this change of affairs was so great that there had not been such since men were upon the Earth This may be truly spoken without any exaggeration For we must observe that this last period comprehending the harvest and the vintage the first and last destruction of Antichrist 't is undoubted that the face of the World was never so changed as it shall be changed after the total ruin of Antichrist the time of the first establishing of Christianity not excepted For at that time there were great numbers of men converted up and down among the Nations But at the time we speak of all the Nations and whole Nations shall submit themselves to the Faith. And thus this period shall make greater changes in the World then
were ever seen Nay if we should interpret these changes which ought to happen onely by those which fell out in the last age surely we may say that never were greater and more surprizing alterations The Earthquake signifies the great change of the world by the Reformation In less then twenty or thirty years a great part of the Christian World was Reformed And at the same time there were dreadfull wars troubles and sheddings of blood in Germany in Flanders in Holland in England and in France as every body knows V. 19. And the great City was divided into three parts Behold something which does furnish us with a plain Character of this last period and of this last viol These words have not hitherto been understood but I perswade my self that it will be judged that they can be understood We have already said and shall hereafter prove it that the great City is not Rome strictly taken but Rome made up and joyn'd with its whole Empire In a word this City is the Antichristian Kingdom otherwise called the Latin Church A remarliable prediction of the division of the Latin Church into three principal parts Papists Lutherans and Reformed This City upon the pouring out of the seventh viol was to be divided into three parts This is exactly come to pass at the preaching of the Reformers the Antichristian Kingdom was divided into three one part remain'd with Antichrist one part did separate from him under the name of the Ausburg Confession A third part did separate under the Confession of those who are barely styled the Reformed Sweden Denmark and a great part of Germany make the second part England the Vnited Provinces the reformed part of France a part of Germany make the third part These are the three grand parts that divide the Western Church which is the great City Let this be attentively minded for I affirm that this passage does as it were speak with a tongue and is able alone to convince that our System of the seven plagues is a most undoubted truth This division of the great City into three parts so clearly points out the three Communions of the Latin Church that to deny it can proceed onely from unreasonable passion and opiniatrety And if we have hit upon the truth in this point we have done so in all for if this Character of the seventh plague is true and is already accomplisht all the other plagues are also accomplisht and if they are accomplisht I do boldly affirm they cannot be apply'd to any other events then those to which we have apply'd them And it must not be hoped that to obscure this evidence a fourth part may be made viz. the Church of England because of the controversies about Church government for the Church of England never refused to receive other Reformed ones into her Communion nor have these again ever refused to receive her into theirs We have alway professed the same Religion with the Church of England on the account of the perfect agreement of our Doctrine notwithstanding the difference of discipline and government When as the Lutherans have constantly refused to receive the Reformed into their Communion There is among the Lutherans themselves a difference in point of government Sweden hath Bishops Denmark hath none at least not such Bishops as those of Sweden and England and nevertheless this makes not a different Sect. There is also the same difference among the Reformed on this side the Sea for the Superintendants who are in many Reformed Churches of Germany are real Bishops and notwithstanding the Reformed are not divided one from another Thus in truth there are but three grand parts into which the Latin Church is divided i. e. Papists Lutherans and Reformed as they are called by one another or Catholiks Reformed Evangelici as they style themselves And the Cities of the Nations fell i. e. they fell with respect to Popery they departed out of the Antichristian Kingdom in the same sense that in the eleventh Chapter 't is said that the tenth part of the City fell And great Babylon came in remembrance before God to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath These words let us see that the expression It is done did not signify the very point of the final ruin of the Antichristian Kingdom For behold after 't was said It is done Babylon comes in remembrance before God to give her the cup. Now these expressions signify both the future and the present time And indeed 't is within the duration of this period that God will remember Babylon to give her the last cup of his wrath And observe it that the great Babylon comes not in remembrance before God to give her the cup i. e. the last cup of her ruin till after her dividing into three parts This division is not her total ruin but after that she shall be thus divided into Papists Lutherans and Calvinists then God will prepare to give her the last cup of his wrath Which signifies that the division of the Latin Church into three parts must continue untill the compleat ruin of popery V. 20. And every Island fled away and the mountains were not found This is nothing but a Paraphrase and a description of the Earthquake which he had spoken of a little before for these are the effects of Earthquakes where mountains once stood they are not to be seen new Islands are produced and the old ones are often swallowed up But yet if any will interpret Islands to signify lesser States and Mountains great ones I do not contradict it for 't is really true that the Reformation hath already taken away from the Popedom and shall yet take away all States both small and great V. 21. And there fell upon men a great hail out of Heaven i. e. upon the Subjects of Antichrist this signifies the judgments of God which fall upon this Kingdom and these judgements are well known for it hath suffered of all kinds wars famines pestilences mortalities And men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail The Subjects of the Popedom have not hitherto been converted by all these chastisements but have always stuck firm to the Kingdom and Seat of the Beast whose head is cover'd with names of blasphemies The seven hour-glasses being run out the Kingdom of Autichrist must be at its end This is the seventh and last viol or hour-glass which thanks be to God will in a little time be run out now we have that which we seek namely an evidence that the Antichristian Kingdom is near its end We need not longer wait for the accomplishment either of all the seven plagues as some of our Interpreters say or of some of the seven plagues as others say It is done all is accomplisht we are in the last period of the seven yea we are at the end of the seventh period I am informed that since the first Edition of this work some
by the Croisades The encrease of the Sun's heat in the fourth plague is the encrease of the papal authority the Ecclipse and darkning of this Sun in the fifth plague is the grand Schism between Rome and Avignon the Kings of the East who pass over Euphrates in the sixth plague are the Turks who pass over the Bosphorus to invade the remainder of the Greek Empire and a part of that of the Latins and lastly the dividing of the great city into three parts in the seventh plague is the dividing of the Latin Church into three Communions Papists Lutherans and Reformed I lay down as a principle which I cannot doubt of that I have it the mark in the explication of these plagues But this 't is said seems rash to assert so confidently that which can only be a strong conjecture Men may object what they please against this exposition but I cannot recant it And I desire the World seriously to consider only these two things 1. That my explications very well agree with the words and Metaphors of the prophecy 2. That 't is impossible that chance should produce an explication so universally lucky It must be remembred what we said concerning the Epistles to the seven Churches on the question whether they are Prophetical We granted that there are some passages that agree well with the applications which are made but we observed that these applications are far from being universally true 't is therefore chance that produced those lucky agreements But if any one comes who shall make such a measured division of times and such a just application of these times and the events in them unto the Characters with which these seven Churches are marked so that nothing is defective then I shall remain perfectly satisfyed that this last Interpreter hath exactly hit the truth it will be no longer a conjecture Let me therefore be permitted to remain perswaded that I have hit the truth as to the seven plagues seeing they so perfectly agree with tho events which are past My fifth Principle is that I have not been less happy in hitting the true sense of the harvest and vintage in the fourteenth chapter A man must be blind if he sees not that these are the two parts of the fall of Babylon Babylon is fallen is fallen that great city and immediately after this fall is divided into harvest and vintage I cannot hinder my self from seeing that this signifies the first fall of Popery by a first Reformation which certainly is come to pass and the final fall of Popery by a second Reformation which must come to pass None can I think seriously consider the perfect agreement between the representations and the Original but be will be perswaded that 't is so 6. My sixth and last Principle is that we are in the last Persecution which the Church must suffer from the Kingdom of Antichrist And this last conclusion so naturally and necessarily flowers from the foregoing ones that none can acknowledge the preceding but he must likewise own the truth of this Let us now see whither these Principles do lead us All our Principles lead us unto the eighteenth Age to find the end of Antichrists reign If the Papacy be the Antichristian Kingdom then certainly the period of 1260 prophetick dayes or 1260 years which are assigned to the duration of the Kingdom of the Beast belong to it If the principal Character of this Kingdom is Idolatry 't is clear we must begin to reckon the duration of this Kingdom from that time in which Idolatry was set up in the Church Now 't is certain that the Idolatrous worship of Reliques and of Saints was fully establisht in the fifth Age Reckon 1260 years since the fifth Age this will bring you to the beginning of the eighteenth Age. If the Empire of the Papacy be the Empire of the Beast we must begin it at the time when the Roman Empire was divided into ten Kingdoms Fore the Holy Ghost speaks so in express and clear terms Reckon 1260 years since the division of the Roman Empire into ten Kingdoms which was done in the fifth Age and this will lead you to the eighteenth Age. If the Roman-papist See is that man of sin of whom St. Paul speaks in the 2d Chap. of the Epist to the Thessalonians we must reckon the 1260 years assigned to his Empire from the time that the Imperial dignity which held at Rome ceased to hold â— 6 7. or withhold which happened in the fifth Age. Reckon again your 1260 years since that time and you will see that you fall upon the eighteenth Age. If we have hit right in explaining the seven viols and the seven plagues the last viol hath been poured out since the time of Luther and its influence is running still according to the proportion of the preceding viols it cannot be running out above two hundred years Reckon again by this rule and you will fall into the eighteenth Age. If the harvest and the vintage in the fourteenth chapter are really the first and second part of the fall of the Antichristian Papacy which must be produced by as many Reformations then the Reformation in the last Age must have been the harvest lengthen as much as you please the space of time between the harvest and vintage you cannot make it longer than two hundred years Reckon and you will fall upon the eighteenth Age the find there the vintage and the final ruin of the Papacy Lastly if all that we have said is rational 't is impossible that this should not be the last persecution for the Reformation cannot be raised again so as to fall down a second time seeing we have proved that the Period of 1260 years is about to expire therefore reckon this persecution as the last and make it to be as long as you will provided you observe the measure which God hath set to the longest persecutions that the Church hath suffered and this however will bring you unto the eighteenth Age. Observe I pray you how many things do bring you to this eighteenth Age. Admire the meeting of so many paths which do all bring you to the same point And remember this undoubted Principle that 't is impossible that false conjectures should hit right in every thing I entreat above all the Roman-Catholicks to consider seriously this Principle How can they perswade themselves that system of lyes and false suppositions should hang well together That we should find in their Roman See exactly all the Characters which are given to the man of sin to the Beast in the Revelation to spiritual Babylon to the whore clothed in scarlet that â—ve should meet with the Characters of the Papacy in its birth exactly in the time that the Prophets have markt out for the birth of the Antichristian Kingdom that we should find so exact these seven great judgments of God denoted by seven plagues that God should exactly at this time permit that F.
Abraham it began to assume a new form she had then Sacraments and the distinction of People began By Moses the Church took another form quite different from the Preceding By Christ she became incomparably more perfect By the rise and growth of Antichrist the Church was intirely changed By Antichrist's being at the Height the Corruption was also at the Highest and at length by the fall of Antichrist she must put on another face This being supposed that the seven Periods answer to the seven days we must observe in every of those Periods such Events and such things as answer to the several works of the Creation done on every day so that what was made on the first day may resemble that which happened in the first Period of the Church and that which was done on the second day be the image of what happened in the second Period and so of the following If we find a perfect correspondence between the Copies and the Original between the Types and the things which we pretend were represented by them we shal have reason to believe that 't is some what more than a sport of wit or the effect of Fancy and Imagination which is the next thing we are to consider CHAP. XXI The Explication of the Mysteries signified by the Chaos by the Creation of Light by the separation of the Waters and by the Creation of the Plants The first days of the Creation and the three first Periods of the Church I Intend not to stay long upon what is well known and hath been said already and therefore shall speak but little of the Chaos We see plainly that this confused Mass without form and void which was properly nothing but a vast Abyss covered with darkness was the image of that sad estate to which sin had reduced the World. It was without form spoiled and defaced by sin for it had nothing at all of beauty It way confused for every thing there was in disorder that which should have been above was below God was blasphemed instead of being worshipt and self-love had placed the Creature on the Throne of God. It was empty and void for nothing that was good could be found in the World. It was covered with darkness for a stupid ignorance might be observed to reign there This was the state of the World out of which the Church was to be drawn as a new World God was doubtless the Creator of unshapen Mass and I doubt not but we have an account of its Creation in the first Verse In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth 'T is not as is commonly thought an abridgment of what is more amply and by particulars related afterwards 'T is the Creation of the Chaos called Heaven and Earth because it possessed that place which the Heaven and the Earth now do possess and because it contained the matter of them This is plain enough by the second Verse and the Earth was without form and void c. 'T is the description exactly of that Earth which he was speaking of in the first Verse Why 't is not said expresly that God created the Chaos Nevertheless though God created the Chaos 't is but implicitly said so for Moses saith not that God made the Earth without form and void Which may import that though God do govern that which we call the wicked World and that enormous Mass is not formed without his Providence nevertheless he will not be acknowledged the Author of it because he is not the Author of Evil. God appoints no certain day to this Chaos which is the Image of the corrupted World. 1. Because this Chaos hath its reign and extention during the whole six days of the spiritual Creation VVhy the Chaos hath no assigned day for 't is the perpetual fund whence God draws all the parts of the intelligible World which is his Church as the Chaos was the fund from whence by little and little God drew all the parts of the Vniverse 2. God assigns it no particular day because 't is the Empire or darkness into which the Light and the day cannot enter He produced not the Chaos by a Fiat saying let there be a Chaos as he created the Light because the Word of God doth not make the wicked World by its efficacy this World produceth it self by its own corruption Lastly he gives it not his Approbation he says not and God saw that it was good he blesseth it not as he did the works of the six days because God seeth nothing good in the carnal World instead of blessing it it is under his curse VVaters in all the Type of the Creation signify People In the mean time the Spirit of God moved upon the waters Waters in the Language of the Prophets and of the Types do signify People This we have observed before and is too well know to need to be proved This we must remember that Waters signify People in all the Type of the Creation The Spirit of God moved on the waters of the Chaos to prepare that matter to bruise and reduce it into little parts and to introduce the dispositions to receive that form which he intended to give it God intending to draw his Church out of the World and from among the Nations hath presided over them by a wise providence What is signified by the Spirits moving on the Waters If he had intirely abandon'd the World to it self after the entrance of sin it had been impossible to draw thence the intelligible World. It would have fallen into a total deprivation of Light Equity and Goodness and into that Spirit which the Scripture calls a spirit of slumber past feeling and a reprobate sense But the Spirit of God hath presided over these Waters he hath preserved and kept up in the World some fragments and remainders of Light Conviction Conscience the knowledge of God the distinction of right and wrong and the apprehension of future rewards and punishments We may see every where this motion this action of the Spirit of God on the Waters that is the People of the World even to the approach of the fourth Period which is that of our Lord Iesus Christ God was then about to give a Form to the Church to this intelligible World which properly speaking it never yet had Then he caused in the World such things as would dispose to this great work he prepared his matter by the study of Philosophy which drew men from that stupidity that before rendred them uncapable of receiving the Light of Truth He dispersed the Iews who carried every where the knowledge of the true God and made an infinite number of Proselites He caused the Bible to be turned into the Greek Tongue which then spread and prevailed in the World and guided the Heathen insensibly to a dislike of their Idols and their Religion This is the Mystery of the Chaos The Mysteries of â—he first day of the Creation In
THE ACCOMPLISHMENT Of the SCRIPTURE PROPHECIES OR THE Approaching Deliverance of the CHURCH Proving that the Papacy is the Antichristian Kingdom and that that Kingdom is not far from its Ruin. That the present Persecution may end in Three years and half after which the Destruction of Antichrist shall begin which shall be Finisht in the beginning of the next Age and then the Kingdom of Christ shall come upon Earth Written in French by Mr. PETER JURIEU one of the present Ministers of the French Church at Rotterdam In two Parts Faithfully Englished from the New French Edition Corrected and Enlarged by almost a third part with the explication of the Visions of Daniel and the Revelation LONDON Printed in the Year 1687. TO THE NATION OF THE JEWS I Desire of that People that they would please to read this book attentively and without prejudice especially from the middle of the second Part to the end they will find nothing there that can irritate ' em I confess the hopes they conceive of a Kingdom of the Messiah which shall be chiefly for them is built upon express and unquestionable Prophecies that even their Ierusà lem should be rebuilt and that they shall be again gathered together in their own Land. And if any thing be capable to recover them from their obstinacy for the establishment of the Law of Moses and against the Law of Christ this is certainly the most likely method which we make use of because it grants them almost all the Advantages which they expect Advice to all Christians concerning the approaching End of the ANTICHRISTIAN Empire of the PAPACY and of the coming of the Kingdom of Christ THE Afflicted Church seeks for consolation where can she find it but in the Promises of God when the present prospect is sad and dolefull we must search for it in what is future The promises of God are either General or Perticular The general Promises are such as assure us in the general that God will not cast off his children that this Grace shall never forsake his Church that he will be with them to the end of the World that though the mountains be overthrown he will not depart from them But afflicted persons would be glad of something more perticular they would be willing to see in some particular Promises near about what Time they may expect the Period of their Calamities Now the Promises and this insight into the future is no where to be had but in the Prophecies They doubtless contain the promises which respect the Deliverance of the Church yea they set forth the very Time and the circumstances of it But as God hath caused the Prophecies to be written more for his own glory than for our sakes 't is almost impossible to dive into the meaning of them till their accomplishment The depth of the Prophecies And experience teacheth us that even after the Things are come to pass we do not well understand the Prophecies which foretold ' em Insomuch that it may be said that God hath rather concealed Things in the Prophecies than thereby revealed ' em He hath reserved to himself the knowledge of Futurity 'T is his Prerogative Nevertheless this is not to be taken in that strict and rigid sense as if we were to reckon all the Prophecies to be unintelligible to all men and in every age to be so As his providence hath presided in a peculiar manner in composing the Prophecies so 't is certain it doth perticularly direct and govern as to what concerns the interpretation of them God will not that they should be understood in every age But from age to age from year to year his Spirit discovers to Interpreters what he thinks fit and leaves the rest under a vail of Ignorance till the fixed time which his wisdom hath appointed shall come for the full and perfect revelation of it They are not Impenetrable We are not therefore to be discouraged by reason of the difficulty we are not to look upon the Prophecies as absolutely impenetrable We must seek that we may find we must ask that we may receive we must humbly and devoutly knock at the Gate of Heaven that it may be open'd to us We are obliged to those Interpreters who have gone before us for if they had discovered nothing it may be no entrance being made we should never have attained the knowledge of these mysterious truths But we are not to stop at their labours and acquiesce in what they have done as if they had succeeded well in every thing This is so far from being true that the contrary is much more so For one Truth which they have hit upon they have miss't several The misforture of other Interpreters hath not disheartn'd me hoping that I have discovered many things which to them were concealed But I may say that I did not out of choice apply my self to the study of the Prophecies I found my self forced to it by a kind of violence which I could not resist Two things led me to it 1. The cruel and horrible Persecution which at this day makes such terrible ravage and desolation in the Church Endeavouring some consolation under the deepest sorrow I ever felt by searching into the grounds we may have to hope for a speedy deliverance of the Church and not finding them other where I inquired after them in the Prophecies which foretell the destiny of the Church and the most remarkable changes through which she is to pass 2. The next thing that made me resolve to dive into these sacred Oracles was the concurrence of so many Prophecies obscure indeed of an uncertain and doubtfull original which fore-tell a speedy and perfect Deliverance of the Church For Example The concurrence of modern Prophecies concerning the fall of Antichrist the famous Prophecy of Vsher Arch-bishop of Armagh who fore-tells a most terrible Persecution at hand the most dreadfull of any which the Church hath suffer'd hitherto but withal the shortest after which shall come the fall of the Antichristian Empire The Prophecies of Cotterus Christina Poniatouski and those of Drabitius and several other more obscure ones which I have heard and considered without giving much credit to 'em I compared these Prophecies so universally spread and coming from so many several places to the general rumours about the time of the birth of Christ that were every where divulged throughout the Roman Empire of a Great King that should be born in the East to whom all the World should pay obeysance I did not find my self much disposed to give credit to those modern Prophecies Credulity being the ordinary source of much delusion I always stood upon my guard in that perticular as much as possible Nevertheless I could not but be toucht with a secret opinion that in all this there might be something more then humane something of an hand of Providence therein As the Holy Virgin I kept these sayings in my heart without passing a judgement
one of the latest Commentators on the Apocalypse and one of the most esteemed I found that he follows Mede in every thing save in the explication of the Harvest and the Vintage of the 14th Chap. the seven viols of the 16th and the death of the two Witnesses of the 11th Chap. that is that he had followed him in those places wherein he had succeeded well 't is in effect impossible to differ from him in those places But in those places where Mr. Mede was not Happy Dr. Moore is no more so than he If any other hath discovered these Truths he will oblige me that shall let me know it I shall be rejoyc't to understand that any other hath made the same discoveries this will confirm me in the perswasion which I have that I have found that which I inquired after After having proved in this second part that the end of the Reign of Antichrist is at hand I treat of that which is to follow after that Fall viz. the famous Reign of Christ upon Earth which hath been so often contradicted since the Beginning of the Christian Church I have inlarged a little upon it as being one of the most consolatory Truths which is in the whole Scripture I cannot but ascribe to a secret providence of God that Blindness which most Christians have been under hitherto concerning it for certain reasons God would not that they should see that Reign of Christ in the Prophecies tho it be there as clearly described as the Coming of the Messiah which yet the Iews will not see to be there you will therin find one Chapter for which the Iews are indebted to me for I re-establish them in their Rights and in their Hopes farther than Christians have as yet done Among the proofs of the Reign of a thousand years you will find an explication of the Type of the work of Creation which will not be unpleasant to those who love Mysteries I have nothing to say in vindication of this book It must run the common risque it must be left to the Judgment of the publick a Risque so much the greater in that treating of Prophecies no man thinks himself obliged to subscribe to the thoughts of those who interpret them I may well expect to be ill treated by others the learned and the wise as they pretend to be who mock at all Prophecies and all those who go about to interpret them these men are upon the borders of Impiety if they are not already plunged into it 'T is not for their sakes that I write I despise them at least their Judgment but I pray God for their salvation 't is for the comfort of the Good and upright that this work was undertaken God grant it may contribute to it if I am deceived I shall have but my common Lot with many others nevertheless I deserve some thanks for my good Intentions Let me add one word that this is not a book to be read Cursorily over and that but once I consent that it be read the first Time as a Romance but let such a one return to it and lay aside his Prejudices by little and little and at length accustom himself to those Idea's that at first seemed strange This advice I give chiefly to Roman Catholicks assoon as they perceive by the title of a Book that the design is to perswade them that their Religion is Antichristianism they fall into a rage and their Passion blinds them But yet for once let them take the pains to read it as a Romance and afterwards let them think that the matter deserves at least to be examin'd because no less than their Eternal Salvation is concerned in it I have no design to anger them I desire their Salvation 'T is the only end I propose God is my witness A Supplement to the Advice to all Christians This is what I have advertised the publick in the first Ediction in this second I find my self obliged to remove two scandals which I have learnt have been taken on the account of this book First there are some who believe the hopes I give of a Re-establishment within a few years may do much Hurt because all those who are thus perswaded will suffer themselves to sleep secure in the mean time in the Communion of the Roman Church saying if it be thus we may expect a while and bear our Captivity as well as we can we shall ere long see the end of it During which expectation they will still go to mass and joyn in the superstitions of the Church of Rome To this I have two things to say First that God's ends and ways are different from ours at this rate God should never have promised to deliver his Church that men might not grow secure in the Expectation of it God hath almost always hid Events from us and would not that at all times the Prophecies should be understood lest the knowledg and understanding of them should prejudice their accomplishment lest men should oppose it and stand upon their guard in that respect But who knows whether God ought not at last to make the Prophecies be understood that they may the more easily be fulfilled who knows whether so many of the Romish Communion who are already disgusted with their Religion may not open their Eyes by the Light which we set before them and resolve to become instruments in the hand of God for the accomplishment of this great work 't is certain that oftentimes Prophecies Counterfeit or Real have inspired those for whom they were made with the design to effect the things that were promised them after all when God discovers any truths of this nature he hath his reasons for doing so and we ought not to resist it upon pretence of some ill Consequences that would follow Ieremy during the siege of Ierusalem declared to all the world that the Chaldeans would take the City should he have forborn to speak that Truth which God had revealed to him because of some ill Consequences 'T is evident that nothing was more proper to lessen the courage of the Inhabitants and to promote the taking of the City of Ierusalem than such a discourse of the Prophet The other thing which I have to say on this first scandal is this that such who take occasion from this Book to continue in the Roman superstition waiting for deliverance have no need of this book to cherish the disposition they are in to remain there They are people who only search for Pretences to flatter themselves in the condition they are in and can never want them either here or there from this thing or another But in truth nothing can be more ridiculous than to take occasion from hence to continue in the Roman Church In three or four years or more there will be a great change in the Papacy we must than remain there waiting till that Change happen 't is to the same effect as if I should say I am in
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
have already done 't is enough to fulfil the Prophecy which saith That God sent them to kill the men of the third part of the Earth i. e. of Europe And the number of the Army of the Horsmen was 200. Thousand Thousand The Turks certainly are originally Scythians Tartars and Nomades people that had nothing but Horsmen in their Armies The formidable Infantry of the Turks which they call the Jannizaries was not instituted till about the year 1300 by Ottoman the Founder of the Empire which at this day possesseth Constantinople Before that their chief strength was in Cavalry The Prophet maketh it prodigious for its number All the World knows the thing happen'd exactly according to the literal sense He also describes them in a hideous manner They that sate on the Horses v. 17. had Breastplates of Fire and of Jacinth and Brimstone That is to say the heads of these Horsemen were like globes of fire whence came forth flame and smoke The heads of the horses were as the heads of Lions out of their mouths issued Fire Smoke Brimstone This Fire this Smoke and this Brimstone seem to be a description of Gun-powder and its effects And this may well signify that the Turks should make their principal desolations in the Empire of the fourth Monarchy after the invention of canons and fire-arms whence come forth lightnings flames sulphur smoke which indeed did come to pass These horses that vomit up flame smoak have also tails like unto Serpents with which they do hurt viz. in spreading their poison And this is common to them with the Locusts of the fifth Trumpet 'T is the venom of the wicked Religion of Mahomet which the Turks have established spread in all places where they have establisht their dominion They that were not Killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands that they should not Worship Devills idols of Gold Silver Brass Stone Wood which neither can see nor hear nor walk Neither repented they of their Murders nor of their Sorceries nor of their Fornication nor of their Thefts This signifies to us that the Periods of the sixth Trumpet and the ravages of the Turks is that of the corruption of the Church in the fourth Monarchy in the Antichristian Kingdom a period during which there reigned Idolatry worshipping of Demons or second Mediatory Gods Images placed in the Temples Oratories depravation of manners by Poisonings Assassinations Sodomies Incests Adulteries and other impurities Thefts Robberies and Violent Dealings And in truth the Roman Church since the tenth Age fell into such shameful Idolatry and such horrible Corruption of Manners that never was any thing like it seen in the History of the World. This point may be seen justified at large in our just Prejudices against Popery CHAP. VIII The Explication of the Tenth Chapter of the Revelation THe ninth Chapter ends the first part of the Revelation and the tenth begins the second wherin is what we seek after viz. Antichrist the time of his continuance and the circumstances of his end This tenth Chapter is properly the preface to the second little book We must explain it here before we proceed And I saw another mighty Angel come down from Heaven clothed with a Cloud v. 1. J. Christ appears a second time for a second vision a Rain-bow was upon his Head his Face was as it were the Sun his Feet as Pillars of Fire 'T is clear by this Pomp that this Angel is Jesus Christ They are very near the same colours wherwith he was described in the first chapter of the book his Countenance was like the Sun his Feet like unto fine Brass This is an Argument that here a new Prophecy begins a second act of this great piece 'T is Jesus Christ the Prophet of Prophets that must cause these Visions to enter The differenes between the first little book of the Revelation the second He had in his hand a little Book open he set his right Foot upon the Sea his left Foot on the Earth See here a little book different from the first which was given to the Lamb in the fifth chapter Another argument that 't is a Revelation wholly new of another order The first book contained the Destinies of the Empire and this contains the Destinies of the Church The first book was Written without within by reason of the multitude of events that were to befall the fourth Monarchy the adventures wherof God would foretel until the coming of the fifth Monarchy that is to say the Kingdom of Jesus Christ The first book was Sealed with seven seals But this later one is a little book opened 'T is because the first part of the Revelation which respects the destinies of the Empire is incomparably more obscure more difficult to be understood than the second The destinies of the Church are more Clearly predicted than those of the Empire In this second part which respects the destinies of the Church Antichrist is very plainly seen all those things that must befall the Antichristian Empire But the first part of the Revelation which contains the destinies of the Empire is so obscure that hardly any thing of it is understood tho at this day all the events are come to pass the prophecies fullfilled Joseph Mede in my opinion is the first that understood any thing of it He set his right foot on the sea his left foot on the Earth This signifies his Empire over the whole terrestrial Globe composed of Earth and water it signifies also that what he was about to fore-tell respected all the men that dwell in the world He set his right foot on the Sea. The Sea in respect to the land of Canaan was on the West this signifies that the West should be the principal Theater of the Adventures of the Antichristian Empire which he was going to describe And he cried with a loud voice as when a Lion roareth v. 3. when he had cried seven Thunders uttered their voices This roaring of a Lion was a presage that that which he was about to predict was terrible As in truth nothing is more fatal to the Church VVhat voices thunders signify in the Revelation especally in the second part than the Empire of Antichrist Seven thunders uttered their voices In this Book Lightnings Thunders Voices always signify the words oracles of God. The seven Thunders of this second little book are exactly the seven Spirits of the former For both the seven Spirits the seven Thunders signify the divine Oracles Spirits because of him that dictates them Thunders because of their efficacy because they beat down to the ground they astonish they shake Seven because of their perfection When Jesus Christ by his roaring had given the presage of Future Events the Oracles were given pronounced concerning those Events
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
miracle But the Dragon doth not yield for all that but goes to make war with the remnant of the seed of the Woman v. 17. i. e. he endeavours to cause to be brought forth an Antichristian Empire for the ruin of the Church the thing which he will further explain in the following Chapter We have therfore in this the History of the Church to the end of the fourth Century or the beginning of the fifth For it is in the space of these 400 Years that the Apostolique Church did bring forth Christianity that Christianity was persecuted by the Emperours that J. Christ did miraculously preserve it that it remained victorious under Constantine that the Church was almost ruin'd by Arrianism that she saw her self happily deliver'd from it St. John spends but one Chapter about the first Period of the Church of 400 Years because the great events were design'd to be in the following Periods The 13th C. 13.1 2 3. c. Chapter according to the most exact rules of method begins where the 12th ended We have in the 13th Chapter the birth of the Babylonish Empire An Epitome of the History foretold in the 13th Ch. which is grafted on the Roman Empire this is the first Beast that ariseth out of the Sea having seven Heads ten Horns the seventh of these Heads is laden with ten Horns each of which is adorned with a Crown to signify that these were so many Kings These ten Kings are the continuation of the Roman Empire under the seventh Head which is that of Antichrist These ten Kings are subject to this seventh Head together with it compose one Empire A second Beast arises out of the Earth it is the same Empire the same Beast or rather 't is the seventh Head of the first Beast This Empire of Antichrist that was represented in the first vision as one of the Heads is represented in the second vision as a new Beast because it is the ancient Empire of Rome yet nevertheless 't is a New one 'T is the continuation of the Roman Empire having the same seat viz. the City of Rome extending it self very near over the very self-same Provinces It is a New Empire because it is in another form under another name is called the Empire of the Church an Ecclesiastical Empire These two Beasts therfore fill up but one the same Period in which the Head of the Emperors that was mortally wounded is healed again by Antichrist in which Period ways of worshipping and doctrines full of impiety blasphemy are advanced in the Church In which Period the Saints are overcome the Truth is buried in which all the inhabitants of the Earth worship the Beast submit themselves to the Babylonish Empire in which Antichrist whose name contains the Number 666. makes an image of the first Roman Empire causeth it to be worshipped lastly in which all liberty to buy sell live is taken away unless men will bear the Image of the Beast All this is the History of the 1260 Years that begin about the time that the 400 Years of the first Period do end This is according to the rules of History A short explication of the 14th Chap. The 14th Ch. begins also where the 13th ends It contains the Prophecy of the fall of that Babylonish Empire represented by the two Beasts of the 13th Chap. 'T is no longer a Beast with seven Heads ten Horns 't is no longer the Beast with two Horns 't is Spiritual Babylon But this Babylon is the very same thing as the first the second Beast She is fallen v. 8. she is fallen Babylon that great City because she hath made the nations drunk with the wine of her fornication The seven foregoing verses are a preparation for this great fall the following ones to the end of the Chapter are a description of the ruin of Babel The Man that sits on the white cloud v. 14. is Jesus Christ The sickle that is put in first among the corn to mow it down and afterwards into the vintage to cut down the grapes are the two degrees of Babylons fall which we shall afterwards explain This is the Analysis of the 14th Chap. The H. Ghost thought it not enough to have foretold the fall of the Babylonish Empire in general Chap. 15. he will also instruct us in the steps by which it must pass in falling And as this is a great affair the vision of the 15th Chapter is employed to prepare mens Spirits for it The seven Vialls of the wrath and vengeance of God that must overwhelm the Babylonish Empire are distributed to seven distinct Angels to pour them out at different times The 16. Chap. contains the pouring forth of these Vialls Chap. 16. which are the several punishments by which the Empire of the Beast is afflicted till it be entirely brought to nothing And these seven Vials contain all the time of the fall of the Babylonish Empire Of this we will treat in a particular Chapter by it self afterwards It is enough to know that this Chapter leads the afflicted Church to the very point of her deliverance And thus you have the whole History of the Church during the 1260 Years But because these things had been expressed in figurative terms Chap. 17. and prophetical symbols of Beasis Horns Harvest Vintage Vialls God will explain these things in terms less figurative more intelligible Therfore the 17th Ch. is spent in explaining the Visions of the two Beasis to give us to understand that the Beasis signify an Empire that the ten Horus are ten Kings that these ten Kings out of weakness and complaisance would give their power to the Beast and that at last they would ruin him take away that power they had formerly given him As in the 17th Ch. the H. Ghost declares the establishment the progress of the Babylonish Empire in a more clear and less figurative manner than he had done in the 13th Chap. in the like manner in the 18th Chap. he gives us the particulars of the ruin of this Babylon Chap. 18. more largely more clearly more largely I say more clearly than he had done in the 14th Chap. This hath no need of proof In the process of this discourse we shall explain the circumstances of this fall The 19th Chap. is as it were a recapitulation of all that respects the ruin of Babylon Chap. 19. Therin J. Christ appears riding on a White horse is called the faithful and true the Word of God. He assembles all his forces the Babylonish Empire assembles all its forces the fight begins the Beast and the false Prophet i.e. the Antichristian Empire and Antichrist that is the head are taken and utterly destroyed 'T is the same thing we met with before in the 14. Chap. at the end of the 16. at the end of the 17. and
visibly a Church engraffed and sitting upon an Empire 'T is the Roman Church engraffed on the Roman Empire But we shall touch again on this reflection in the following Chapter And the woman was arrayed in purple v. 4. and scarlet colour and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls 'T is not the Beast only that is of a scarlet colour the woman also is clothed with purple The Church which is engraffed on the Empire hath taken the colour of the Empire The Pope the Cardinals the Ministers of the Court of Rome are distinguisht by the imperial purple and scarlet The gold the pearls and the stones encrease the magnificence Nothing is more proud than the pomp of the Roman Court. She holds a golden cup in her hand full of abominations Poculum Aureum Plenum Abominationum 'T is a wonderful accident that the four initial letters of these four words P.A. P.A. make the name of Papa in the Bible of the Latins and of the Roman Church Let him believe it that will that this was purely by chance but I can't believe it This Woman is a Prostitute an adulterous Woman a Church unfaithful to Jesus Christ her Spouse She is represented to us making the Kings of the Earth drunk with the Wine of her Fornications These are her Abominations her Superstitions her false Worship her Idols and her false Religion wherewith she makes people and Kings drunk by her unhappy perswasions The figure is borrowed from those debauched Women that give delicious liquors to their Gallants to enflame them The cup of gold into which all these abominations are poured out is the pretended infallibility This Doctrine contains all the superstitions and the errours of the Roman Church as a Cup. It retains and unites them together Without this all would run out as wine out of a vessel 'T is a Cup of gold for this pretended priviledge of infallibility would be the most precious thing in all the World to him that should have it This Cup of gold signifies also that pompous out-side of ceremonies and those so glittering externals which contain disguised abominations and idolatries The People drink the poison by favour of the Cup. They receive the idolatry by favour of the pomp and the fair out-side Vpon her fore head was a name written MYSTERY Babylon the great v. 5. the Mother of Harlots and abominations of the Earth 'T is the description of the Roman Church She bears written on her fore-head MYSTERY for it is the mystery of iniquity as we have seen before All there is Mystery all there appears like Religion 't is the proper name of Religions but the truth is 't is a mystery of iniquity a Religion full of abominations 'T is a very remarkable thing that the Popes did sometimes bear this name MYSTERY written in the fore-part of their Miter A Venetian Author assures us of it and Ioseph Scaliger saith that he had seen them so marked 'T is the great Babylon We have seen why she is so called Babylon was once the Fountain of all Idolatries And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the Saints v. 6. 'T is no longer the Beast that sheds the blood of Martyrs 't is the Woman 'T is no longer the ancient Roman Empire 't is the false Church 't is the Roman Church that uses the paws of the Beast the Arms of the Empire and of Kings to persecute the Church As in the second Beast of the 13th Chapter the image of the Beast the Roman Church though she is but an image of an Empire gives order for the killing of the Saints The Beast that thou sawest was and is not v. 8. 'T is the Angel that speaks explaining the vision to Saint John. The Empire which thou hast seen represented by the beast is the Roman Pagan Empire that tends toward its end and of which two thirds are already past He must ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition That Empire must very speedily be brought to nothing But after it shall have been destroyed it shall arise again out of Hell under another form under the name and the form of a Church 'T is the head that was wounded to death and which was to revive But this second Empire that must raise up the first again and spring from its ashes shall finally perish whereas the Empire that shall be given to the Saints shall never perish And they that dwell on the Earth c. shall wonder when they behold the Beast that was and is not and yet is And the Inhabitants of the Roman Empire shall comprehend nothing of this mystery They shall see that the Roman Empire shall be abolisht Rome shall cease to be the Mistress of the World by the fall of the Emperours and all on a sudden they shall again see Rome mounted up again to the same dignity The Beast was The Roman Empire hath been He is not the Empire hath ceased And yet is and yet they shall see this Empire return without knowing how This prodigy will make them dizzy and enchaunt them Here is the mind which hath wisdom The seven heads are seven mountains v. 9. on which the woman sitteth We have seen seven Heads on the Beast on which the Woman sate These seven Heads signify two things 1st Those seven Mountains on which the Roman Church is raised by reason of the seven Mountains of Rome which is its Metropolis 'T is a Character that makes her remarkable for she hath always been called Septicollis These seven heads are also seven Kings v. 10. five are fallen and one is and the other is not yet come These seven Heads signify also the seven Kings that is to say the seven sorts of Soveraign Governments under which this Empire hath passed and must pass along First Kings 2d Consuls 3d. Decemvires 4th Tribunes of the people 5th Perpetual Dictators These five are fallen these five Governments were passed in St. John's time The one is viz. the sixth that is the Government of the Emperours and the other is not yet come that is to say the seventh Head which is that of the Popes is not yet come And when he cometh he must continue a short space I formerly believed that these words might be applied to the Pope and to the Papism but I believe it no longer and to understand them we must read the following verse And the Beast that was v. 11. and is not even he is the eighth and is of the seven and goeth into perdition 'T is it may be designedly that is to say to render the Prophecy more obscure that the H. Spirit hath inverted the words We must therfore resume the last words of the foregoing verse join them with these here and place them all thus And the eighth King is also of the Beast which was and is not He is of the seven and when he shall come he must continue for a short space and then goeth
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
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
out the truth There is a particular Providence that presides over the the understanding of Prophecies as we have observed God would not have them understood in every age because this would hinder their accomplishment But when they are just ready to be fulfilled God permits them to be penetrated into and the things which we see come to pass from day to day open mens eyes The great point is to know where we must begin the 1260 years In this matter the whole depends on our knowing where we must begin the 1260 years that are assigned for the reign of the papism And there are as many opinions about that as there are men Some begin them with Boniface the third Successor to Gregory the great because they would be favourable to Gregory the first who seems to have had very good things in him And because his Successor was the first that assumed the name of Vniversal Bishop Others descend lower and begin the 1260 year at the time when Images were establisht Some come as far as to the 11th Age and to the reign of Gregory the seventh who was insolent to a higher degree than any of his Predecessors dared to advance themselves unto There are some also that come as far as to the 12th Age. The fountain of their errour that descend so low for the beginning of the 1260 years I shall not amuse my self with mentioning much less with confuting all these Opinions I shall only say this boldly that they who go so low to find out the beginning of the 1260 years are in an errour That which hath deceived them is this they imagine we must not begin the Antichristian Empire till the time that Idolatry and Tyranny were arrived to their height in the Church in which I am throughly perswaded they deceive themselves Another cause of their being deceived is this having this truth in mind that Rome must be the head of the Antichristian Empire they will not begin that Empire before the Roman Church was most notoriously remarkable for her pride among all the Churches When any make a history of an Empire they must begin it from its original Totally to remove these two mistakes it must be observed that in every country and in every language when any would make a History of an Empire and a Kingdom they begin it from its orginal They that make the History of the Franks or Frenchmen among the Gauls do not fix their beginning on that time when the French were masters of all the Gauls from the frontier of Flanders to the Alps and the Pyrenaean mountains For that happen'd very late But they begin with the first entry of the Franks into Gaul and their first establishment on this side the Rhine When any make a History of the Empire of Rome they begin the Roman History from the first foundation of that City so they reckon'd in Rome it self ab Vrbe Conditâ And this way of reckoning continued till the fifth age when the Christian account began to be in use and men reckon'd by the years of Jesus Christ Moreover 't is the custome of the Scripture and of the Holy Spirit as well as of the World 'T is said the sojourning of the Israelites in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years yet they were not in that slavery above 210 years But the Holy Spirit reckons from the time of the calling of Abraham and his passing into Canaan where he and his off-spring were strangers 'T is therefore all the time of the pilgrimage of the family of Abraham which God begins from its original Lastly 't is the stile of the Prophets and particularly in the Prophecy we are treating of The fourth Beast is the Roman Empire all the World agrees in that where doth the Holy Spirit begin the History of that Beast or of that Empire not at the point of its grandeur which happen'd not till above 400 years after its original but from the point of its birth and that is clear because he ascribes seven heads to that Beast Heads which signify so many Governments under which Rome hath passed Now the first of these Governments is that of Kings under whom Rome in the beginning was no more than a great Village and afterwards a very little City without dependencies This principle therefore must be supposed that the H. Spirit dates the Antichristian Empire from its original 'T is not necessary that the first seeds of Antichristiaenism should have been conceived at Rome The other mistake that we must get rid of is this that Rome is precisely the place where the Empire of Antichrist must have its birth 'T is not so Antichristianism is born every where and it might very well be born in the East before it came to fix its seat in the West That which makes men affix the birth of the Antichristian Empire precisely to Rome is because being struck with what Saint Paul saith that the man of sin must exalt himself above all that is called God they have confined Antichristianism principally and almost solely to tyranny and Pride and have imagined that the birth of Antichristianism was not to be found but in that City which had always been and which afresh was to be the Throne of Pride But herein they have been deceived Antichristianism consists no less in idolatry and corruption of manners than in tyranny in such a manner that in all places where we see the birth of Idolatry Superstition and Corruption there without doubt Antichristianism is born These principles being laid down the three Characters which we have affixed to the Antichristian Empire by reason of its three names must be remembred Idolatry because 't is called Babylon the mother of fornications and abominations corruption of manners because 't is called Sodom Pride and Tyranny The three Characters of Antichristianism began in the fourth Age and first of all superstition because 't is called Egypt When these three sins began to be establisht in the Church Antichristianism began to enter into it Now 't is certain it was towards the end of the fourth and in the whole fifth Age that these disorders received their birth The superstition of Reliques the veneration and worship of them and immediately after the invocation and intercession of the Saints were introduced about the year 360. or 380. Already before this time that superstition had begun among the people I do not at all doubt but that women and simple persons especially those that were but newly converted from Paganism were the first Authors of it Devout ignorant people easily fall into superstition It had been a very ancient custome to frequent the Martyrs tombs there to celebrate their memory to pray for them and there to pray for themselves For in Eusebius's time men were wont to assemble themselves at the sepulchers of the Martyrs to say their prayers upon their sepulchers and there to honour their most happy souls The Papists in this passage would
a consequent from what we have said of Antiochus Epiphanes and the duration of the persecution to which the Prophet assigns four times 2300 mornings and evenings that is to say 1150 days Three years and a half that is to say 1260 days 1290 days and 1335 days We have said that the number of 1260 days is that of the time of the duration of the prophanation of the Sanctuary till the time that Judas Macchabaeus having taken out of the Temple the Idol of Jupiter Olympius began the cleansing of the Sanctuary that he was a month in taking away all the impurities wherefore Daniel after the number of 1260 days adds 30 thereunto and saith that it shall be for 1290 days Lastly we have supposed that Judas Macchabaeus spent 45 other days in preparing all things for the dedication of the Temple The order in which the enrite restoration of the Church must be effected That the type may answer the truth if the Empire of the Papism must fall and be abolisht about the year 1710 we may believe the Church shall not be perfectly reformed and cleansed for all that It may be that all Christians although they agree to chase away Idolatry and beat down Tyranny yet they will not agree in every thing So that I suppose 30 years shall pass for the reuniting all Christians in the same communion and that this union shall be effected about the year 1740. This reunion shall be a path-way for the calling the rest of the Pagan and infidel Nations who are yet almost innumerable For we must not hope that Pagans and Infidels shall enter into the Church while they see it divided Into what part of it should they put themselves It shall be the unanimous consent of all Christians in one only Religion that shall overcome the obstinacy of the enemies of Jesus Christ To effect this reunion of all Christians no less than 30 years as I suppose will be necessary and that was figured by the 30 days which Macchabaeus employed in purifying the Temple of Jerusalem After the purgation of the Temple he spent 45 days to prepare the vessels for the dedication I suppose that in like manner when the re-union shall be effected no less than 45 days that is to say 45 years will be requisite to run overall the Earth and convert the Nations that are strangers to the Covenant to prepare them for the last dedication Add 45 to 1740 that will fall on the year 1785 in which shall come the glorious reign of I. Christ on the Earth of which we shall speak afterwards And 't is in these 45 years that the Jews shall be converted and shall finish the conversion of the Infidel Nations their obstinacy shall hold out to the end and shall not be overcome but by an extraordinary event and more extraordinary than the fall of Babel shall be The Empire of Anchrist must be destroyed before J. Christ comes There is no ground to believe that the Kingdom of Jesus Christ shall come in the time that God shall employ in the destruction of the Antichristian Empire For that Empire shall fall with noise wars troubles effusion of blood Now the Spirit of God is not in the wind that breaks the rocks 't is in the thin and gentle one When Jesus Christ shall come there must be a profound peace on the Earth Neither shall he come in the time wherein men shall endeavour the conversion of the Infidel Nations for that shall be a time of contesting and disputings those things must cease when Jesus Christ shall come A type of the time in which images were introduced The number of 2300 evenings and mornings which make 1150 days to me seems to signify precisely the days in which the daily sacrifice was interrupted an interruption that began not till some months after the Sanctuary had began to be prophaned by impure sacrifices added to the daily sacrifice that yet was continued And even the Idol of Jupiter Olympius seems not to have been brought into the Temple till two months after the cessation of the daily sacrifice So that the introduction of the Idol was not till six or seven months after the prophanation of the Temple This seems to me to have a typical relation to that which happened in the Christian Church by the introduction of the adoration of Images They were brought into the Churches in the fifth Age but we do not find that Images were adored and served before the sixth Age from the year 560 to the year 600. Now one may say that then the abomination the Idol of Jupiter Olympius was introduced into the Temple and placed on the Altar one may say that then the daily sacrifice entirely ceased whereas the Divine service had been only polluted by the invocation of Saints it was entirely spoiled by the adoration of Images Compute this cessation of the daily sacrifice that is to say of the service of God from the year 560 or thereabouts add thereunto 1150 years of interruption by the adoration of Images this will fall on the year 1710 or thereabouts the time wherein Images shall be entirely abolisht with Popery Although Antichristianism began in the fifth Age all the Christians of that time were not damned See what I had to say to confirm my notions about the time in which I do believe that the 1260 years of the Antichristian Empire must begin and end Without doubt some Protestants together with all the Papists will judge that I ascend very high and that in placing the birth of this Empire in the Popedom of Leo the first I haye made Antichrists of many good Bishops of Rome to Gregory the great inclusively and all the Christians since that time the subjects of the Antichristian Empire But they that make this objection do not consider that Antichristianism is properly nothing but the corruption of Christianity that all corruptions go gradually and that the first degrees of a corruption are not mortal There was Antichristianism mingled with the Christianity of the Christians of the fourth fifth and sixth Age but it doth not follow that this Antichristianism did from the beginning ruin the salvation of those that did partake of it When the Antichristian corruption was come to its full and became mortal then God by his mercy and the means that are known to him shewed grace to the Elect that were in Babylon so that they did not participate of her mortal idolatries The good Bishops of Rome in the fifth and sixth age were no more Antichrist than the Christians then were Antichristian and if God did tolerate the first beginnings of Antichristianism in the faithfull people he may also as well have born it in the Bishops Before Boniface the third Successor of Gregory the Great no Pope called himself Bishop of Bishops or Vniversal Bishop and so till that time the Bishops of Rome were not Antichrists perfected they were only Antichrists begun Degrees of the
it speech or words are formed in the mouth by the wind the breath of the lungs thus it is the breath or spirit of the body besides this it discovers the sentiments and thoughts and thus it is the breath or spirit of the soul After all this I do not think that any can in the least doubt but that these three spirits that come out of the mouth of the false Prophet are the false Oracles and Laws of this false Prophet These things are like those riddles which when they are unriddled we wonder that they were not sooner guessed for there was never any thing more easy to be understood The third expression which God made use of to enlighten my mind is that of Armageddon which Saint John saith is a Hebrew word the learned know The Syriak in the age of St. John was called Hebrew that the Hebrew language in the time of St. John was Syriack and Chaldee This is the language that our Saviour spake 't is that which is called the Hebrew tongue Acts 22.2 where 't is said that the people of Jerusalem kept silence while St. Paul spake to them in the Hebrew tongue He would not we are sure speak to them in Bible-Hebrew for they understood it not at that time 'T is this language which in the Gospels is often called Hebrew and yet the expressions set down are found to be Chaldee Armageddon signifies a cutting off by a Curse or Anathema or Syriack as Golgotha Talitha kumi Gabbatha c. Now the word Armageddon without any straining signifies in the Chaldee or Syriack Cutting off by a Curse or Excommunication Gedad signifies to cut off to cut asunder Giddou ilana cut down the tree said the Angel in the vision related in the third Chap. of Daniel so Geddon signifies cutting off The word Herem in the Hebrew and Harma in the Chaldee is a word which we find in our Bibles at every step under the phrases of cursing abstaining from the cursed thing This is accursed which the 70 have every where translated anathema this is the term which the Apostle Paul uses when he would excommunicate all those who love not the Lord Jesus Let him be Anathema Maranatha let him perish in Armageddon and 't is the same word that the Jews used in the time of Saint John and which they still used to signify their great Excommunication Thus if you joyn these two words Harma and Geddon you have exactly without any alteration A cutting off by a Curse by Excommunication or an Anathema Now what can be meant by the spirits which come out of the mouth of the false Prophet and which are gathered or placed in Armageddon i. e. under the shelter and under the defence of a cutting off by a Curse or an Anathema but the orders laws and false Oracles of the Popedom and the Antichristian head 'T is known that there is a Curse and a Armageddon at the end of the every Canon 'T is known that the Canon Law saith Decret Gratiani causa 2. quest 1. Canon gen We declare to be anathema and accursed for ever before God and a prevaricator against the Catholick Faith every King Bishop or other Magistrate who shall violate and suffer to be violated in any kind the Censures of the Popes of Rome Behold the scale of all the papal Laws Lastly 't is known that through one of the sorest judgements of God that ever was felt the subjects of the Popedom suffer'd themselves to be seized with such a fear of these Armageddons or Excommunications with a Curse that this very thing was a rampart and an inviolable asylum to protect all the attempts and all the crimes of the Clergy The whole strength of the Ecclesiasticks consisted in Armageddon but this supply never fail'd them whatever they did whatever they undertook men endured every thing out of fear of the Anathema and the Curse To avoid these imaginary thunderbolts Subjects revolted and broke their Oath of Allegiance Kings abandoned their Crowns as John King of England did who that he might obtain of Innocent III. the taking off of an Excommunication or Interdict laid upon England surrendred himself and all his Subjects to be the Popes slaves All publick service of God was made to cease in a great Kingdom Churches were shut up the sick died without Sacraments the dead remained unburied Excommunicated persons through a ridiculous sillyness of the people became odious to all that were not It matter'd not whether the Excommunications were unjust or no 't was enough that they were denounced By means of this the Clergy defended their plunders and robberies as Father Paul hath excellently remarkt in his Treatise of Benefices The people saith he were so afraid of Censures that nothing did terrify them more 'T was even amazing to see that Captains and Souldiers who plunder'd any man without the least concern at the sin committed against God as desperate and profligate wretched as they were yet with great respect spared whatever belonged to the Church only from the dread which they had of its Censures And on this ground many ordinary people gave their goods to the Church that so they might shelter themselves from the rapine of the Souldier Thus the Laws and Ordinances and goods and crimes and enterprises of the Church were all under shelter and in a place of safety in Armageddon I do not think that there can arise any doubt in any ones mind concerning what we have now said But to give the fuller confirmation to these truths let us go over all the expressions used in this Prophecy From whence these three unclean spirits do come And I saw three unclean spirits like froggs 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 The Dragon is the Devil the Beast is the Empire of the Popedom and the false Prophet is the Pope these are the three springs of false Oracles The Devil is he who inspires them all those decrees and those Canons which overthrow the true Religion of Jesus Christ can come from none but him They likewise come out of the mouth of the Beast for 't is the Church of Rome that makes them hence they are called the Canons of the Church the Laws of the Church and its decisions And lastly they come from the false Prophet for the Pope is the mouth of the Church he is in fallible when he speaks ex Cathedra all his decisions are seased with the word Armageddon and of the grand Excommunication Why three unclean spirits These spirits or Oracles are three in number not of the number seven for this number is sacred and proper to signify the sacred perfection of the Divine Oracles which thing the Holy Ghost intimates not only by seven spirits but also by seven thunders Nevertheless seeing the Oracles of the false Prophet of Antichrist are perfect in their kind i. e.
which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified V. 9. And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three dayes and a half and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put into graves V. 10. And they that dwell upon the Earth shall rejoyce over them and make merry and send gifts one to another because these two Prophets tormented them that dwelt upon the Earth V. 11. And after three days and an half the spirit of life from God entred into them and they stood upon their feet and great fear fell upon them which saw them V. 12. And they 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 V. 13. And the same hour was there a great earthquake and the tenth part of the City fell and in the earth-quake were slain of men seven thousand and the remnant were affrighted and gave glory to God. The Witnesses who prophecy cloathed in sackcloth are the faithful who preach under the Cross As to what concerns these two witnesses i.e. what is signified by them I have not changed my opinion since I wrote the book intitled Lawfull prejudices against popery Though as to all the rest the studious attention which I have used in reading these Prophecies hath given me quite different apprehensions I do therefore still believe that these two Witnesses who must prophesy 1260 days cloathed in sackcloth are the small number of the faithfull who during the reign of Antichristianism must keep themselves from its corruption and condemn its idolatries and tyranny God calls them witnesses because these are they who bore witness to the Truth which but for them would have been forgotten They prophesy cloathed in sackcloth i. e. they preach under the Cross For we must well observe that these two Phrases one used in our language the other in that of the Holy Ghost to prophesy cloathed in sackcloth and to preach under the Cross are absolutely of the same signification He makes them onely two in number to express that those faithfull who shall preserve themselves from the corruption of Idolatry shall be but a very small number And indeed experience hath too much verified this prediction Nevertheless he makes them two in number to signify that however small the number of true Christians is it shall notwithstanding be great enough to support the Truth and keep it from falling for in the mouth of two witnesses every word shall be establisht How these witnesses have power to change water into blood and shut up heaven v. 6. God ascribes to these two witnesses power to shut Heaven that it rain not in the dayes of their prophesy and power over waters to turn them into blood and to smite the Earth with all plagues as often as they will. Joseph Mede gives a very ingenious reason of this which I believe is very solid viz. That the Holy Ghost borrows his Emblems from the histories of the Old Testament and alludes unto several Pairs of eminent witnesses which God raised up at several times as Aaron and Moses at the coming out of Egypt Joshua and Caleb at the conquering of the promised Land Elijah and Elisha at the time of the grand Schism of the ten tribes Zerubbabel and Jehoshua at the return from the captivity Among these witnesses Elijah and Elisha had power to shut Heaven to hinder rain for three years and to make fire come down from Heaven Moses and Aaron turn'd the waters of Egypt into blood Joshua and Caleb brought the people of Israel into the Land of Canaan and smote the ancient Inhabitants with a sore plague To this the Holy Ghost alludes But we must further add that God ascribes to these witnesses 1. The shutting of Heaven that rain no in the days of their prophecy to signify that during the 1260 years of their Prophecy and of the reign of Antichrist there should be a great drought of grace and a barreness of virtues and gifts in the Church 2. The turning of waters into blood and the smiting of the Earth with all plagues Because all the heavy judgements of God that during the course of these 1260 years came upon the Antichristian Church were sent on the account of these two witnesses and to punish oppression under which it held both the Truth and those who were willing to profess it Here is fore-told a last persecution that must happen before the end of Antichrists reign The seven verses which we even now have read concerning the persecution which these two witnesses must suffer and the consequent of that persecution contain a grand event which must come to pass before the last fall of the Antichristian Kingdom And 't is one of the principal circumstances of this fall First we must observe the circumstance of time and when they shall have finish their testimony Mark this testimony must last a thousand two hundred and sixty days My two witnesses shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days cloathed in sackcloth Now these thousand two hundred sixty days of the prophesying of the witnesses are the forty two moneths of the Antichristian reign for forty two moneths make exactly 1260 days All the World is agreed that these are the three years and a half of the reign of Antichrist and that Antichrist and these two witnesses are absolutely and exactly contempories 'T is therefore the very same as if the Holy Ghost had said And when the Beast or the man of sin shall have finisht his reign of 1260 years it shall make war against the two witnesses This is therefore a persecution of Antichrist against the faithfull and a persecution that must happen before the end of Antichrists reign These words when they shall have finisht must not be understood as if the Holy Ghost would say when the 1260 years shall be finisht For after the 1260 years are finisht there can be no persecution seeing the Beast shall have lost his power So that this persecution must begin and end within the 1260 years but yet at the end of them 't is the ordinary custome not only of Scripture but of all men to say that something comes to pass when this or that is finisht because it happens when that things is finishing and very near its end This is therefore the last persecution of Antichrist against the Church This persecution hath its Characters 1. It must continue a long time Characters of the last persecution for 't is compared to a war The Beast that comes up out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them 2. This war or persecution must end in a victory over the two witnesses and shall overcome them and kill them Mark that God does not reckon the death and martyrdom which the faithfull suffer for the Truth as a victory that the Devil gains over them on the
all the Protestant States of Europe did concern themselves to obtain from the Duke a Peace for those poor people A persecution began in Poland a while after and the Reformed were involved in the same ruin with the Hereticks Socinians and Antitrinitarians they were driven out of that Kingdom and were scattered in Transilvania Hungary and Germany At the same time a persecution begun in France immediately after the Pyrenaean peace the project of the ruin of the Protestants was laid at Court and hath been prosecuted till it hath been executed as we see at this day In the year 1671. began the persecution of the Churches of Silesia Moravia Hungary the consequents of which are the almost utter extinction of the true Religion in the Territories of the Emperor The two witnesses will in a little time be dead through the total extinction of the profession of Religion The Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them This Beast is the papacy where ever it is for 't is not only in Rome that the Beast is found but 't is in the whole extent of the jurisdiction of the ten Kings 'T is not therefore necessary that a persecution should be exactly rais'd by the Bishop of Rome that so it may be ascribed to the Beast 't is enough that it be raised in the extent of the popish Kingdom And their bodies shall lye in the street of the great City 'T is evident from these words that this last persecution must be rais'd only within the circumference of the great City i. e. the Babylonian and popish Kingdom in the Countries where it reigns On this account probably those Kingdoms Countries and States who are out of the jurisdiction of the Popedom and whose Soveraigns are Protestants must have no share in it Further the Prophecy saith that the war must be made against the two witnesses that prophesy cloathed in sackcloth which is the same with what we call preaching under the Cross this therefore only concerns the faithful who preach and are under the Cross so that the persecution must onely be rais'd within the bounds of the City i. e. the Babylonian Kingdom and against those who preach under the Cross Holland Sweden Denmark and all other States which have Reformed Princes and where the Reformation is the ruling Religion shall not feel it And we have ground to hope that the torch of the Reformation shall not be extinguisht And though at present the King of England is of the Romish Religion I dare notwithstanding perswade my self that his Kingdom cannot be reckoned as one of the streets of the great City seeing popery is not the ruling Religion there though it be the Religion of him that rules Therefore I do not believe that we must understand the prophesy of Vsher in the letter or strictest sense who says that the persecution must be general over all the Churches of Europe for we may understand it of all those where popery does rule 'T is true he fore-tells a massacre in England but besides that those who wrote this prophesy from his mouth might be mistaken 't is also possible that this holy man through the violence of his sorrow went further than the Spirit did carry him Notwithstanding the English ought to remember the massacre in Ireland circumstances then were not near so favourable to popery as they are now Men must not trust to this that the King of England will never consent to so barbarous an action I believe he will not but the Papists do not trouble themselves about the pleasure of their Soveraigns when they see any prospect of advancing their cause by any kind of Methods Therefore if the Protestants be wise they will not put weapons into the hands of their enemies The bodies of the two witnesses shall lye in the street of the great City 'T is to be observed that in the Text 't is not in the streets in the plural as the French translation reads 't is in the street in the singular And I cannot hinder my self from believing that this hath a particular regard to France which at this day is certainly the most eminent Countrey which belongs to the popish Kingdom Her King is called the eldest Son of the Church the most Christian King i. e. the most popish according to the dialect of Rome The Kings of France have by their liberalities made the Popes great at this day it is the most flourishing State of Europe It is in the middle of the popish Empire betwixt Italy Spain Germany England exactly as a street or place of concourse is in the middle of a City 'T is also foursquare as such a place i. e. almost as long as broad In a word 't is the place or street of the great City And I believe that 't is particularly in France that the witnesses must remain dead i.e. that the profession of the true Religion must be utterly abolisht This is already done by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and by the enormous cruclties of the Souldiers who have bin let loose upon the Protestants of whatsoever sex quality and condition If any stand firm they must either leave the Kingdom or be destroyed Thus within a little while the external profession of the Reformed Religion will be wholly abolisht there And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and Nations shall see their dead bodies and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put into graves i.e. The Truth shall be slain but it shall not be buried Burial is a degree beyond death and is always joyn'd with a total corruption and destruction And so 't is not an office of charity which is denyed to these two witnesses but a degree of ruin from which they are exempted The witnesses shall not be buried i.e. the Truth shall not be destroy'd And observe who they are who hinder their burial they are not the same with those who killed them Those who killed them are the Inhabitants of the street of the great City i. e. those who dwell in the most eminent part of the popish Kingdom which at this day is France Those who hinder their burial are the Tribes Languages People and Nations i.e. several neighbour nations yea 't is to be observed that the Propheey saith not simply The Tribes Languages and Nations but they of the Languages Tribes and Nations i. e. some chosen and elected out of the Nations the faithfull scattered in all the Nations of Europe shall hinder the burial and total destruction of the Reformation in France Nevertheless this does not wholly exclude those among the Tribes Languages and Nations who are not Elect. For 't is probable that all Europe shall contribute to hinder France from executing her design of extirpating the Truth But this signifies that the Reformed and the true Christians shall awaken Europe as well that part which is Roman Catholick as that which is Protestant to oblige it to look to
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
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
Christ unto the birth of Antichrist i. e. till the middle of the fifth Century In this Period we have the Sun of Righteousness so Jesus Christ is called by the Prophets and Evangelists John c. 1. The Light which inlightens every man that comes into the world So by the Apostles The Father of Lights in whom is no shadow of change James 1. i. e. a Sun that hath no Tropicks The Parrallel of the Moon with the Church The Parrallel between Iesus Christ and the Sun is too manifest and easy to make to be long insisted on I will rather speak somewhat of the Moon which is an admirable Emblem of the Church 1. The Moon hath all her Light from the Sun The Church hath all her Beauty Holiness Vertue and Glory from I. Christ 2. The Moon retains some spots and those considerable ones in her borrowed Light the Church hath many great and plain defects in her vertues 3. The Moon hath no fixed Light she often changeth and is sometimes more and sometimes less inlightned The Church remains not long in one state she is always rising or falling she looseth some of her Light and then receiveth more she defiles herself and then is cleansed and hath Periods almost as regular as those of the Moon 4. The Moon besides her constant and periodical decrease suffers Ecclipses and sometimes total ones The Church besides her ordinary declensions is sometimes so Ecclipst as not to appear which is more or less according to the inundations of Herely or the corruption of manners 5. 'T is not the fault of the Sun but of the Moon it self that these Ecclipses happen she plungeth herself in the shadow of the Earth and so deprives herself of the Sun. The Ecclipses of the Church by the loss of Truth or vertue happen in like manner because she falls into sin and falshood which is shadow and darkness the product of Earth and Hell. Your sins have separated between God and you 6. When the Moon is Ecclipst she becomes black and puts on a frightfull Aspect when the Church suffers herself to lose the Light of the Sun her visage becomes deformed by her disorders and crimes Why doth not the Church appear but in this fourth Period since she was created from the beginning of the World so the Moon which was a figure of the Church should have been created on the first day I answer that the Church may also be found in the three preceding Periods but in the first and second day 't is a Land covered with waters The Church is mixt and confounded with the People of the World and even covered and hidden among 'em In the third she appears as a dry Land that is visible but as yet it is but Earth producing Plants and Fruits In our fourth Period she is advanc't from the quality of Earth to the dignity of the Stars she becomes a Moon a luminous body which may be seen afar off which spreads its rays throughout all the world Stars of six magnitudes images of the six orders of Teachers In the fourth day there were also Stars which are of six different magnitudes from the first to the sixth In our fourth Period we have several Teachers as shining Stars but they lessen by degrees The Apostles are the Stars of the first magnitude Apostolick Persons were Stars of the second magnitude their Disciples who lived in the second Century were Stars of the third the Doctors of the Church in the third Century were Stars of the fourth magnitude Those of the fourth Century were of the fifth magnitude Lastly in the fifth Century when the good days of the Church ended there were more Teachers more Stars in number but they were but of the sixth magnitude their Light began to be obscured by mixing with the darkness of Superstition and Heresy After them in the following Ages we see no Stars but under a Cloud the witnesses covered with sackcloth Christians concealed and hidden among the multitude of those who were sunk into error and Idolatry In this Period there is also another sort of Stars viz. Confessors and Martyrs who shined as Stars of the first magnitude and the common sort of the Faithful who are truly Stars though but of the sixth magnitude Lastly in the fourth Period we find Planets wandring Stars Apostates Iudas's and such as Hymenaeus and Philetus who concerning the Faith made shipwrack Mysteries of the 5th day We proceed to the fifth day of the Creation The fifth Period is that from the rise of Antichrist to his Completion from the fifth Century to the eleventh In the fifth day God said Let the waters bring forth Fishes abundantly or moving Creatures which have life and Fowl that may flie above the Earth in the open firmament of Heaven Behold two sorts of Creatures Birds and Fishes and they are to be Emblems of men who should rule in the fifth Period of the Church It may be the name of Bird may prove a good Omen to some one would think we should find something of good there because Birds are a kind of Coelestial Creatures but we must remember that in the two following Periods we shall meet with nothing that is good because they belong to Antichrist If there be any thing good in these two Periods 't is the remnant of the fourth for all is evil that belongs to their perticular Character So that by Birds we understand men of rash and daring spirits who would pierce beyond the Clouds attempting to reach unto God himself and have done violence to his Holy Mysteries by their bold Inquiries Such was Arrius who would dive into the mystery of the Eternal generation of the Son and was there stumbled Such was Macedonius who would fathom the Mysteries of the Procession of the Holy Spirit and not being able to effect it made him a Creature as Arius did the Son. Such was Eutyches who not being able to fathom the Mysteries of the union of the two natures in Christ did confound them Such was Nestorius who lost himself in searching into the manner of the Vnion of the humane Nature with the Divine Person and so establisht two Persons in Christ and I know not how many more such Birds there were men of bold and daring spirits who did great mischief to the Church We need but consult History to be informed 'T is true among those Birds there were some whose flight was happy enough The fourth and fifth Centuries produced some Eminent Doctors in comparison of the preceding The first Doctors of the Christian Church after the Apostles were but poor Divines they could flye but a little way There is more Divinity in one piece of St. Austin then in all the three first Centuries Origen excepted who was the Eagle of his Age. But those Birds who made some happy flights were yet guilty of great faults and often lost themselves by endeavouring to go too far The Fish of the fifth day are Antichrist
On the East three Gates on the North three Gates on the South three Gates and on the West three Gates In the description of this City we have every thing that is rich and precious all signifies its great Holiness excellent Vertues and perfect Peace for they are the substantial Goods and real Treasures of the Church It had a great high Wall by that is meant Divine Protection which shows also that 't is the Church upon Earth which is spoken of for the Church in Heaven hath no need of walls being out of the reach of Enemies And had twelve Gates We have observed before that the number Twelve is frequently to be met with in this description and that it is a sacred number because of the twelve Patriarchs the twelve Tribes and the twelve Apostles the Gates are the entries into this City and so denote the recalling of the Iews according to their twelve Tribes from that great dispersion they are now under The recalling of the Jews foretold That these twelve Gates have a particular relation to the People of the Iews is plain by what follows That on the twelve Gates were written the names of the twelve Tribes of Israel For by those Tribes of Israel we may not understand the Church of the converted Gentiles they have a distinct place in what remains of the description of the new Ierusalem So the twelve Gates at the four Cardinal points of the World East North South West are to the same effect as what God had said in another place I will call my Sons from far and my Daughters from the ends of the Earth I will say unto the North give up and to the South keep not back At every one of those twelve Gates are twelve Angels These are the twelve Apostles called Angels or Pastors who whether they shall be raised from the dead or no shall by their preaching and Doctrine guide the Iews to enter again into the Church and open the gate unto them For they are here described as Keepers of the Gates who both open and shut them V. 14. And the Wall of the City had twelve Foundations and in them the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb. The protection safety and the Wall of the Church depends on the foundations whereon she shall be built Those foundations are Articles of Faith and Christian Verities according to the Idea of St. Paul who saith there is but one Foundation which is Jesus Christ but on this foundation some build Hay and Stubble but others Gold and precious Stones â— Cor. 3. These precious Stones and this Gold signify Pure Doctrine as the Apostle doth sufficiently explain it These are the foundations of the Church which is built upon Truth The Prophet gives twelve for the number of these foundations because of the twelve Articles of Faith contained in the Creed on these foundations were written the names of the twelve Apostles because they were the persons who publisht the Gospel and maintained those Articles of faith by their preaching and by their blood The Holy Ghost in what follows describes these foundations and assigns a precious Stone to each of ' em V. 19. And the foundations of the Wall of the City were garnished with all manner of precious Stones the first foundation was Iasper the second Saphire the third a Chalcedony the fourth and Emerald V. 20. The fifth a Sardonyx the sixth Sardius the seventh Chrysolite the eighth Beryl the ninth a Topaz the tenth a Chrysoprasus the eleventh a Iacinth the twelfth an Amethist If we had leasure and time to spare we might compare the twelve Articles of the Christian Creed to those twelve Stones and see wherein every Article of Faith might symbolize with every Stone Supposing that the Holy Spirit had regard to the order in which the Church hath plac't the twelve Articles But I fear lest we should herein go beyond the intention of the Holy Ghost and deliver things rather curious than solid for the true design and scope of Figures and Mysteries is lost by stretching them too far I suppose the design of the Holy Spirit is only to show us in general how valuable and precious are the Christian Verities They who let go those Truths unto Hereticks and reckon the Secinian Heresies to be tolerable are far from esteeming them thus precious and do not sufficiently understand the worth and excellence of Truth I now return-to the description of the Heavenly Ierusalem i. e. of the Church in its last Period here on Earth V. 15. And he that talked with me had a golden Reed to measure the City and the Gates thereof and the Wall thereof V. 16. And the City lyeth foursquare and the length is as large as the breadth and he measured the City with a Reed twelve thousand furlongs the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal V. 17. And he measured the Wall thereof 144 cubits according to the measure of a man that is of the Angel. V. 18. And the building of the Wall of it was of Iasper and the City was pure Gold like unto clear Glass What it is to measure in a prophetical sense To measure is to make account of to esteem to reckon among things that are considerable Wherefore in the eleventh Chapt. St. Iohn was ordered to measure only the Temple and the Altar and those who worshipped there Not to value or make account of any but true Believers But for the outer Court it was said unto him Measure it not I have left it unto the Gentiles As to the outward part of the Church make no account of it for the Paganism of Antichrist and Popery shall be there establisht and shall reign for the space of 42. Prophetic moneths i. e. 1260 years Here the H. Spirit measures the Holy Ierusalem throughout not only the Temple and the Altar but the Court that was before abandon'd to the New Pagans and not only the Court but the whole City to measure the City the Gates thereof and the wall thereof 'T is to signifie that in this last Christian Church of the last Period every thing therin shall be Great and Good worthy to be esteemed and measured and reckon'd as things of value and consideration Men do not measure waste and barren Heaths sands and rubbish 't is not worth the while but Palaces and fruitfull grounds vineyards and orchards and the buildings of a City This is the mystery of the measure But observe the difference between the Circumstances of the first measure in the 11th Chap. and those of this second here besides those we have already taken notice of 1. That the first measure reacheth only to the Court and the Altar that was the Christian Church for the 3 first ages as hath been said but here the measure extends to All and even to the City which denotes the Primitive Christian Church to be very inconsiderable compared with the Church of this last Period 2.
'T is S. Iohn that received the Reed in the 11th Chap. to measure the Temple and the Altar there was given me a Reed like unto a rod and the Angel stood and said rise and measure the Temple But here 't is an Angel that measureth an Agent of an higher order than the Apostle 3. Lastly S. Iohn hath only a rod given him a reed to measure with a weak Justrument and of little value but here the Angel measures with a Golden reed All which sets forth the great excellence of the Church in this last period that it should surpass even the Primitive Church as much as a city exceeds a Temple an Angel a man or a Golden Rod an ordinary cane or reed The city was built foursquare the square is an emblem of Rest because that figure of all others is most proper to keep firm which signifies the tranquility and immutable Peace of this Church The square also relates to the number Twelve which occurs so often in this description for 12 is a square number that shows three on all sides Three a number of perfection as well as seven to signifie that on what side soever you look upon this Church whether in regard of its Holiness or Knowledg or Peace or Glory she shall be every way perfect These are the four sides of the square Holiness Knowledg Peace and Glory and this Perfection she hath from the number Twelve viz. from the twelve Apostles He measured the City with the Reed 12 thousand Furlongs This is not to be understood of the circumference of her Walls or of their diameter or their Heighth but of the whole Body of the City taken together as a Cube that contains 12 thousand furlongs counting every thing There are 12 foundations which are the 12 Apostles or rather the 12 Articles of faith Every foundation answers to a thousand Cubits i. e. that every of the Apostles by his doctrine and preaching did increase the Church and contribute to its building and to the gathering of the saints in the same proportion which a foundation of one cubical foot or therabouts hath to a thousand furlongs This signifies the great Increase and multiplication of the Church The length the breadth the Heigth of the City were Equal that is it was in all accounts a perfect Cube throw a Die where you please it will alway find a place to rest So shall be the Church of the last period what ever Commotions may happen she shall not lose her rest nothing shall be able to destroy or hinder it Interpreters have no reason to make an objection here that a City that is as high as large would be a monstrous pile for every thing here is beyond the ordinary rules among men to signifie that this Holy Society shall not be governed as Humane societies now are Besides this the great Equality of this City in all its dimensions seems to me to denote that admirable Equality between all the Saints which shall take place in the seventh period of the Church not that all difference of Conditions shall be absolutely laid aside there shall still be superiors and Inferiors Rich and Poor some to Govern and others to obey but those great distances between mens conditions shall then be filled up by Charity and Love wheras now they are inlarged and widened by Pride and vanity Then he measured the Wall 144 Cubits Here is the number 144 which is sacred because of the number 12 which is its Root 't is easie to apprehend why the Wall is 144 Cubits 't is because it is raised upon 12 Foundations and the wall of the City had twelve Foundations Build upon twelve raise another number by multiplying this by it self and you make 144. for 12 is the square root of 144. Every building of the Church is raised upon the 12 Apostles and in its raising she is multiplied as in building upon 12 you make 144. and these 144 Cubits are not to be taken for the same thing with the 144 thousand who were marked which are the whole body of the Saints These 144 Cubits are in the walls of the City and not in the whole City This wall is that which gives protection to the City and the Church it is Truth and the Holy Ministry by whom that Truth is preached so that the 12 Foundations are the Principal Pastors with the Truths they teach viz. the 12 Apostles and the 144 Cubits are the whole Evangelical Ministry built upon the 12 Apostles as their first Teachers He measured the wall according to the measure of a man i. e. of the Angel that denotes that the Angel in giving to a wall one hundred forty four Cubits founded upon twelve hath therin followed the ordinary way of Computation among Arithmeticians who by multiplying twelve by it self make one hundred forty four And the building of the wall was of Iaspar and the City was of pure Gold like unto clear glass The distinction of men according to their different qualities is conveniently and commonly enough made by the Emblem of Metals men of low and base Spirits sunk into degeneracy and vice are well represented by Lead Iron is the Emblem of Cruel and hard-hearted persons who are void of Pity Brass doth well enough represent such as glitter and make a show of more than they are or have for Brass imitates the colour of gold but is short in value Silver is an Emblem of those who are in some sort vertuous but not in the first rank Lastly Gold is the Emblem of such spirits as are pure solid firm and truly vertuous This is that which the H. Ghost would teach us that the Church in this last Period shall be made up of such persons as are of sincere and approved piety of a vertue that is bright and solid therfore the City is said not only to be of Gold but of gold clear as Crystal Nevertheless as in every Church the Ministry ought to possess a more eminent degree of Christian vertues than others the wall which signifies the Ministry of the Church in the seventh Period is said to be of Iaspar and precious stones more valuable than gold V. 21. And the 12 Gates were of 12 Pearls every several gate was of one Pearl We have seen how the 12 Gates signifie the 12 Apostles the Guards Guides and Porters as it were of the Church we might easily discover a resemblance between the Apostles and Pearls but 't is sufficient to understand that the design of the H. Ghost is to show that these 12 Men are of an inestimable value All the riches of the world cannot be a sufficient price for 12 Pearls big enough to make 12 Gates of Cities and herewith we must know that when the spirit of God puts so high a price upon weak men like our selves when he calls them Iaspars and precious stones the Gates and Foundations of a City he doth not look upon 'em in themselves but considers them with that treasure
not contemporary with 'em the seven seals carry the Prophecy almost as far as the fall of Paganism unto Constantine the first Christian Emperor The seven Trumpets divide the rest of the Time between Constantine and his Christian Successors to the end of the World. And the seventh Trumpet that sounds here is the beginning of the last Period which comprehends the fall of the Empires of the World and particularly that of the Antichristian Kingdom or the Papacy The seventh Angel sounded and there were great voices These are voices of Acclamation and joy That Thunders and Lightnings are joyned to those voices signifies the preaching of the Gospel And the four and twenty Elders who sat before God on their seats fell upon their faces and worshipped God saying we give thee thanks O Lord God Almighty c. 'T is the Song and subject matter of thanksgiving wherewith the Holy People should praise God during the reign of a thousand years when God shall have subdued all their Enemies Observe here that the four and twenty Elders appear alone and begin the Song whereas in the first Vision the living Creatures begun the Song and the Elders followed ' em 'T is not to exclude the living Creatures and the Ministry in the last Period of the Church but to signify that then the People shall be so filled with the Divine Spirit that they shall not need to wait the inspiration and assistance of the Holy Ministry to ingage them to praise God and perform holy duties The Nations were angry and thy wrath in come i. e. the Nations of the Antichristian People have executed their malice and fury and thou hast avenged it by destroying their Empire And the Time of the dead that they should be judged and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy Servants the Prophets and to the Saints and them that fear thy name small and great This doth not signify the last judgement or the last Resurrection 'T is the first Resurrection the Deliverance of the Church her coming to the expected Kingdom This is set forth after the same manner in the 20th Chapter of the Apocalyps as hath been already seen The Time of the Dead to be judged he saith not the Living and the Dead or all the Dead but speaks of the Church which lay as dead during the reign of Antichrist and shall rise again when that Kingdom is destroyed The Dead shall be judged And how 't is God will reward the faithfull and the Church by giving them Peace and a Kingdom 'T is a judgement of Grace and of Beneficence He speaks not of eternal Rewards as appears by what follows and to destroy those who destroyed the Earth Which is not a proper term to signify eternal punishments wherein nothing is destroyed men continue under them for ever so that the ruin of the Antichristian Empire must be here meant V. 19. Chap. 11. And the Temple of God was opened in Heaven and there was seen in his Temple the Ark of his Testament The Ark is the sign of God's Covenant with the Iews so this Prophecy of the Ark in the Temple of God signifies the recalling of the Iews The Temple of God was open The Church shall be open to all Nations all People shall resort to it and among others we shall see that People who derive their Glory from the Ark of the Covenant CHAP. XXIV The Characters of the Kingdom of the Church Eight are certain and five doubtfull What shall happen after this Kingdom What is meant by Gog and Magog There shall probably be a lesser kind of Antichrist a little before the end of the World. HAving confirmed the Truth of this Reign of Christ upon Earth we ought now to consider the Nature and Characters of it they may be divided into two Classes some that are doubtful and others certain It is fit that we begin with the certain We are not to reckon among the Characters of this Reign either the fall of the Babylonish Empire or the conversion of the Iews or the conversion of the remaining Gentiles For these three things are to go before it They can never be brought about but with confusion and Tumult The Popish Empire cannot fall but it must cost blood and make a mighty noise The conversion of the Iews must needs be attended with great Commotions among the People and it may be violent contradictions 'T is likewise impossible to conceive that the Conversion of the Gentiles can be brought about without the utmost endeavours of the Devil to hinder it he will raise all his forces every where to hinder the last establishment of this Kingdom of Christ as he did in the first Ages of the Christian Church So that we cannot doubt but he will cause great opposition not only by words but it may be blows Now this cannot belong to the Kingdom of Christ whereof the principal Character is Soveraign Peace Insomuch that we thus conceive of it 1. The Papal Empire shall fall 2. After that some years will be necessary to abolish Sects and Parties and compose the differences among Christians 3. That after this many Heathen Nations and the Iews shall be converted for it cannot be thought that they should be converted while Christians are so much at variance among themselves and seeking the destruction of one another 4. After the Conversion of the Iews the remainder of the most remote Nations shall also be converted Now for all this there must be time for should we think that God will act in a more miraculous manner in this than in the establishment of the first Christian Church Wherefore as the Christian Church was near an hundred years in its first setling no less will be necessary perfectly to resettle it and then shall that blessed Kingdom come which we expect not but that there is some probability that God may begin to compute the thousand years from the fall of Antichrist even before the Conversion of the Iews and Gentiles and so the fall of the Antichristian Kingdom and the Conversion of the Nations may in some sort be comprehended within the Reign of Christ for a thousand years But when we speak here of the Kingdom of Christ we speak of it as in its perfection which will not be till after these things are come to pass An extraordinary effusion of the Spirit the first certain Character Chap. 2.28 29. The first certain Character of this reign of Christ is the plentifull effusion of the Spirit of God upon men The Prophecy of Ioel to this purpose is one of those which is but in part accomplisht hitherto I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and your Sons and your Daughters shall prophecy your old Men shall dream dreams and your young Men see visions also on the servants and the hand-maid in those days will I pour out my Spirit That lesser effusion of the Spirit which the first Christians experienc't is not enough to fill up the
17. nor with Babylon chap. 18. The Fathers who lived near the Apostles time it may be heard some discourse of this and that probably gave occasion to the mistake This is the most that can be said with any pretence of reason to excuse St. Irenaeus and those of the Ancients who followed him in the description of Antichrist Gog and Magog are names borrowed from Ezekiel which in my opinion do not signify the same People in both places Here it denotes in general the Enemies of the Church Nevertheless I know nothing concerning it with any great certainty CHAP. XXV An Answer to the reasons of the Anti-millinaries against the Reign of a thousand years ACcording to the Method of a Regular Disputation I come now to answer the Reasons of the Anti-millinaries But most of them are so weak that they hardly deserve to be considered but that the mention of 'em will serve as a further proof to confirm the truth of our seventh Period For 't is a very good Argument for any opinion to be supported on the one hand by powerfull and weighty Reasons and to be opposed on the other by weak and slender ones Those Gentlemen have the plurality of voices on their side and are doubtless men of worth and learning 'T is nevertheless true that they have suffered themselves to be born down with the stream without much minding it First Objection Christ not to come but at the day of jugdment 1. First they say that the Scripture speaking of Christ's second coming never speaks of any other than that when he shall appear in the Clouds of Heaven attended with Angels and Archangels to raise mankind and judge the quick and dead Whereas we suppose a kind of a clandestine coming of Christ to settle a Kingdom upon Earth which the Scripture knows nothing of for it speaks of no future Kingdom of Christ that is yet to be save that which he shall have in Heaven after the distribution of Eternal Rewards and Punishments I answer 1. These men suppose by this Argument a Kingdom of Christ in Heaven after the last judgement but there is no such Kingdom neither shall there ever be any on the contrary St. Paul doth expresly tell us that he shall then cease to reign and give up the Kingdom into the hands of his Father 1 Cor. 17. So that since we are assured from Scripture of Christs coming to reign it must be before the end of the World for the Kingdom of Christ the Mediator shall then be finisht 2. 'T is supposed in this objection that the Scripture speaks of no more than one coming of Christ which shall be accompanied with the voice of the Arch-angel to summon the Dead to judgement This is plainly to suppose the thing in Question and those who have read the fore-going Chapters with attention and without prejudice will still believe that there is a first coming of Christ and it may be a first Resurrection 3. Lastly who can be certain that this coming of Christ to establish his Kingdom upon Earth shall not be in that manner with the voice of an Arch-angel and in great magnificence and Glory Who can prove that at that first coming of Christ he shall not raise some of the dead as St. Iohn seems expresly to have fore-told all the little reasons pretended from Conveniency and Inconveniency which are here alledged will have much ado to resist the evidence of so express a Text and of that Matth. 19. Verily I say unto you that in the Regeneration when the Son of man shall be sat on the Throne of his Glory you shall also sit on twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel 2. Object Christ is to remain in Heaven till the end of the world 2. The next thing alledged is that the Heavens are to contain Jesus Christ till the restitution of all things The restitution of all things that they say is the End of the World and so Jesus Christ must be confined to Heaven till the end of the world and consequently shall not come to settle a Kingdom upon Earth for a thousand years If this were true that Christ must stay in Heaven till the end of the World might he not destroy his Enemies give Peace to his Church and govern it in Peace by his Prophets and Servants without coming in Person from Heaven Moreover in case our Lord should for a short space come down from Heaven to establish a Kingdom for a thousand years and to give his seal to the Conversion of all Nations by some glorious Apparition returning back to Heaven immediately after might it not be said notwithstanding this that the Heavens shall contain him till the end of Time So small an interruption of his abode in Heaven could not hinder but that the heavens may still be reckon'd the place of his abode Lastly how will they prove that by the Restitution of all Things the end of the World is to be understood on the contrary that end is represented as the Overturning and not the Restitution of all things The Heavens the Stars the Elements shall be burnt up and destroyed by fire 'T is true after this there shall be new Heavens and a new Earth but the Scripture doth more frequently describe the end of the world by an universal confusion and Overturning than by the new Heavens which shall follow And the new Heavens in most places of Scripture signify the Renovation of the Church in its last Period of a thousand years So that I hardly make any doubt but that by the Restitution of all things Chap. 8. Acts we are to understand the Establishment of the Church before the end of the World. 3. Argum. Peace and Prosperity are not to be the Lot of the Church 3. The third Argument of the Anti-millenaries is this that such a state of Peace and tranquillity as we promise to the Church doth not at all agree with what the H. Scripture speaks of the Persecution and afflictions that the Church and the Faithfull are always to meet with in this World. 1. Ought not this to be mutually granted that the whole is to be denominated from the major part for six thousand years the Church was to be persecuted and in a low Condition and in a seventh Period she shall have Rest And shall we count it strange that the Holy Ghost doth for the most part speaking of the state of the Church here below as a low and miserable condition and that he saith very little of her state of Glory since the difference between the first and second state is as six to one 2. I answer that they suppose that which is not true viz. that the Scripture speaks of the Church as being alway in a state of suffering On the contrary more places can be brought wherein her Prosperity and Peace are promised than of those where she is threatned with calamity and persecution We may see the truth of this