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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
woman_n	beast_n	time_n	wilderness_n	1,417	5	10.0984	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51307	A modest enquiry into the mystery of iniquity by H. More.	More, Henry, 1614-1687.	1664 (1664)	Wing M2666; ESTC R26204	574,188	543

the Lord of Hosts with Thunder and Earth-quake and great noise with storm and tempest and the flame of devouring fire And Job 39. 25. He smelleth the battel afar of the thunder of the Captains and their Chariots It is very frequently used of God's discomfiting of the enemies of his Church 1 Sam. 2. 10. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces out of Heaven shall he thunder upon them Again chap. 7. v. 10. And as Samuel was offering up the burnt-offering the Philistins drew near to battel against Israel but the Lord thundered with a great thunder that day upon the Philistins and smote them untill they came to Beth-car Which whether it be understood figuratively here or naturally by an Israelism it will be an Image or Figure of the deliverance of the Church from her Enemies to all posterity David also describes his deliverance from his enemies after this manner Psal. 18. The Lord thundered in the Heavens and the Highest gave his voice hail-stones and coals of fire Yea he sent out his arrows and scattered them and he shot out lightnings and discomfited them 4. But there is also another more Mystical signification of Thunder Prophecy or Revelation from God being signifi'd thereby by way of allusion to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Filia vocis which is one kind of Prophecy Such was that voice from Heaven testifying of our Saviour Christ Matth. 3. 17. as also Joh. 12. 28. where the people that stood by said It thundered See Drusius upon the place But besides this Thunder has of it self a significancy of Prophecy the one being the Voice of Heaven and called the voice of God the other an Oracle from God But there is yet another sense that Thunder may be capable of as namely of some special and signal Promulgation of the Gospel to a people that has not yet either heard of it assented to it or rightly believed it and this by an allusion to the Law given to the Israelites in Thunder and Lightning not to say with some respect to the manner of God's witnessing out of the clouds to his Son Christ and declaring of him in a voice of * Joh. 12. 28 29. Thunder that he had glorifi'd him and would glorifie him again See Fire 5. Time That a Time and Times and half a Time in Daniel signifies three years and an half we have the suffrage of Grotius and indeed no Interpreters that I know dissent But this Figure of speech is referrible to none of the Prophetick Schemes which I have set down but is a mere Synecdoche Generis as Hour is indeed a Synecdoche Speciei when it is put for an indefinite short time as it is sometimes As 1 Thess. 2. 17. But we brethren being taken from you for a short time c. The Greek has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Also Philem. 15. For perhaps he therefore departed for a season that thou mightest enjoy him for ever For a season is in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This use of an Hour in the ordinary style is as I said but a Synecdoche Speciei but in the Prophetick style there is a Diorismus in it But as for a Day when it is taken for a Year it is an Icasmus there being a Circuit of the Sun in each and therefore they bear a similitude one to another From whence it will follow that if one Day will stand for one Year then in proportion one Month of days will stand for Thirty years 6. But that numbering by Months is appropriate to the works of Darkness as reflecting upon the Circuits of the Moon which is the Governess of the Night and numbering by the courses of the Sun appropriate to the works of Righteousness is as I have noted already an observation of Mr. Mede's and is exactly true in the Apocalyps where the continuing of the Beast and the prophaning of the holy City by the Gentiles is reckoned by Months but the Prophecy of the Witnesses as also their undergoing that Martyrdom and their lying unburied by Days The abode of the Woman in the Wilderness is also numbered by Days and by a time and times and half a time which according to this curiosity of Appropriation must of necessity signifie three Solar years and an half of which notwithstanding they fall short near twenty days But Modicum nec curat Praetor nec Propheta is better here applied then as Grotius applies it And hence it is demonstrable that there is a concealed or tacit latitude of twenty years at least in these 1260 days which are the same with a Time and Times and half a Time and that the first measure may be an Icad But because the Sixty sounds and that is silent in this Number it is not improbable but an Hexecad might if need were be taken for the first measure or Divisor of 1260. But that 1260 days is a Diorismus I have expresly taken notice of above 7. Trees That Trees according to their several bigness and procerity signifie several degrees of men is plain from that of Zacharie chap. 11. Open thy doors O Lebanon that the fire may devour thy Cedars Houl O Firre-tree for the Cedar is fallen because all the mighty are spoiled Houl O ye Oaks of Basan for the forest of the Vintage is come down Those few words All the mighty are spoiled are a certain Key to the Parable and shew that the Prophecy does not point at Trees but Men and therefore Vatablus and other Interpreters do interpret it accordingly That Proverbial Iambick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sounds to this sense and the Onirocriticks of Nicephorus give a further and clearer suffrage thereto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Achmetes according to the doctrine of the Persians Indians and Aegyptians does largely insist upon these Iconisms applying several sorts of Trees to several qualities of persons See Onirocrit cap. 151. Which yet he does more copiously and particularly cap. 200. And lastly cap. 165. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To which purpose he also speaks in the following Chapter Vintage See Wine-press Water That Waters may be the Hieroglyphick of Words and Speech or of that Doctrine that is conveyed by them appears from Prov. 18. 4. The words of a mans mouth are as deep waters and the well-spring of wisedom as a flowing brook Also chap. 15. 28. The heart of the righteous studieth to answer but the mouth of the wicked poureth out evil things But never so bad as when it poureth out such speeches as tend to strife and contention which is like the cutting a bank in the Sea and over-flowing all Whence it is that the Wise man gives that wholesome advice Leave Prov. 17. 14. off contention before it be meddled withall for the beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water See other significations of Water in River and in Sea 8. White-clothing By comparing Nicephorus with Astrampsychus White-clothing should signifie that honour and chearfulness that arises from a

and the punishments thereof Consect XI That the Authority of neither Fathers nor Councils after 400 years from Christ or thereabout is of any validity to determine Controversies against the Protestant Churches touching those things which the Church of Rome and they disagree in 10. This naturally follows from the Epocha of Antichristianism falling about that time we mention After which the Church being supposed in some measure lapsed into that great Apostasy neither the Fathers Doctrines nor her Councils can have right to decide the Controversies betwixt the Papists and us so as authoritatively to testifie against us But it is observable that their Testimony will hold good against the Papists in such Points as they contradict them in because they are in that witnesses of the successive minde of the Church as yet unaltered by this growing Corruption or at least testify matter of fact against the false Pretences of the Popish Traditions Consect XII That all Visions that are Synchronal to this of the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns which is said to continue fourty two moneths have necessarily the extent of one thousand two hundred and sixty years 11. To be Synchronal is as much as to begin continue and end together Whence it is plain that that which is Synchronal to what continueth 1260 years must it self continue so many years But the 42 moneths of the Beast are 1260 years by the first Consectary Which is a plain Demonstration of the truth of this last The use of which Consectary is of very great moment for the detection of the falshood of such petty Expositions as some put upon those Visions which are Synchronal to this of the restored Beast For extend them but upon this measure of time and they will all crack and break into fitters and thereby which I would have thus timely taken notice of excuse me from any farther Confutation of them Wherefore it will be worth the while to take notice of all those Visions that are Synchronal to this of the restored Beast it being so necessary a Method to be assured of the right sense of them and to discern more certainly in what Prophecies of the Apocalyps those Lineaments of Antichristianism which I have noted in my foregoing Treatise are prefigured 12. In the mean time I need not I think re-minde my Reader that the Visions of these two Chapters which I have thus carefully interpreted do plainly foretel that grand part of Antichristianism which consists in Idolatrous worship how it should over-run the Empire by the seduction and activity of an Imposturous Clergy figured out in the Type of the Beast with two Lamb-like Horns but that would speak like the Dragon and re-introduce the Image of old Paganism again under the colour of a more heightned Devotion and Affection toward Christ the Blessed Virgin and the rest of the Saints and Martyrs As also in the Type of the Whore of Babylon who is called the Mother of Fornications and Abominations of the Earth that is of Idolatry and Pagan-like Worship who 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Kings of the Earth and all the Inhabitants thereof with the Cup of the filthiness of her Fornications that is seduces them to Idolatry Hoc enim est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idololatriae calicem as Grotius himself has interpreted it Wherefore these are two notable Predictions of the Apostasy of the Church into Heathenish and Idolatrous worship But I shall also produce others out of the same Book after I have prepared the way by making good certain Synchronisms thereunto appertaining CHAP. VI. 1. The Synchronism of the Whore the Two-horned Beast the restored Beast or the Beast that was and is not and yet is demonstrated out of our Joint-Exposition 2. To which the False-Prophet is also proved Synchronal the Virgin-Company the Two Witnesses the Woman in the Wilderness and the Outward Court as being either the fame Antistoechal or necessarily connected all along with them 3. Again in a more abstract way That the restored Beast the Woman in the Wilderness the Outward Court the Two Witnesses are of equal time 4. That the Woman in the Wilderness and the restored Beast begin together and therefore are Synchronal 5. That the restored Beast and Two Witnesses are Synchronal as ending together 6. That the Two Witnesses and Outward Court are Synchronal as both beginning and ending together And all these four Synchronal to the Whore and Two-horned Beast because the Two-horned Beast and the Whore are Synchronal to the restored Beast to which the other three are Synchronal 7. That the Virgin-Company and the Sealed out of the twelve Tribes are all one Company and therefore both Synchronal to the Whore by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and consequently with the rest of the fix with whom She is Synchronal 8. That the said Sealed Virgin-Company is Synchronal to the Series of the first six Trumpets as being sealed immediately before the blast of the first Trumpet and as being Synchronal to the Mourning of the Witnesses which ceases at the end of the sixth Trumpet 9. The six first Seals the Fight of Michael and the Dragon and the Inward Court proved Synchronal 10. That the Vision of * Apocal. 11. measuring the Temple begins from the first Epocha indicated from the quality of the Person that holds in his hand the opened Book 11. From his supplying the place of the seventh Angel and the space of the seventh Trumpet with seven Thunders 12. From the suspending of the sound of the seventh Trumpet to make a Regression 13. From the newness or new condition of the Book in the Angel's hand 14. From the voice communing or talking with John from Heaven as in the beginning of the Prophecies of the Seals 15. From the bitterness of the Book in his belly From his being bid again to prophesy and that before many Kings and Peoples and Nations 16. From the Epocha of the Vision of the * Apocal. 12. ensuing Chapter 17. The Synchronism of the first six Seals with the Inward Court of weighty concernment 18. The Millennial Empire of Christ the Palm-bearing Company the New Jerusalem and the Ligation of Satan that they are all in some sense Synchronal to the Seventh Trumpet 1. THat the Beast with seven Heads in the Thirteenth Chapter is Synchronal with the Beast that carries the Whore in the Seventeenth is plain in that they are the very self-same Beast in every Respect as appears out of my Joint-Exposition That the Whore of Babylon also and the Two-horned Beast are the self-same Thing is made evident in the same Exposition and therefore they must be Synchronal unless one and the same thing can begin to be after it has continued in Being and continue after it ceases to be That the Whore or the Two-horned Beast is Synchronal to the Seven-headed with ten Horns in these two Chapters is evident in that the Two-horned Beast is the Reviver and Healer of this Seven-headed Beast or Restorer

of him into Being that is An Idolatrous Clergy makes again an Idolatrous Empire one of them cannot be without another nor continue longer one then another from the very nature of the things themselves So that it is manifest that the perpetual connexion of the nature of the things signified by those Visions assures them to us to be Synchronal to begin continue and end together And thus by the plain and palpably-demonstrable sense of the Visions of the Thirteenth and Seventeenth Chapters do we gather infallibly That the Two-horned Beast the Whore of Babylon the Beast that was and is not and yet is or the Beast Healed or Revived which is said to have seven Heads and ten crowned Horns are Synchronal one to another 2. But there are four Visions more Synchronal to these three which may after the same manner be demonstrated to be so I mean from the natural and necessary connexion betwixt the things themselves prefigured or by their perfect Identity under several Schemes and Types the things that they naturally signifie being already contained in the three first Synchronalls or else by way of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or continued Opposition to them As by way of Identity the False-Prophet that is the whole Body of false Prophets must needs be Synchronal to the Two-horned Beast or the Whore they being but the same things under several Types or Terms By way of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or opposite Correspondency as the Mournful Witnesses and the Virgin-Company For supposing the true Church never failed to be as all are agreed upon there must needs run along with the times of the Whore or Two-horned Beast the Virgin-Company and these Mournful Witnesses in correspondent Opposition to them and the latter by a causal Connexion with them and therefore may be an example of the first way mentioned though not instanced in before The Subject also of those two mixt Visions is necessarily implied in the same time with the three first Synchronals upon this granted Hypothesis That the true Church never fails For then the Woman in the Wilderness what is it but this pure Virgin-Church hid in the Paganizing Empire which is the Image of the Beast and what the Exteriour Court of the Temple troden down by the Gentiles but the Christian Empire dedicated to Christ and the true worship of God over-run again with a new kinde of Gentilism or Idolatrous worship which so overflows that the true and Virgin-Church is hid in a manner in this deluge of Idolaters at least troden down and debased and made the Abjects o●… Christendome Wherefore I say from the very nature of the things themselves and close connexion they have one with another there is a very palpable Evidence that the Whore the Two-horned Beast the restored Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns the False-Prophet the Virgin-Company the Woman in the Wilderness the two Witnesses the Exteriour Court of the Temple troden down by the Gentiles are all Synchronal one to another 3. But we will not altogether omit that more abstract way Mr. Mede has gone to prove these Synchronals First then it is plain that the Woman in the Wilderness the Ten-horned Beast restored the Exteriour Court troden down by the Gentiles the Mourning of the two Witnesses are all of equal time For the Woman's stay in the Wilderness is noted by a time and times and half a time as also by 1260 daies both which expressions signifie Three years and an half literally The Ten-horned Beast restored his continuance is set down by 42 months as also the Conculcation of the Outward Court and the daies of the Mourning Witnesses are 1260. All which terms of time are equal to those of the Woman in the Wilderness and are literally Three years and an half Of all which if any one signifie Symbolically I think there is no body that can be so Sceptical or perverse as to deny that the other doe so too Now that these four are not onely Equal but Synchronal will appear briefly thus 4. The Woman in the Wilderness and the Ten-horned Beast restored begin together For while the Woman hastens into the Wilderness the Dragon casts a floud out of his mouth to carry her away if he could before Apocal. 12. 15. she came thither But he missing his aim and driven on with Fury betakes himself to another course immediately restoring the Ten-horned Beast and endowing him with his forces his Throne and his Apocal. 13. 2 3. mighty Power Wherefore the Woman could no sooner get into the Wilderness but the Dragon had furnished out an Enemy against her But it is evident that equal Times beginning at one and the same Epocha are Synchronal 5. The Ten-horned Beast restored and the Mourning of the two Witnesses end together For at the end of the sixth Trumpet the Witnesses Apoc. 11. 12 14 15. ascend into Heaven and at the beginning of the seventh which is conterminous to the end of the sixth this Acclamation is from Heaven All the Kingdomes of the World are become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. Whence it is plain in some sense or other that the 42 months which is the time of the Reign of the Ten-horned Beast restored do then expire But Times that are equal and expire together are also Synchronal 6. The Mourning of the two Witnesses and the Conculcation of the Holy City or Exteriour Court by the Gentiles begin together as appears Apocalyps 11. where it is plainly implied that they commence at one and the same time I mean the Mourning of the two Witnesses and the Vers. 2 3. Object of their Sorrow the Holy City troden down by the Gentiles And besides at the end of the sixth Trumpet the Witnesses ascend into Heaven ●…d at the beginning of the seventh the Gentiles are said to be wroth by reason of the judgements of God upon them So that this Synchronism though considering the Synchronals were before found equal Vers. 18. it be needless is made fast at both ends But the Woman in the Wilderness being Synchronal to the Ten-horned Beast restored this Ten-horned Beast to the two Witnesses these two Witnesses to the Treading under foot the outward Court or Holy City it is manifest that all four are Synchronal one to another But in virtue of our Joint-Exposition it is demonstrable also that the Whore the Two-horned Beast and the Ten-horned Beast restored which is plainly the Beast that was and is not and yet is are Synchronal one to another For the Whore and the Two-horned Beast are all one Company or Condition of men by whose persuasions and directions the Pagan Empire which had been wounded to death by the pure Preaching of the Gospel was again made to Paganize and so was healed of that wholsome wound and revived again into that former Idolatrous state and became the Beast that was and is not and yet is From whence it is plain that the Authours of this Restauration

is all one Kingdom But that of Alexander's is the Third according to Grotius his own Concession Now that that of his Successours of which Line are the Lagidae and Seleucidae is one Kingdom with that of Alexander's is evident out of Daniel Ch. 8. 21. The rough Goat is the King of Graecia and the great Horn that is betwixt his eyes is the first King Now that being broken whereas Four stood up for it Four Kingdoms shall stand up out of the Nation but not in his power This is one plain proof that the Kingdom of Alexander and his Successours is all one Kingdom For he calls Alexander the first King which necessarily implies that his Successours are the second and that therefore they all belong to one and the same Kingdom Nay he says plainly that these four Horns stand up for that great one that is in his stead What is this but to succeed in place of him as the Heads of one and the same Empire For no new Beast is said to succeed this Beast but the Horns the Horn. And then the comparing of them and saying but not in his power farther intimates a cognation and succession of one Line and that he does not speak of the Heads of two different Kingdoms Which appears farther from vers 8. Therefore the Goat waxed very great and when he was strong the great Horn was broken and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of Heaven But where should these come up but on that Head that had lost this great Horn which is compensated with four lesser ones though in their kinde notable For it is very incongruous and extravagant to phansy them to come up in any other And surely if they had belonged to any other Beast that Beast would not fail to have been named Wherefore they must either grow out of this Goat's Head or no where unless out of the ground which is ridiculous And therefore it is plain that Alexander's Kingdome and that of his Successours is but one Kingdome For that Goat is but one and the same Goat under the Succession of this variety of Horns 11. And yet there is still greater evidence of this truth from Ch. 7. 6. After which I beheld and lo another like a Leopard which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl the Beast had also four Heads and Dominion was given unto it That the four Heads of this Beast are the four Successours of Alexander namely Perdicca Seleucus Ptolemaens Meleager Grotius himself does frankly confess The Wings therefore denote the four Kingdomes Alexander's Empire was divided into after his decease which is still look'd upon as one Beast notwithstanding as the Roman is with its division into Ten Kingdomes noted by ten Horns or into Oriental and Occidental figured by the two Wings of an Eagle Here Grotius if he would speak out would make Alexander the Beast as he has Domitian and others in the Apocalyps against all the Laws of Prophetick Interpretation nay indeed against all rhyme and reason For he glosses thus Pardus varium Animal sic Alexander moribus variis But how grosly incongruous it is let any one consider For then would Alexander be inferiour to his four chief Officers and they would be the Head of him which is a Political Absurdity nay the Head of him when he ceased to be which is an Absurdity Metaphysical Wherefore Alexander is the first Head or great Horn of this Beast not the Body of it that he may be superiour to his four grand Officers and not be the Beast to bear these four Horns or Heads when he has quite ceased to be on this stage of things For these were not Heads nor Horns before he was dead Alexander therefore is the first of the Succession of the Heads or Horns of this Beast not the Beast it self But to come up closer to our business I say it is very manifest from these four Heads and four Wings that this Leopard is said to have that the Third Kingdome takes into it the four first Successours of Alexander Nothing can be more plain then this from the very Text. For the Leopard is described in the third place and immediately after him the Fourth Beast is mentioned and called the Fourth v. 7. Wherefore this four-headed Leopard is plainly the Third Beast But now that the succession of these four Heads even to Antiochus Epiphanes is the succession of one and the same Kingdome is plain from Ch. 8. 22. Now that being broken namely the great Horn where as Four stood up for it Four Kingdomes shall stand up out of the Nation but not in his power And in the latter time of their Kingdome the Original has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Seventy render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the very same with our English and there is no doubt of the Translation a King of fierce countenance shall stand up Which Grotius and every one acknowledges to be Antiochus Epiphanes Whence it is evident that the whole Succession of Alexander's Captains from the first four inclusively even to Antiochus his time is one Succession and one Kingdome For he calls the times of Antiochus the last times of their Kingdome Wherefore it is plain seeing that the Kingdome of Alexander is one and the same with the Kingdome of the four Captains for that is the Third Kingdome and the Kingdome of the four Captains the same with their Succession even to Antiochus his time that the whole Succession from Alexander to Antiochus is one Succession and one Kingdome If this be not demonstratively true there is no demonstration in Mathematicks But if this be true the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae are not the Fourth Kingdome but the Kingdome of the Romans according as all sober men have hitherto held 12. Which we being so firmly assured of we shall easily know where to seek for this little Horn that is said to change times and laws For where can we finde it but amongst those many Horns in the Roman Kingdome or Empire not in the Greek to which Antiochus Epiphanes appertains And we have already plainly shewn that the Apocalyptick Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns is this Roman Kingdome and that this Beast once healed or in such a condition that it may be said of him that he is the Beast that was and is not and yet is which is when he is become Pagano-Christian is this Empire actually divided into Ten Kingdomes and that together with this Division the Empire began to relapse gradually into Idolatry by the Agency and Guidance of the Two-horned Beast or the Whore whom I have also shewed to be Synchronal to the healed Beast or the Beast that was and is not and yet is 13. But the Beast restored or healed his duration is 42 months which is 1260 daies or a Time and Times and half a Time For the abode of the Woman in the Wilderness is indifferently expressed by

fetches of wit whatsoever her abominable Enormities comprehended under those main Heads of Imposture Idolatry and Bloud-shed being as determinately and legibly set down in these Prophecies as the transaction of things past in any History And therefore the truth can be hid from none but such as either have not the leisure to understand the Prophetick style or are blinded with Prejudice and Interest Which I believe is so powerfull with some that it would make them hesitant and Sceptical even in Mathematical Demonstration But so manifest Eviction in so concerning a Truth as we have here cleared up I dare confidently pronounce will not be rooled off for ever 14. Sure I am that main Subterfuge that some so usually fortify themselves in wall fail them I mean those words in the very beginning of the Apocalyps 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From which they would infer that no Events but such as were to come to pass within a short time after the Communication of these Prophecies are to be applied to them But this Scruple I have I think sufficiently answered in my Mystery of Godliness by intimating that the Inference is as unreasonable as if one upon the report that such a Comedie or Tragedie was to be acted within less then this half-quarter of an hour should conclude that all the Acts and Scenes thereof would not reach beyond that time whenas the sense is onely that the Comedie or Tragedie will begin to be acted within that time And therefore Cornelius à Lapide upon these words Quae oportet fierei citò apertly and judiciously glosses thus Hoc est quae citò incipient fieri licèt non citò finientur And Alcazar upon the same words Quasi diceret In hac Revelatione continentur quaedam quae citò oportet fieri alia quae non adeò citò implebuntur And it is Grotius his own note upon them Alia citiùs alia seriús But forasmuch as some of these Series of Visions which reach even unto the end of all things were suddenly to be fulfilled it is said at large touching the Subject of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As I suppose one would say of an Army that reached a quarter of a mile in length that this Army is at the very gates of the City whenas onely they that march first in rank are there Again Unless 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signify which will be shortly a-doing not finished it is a perfect contradiction to the nature of some of the things that are foretold as the Reign of the Saints and the Ligation Apocal. 20. of Satan For the Continuance of these Events is predicted to be a thousand years Wherefore unless a thousand years be but a short space of time the Events foretold contradict the very Title of this Prophetick Volume were that the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is contended for Whence it is manifest that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not touching every Event signify which shall be finish'd but which shall be a-doing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thirdly For the signification of this Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how sudden how short a time must it denote who will define it For the Prophet Haggai when he saies Yet a little while and I will shake the Heaven Ch. 2. ver 6. and the Earth c. his Prediction pitches on a time about five hundred years distant from the time of the Prophecy Whence there is no necessity of seeking the completion of the Seals and Trumpets in the Destruction of Jerusalem It is therefore to be understood comparatively a little time as Grotius also interprets that of Haggai In which sense I would likewise understand that so-often-repeated saying in the Apocalyps 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold I come quickly Which I believe has an especial eye to the Sixth Seal which is described like Apoc. 6 1●… 13 14 15 16 17. the Day of Judgment but is indeed the Overthrow of the Dragon by Christ and his taking the Roman Empire into his own hands upon the Conversion of Constantine to the Christian Religion which was in a good deal less time then five hundred years and but a very little time indeed in comparison of the great atchievement which was compassed in it Fourthly The first Six Seals the Fight of Michael and the Dragon the Inward Court of the Temple all these Visions their Events I mean are finished within a less while then what Haggai calls little Fifthly The Outward Court of the Temple the Whore of Babylon the Two-horned Beast the Ten-horned Beast the two Witnesses the Virgin-Company the Woman in the Wilderness the Events also of all these Visions are in fieri within less then that time which the Prophet Haggai calls little The Trumpets also had begun to sound within that time But the Affairs of the Seven Churches might be of a far earlier Accomplishment and it may be accomplishable over and over again they being flying Prophecies and not so affixed to time and place as they seem and as the rest of the Visions are Which Grotius also has observed And this I think is sufficient to make good the Title of the Subject of these Prophecies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And no more then this is supposed or rather demonstrated in Mr. Mede's way of interpreting the Apocalyps Sixthly They themselves are fain to interpret some Prophecies of Events that fell out or are to fall out above twice five hundred years from the Prediction As the * Apocal. 20. loosing of Satan the Army of Gog and Magog the Siege of the beloved City the falling of fire from Heaven upon the Besiegers the General Judgment and the like Which are the more contradictious to their own Hypothesis because they make no such order or concatenation of Visions as Mr. Mede does And therefore it will be the harder to make them compliable with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But for the way that I am for where one thing so handsomely or necessarily hooks in another the first Thunder the seven Vials the last Trumpet the seven Thunders the last Seal the seven Trumpets and the first Six of these Trumpets their Synchronalls as the first Six of the Seals theirs the whole Volume of Visions in a manner is so of one piece and one thing follows another so continuedly that when the first Events begin to appear the whole Series may well be said to begin or to be a-doing and if quickly quickly So little Repugnancy has Mr. Mede's way with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And lastly Forasmuch as I have so plainly demonstrated that the Apocalyps was not communicated to S. John before Domitian's time and See Chap. 2. that therefore this Application of the Seals and Trumpets to the Destruction of Jerusalem is not onely harsh as any one may see in examining them but also impossible the Visions being since that Event and that therefore those Affairs cannot be of the number of those things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉

same purpose 9. That Epiphanius his Testimony makes against Grotius his main Project 10. That Epiphanius is but one single Father against the rest and that the Testimony of Irenaeus alone is far to be preferred before his 11. An unexceptionable clearing of the sense of Irenaeus his Testimony and that the very detorsion of it will not serve Grotius his turn 12. That there is not the least shadow of Probability that the Apocalyps was wrote before toward the end of Domitian's reign 13. Proofs out of the Apocalyps it self that it was not wrote before the Persecution under Domitian 14. The great consequence of the clearing this Truth it wholly subverting all Grotius his Interpretations of the Seals and Trumpets and all their Synchronals 342 CHAP. III. 1. That as Grotius has mis-timed these Visions so his Interpretations are accordingly absurd and incongruous 2. The groundlesness of his beginning the Compute of the Seven Heads at Claudius and ending it in Domitian 3. The dim-sightedness of the ancient Fathers that could not discern Domitian to be the Beast that was and is not though they stood so exceeding much nearer him then Grotius 4. The trivialness and falsity of this Conceit of his 5. The second third and fourth Absurdities of Grotius his Exposition of this Seventeenth Chapter 6. The fifth sixth seventh and eighth Absurdities 7. The ninth tenth eleventh and twelfth 8. The thirteenth fourteenth fifteenth and sixteenth Absurdities of his Exposition 350 CHAP. IV. 1. That this Mis-timing of Visions must needs cast Grotius into the like Absurdities in interpreting the Thirteenth Chapter and that his Exposition of the first verse thereof is guilty of at least nine or ten 2. Four gross Contradictions in the second 3. As many Incongruities or Weaknesses in the third 4. As also in the fourth and fifth 5. Two Absurdities in the sixth and seventh 6. As many in the eighth 7. Three Difficulties in the exposition of the tenth verse 8. Five Incongruities in the eleventh 9. His gross Interpretation of the twelfth verse 10. Four Absurdities in the thirteenth 11. Eight Incongruities or Weaknesses in his expositions on the fourteenth verse 12. Three in the fifteenth 13. Three or four more in the sixteenth and seventeenth 14. And nine more in the eighteenth verse 15. The astonishing consideration of the Absurdness of Grotius his Expositions compared with his Parts and Learning 16. An useful Illation from this weak performance of his That all the Expositions of the Romanists upon these two Chapters are superlatively frivolous and incredible 355 CHAP. V. 1. The first Consectary from our Joint-Exposition with a Demonstration of the truth thereof 2. The great usefulness of the second Consectary for the peace and security of the Church 3. The setled Notion of Long and Short 4. A Demonstration of the truth of this Consectary 5. The third fourth fifth and sixth Consectaries together with their Proofs 6. The Demonstration of the seventh Consectary with an intimation of the special usefulness thereof for the Peace of Christendom 7. The eighth Consectary with the Proof thereof 8. The ninth Consectary with a copious Demonstration of the truth thereof 9. The truth of the tenth Consectary clearing the Protestants from Schism plainly demonstrated 10. The eleventh Consectary with its Proof 11. The Proof and notable Usefulness of the twelfth Consectary 12. How clearly and plainly that part of Antichristianism which consists in Idolatry is prefigured and foretold in these Visions we have explained in our Joint-Exposition 363 CHAP. VI. 1. The Synchronism of the Whore the Two-horned Beast the restored Beast or the Beast that was and is not and yet is demonstrated out of our Joint-Exposition 2. To which the False-Prophet is also proved Synchronal the Virgin-Company the Two Witnesses the Woman in the Wilderness and the Outward Court as being either the same Antistoechal or necessarily connected all along with them 3. Again in a more abstract way That the restored Beast the Woman in the Wilderness the Outward Court the Two Witnesses are of equal time 4. That the Woman in the Wilderness and the restored Beast begin together and therefore are Synchronal 5. That the restored Beast and Two Witnesses are Synchronal as ending together 6. That the Two Witnesses and Outward Court are Synchronal as both beginning and ending together And all these four Synchronal to the Whore and Two-horned Beast because the Two-horned Beast and the Whore are Synchronal to the restored Beast to which the other three are Synchronal 7. That the Virgin-Company and the Sealed out of the twelve Tribes are all one Company and therefore both Synchronal to the Whore by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and consequently with the rest of the six with whom She is Synchronal 8. That the said Sealed Virgin-Company is Synchronal to the Series of the first six Trumpets as being sealed immediately before the blast of the first Trumpet and as being Synchronal to the Mourning of the Witnesses which ceases at the end of the sixth Trumpet 9. The six first Seals the Fight of Michael and the Dragon and the Inward Court proved Synchronal 10. That the Vision of Apoc. 11. measuring the Temple begins from the first Epocha indicated from the quality of the Person that holds in his hand the opened Book 11. From his supplying the place of the seventh Angel and the space of the seventh Trumpet with seven Thunders 12. From the suspending of the sound of the seventh Trumpet to make a Regression 13. From the newness or new condition of the Book in the Angel's hand 14. From the voice communing or talking with John from Heaven as in the beginning of the Prophecies of the Seals 15. From the bitterness of the Book in his belly From his being bid again to prophesie and that before many Kings and Peoples and Nations 16. From the Epocha of the Vision of the Apoc. 12. ensuing Chapter 17. The Synchronism of the first six Seals with the Inward Court of weighty concernment 18. The Millennial Empire of Christ the Palm-bearing Company the New Jerusalem and the Ligation of Satan that they are all in some sense Synchronal to the Seventh Trumpet 370 CHAP. VII 1. Mr. Mede's Account of placing the first six Vials within the sixth Trumpet 2. That the truth of this Account depends upon an unlikely sense of the Expiration of the Reign of the Beast as if immediately after 42 months it should entirely and universally expire 3. A caution touching the Interpreting of the Prophetick style 4. That the Expiration of the Reign of the Beast upon the Exit of the sixth Trumpet is but partial or speciminal argued from the seventh Trumpet 's being also called a Woe-Trumpet 5. As likewise from the seven Thunders 6. Two more Arguments to the same purpose 7. Lastly from the fixed Epocha's of the Middle Synchronals compared with the affairs of Europe 8. That it follows hence that all the seven Vials are naturally to take their places in the seventh Trumpet

from the proportion of the Outward Court to the Inward that it was Symmetral till about that time Which approvable Ages of the Church were the Pattern of our English Reformation Besides that as I have already intimated the said Reformation is an eminent Speciminal completion of the Prophecy of the Resurrection of the Witnesses So that the Rectitute thereof is ratified as well from those Visions that prefigure the Recovery of the Church as from those that signify her primaevall Purity Nor can those Perstrictions of the less perfect condition of things which I elsewhere have noted touching the Reformed Churches be rightly conceived to concern our English Church both because it had disappeared in a manner when I penned that Treatise as also because of her special immunity from those Imputations as may appear from my Vindication of her at the end of this present Discourse And as for the whole Protestant Reformation I must freely and ingenuously confess I had something a lesser value for it then it does deserve being born down by the authority of our best Interpreters into a belief that we were not yet past the Sixth Trumpet much less had advanced any thing in the Seventh According to which supposition some things have passed my Pen in the Mystery of Godliness which I here take the opportunity of recalling judging it with Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Etbic Nicom lib. 1. cap. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which duty is more indispensable in Theologie Though here I must confess I do not so much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mistake being not originally mine but others Which yet I the more easily swallowed down by reason of my Computing the Woman's abode in the Wilderness and the mournfull condition of the Witnesses by Days and not by Semi-Times as the Three days and Half did indigitate By the former of which Computes the Woman could not be come out of the Wilderness nor the Witnesses be rose from the dead till about this time But reckoning by Semi-times the Protestant Reformation will very easily and naturally be a Speciminall Completion of the Prophecy of their Resurrection it plainly happening in the last Half-Day or Semi-Time according to prediction Nor does the Prophecy require any greater accuracy of Compute then so Which I confess is a great ease to my mind in the Apprehension of things For examining the Frame of our Church and finding it such as I have represented it in the two last Chapters of this Book it was so near to what according to my best Judgment I could desire and had hinted at in some passages of my Mystery of Godliness that methought it fared so with me in this matter as it did once with a musing companion of mine and myself in a short Journey we took together when we asked the way to a certain Town we were to go to even then when we had already unawares got into the midst of it The Reddition is very easy and obvious But nothing then puzzled me but my compute by Days as I said instead of Semi-times which hindred me from rightly applying so illustrious an Event to the Prediction But correcting that errour as also a false surmize that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies the full expiration of the time to which it is prefixed the Application of the Prophecy proved very easy to me nor do I at all doubt but that it is a Prediction of the Protestant Reformation in Christendom in general Of which notwithstanding this of the Church of England seems the most noble Specimen and the Resurrection of the Witnesses and their Ascension more high more full more orderly and more answerable to the Vision here then any where else that I know 17. And as if Providence had a more special eye to this Church A peculiar Attestation to the Church of England in the Completion of the Prophecy of the Resurrection of the Witnesses above the rest of the Reformed Churches and to the Platform of the Reformation thereof then to any other as it indeed seems to me to exceed all the rest in several main Respects as in her moderation in the Cinq-Points her perfect freeness from all manner of superstitious and imposturous Opinions and Usages her declaredness concerning things indifferent and apert profession of them to be such and her Loyal Obsequiousness to the Sovereign Power with others of the like nature which at least joyntly considered make her condition peculiar so she seems to me also to have a more full and peculiar privilege in her being witnessed to from above then any of the rest have For beside her Resurrection in the East Reformation which fell within the last Semi-time and is common to her with the rest she has had of late after she was suppressed and in a manner extinct for so many years together another most glorious and unexpected Resuscitation to life our Zerobabel and Jesuah that is to say that Regal and Episcopal Power of England which were the first Founders and Establishers and are now the present Restorers and Upholders of so well a constituted Church being so happily and providentially restored again to the Nation What is this but another Resurrection from the dead to the slain Witnesses and a second Testimonie from Heaven to the Sacredness and Inviolableness of our English Reformation and that beyond all cavil and exception it falling out not within the last Semi-Time at large as the former did but just at the expiration thereof or if you will of the 1260 Days For taking a fit Epocha for the matter in hand which concerns the purely Christian and Antichristian Periods of the Church and I think there can be none more fit then that year wherein so many were converted to the faith at Antioch insomuch that the Church was then first called Christian which was the fourtieth year from the Nativity of Christ if we adde to these fourty years 360 the time of the Churche's continuing Symmetral and 1260 the time of the mournfull Prophecy of the Witnesses or of their Political Death the very last year of the whole summe is the year 1660 Which therefore must be the last year of the Witnesses sad and calamitous condition And lo to the admiration of the whole world in the very self-same year is the restoring of our English Protestant Regal and Episcopal Power our Moses and Aaron do not onely stand upon their feet but ascend into Heaven in a cloud the whole world looking up and wondring at them Can there be a more fit fulfilling of the Prophecy of the Resurrection of the Witnesses then this or a more ample Testimonie to the Excellency of our English Reformation such as I have decyphered at the end of this Book then this completion of the Prophecy or lastly a more urgent obligation from Divine Providence upon these so miraculouslyrevived Witnesses for the perfecting of Faith and Holiness Whom God seems on purpose after his

Figurations one individual Beast signifies a Multitude of men ordered together into the Body of a Kingdom 5. But as the great Horn of the He-goat is said to be the first King so the four Horns undoubtedly signified four succeeding Kings in this divided Kingdom in their several series so that four Successions of Individuals so far as they would last were represented under the show of four single Individuals namely those four Horns And truly when it is apparent that one Individual Beast represents the succession of a Multitude for many Ages together who are mortal as well as single men coagmentated into the body of one Kingdom it were a very nice and humorsome thing to stick at the succession of single Persons being represented under the show of one Head or Horn. 6. And that one and the same Beast stands for a Kingdom or Empire from its rise to its fall is plain both in Daniel and the Apocalyps For the Four Beasts are said to rise out of the great Sea Dan. 7. and the destruction of the Fourth is set down in the same Chapter who is supposed to tread down the Third as the Third is after declared to vanquish the Second in the following Chapters And in the Apocalyps the Rise of the Beasts there is set down as also their destruction in the Lake of fire and brimstone Whence it is evident that one Individual Beast represents not onely a Multitude of men under one Government but the Succession of this multitude for many Ages even till it cease to be such a Multitude and consequently the successive Sovereignty of this multitude must be thus far represented be it in one or many by the Head or Horns of such Beasts unless we can phansy a Polity without an Head which would not be a Polity but Anarchy 7. Nor are Irrational Creatures onely made Henopoetick Types of a Multitude collected into one Government but also Rational As it is evident in the Woman in the Wilderness which it were ridiculous to understand of some one single Woman and not of the Body of the Church whose true and living Head is Christ Jesus The Woman also in Esdras signifies Sion or the people of God and it may be the Man there coming out of the Sea has some such sense For why may not one Man signifie a People or Multitude as well as one Woman And it is plain that the people of Israel is called the Son of God Israel my son my first-born And therefore the * 2 Thess. 〈◊〉 Son of perdition and that Man of sin need not signifie one single man or a succession of single men but a Body Politick under one Head of mischievous contrivances By the like Henopoeia also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the false Prophet signifies not one single Person or the succession of such single persons but a Collection or Body of Deceivers combining together under one Government These things are so easie and so obvious that I am afraid I shall seem to have insisted over-long upon them 8. I will onely note a second kind of Henopoeia which is also of useful consideration and that is when things of different natures are comprised under one Type We have a very warrantable Instance of this way of interpreting Prophecie Apoc. 17. where the Angel does declare that not onely Seven Kings but Seven Hills are couched under the Symbol of the Seven Heads of the Beast According to this Analogie it may not be unsafe to interpret Babylon both of the City of Rome and of the Hierarchy the Two Witnesses of the Old and New Testament of them under the Legal and Evangelical dispensation and of Magistracy and Ministery the Horns of the two-horned Beast of the two Imperial Patriarchates of the two Horns of the Bishop's Mitre and of the two-fold power of Binding and Loosing Which second kind of Henopoeia need not seem new nor strange the ancient Pythagoreans and Cabbalists concealing and crowding together under the Symbol of one single Number many and multifarious Notions 9. Zoopoeia is the typifying out some inanimate thing by what has life be it Person or any other living Creature or part of that Creature In which sense the Seven Hills being signifi'd by the Seven Heads of the Beast is a Zoopoeia As also it would be if we understood * Rev. 11. the Two Witnesses of the Two Books of the Old and New Testament and the * Rev. 19. Word of God riding the white Horse of the whole Bible But I shall in its due place intimate that these are but collateral senses and reducible to one more primary one by an Henopoeia The making of * Rev. 6. 〈◊〉 Hell to lacquay by him that rides the pale Horse seems a more absolute Zoopoeia as also that Gen. 4. The voice of thy Brother's Bloud crieth unto me from the ground where the actions of life are given to the bloud of a dead man 10. But we will here take notice also of a second kind of Zoopoeia which may seem less harsh and most elegant and that is when free Actions are attributed to free Agents of which notwithstanding they may be no more the causes then if they were inanimate Beings or not in being at all According to this Figure is that of Virgil in the mouth of Aenea slaying Turnus Pallas te hoc vulnere Pallas Immolat poenas scelerato ex sanguine sumit Pallas being dead is said to slay Turnus though he did nothing here towards the slaying of him but what he suffered onely gave occasion to Aeneas to take revenge According to which Figure of speech a more large Allusion or Parable might be raised As if Aeneas instead of slaying one single man had sacked a City put man woman and child to the sword burnt their houses and left them as an heap of stones in revenge of the death of Pallas he might say of his friend now dead that it was he that inflamed the courage of the Souldiers to scale the Walls that it was he that gave out that just though severe Edict of slaying man woman and child that it was he that burnt down their houses and laid their City level with the ground and lastly that it was he whom they deservedly found a more mischievous enemy to them after his death then while he was living Certainly this Figure of speech would be very intelligible and withall bear along with it an extraordinary height of Rhetorick and Elegancy According to this Scheme is that example in Scripture of * Revel 6. 9. the Souls crying under the Altar O Lord how long c. Which is nothing but a Parable signifying that their death required Vengeance from the Justice of God Eae animae saith Grotius corpore solutae multò magis quàm sanguis mortem toleratam testantur For he had said before Sanguis Abelis vindictam poscit sic animae martyrum Wherefore there is acknowledged a Zoopoeia in both cases

of the Beast or these Makers of the Image of the Beast as such began with the Beast And they are I mean this Beast and the Pseudo-prophet who is typified by the Whore and the Two-horned Beast both of them at once taken and cast alive into the lake of fire burning with Brimstone Apocalyps 19. 20. Wherefore this Ten-horned Beast restored being as was above proved Synchronal to the Woman in the Wilderness to the two Witnesses and to the Treading under foot the Holy City or Outward Court it is manifest that the Whore of Babylon also and the Two-horned Beast are Synchronal to them they being all Synchronal to the Ten-horned Beast restored And that in summe the Woman in the Wilderness the Ten-horned Beast restored which is the same with the Beast that was and is not and yet is or the Image of the Beast the Holy City or Outward Court troden under foot by the Gentiles the Mourning Witnesses the Two-horned Beast the Whore of Babylon that all these six are Synchronal one to another 7. Of the Synchronism of the Virgin-Company with the Whore and consequently with the other five of these six see Mr. Mede It is not a thing that can be stuck upon by reason of the necessary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the great congruity that Christ should have his marked Souldiers which are the Regiments of the Lamb on Mount Sion as soon and as long as there were such as bore the Mark of the Beast which is supposed all along his reign seeing the receiving this Mark is nothing but an open profession of what party one is or at least an appropriation to that party Of those true Members and marked or sealed Souldiers of Christ there is mention in the Seventh and Fourteenth Chapters of the Apocalyps in both which places the Number is the same namely 144 Chiliads or Regiments and they are said to be sealed or marked upon the fore-head Affliction and Patience and at last a joyful Victory over their Enemies is the fate of them both They are both an Apostolick Company and abhorring from Idolatry in that they are called Virgins in the fourteenth Chapter and in that there is such caution in the ranging of the twelve Tribes in the seventh that they have the precedence that are most notorious for their zeal against Idolatry and Dan and Ephraim quite excluded the number for their special obnoxiousness in that crime as you may see more at large in Mr. Mede For that these twelve Tribes are understood of Christians and not of Jews no man will doubt that considers how full of Israelisms the Apocalyps is every-where insomuch as that false Christians are called counterfeit Jews Revel 2. 9. I know the blasphemie of them that say they are Jews and are not but are the Synagogue of Satan It is manifest therefore that the 144 thousand sealed Servants of God in the seventh Chapter and the 144 thousand in the fourteenth Chapter are the same Apostolick or Virgin-Company Which is of marvellous great use to take notice of forasmuch as it will hence be evident that the six first Trumpets are Synchronal to our first six Synchronals they being all Synchronal to these 144 thousand sealed Souldiers or Virgin-Regiments of Christ. 8. That our first six Synchronals are Synchronal to these 144 Regiments has been already proved in that they and five of the six synchronize with the Whore That the Series of the first six Trumpets is Synchronal to them is thus demonstrated For they begin with the first Trumpet and continue to the end of the sixth That they begin with the first Trumpet appears from Chap. 7. For after the effect of the sixth Seal whenas the Procedure should have been to the seventh which is the Seal of the Trumpets there is a suspension awhile till these 144 thousand be sealed and so fore-armed against the evils of the Trumpets but they being once sealed the seventh Seal is opened and the seven Angels appear with their Trumpets c. That the 144 Regiments in their condition of warfare and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to their opposites that war under the mark of the Beast terminate at the expiring of the sixth Trumpet is plain in that the mournful condition of the Witnesses which synchronizes with this warfaring condition of the Virgin-Company ends at the ending of the sixth Trumpet Chap. 11. 14. The second Woe is past that is to say the sixth Trumpet is past which is spoken immediately upon the ascending up of the Witnesses to Heaven and the great Commotion of things that befell at the same hour Wherefore the 144 Virgin-Regiments that were sealed at the beginning of the first Trumpet terminate as to their conflicting condition at the end of the sixth And thus you see that according as it is in Mr. Mede's Scheme of Synchronisms the Company of the 144 thousand out of the twelve Tribes of Israel sealed with the Seal of God in their fore-head is as it were the communis Terminus of all those Synchronals on this side and that side thereof as namely of the Series of the six first Trumpets on one side and then of our six first Synchronals on the other namely the Ten-horned Beast restored the Whore the Two-horned Beast the two mournful Witnesses the treading under foot the outward Court or Holy City and the Woman in the Wilderness 9. So that we have a safe and fast grasp of the whole succession of things in these Prophetick Visions having laid hold on this middle part so strongly that they cannot wriggle from us but it will be easie for us to discover the necessary order of the rest For the six first Seals must needs go before the seventh and the Battel betwixt Michael and the Dragon before the Wounding or slaying of the Beast and the Restoring of him Whence it will follow partly from the Nature of the things and partly from their Order that they are Synchronal I mean the Series of the first six Seals and the Battel of Michael with the Dragon And that the Inward Court of the Temple wh●…h the Angel found Symmetral or Commensurable to his Reed is also Synchronal to the six first Seals may appear from hence in that the Symbol is so significative of the condition of those times For in that bloudy war of the Dragon the Saints of God willingly sacrificed their own lives for his cause which is most fitly set out by the Altar of Holocausts placed in the Inward Court of the Temple and answers very plainly and palpably to the Vision of the fifth Seal where the Souls of the slain are said to cry for vengeance from under the Altar Apoc. 6. 9. 10. But besides this Chap. 11. the Visions begin again from the first Epocha of time that the Seals do whence the Inward Court must be exquisitely Synchronal to the first six Seals being the Outward Court began with the seventh Now that there begins a new Series of Prophecies from the

Victory and restrained Reign of Christ to some Nations or Kingdoms which being a pledge of future successes that Acclamation was in Heaven The Kingdoms of this world are become the Kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ. Of which this Song of the Harpers may be the truest Comment All Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy judgments are made manifest Not that they are come already but will assuredly fall under his subjection Here is the first espial of the * Vers. 5. Temple of the Tabernacle in Heaven whither also the Witnesses did ascend 10. But after this is the effusion of the seven Vials as is plain out of the order of things in the Text whether you take notice of those Middle Synchronals which are set out by the time of their continuance as * Apoc. 13. 5. that of the restored Beast to which is added presently the * Chap. 14. Virgin-Company as running in a parallel opposition thereto after which this Song of Moses follows as a Thanksgiving for those first Victories over the Beast or consider the Temple opened in Heaven which in order follows after this Song and out of which the Angels come that have the seven Vials For from both it is intimated that the Vials run all up into the seventh Trumpet Which is farther still to be confirmed from Chap. 11. where the Temple of God is also opened in Heaven and the Ark of the Covenant mentioned as here and a compendious Symbolical Periphrasis of wrath and vengeance so that it is hugely reasonable to conceive they mean the same thing But that appearance Chap. 11. of the Temple and Ark is after the seventh Trumpet began to sound Therefore the seven Vials are within the blast of the seventh Trumpet 11. In short and yet to reach to the bottom of this present business it is of exceeding great moment to take notice that the seven Middle Synchronals of the Prophecies of the opened Book have their fulfilling either quoad speciem or quoad gradus as to the kind or as to the degrees in the same kind one degree being sufficient for the fulfilling of the Prophecies quoad speciem and that one of these Synchronals cannot be fulfilled quoad speciem or quoad gradus but ipso facto they are all fulfilled they being so intimately united one with another As for example Suppose that but in one State or Kingdom in Christendom the Church has become purely Apostolical in Doctrine and Discipline in Life and Conversation it follows from hence that quoad speciem the Reign of the Beast is expired that is that there is one Specimen or Instance of this specifick Event namely of such an Expiration of the Rule of the Beast as brings along with it the Resurrection of the Witnesses and the Succession of the Kingdom of Christ in the place Which if it fall out at or towards the expiration of the 42 months and from a fit Epocha the Prophecie is truly fulfilled in all circumstances quoad speciem in this first Example but may proceed farther and farther afterwards in Degrees or Latitude But the thing that I contend for is this That this first way of fulfilling is onely aimed at in these Middle Synchronals of the Prophecies of the opened Book and that the Degrees are reserved for the Vials in the last Trumpet 12. And what I instanced in the Reign of the Beast must be true of all the rest That their fulfilling that contemporizes with the first six Trumpets and terminates upon the first blast of the seventh is a fulfilling onely quoad speciem or quoad esse not quoad gradus which are reserved for the seventh Trumpet And my reason is Because all these seven Synchronals are so nearly united or signifie so much one and the same that they must necessarily advance or be retarded together As for example We cannot conceive the Whore of Babylon burnt in any one Kingdom that is the Clergy to cease to be Idolatrous and Antichristian and to become purely Apostolick in Doctrine and Discipline but we may be sure that the Civil Magistrate ceases there to be Antichristian too and that the Ten-horned Beast in this place has finished his fourty two months the Two-horned Beast also vanishes as being one and the same with the Whore the Witnesses break off their mournful Prophecie as having here nothing to complain of the Outward Court is in this part cleansed of the Pollution of the Gentiles that trod it under foot the Woman is here no longer hid in the Wilderness amongst brutish Idolaters but appears as a glorious City upon an Hill to attract the eyes of the Nations unto it and lastly the Marked or Sealed Virgin-Regiments lose their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place and instead of fighting Souldiers become a College of peaceful Priests clothed in white and are before the Throne of God and serve him day and night in his Temple Thus jointly will these Middle Synchronals ever be fulfilled be it more or less whether barely quoad speciem or repeatedly quoad gradus the first fulfilling conterminating with the Entrance of the seventh Trumpet the other advancing in it to the effusion of the last Vial. 13. And what is worthy our observation those last Synchronals we have above noted namely The Millennial Reign of Christ The Palm-bearing Company The new Jerusalem and The binding of Satan do commence in such a way and proportion as these Middle Synchronals expire But that special and most eminent Epocha of the Ligation of Satan as also of the Millennial Empire I conceive commenceth not till after the seventh Vial and the * Apoc. 20. 3. Devil 's being let loose again for a little time is to be placed somewhat before the voice of the seventh Thunder wherewith the whole Earth is to be set on fire and Death and Hell to be all of a flame thereby But the intermediate space is the Millennium eminently so styled 14. This I believe is the truest and safest apprehension we can have of the Series of things in the Apocalyptick Visions Which having thus competently cleared I shall with the greater satisfaction to my self and to others I hope proceed to the producing such passages out of this Prophetick Volume as predict the several kinds of Lapses of the Church into Antichristianism for we now know whereabout to seek for them namely among the Middle Synchronals of either Prophecie which reach from about the four hundredth year after Christ to these very Ages CHAP. VIII 1. That there are Three more Middle Synchronals that foretel the Churche's Lapse into Idolatry As the Vision of the Outward Court troden down by the Gentiles 2. The Woman in the Wilderness What meant by Wilderness 3. A brief account of the sense of the whole Vision 4. That there is an Hypallage in her being said to flie into the Desart like that of Hades being cast into the Fire and of the Kingdom being given to the

Saints in Daniel 5. That our Interpretation of the Woman in the Wilderness does not clash with Mr. Mede's though different from it 6. The third synchronal the Virgin-Companie The meaning of the Number of their Regiments and of the new Song which none could learn besides them 7. How the Vision of these Virgin-souldiers implies the Lapse of the Church into Idolatry 1. BEsides those notable and leading Prophecies of the Idolatry of the Church in the Thirteenth and Seventeenth Chapters of the Revelation there are farther Intimations of the same Lapse in other places Indeed no less then six of the seven Middle Synchronals of the Prophecies of the opened Book are Predictions of this Idolatrous state of the Church Three of which we have done withall namely the Whore of Babylon the Two-horned Beast and the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns The first of those three behind is the Outward Court or Holy City troden under foot by the Gentiles for the space of 42 months Which Apoc. 11. Outward Court or Holy City that it is to be understood of those that make a visible profession of Christianity in the world appears from the evidence of the Synchronisms that of the Temple or Inward Court reaching from the beginning of the Church to the time of its Lapse into such a Condition as was not commensurable to the Reed of the Angel and therefore rejected The Court that is without the Temple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cast it out so the words signify But the Outward Court belongs to the Inward and the Jews having been cast off long before it is plain from hence that all this is understood of Christendom Nor is it any more wonder that the Jewish Temple or Courts thereof should typify the Christian Church then that their Tribes did Chap. 7. For this is but an usual Israelism Wherefore Christendom being the Scene of these Transactions and it being presently after added concerning this Outward Court that it is given to the Gentiles and that they shall tread under foot the Holy City fourty two months which Holy City and Outward Court is in a ma●…ner the same thing the very Camp of Israel being the Outward Court in the Wilderness and this Outward Court the Receptacle of the People of Israel at their solemn times of worship when the Temple was built as Mr. Mede has well observed it is evident Christendom was to be over-run with Gentilism that is with Paganism the life and soul whereof is Idolatry so long a time forasmuch as the Holy City or Outward Court is supposed here in being that is to say a people that do profess Christianity and are externally dedicated to God but in the interim are over-grown with an Heathenish kind of Superstition and Idolatry And in that this Outward Court is said to be given to the Gentiles that is answerable to what is wrote in Ch. 17. For God has put it into their hearts Ver. 17. to fulfill his will and to agree and give their Kingdom unto the Beast untill the words of God shall be fulfilled So fatal as I may so speak does this Apostasy of the Church seem to be and so little reason have those great Politicians of Italy to sacrifice to their own Nets as I have above noted and impute all to their own wit when they have apparently hitherto rowed with the stream But the times are coming wherein they will find the course of things turned and their Resistence of a due Reformation a fighting against God Which is worth their observing that they may take up in due time 2. The next of those latter Synchronalls is The Woman in the Wilderness namely That Woman that * Apocal. 12. 1. wears upon her head a Crown of twelve Starrs whose glory it is to be that pure and Apostolick Church uncontaminated with after-Superstitions and Idolatries that Woman that is said * Vers. 2. to travail in birth and was pained to be delivered and after long throes and pangs that is to say sharp persecutions at last * Vers. 5. brought forth a Male-childe that should rule the Nations This Woman not changing place herself is notwithstanding said * Vers. 14. to have the wings of an Eagle given her whereby she fled into the Wilderness there to be secured from the persecution of the old red Dragon which is the bloudy Pagan Powers of the Roman Empire as yet unconverted to Christianity And indeed by being thus escaped though but into a Wilderness she was sheltred from them But in that she is said to be in a Wilderness it is an intimation that she is hid and blended amongst them that under the outward profession of Christianity did again Paganize in their Superstitious and Idolatrous Worship as you may understand out of the acknowledged meaning of Wilderness in the Prophetick-Alphabet For that Men not a mere Solitude of Trees and Beasts is understood by Wilderness is plain also out of that in the Evangelist The voice of one crying in the wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths straight Which he spoke not to Beasts Matt. 3. 3. and Trees but to Men whom these resemble when they are wholly taken up in the functions and delights of the mere Vegetal and Animal nature of which Superstition and Idolatry is one part as I have above intimated 3. The sense therefore of this Prophecy is this That the pure and Apostolick Church though sheltered therewithall for a time from the red Dragon was over-run with a kind of Christiano-Paganism from one side to the other from the East wing to the West wing of the Eagle or Roman Empire which because it had its Eastern and Western Caesars is figured with two wings and that with greater facility then the Leopard in * Chap. 7. 6. Daniel with four which signified the quadripartition of the Greek Empire into four parts This therefore intimates the Greek Church as well as the Latine to be culpable in this matter of Idolatrous worship correspondently to what I have said of the two Horns of the Beast that they intimate the two Imperial Patriarchates that of Rome and the other of Constantinople the two chief Summities of the Idolatrizing Clergie This I doubt not but is the meaning of the Woman in the Wilderness though it seems something hard that she is said to fly into this Desert this Desert rather coming upon or over-running her in the thing signified 4. But it is an Hypallage of which this is no solitary Example but like that of casting Hades into the lake of fire and brimstone whenas that fire is rather cast into Hades at the Conflagration of the world by Thunder and Lightening 2 Figure even needlesly affected for Elegancy sake by Poets Brutium ponto feriente Corum Such an Hypallage as this I suspect also to be in Daniel ch 7. where he speaks of the Kingdoms under the whole Heaven being given to the Saints of the most High

The meaning whereof may be nothing else but that they that are possessed of these Kingdoms may turn Saints that is Professours and Abettours of the pure and Apostolick Religion unsophisticated with the Idolatrous Inventions and Injunctions of Antichrist But however it were desirable that those that are over-ready to phansy themselves Saints if this Hypallage does not please them that at least they would imitate the modesty of the Expression of the Text and would not take Kingdoms before they be given them 5. Mr. Mede interprets this Vision of the Woman in the Wilderness in something a different sense from us paralleling the Israelites flight from Pharaoh into the Wilderness to the Woman's flight from the red Dragon and their liberty of serving Jehovah there after the Rites appointed by Moses to the liberty the Christians had to exercize their Religion their lapses also into Idolatry to the Idolatrous Apostasy of the Church of Christ in this condition and finally their 42 Journeys in the Wilderness mentioned Numb 33. to the 42 months the Woman is said to be in the Desert Which if they had been expresly set down in those termes and not onely equivalently in 1260 dayes or a time and times and half a time it had been the more pat and convincing But however his Interpretation is very plausible and handsome and may be one sense of the Type though not the onely sense For it is the property of these Prophetick Types to abound with Allusions But the state of the Church in the Wilderness being the same with that of her bondage in Aegypt as appears from Apocal. 11. in that respect I account that Interpretation I have given more passable or rather more Authentick Ver. 8. But I see no need that they should one exclude another the Reign of the Dragon being truly the Reign of Pharaoh over these new Israelites saving that this of the Dragon was more bloudy and the state of the Wilderness in which the Woman is hid being not onely a Revival of that bondage of Aegypt again but the restoring again also of the Dragon as Idolatrous in fabricating so lively an Image of him in this new Pagano-Christianism which the Apocalyptick Visions do so copiously predict 6. The third and last of these latter Synchronalls of the Book-Prophecy is the * Apocal. 14. 1. Virgin-Company the sealed Souldiers of the Lamb upon Mount Sion whose Description is admirable and mysterious For in that they are said to be 144 Chiliads or Regiments it is not the defining of their number but their nature or quality according to the use of the ancient Cabbala that describes the property of things by Numbers The Root therefore of 144 which is twelve plainly detects them to be the true disciples and successours of that Church that Christ founded in his twelve Apostles and that they had not adulterated the Christian Religion by any Idolatrous worship or unwarrantable Institutes of men but that they were faithfull to him whose name they bore on their fore-heads as the marked servants of God and of the Lamb and being bought with the price of his most precious bloud would not become the servants of men in any thing that was to the dishonour or disinterest of him that bought them That * Vers. 3. new Song also that the Harpers play upon their Harps before the Throne which none can learn but those 144 thousand what is it but the Joy of a pure Conscience before God and all his Holy ones and that ineffable pleasure of the Divine Spirit dwelling in them which none can be partakers of but the Sons of the new Birth who are redeemed from the Earth and set free in mind and affection from all the entanglements of this present World who have a simple and sincere heart and in whose mouth there is no guile but are upright and irreprehensible before the Throne of God Which is so transporting a condition and so unexpressible I mean this Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the holy Ghost that it is no wonder that it is said that none but those 144 thousand know what belongs to this Melody * Prov. 14. 10. The heart knoweth its own bitterness and a stranger does not intermeddle with its joy But this is an Excursion not so close to our present purpose 7. That which we are chiefly to observe is this That this Virgin-Company is a Synchronall that runs along in parallel Opposition to those that receive the Mark of the Beast and are professed Idolaters as this Expression of their Virginity in the sense of the Prophetick style plainly implies according to which These are they that have not defiled Apocal. 14. 4. themselves with women may fitly be understood Nor do they onely abstain from Idolatry themselves but also exhort others to make choice of a due Object of their Adoration to worship Him that made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and the Fountains of waters They denounce judgment Ver. 7 8 9. also against Babylon saying Babylon is fallen is fallen that great City because she made all Nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her Fornications And lastly a third Angel out of the same Company denounces most direfull and ever-durable torments to those that worship the Beast and his Image that is to say that submit themselves to that revived and enjoyned Idolatry which I have already so fully described Which commination I would have them seriously to consider that think it so indifferent a thing to be Papist or Protestant as if such Tragicall Menaces as these were mere Scare-crows and idle Mockeries CHAP. IX 1. Three more Prophecies predicting the Churche's Lapse into Idolatry As the Vision of the sixth Trumpet which is proved to respect the Roman Empire long after it became Christian. 2. That in this Vision the Greek and Latine Church are both apparently taxed of Idolatry and with Aggravations common to Pagans and them 3. That it appears from the same Vision of what great consequence it would be for Christendom to reform from this gross sin and that they are their best friends that plainly and freely rebuke them for it and for those other crimes reflected upon in this Vision 4. The Prophecy of Paul to Timothy proposed and the first part thereof expounded out of Epiphanius touching the Inspirers of this predicted Errour 5. As also that part that contains the Errour it self namely the worship of Daemons From whence it is plain the Prophecy concerns this notorious Lapse of the Church into Idolatry 6. As also from the Instruments of the Broaching this Errour 7. And from the mentioning of the Mystery of Godliness immediately before to which this Mystery of Iniquity is opposed 8. And lastly from the Times of the Lapse which are termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9. Which is proved to be a proper Term of the Prophetick style denoting that Time and Times and half a Time which is the latter section of the continuance of

are such as these Apoc. 8. The third part of the Trees was burnt up The third part of the Ships was destroyed The third part of the Sea became bloud and ch 12. The third part of the Sun was smitten and the third part of the Moon c. where Third does not signify the proportion of that which was smitten to that which did escape but the Empire at large which was smitten is indigitated by this Number Which has a smack of the Cabbalistick Genius who use Numbers for the Symbols of things as I have already noted So the Tenth part of the City is not the Tenth of the City that then was but of a City whose extent bore but the proportion of a Tenth part to what it had been as Mr. Mede has carefully computed To this head you may also refer that Apoc. 18. Double unto her double according to her works and Fill unto her double Which is so definitively spoken as if she should be repay'd with as much more as she had injured others but the sense is onely that she should be pay'd home for all her injurious dealings 10. Examples of Specifical Diorisms are such as usual Synecdoches are that put the Species for the Genus which being a more determinate Object strikes the Phancy stronglier and with fuller gratification Thus is the Imagination more loudly alarm'd by being informed that such a Thing or Person shall be burnt or consumed with fire then if it were only said they should perish or be consumed and not specify the manner So to make warre is more determinate and specifick then to oppose and to be beheaded then simply to die or be killed and to be slain more specifick then to be destroyed and lastly King is a more specifick term and more fully strikes upon the phancy then Supreme Magistrate or whatever other appellation that is more general and consequently more dilute Which Examples of this third kind of Diorismus occurre up and down in the Apocalyps and indeed every where in the Prophets CHAP. III. 1. Hylasmus what it is with the kinds thereof 2. Eximious Examples of each kind 3. What the first and chiefest kind of Henopoeia 4. That one single Beast signifies a Body Politick demonstrated out of Daniel 5. That a Succession of Individuals is represented by one Individual 6. That one individual Beast represents a Kingdom or Body Politick from its rise to its fall 7. That one single Man or Woman does also represent a Body Politick in the Prophetick style 8. The second kind of Henopoeia what it is 9. What Zoopoeia with examples thereof 10. A second kind of Zoopoeia proved and illustrated from Examples 1. HYlasmus is a Prophetick Scheme bearing strongly upon the Phancy by exhibiting crass and palpable Objects such as in Logick would bear the Notion of Subject or Matter The first kind is coincident with Metonymia Subjecti as when a City is put for the Inhabitants or a Temple for them that worship therein Examples of this kind are frequent every where To the second kind I would refer such Representations as are from Buildings Pavements and the like which are compact of crass and palpable Materials but are Mystical or Spiritual Symbols of quite another thing Examples of this kind are the Inward and Outward Court of the Temple the one Symmetral the other Asymmetral which signifies the Christian Church one while in her Purity another while in her Apostasie to Idols So the Holy City troden down by the Gentiles signifies the Christian Church over-run with Gentilism So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this case is an Emblem of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Body Politick as Temple may be of the living Church of Christ. 2. An eximious Example of this kind of Hylasmus is the Description of Jerusalem Apoc. 21. with its high wall and twelve gates and by a Prophetick Diorism the measure of the City is concluded twelve thousand furlongs and the wall an hundred fourty four cubits and the Materials are Gold and Pearls and precious Stone And yet this City so Hylastically set out has a most Spiritual meaning and signifies nothing else but the Church of Christ reduced again to Apostolical Purity But the most notable Instance of a Prophetick Hylasmus is the Description of the Temple by Ezekiel to which I cannot say but this of S. John alludes in several passages And that it is an Hylasmus and not a literal Description I think any one will easily grant that does but peruse the 47 Chapter Lastly The destruction of the City Babylon in the Apocalyps is also a remarkable Example of this Scheme but though in the general it appertain to this second kind of Hylasmus yet things are there set out very much by the former kind which is a Metonymia Subjecti not continentis as before but occupantis the Objects of their Spiritual Negotiations being so crassly discovered and described 3. The next Prophetick Scheme is Henopoeia and the most graceful but withall as much obscuring as any And the first and chiefest kind thereof is this The collection of a multitude of Individuals into the show of one Individual as also of a Succession of Individuals or Multitudes into the show of one standing Individual This is an ancient method of delivering Mysteries as any one will discern if he throughly perpend the nature and truth of the ancient Cabbala Which that both Daniel and S. John I may adde S. Paul too have imitated in their Prophecies I think is easily to be evinced 4. Touching the collection of a Multitude into the show or representation of one Individual it is plain in Daniel for one individual Lion there denotes the whole Kingdom of the Babylonians one Bear the Kingdom Dan. 7. of the Medo-Persians one Leopard the Kingdom of the Greeks and the fourth Beast the Roman Kingdom It is true it is said The four Beasts are four Kings but the vulgar Latin has it four Kingdoms as also Theodotion and the Text says expresly that the fourth Beast is the fourth Kingdom upon earth So the Ram and the Goat in the eighth Chapter according to Grotius his own Interpretation out of the Hebrew Idiom though they be said to be Kings are Kingdoms And whereas it is written And the rough Goat is the King of Graecia and the great Horn that is betwixt his eyes is the first King unless this Goat either signifie a Succession of Kings or a Kingdom it is not sense yea though Succession yet it will be very harsh sense to make the great Horn the first King and the Body the rest Wherefore unless we would distort things beyond all measure the Body of the Goat must signifie the Kingdom of Graecia as the Horns the Supreme Power consonantly to what Grotius has written and I doubt not but his Interpretation is true And I think that scarce any one can be so weak but upon the reading of Daniel he will be assured that in Prophetick

continuance also under a disguise putting Days for Tears For their living may be shorten'd by several accidents but to tell of a Beast or a Woman or of two Witnesses that should live 1260 years would not keep the Decorum of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but would look like an incredible Narration 12. As it would also that the dead bodies of the two Witnesses should lie unburied in the open streets of the City for three years and an half whenas they would stink in the space of four days as is noted in the body of Lazarus How harsh then had it been to have represented the bodies of the Witnesses lying dead in the streets for 1260 years together Wherefore though their lying thus slain and unburied was the fittest and the most lively Representation of that condition that those that are represented under the figure of the two Witnesses were to be in for 1260 years together yet that the laws of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Story might be observed it was requisite that these 1260 years should be disguised under the Symbol of three days and an half Which signifying the same that three times and an half for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are promiscuously used the one for the other and these three times and an half signifying 1260 years both the truth which the Prophecy aims at is faithfully conveyed and that decorous embellishment in the external Cortex of the Prophecy punctually observed And that not onely by contracting the time but also by annexing it to the end of the 1260 days by a Lemmatosynechia which is in Latine as much as Corticis Continuatio And that this Prophetick Figure which I call Antichronismus is not a mere Supposition of mine but a solid Truth I have already made good in my Mystery of Godliness and shall further demonstrate even with Mathematical Certitude out of my Joint Exposition of the 17 and 13 Chapters of the Apocalyps 13. Icasmus is a Prophetick Scheme that bears by far the greatest part in all the Visions of Daniel and S. John and is nothing else but the Representation of things and events by such Symbols as bear some similitude with the things and events they stand for Which Symbols being many make the skill of interpreting Prophecy the more difficult but not at all desperate as some delicate Wits would phansy to themselves and pretend an horrour and affrightment at the uncouth mention of such variouslyshaped Beasts and at the clatter of their Horns whenas if they would be pleased to lay aside their niceness they might understand that these Hieroglyphicks of Prophecy might with far more ease be made familiar to them then the knowledge of Heraldry or Blazonry which is no such profound and unconquerable study CHAP. V. 1. The great Usefulness of an Alphabet of Prophetick Iconisms 2. What the best way of attaining to the right sense of them 3. What weight the Onirocriticks of the Ancients may cast in toward the determining their meaning 4. That there is the same reason of the Signification and Interpretation of Dreams as there is of Visions provided they be merely Typical and not Complexional 5. Angels Their Ministery in all affairs of Providence a noted Supposition in the ancient Cabbala and in the Apocalyps 6. Ascension into Heaven 7. Air the special Region of Devils 8. Balances 9. Beast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idolatrous Kingdoms 10. The reason of the Lamb 's signifying one single Person and of wild Beasts noting Idolatry as well as Cruelty 11. Blasphemy That it signifies Idolatry made out both upon the account of Reason use of Scripture and Authority of Interpreters 12. Bloud 13. Bow and Arrows Buildings Burial 1. WE have shewn wherein the Obscurity of Prophecy does mainly consist and by the explication of the foregoing Figures have already done something toward the making of the skill of Interpreting easy to us But there being so many and so various Examples of the last Scheme we hold it needfull to bring the most considerable of them into one Alphabet and to set down the signification of them Which being taken notice of will much conduce to the easy spelling out the true meaning of all Aenigmatical Prophecies in Scripture For what * In his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cap. 2. Aristotle says of Aenigmatical Dreams is true also of these kind of Visions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he is the most artificial Interpreter of Dreams that is best at discerning Similitudes and Resemblances but for such Dreams as exhibit to the Phancy the things themselves every one can judge of them Now the Visions of Daniel and Apocalyps are not of the nature of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 representing things under Symbols or Similitudes And therefore to have a settled and determinate meaning and that upon solid and rational grounds of such Symbols and Iconisms must needs contribute much to the inabling us with ease and success to interpret these Prophecies or to make us understand and approve or with judgment disapprove of the Interpretations of other men 2. And for my own part I know no solider method of settling and securing to our selves the true sense of these Symbols then by attending what the Scripture it self declares of them and by strictly observing what Reason will unforcedly suggest or spy out concerning their significancy and representativeness of things To which if we adde the Suffrages of them that have wrote of Onirocriticks whether most-what out of their own reason and observation as Artemidorus professes or which is more to our purpose have made a Collection of the most ancient Writings of that kind such as Achmetes the son of Seirim has provided us it cannot but strengthen our assurance of the meaning of such Iconisms 3. And these of Achmetes more especially they being the Onirocriticks of three famous Interpreters of the Kings of India Persia and Aegypt and therefore being so ancient and so Eastern the more probable to have a greater cognation with the Prophetick Schemes of the Holy Writ The first of these is Syrbacham Interpreter to the King of India but he does Christianize so frequently and so palpably that his Antiquity may be much suspected and necessarily concluded since the coming of Christ. The second is Baram Interpreter to Saanisan King of Persia and the last Tarphan Interpreter to Pharao King of Aegypt The use of whose Interpretations is approved even by Expositors of quite different ways Grotius I mean and Mr. Mede who has the honour of first breaking the ice in this business 4. Nor is there any scruple for that these are the Interpretations of Dreams and not of Visions For besides that there is a great affinity betwixt Visions and Dreams they being both Phantasms impressed on the Imagination not by any free act or excitation of our selves but in a way merely passive the external Senses also being in a manner

style represents under the figure of Animals or single Persons whether by the simple Appellation of Man or Woman or else such Conditions of man or woman as Whore Wife Witness or the like Now what Life and Spirit is to a natural Animal that is Rule and Power to figurative Persons or Animals in the Prophetick sense which are Bodies Politick And therefore as the loss of the one is the death of the one so the loss of the other is the death of the other And because there is a Spirit in all things even in those things that are inanimate the fading or vanishing of that spirit may be said analogically to be the Death of those things Instances are innumerable I will onely adde that as in the Hebrew Idiom not to be is to be dead so in analogie any thing that is not what it was namely any thing that is changed from its former condition this change thereof may goe for a kind of Death as Death is ordinarily said to be a Change 6. Desart That by Desart is meant Paganism Alcazar pronounces with great confidence speaking of the Woman in the wilderness In qua locutione notandum est per Desertum proculdubio figurari Gentilitatem For which opinion he produces a cloud of witnesses Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Ambrosius Basilius Hieronymus Gregorius Hilarius Hesychius c. The reason of which Hieroglyphick I conceive is this The Idolatry of the Pagans was much in Woods and Groves and on the tops of Mountains and wast places and the names of their Daemons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have reference to the fields and desarts Besides that Idolaters do not emerge above the pitch of the mere Animal life and their worship and devotion is little higher then that of the Elephant or Cercopithecus The Rapacity also and bloudy Cruelty of the Pagan Kingdoms farther fill out the congruity of the Type And consequently where such a condition of things is as this does typify that is to say whatever Kingdoms or Empires do paganize they do ipso facto become a Wilderness or Desart 7. Dragon The Hebrew word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and signifies Draco or Serpens and also Cetus as being the great Serpent or Dragon of the Sea And accordingly the Seventy render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it is a Figure of the Devil the ancient Cabbala of Moses may assure us and it may be though one be noted chiefly yet the Serpent there may have a Prophetick Henopoeia in it and signify the whole Principality of Satan that Kingdom of Darkness which has been ever in opposition against the Kingdom of God and therefore it is no wonder that those Kingdoms that have in such a special manner afflicted the Church have been represented under this Figure as Aegypt and the Roman Empire Awake awake put on strength O arme of the Lord awake as in the Esay 51. ancient days in the generations of old Art no●… thou he that hath cut Rahab that is Aegypt see Forerius and wounded the Dragon which is Pharaoh as Ezekiel plainly speaks out I am against thee Pharaoh King of Aegypt the great Dragon that lieth in the midst of the Chap. 29. Rivers And for that he lies thus in the Rivers he is called Leviathan as if he were a Water-serpent or a Whale Psalm 74. Thou brakest the heads of Leviathan in pieces and gavest him to be meat to thy people in the Wilderness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heads of the Leviathan as if this Leviathan as the Dragon in the Apocalyps had more Heads then one These considerations plainly intimate to us That the Seven-headed Serpent in the Apocalyps which is the Roman State or Kingdom is so represented not onely in regard of that old Serpentine form that tempted our first Parents but has a reflexion also upon that Tyrannical Kingdom of Aegypt which is typified under the image of a Dragon and Leviathan and that not only Rome Pagan has a share in this Type but Rome Pagano-Christian For all the Seven Heads are from the Body of the Dragon and the Beast that was and is not and yet is is as well the Dragon as not the Dragon and therefore is as well Aegypt and I wish I could not say more as the Church of God or the Kingdom of his Son Jesus 8. Drunkenness It is taken sometimes for the being so filled and intoxicated with the pleasures and affluences of this world as to be regardless and senseless of the things of God Esay 29. Stay your selves and wonder cry ye out and cry They are drunken but not with wine they stagger but not with strong drink For the Lord has poured upon you the spirit of deep sleep and hath closed your eyes the prophets and the rulers the seers hath he covered Such a remiss Stupor and Drunkenness does the prosperity of this world often cast men into Achmetes from the Indian Interpretations cap. 111. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any one dream he is drunk with wine riches and power will flow in to him proportionably to his dunkenness And he affirms the like in the following Chapter according to the sense of the Aegyptians and Persians There is also a Drunkenness from the Cup of Affliction which is often intimated in the Scriptures 9. Eagle Esay 40. 31. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings as Eagles they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not be faint And Exod. 19. 4. Ye had seen what I did to the Aegyptians and how I bare you on Eagles wings and brought you unto my self Artemidor lib. 2. c. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For poor men to dream they ride upon an Eagle it is good for it signifies they will be supported and well relieved by the rich Earth-quake So we usually turn the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but it signifies also more generally any shaking or concussion as Heb. 12. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the Author says this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the removing of those things that are shaken Hagg. 2. 21. Speak to Zerubbabel Governour of Judah saying I will shake the Heavens and the Earth and I will overthrow the Thrones of Kingdoms and I will destroy the strength of the Kingdoms of the Heathen This is a plain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The like ruine and overturning of things is set out but by what is the effect of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Earth-quake properly so called Jer. 4. 24. I beheld the Mountains and lo they trembled and all the Hills moved lightly Which verse 26 he interprets as Haggai before I beheld and lo the fruitful place was a Wilderness and all the Cities thereof were broken down c. Achmetes out of the Indian Persian and Aegyptian Onirocriticks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Artemidor lib. 2. c. 46. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉

as it will defile them who joyn with them in publick worship But there is yet another sense of Woman not Political but more Physical and Cabbalistical and that is The life sense and relish of this Body This is a Woman that we must have a special care of being polluted by through over-passionately closing with any of her suggestions or over-deeply sympathizing with or resenting of those pleasures she would allure us by and so desix our desire upon her For not Idolatry onely but all other Enormities arise in us from the listening to the false counsel of this domestick Eve 14. Worship That Worship or Adoration may be an Iconism of Subjection is plain from the nature of the Ceremonie it self the bowing of the Body being a fit Symbol of submitting the Mind and Will to his power to whom we doe this homage And that it does signifie thus in the Hebrew Idiom is manifest from several Instances But the very Symbol it self is explained Gen. 37. where the Sheafs of Joseph's brethren are said to make obeisance to Joseph's Sheaf that is to worship Joseph's Sheaf 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Your Sheafs worshipped my Sheaf Whereupon his Brethren presently interpreting the Dream say unto him Shalt thou indeed reign over us or Shalt thou indeed have dominion over us that is to say Shall we be your Subjects or fall under your Dominion So Esa. 45. 14. speaking of the subjection of the Aethiopians and Sabeans to King Cyrus They shall come after thee saith he in chains they shall come over and they shall fall down unto thee The Greek has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They shall worship thee All which signifie submission and subjection to his Sovereignty I will onely adde one place more Gen. 27. the blessing of Isaac upon Jacob Let people serve thee and Nations bow down to thee be lord over thy brethren let thy mother's sons bow down to thee The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in both places and signifies obedience or subjection at large as is manifest But suppose it had not that general signification of it self but only denoted that part of the duty of subjection which is Worship or Incurvation it might notwithstanding signifie thus largely Stylo Prophetico by a Diorismus World See Heaven and Earth 15. These be the chief Icastick terms that occur in the Prophetick style which if they haply prove more in number then we shall have use for in this Discourse yet I account my pains not improper in reference to what I have had occasion to treat of in my Mystery of Godliness besides their desireable usefulness at large for understanding the chief Visions and Prophecies in Scripture And I hope I have made it appear partly by this Alphabet of Iconisms and partly by my Explication of those preceding Prophetick Schemes That it is as easie a thing to render a Prophecy or Vision out of this Prophetick style into ordinary language as it is to interpret one language by another and That the difficulty of understanding Prophecies is in a manner no greater when once a man has taken notice of the settled meaning of the peculiar Icas●…s therein then if they had been penn'd down in the vulgar speech in which there are as frequent Homonymies of words as here there are of Iconisms and That therefore it need be no reproach to any one that he endeavours to understand the Prophecies of Scripture more then the Histories thereof Prophecy being nothing else but an Anticipatory History and when once fulfilled as plain an History as that which was never prophesied of 16. We will onely annex a few Rules concerning the Preference of one Interpretation of Prophecy before another and then conclude The first Rule That Interpretation that keeps close to the approved Examples and Analogie of the Prophetick style is to be preferred before such as are framed at pleasure according to the private phancy of the Interpreter The ground of this Rule is this That besides that it is safer to follow an approved Example then to be destitute thereof and wholly lean upon a mans private sense the very style of the Prophets being as it were a peculiar language or dialect there is a necessity of understanding things according to the meaning of their dialect or language and not according to what it would sound in our own Which is as fond and ridiculous as if an English-man in hearing of Latin spoken where the word Fur is occasionally brought in should think the Furre of an Alderman's Gown were meant or at the sounding of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek should let his fancy presently fall into the dripping-pan And yet as absonous and incongruous is it to interpret the Iconisms of the Prophets according to what conceits are either vulgar or peculiar to our selves As if because Vices and Vertues are painted out in the figure of Women or Beasts we should therefore apply that meaning to the Prophetick style whenas they always signifie a Body Politick even in that very Scheme where abstract Inscriptions are upon them as Zech. 5. 7. where the Woman in the Epha is said to be Wickedness By which Woman notwithstanding Vatablus understands the Ten Tribes revolted to Idolatry and other Interpreters expound it to the same purpose And so to interpret Hail of hardness of heart is like the interpreting of Latin or Greek by what they sound nearest in English This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle speaks and quite to forget where we are or what we are about The second Rule That Interpretation that keeps one tenour of sense of the same words in one and the same Vision especially is to be preferred before that which varies backward and forward and takes the same word in as many different senses as it occurs in different places of the Vision To be in many tales is accounted an infallible sign of a false story and to vary the Interpretation of the same word in one and the same Vision without any account or reason is as great a demonstration of fraud and forcedness in the Interpretation and that the Interpreter was biassed by some design or interest and that he has done violence to the Text for his own advantage As for example If one should interpret that Iconism of a Beast one while to signifie a Kingdom or Empire another while some single Person of that Empire and then again some grand Vice thereof were not this a mere botch in comparison of interpreting this Beast of such a Kingdom or Body Politick in every place of the Vision I might instance in other such like shufflings but this one intimation shall suffice The third Rule That Interpretation that does concern the affairs of Religion and the Church of God and is of the greatest use and serviceableness to us is a more likely Interpretation and to be preferred before that which less respects us but seems to make the Spirit of God to have predicted things with little or

yet is Agreement VI. Both the Beasts are said to rise out of the Sea Agreement VII They are both ordained to destruction as not being that Kingdome of the Saints that is to last for ever and ever Agreement VIII Of both these restored Beasts it is said that they whose Names are not written in the Book of Life shall worship them and wonder after them Agreement IX The Seven Heads in each Beast are Idolatrous Heads Agreement X. The Beasts are slain or exterminated out of Being in the Sixth Head restored or revived in the Seventh Agreement XI The ten Horns in neither Beast did actually reign in S. John's time Agreement XII The ten Horns in each Beast begin their reign with the Beast Agreement XIII The ten Horns in each Beast give their strength to the Beast Agreement XIV The Beasts in each Vision make warre with the Saints Agreement XV. The Saints in each Vision overcome the Beast at last Agreement XVI The Faith and Constancy of the Saints is exercised by both the Beasts Agreement XVII The time of each Beast is said to be determined by God and to be predicted by his holy Prophets Agreement XVIII The Seat of this Seven-headed Beast is not set down but left free in either Vision though the Seat of the Whore and the Two-horned Beast be determined which has an admirable correspondence with the Event 5. These be the two Parallelisms of Agreements concerning the latter whereof I dare affirm that it is so exact and adequate that the Parallels betwixt the Seven-headed Beast in the Thirteenth Chapter and the Seven-headed Beast in the Seventeenth exhaust all in each Chapter concerning that Beast The former Parallelism is not so accurate the Original of the Two-horned Beast being parallel to nothing in the Whore and the Destruction of the Whore parallel to nothing in the Two-horned Beast as he is there described Wherefore there is that peculiar in the Vision of the 17. Chapter that it treats also of the judgement of the two-horned Beast or the Whore according to the very title of the Vision I will shew thee the judgement of the great Whore But this is no argument at all against the Identity of their persons especially the Two-horned Beast being also to be destroyed and at the same time with the Whore as it is easie to be made out by the Apocalyptick Synchronisms And as for the omission of the Original of the Whore to parallel the Original of the Two-horned Beast that is no argument against their Identity neither Indeed if there had been an Original assigned to the Whore different from that of the Two-horned Beast it had been something but this bare omission signifies nothing but the art and accuracy of the very out-side of these Visions which keep a Decorum in all things And therefore because it was not so seemly nor sutable to say a Woman rose out of the Earth though Brutes did so Gen. 1. 24. the mention of her Original was fairly declined 6. But whenas a lesser number of Agreements in each Parallelism provided there were nothing contrary could not but have been a strong presumption of the Identity of the Subjects of the Visions in each Chapter I mean That the Two-horned Beast and the Whore are one and the Seven-headed Beast in each Chapter the same how fully assured must we needs be of these Identities the Agreements of these two Parallelisms those passages onely excepted of which I have given so fair an account perfectly exhausting the whole substance of each Chapter Which that it may be more plainly discerned I shall expose to your eies the whole XVII Chapter and to every Verse in order subjoin what is parallel to it in the XIII For we shall see it will imbibe the whole Chapter Apoc. Chap. 17. 1. And there came one of the seven Angels which had the seven Vials and talked with me saying unto me Come hither I will shew unto thee the judgement of the great Whore that sitteth upon many Waters Chap. 13. Most of this first verse of this Seventeenth Chapter of the Apocalyps is but Introductory to the Vision no part of the Vision it self and therefore there needs no Parallel to it in this Thirteenth Chapter But how the Whore's being placed upon many waters may seem to comply with one of our Parallels I shall note in its due place when I come to give a Joint-Exposition of these two Chapters Chap. 17. 2. With whom the Kings of the Earth have committed a fornication and the Inhabitants of the Earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication Chap. 13. 11. And he spake as a a Parallelism 1. Agreement 1. Dragon 12. And causeth the Earth and them that dwell therein to worship the a first Beast whose deadly wound was healed 14. Saying to them that dwell on the Earth that they should make an a Image to the Beast who had the wound by the sword and did live Chap. 17. 3. So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness and I saw a Woman * sit upon a a scarlet-coloured beast full of names of b blasphemie having c seven heads and ten horns Chap. 13. 15. * Par. 1. Agr. 2. And he had power to give life to the Image of the Beast that the Image of the Beast should speak 2. And the Beast that I saw was like unto a a Paral. 2. Agr. 2. Leopard and his feet were as the feet of a Bear and his mouth as the mouth of a Lion 5. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and b Paral. 2. Agr. 2. Blasphemies 6. And he opened his mouth in b blasphemy against God to blaspheme his Name and his Tabernacle and them that dwell in Heaven 1. And I saw a Beast having c Parall 2. Agr. 1. seven heads and ten horns Chap. 17. 4. And the Woman was arraied in a purple and scarlet and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls having a golden b cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication Chap. 13. 12. And he exercizeth a Par. 1. Agr. 3. all the power of the first Beast before him 13. And he doth great b Par. 1. Agr. 4. wonders so that he maketh fire to come down from Heaven on the Earth in the sight of men 14. And deceiveth them that dwell on the Earth by those b miracles which he had power to doe in the sight of the Beast Chap. 17. 5. And upon her forehead was a name written a Mystery Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth Chap. 13. 11. And I beheld another Beast coming out of the Earth and he had two horns like a a Par. 1. Agr. 5. Lamb and he spake like a Dragon Chap. 17. 6. And I saw the Woman drunken with the a bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus and when I saw her I wondred

with great admiration Chap. 13. 15. And he had power to give life to the Image of the Beast that the Image of the Beast should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship the Image of the Beast should be a Par. 1. Agr. 6. killed Chap. 17. 7. And the Angel said unto me Wherefore didst thou marvell I will tell thee the Mystery of the Woman and of the Beast that a carrieth her which hath the b seven heads and ten horns Chap. 13. 11. And I beheld another Beast coming up out of the Earth and he had a Par. 〈◊〉 Agr. 7. two horns 1. And I saw a Beast having b Par. 2 Agr. 1. seven heads and ten horns Chap. 17. 8. The Beast which thou sawest a was and is not and shall ascend out of the b bottomless pit and goe into c perdition and they that dwell on the Earth shall d wonder whose names were not written in the Book of life from the foundation of the world when they behold the Beast that e was and is not and yet is Chap. 13. 2. And the a Par. 2. Agr. 3. Dragon gave him his power and his seat and great authority 4. And they worshipped the a Dragon that gave power to the Beast c. See also verse 3. 1. And I stood upon the sand of the Sea and I saw a Beast b Par. 2. Agr. 6. rise up out of the Sea 10. He that leadeth into c Par. 2. Agr. 7. captivity must go into captivity he that killeth with the sword must be c killed with the sword 3. And all the world d Par. 2. Agr. 8. wondred after the Beast 8. And all that dwell upon the Earth shall worship him whose names are not d written in the Book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world 3. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to a Par. 2. Agr. 3. death and his deadly wound was a healed 14. Saying to them that dwell on the Earth that they should make an c Par. 2. Agr. 5. Image to the Beast which had the wound by the sword and the Beast revived 15. And he had power to give life to the c Image of the Beast insomuch that the Image of the Beast should speak Chap. 17. 9. And here is the mind that hath wisedom The seven Heads are the a seven Mountains on which the Woman sitteth Chap. 13. 11. And I beheld another Beast coming up out of the Earth and he had a Par. 1. Agr. 8. two horns like a Lamb but spake as a Dragon Chap. 17. 10. And they are seven Kings five are fallen and one is and the a Par. 2. Agr. 10. other is not yet come and when he cometh he must continue a b Par. 2. Agr. 4. short space Chap. 13. 1. Having a seven heads and upon his heads the name of a blasphemy 3. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death and his deadly wound was b healed Chap. 17. 11. And the Beast that was and is not even he is the eighth and is of the a Par. 2. Agr. 9. seven and goeth into b Par. 2. Agr. 7. perdition Chap. 13. 1. Having seven heads and upon his heads the name of a blasphemy 10. He that killeth with the sword must be b killed with the sword Chap. 17. 12. And the ten Horns which thou sawest are ten Kings which have received a no kingdom as yet but receive power as kings a one hour with the Beast Chap. 13. 1. Having seven heads and ten horns and upon his horns ten a Par. 2. Agr. 11 12. crowns Chap. 17. 13. These have one mind and shall a give their strength and power to the Beast Chap. 13. 1. I saw a Beast rising out of the Sea a Par. 2. Agr. 13. having ten horns Chap. 17. 14. These shall make a war with the Lamb and the Lamb shall b overcome them for he is Lord of lords and King of kings and they that are with him are c called and chosen and faithfull Chap. 13. 4. Who is like to the Beast who is able to make a Par. 2. Agr. 14. war with him 7. And it was given him to make a War with the Saints and to overcome them 16. And he causeth all both small and great rich and poor free and bond to receive a mark in their right hand or on their foreheads 17. And that no man may a buy or sell save he that has the mark or the name of the Beast or the number of his name 10. He that leadeth into captivity shall b Par. 2. Agr. 15. go into captivity he that killeth with the sword shall be b killed with the sword Here is the patience and c Par. 2. Agr. 16. faith of the Saints Chap. 17. 15. And he saith unto me The waters which thou sawest where the Whore sitteth are a peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues Chap. 13. 7. And power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations 12. And I beheld another Beast come out of the Earth and he had a Par. 1. Agr. 7. two horns like a Lamb and he exercizeth a all the power of the first Beast before him Chap. 17. 16. And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the Beast these shall hate the Whore and shall make her desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire Chap. 13. There is nothing in this Thirteenth Chapter answering to the 16. verse of the other but that verse answers punctually to the main Title of the Vision which is The judgment of the great Whore But that this defect is no prejudice to the certainty of our Parallelism I have already noted Chap. 17. 17. For God has put in their hearts to fulfill his will and to agree and give their Kingdom unto the Beast untill the a words of God shall be fulfilled Chap. 13. 5. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies and power was given unto him to continue a Par. 2. Agr. 17. forty and two months Chap. 17. 18. And the Woman which thou sawest is that great City which a Par. 1. Agr. 9. reigneth over the Kings of the Earth Chap. 13. 18. Here is Wisedom let him that hath understanding count the Number of the Beast for it is the number of a man and his number is a six hundred threescore and six 7. Thus you see the Two Visions of the Thirteenth Chapter wholy imbibed into the Vision of the Seventeenth excepting the Original of the Two-horned Beast of which I have given an account already And that it is naturally drunk in not dash'd in by force will appear from that joint-Exposition which I shall make of these two Chapters together interpreting those verses or parts of verses of the Thirteenth which I have subnected to each verse of the

sense corrupting Christianity with the illicite Doctrines and practices of Idolatry For how can Rome Pagan that past under the first Six Heads sit upon the Beast that was and is not and yet is that is to say upon that Beast that had no existence before pure Christianity had become the Religion of the Empire but was afterwards to succeed that State as a sad Corruption thereof under the Seventh Head Rome Pagan therefore sate upon the Beast under the succession of the Six first Heads onely At which onely time it could rightly be said of the Beast and simply That he is But the incorrupted Christianity being once made the Religion of the Empire at that time it might rightly be said That the Beast was but is not but that he was again to ascend out of the Abyss and then after a certain considerable duration of time utterly to perish But during the time of that corrupted Condition when Christian Religion became Paganish and Idolatrous it might rightly be said of the Empire then That it is the Beast that was and is not and yet is But the Whore is said to ride this very Beast Wherefore it is not ancient Rome but the Pagano-Christian Harlot or the Roman Hierarchy which is the Whore that rides the Beast in this Vision 15. Nor can the Vision be understood of Paganism grosly so termed that should again over-run the Roman Empire a little before the End of the World under a Chimaerical Antichrist then to appear as some are willing to phansy for a shuffle but is to be interpreted of an Antichristianism that has already seized it forasmuch as it is said that the truly Christian Caesars shall continue but * Revel 17. a short time Which implies that the Antichristian State will continue a long time in comparison thereof Wherefore if this Antichristian State is not come but all is well and that Pagano-Christian Idolatry has not entred from the reign of Constantine to this very day the Reign of Antichrist will be at least three or four thousand years long Which is so monstrous a consequence and so point-blank contrary to Scripture that the Position must be necessarily false that infers it 16. Wherefore we may safely conclude That the main Subject of the Vision in this 17 th Chapter of the Apocalyps as also of that in the 13 th which is in a manner the very same with this is the State of the Roman Empire corrupted and degenerated from the true and pure Christianity into a Paganish and Idolatrous condition by reason of the false direction and guidance of those of the Roman Hierarchy that took upon them to rule the Empire in matters of Religion But withall That this Idolatrous condition both in the Hierarchy and Empire after a certain Period of time shall be changed and true Christianity overflow all again and Idolatry never again revive This is the Summary Account of these Visions We will now fall upon the Exposition of every Particular of each Chapter whereby this general Account may be still more convincingly demonstrated CHAP. XII 1. The Scope and Order of his Joint-Exposition Ver. I. What is meant by Whore 2. What by her Greatness 3. That she is not Rome Heathen but Rome Pseudo-christian Ver. II. Who the Kings of the Earth and what their Drunkenness 2. The first Agreement of the first Parallelism made good Ver. III. That the Two-horned Beast and the Whore's being in the wilderness might have made one of the Agreements of the first Parallelism 2. The second Agreement of the first Parallelism 3. What meant by the scarlet colour of the Beast 4. The second Agreement of the second Parallelism 5. The first Agreement of the second Ver. IV. The Woman 's purple and scarlet and precious stones and pearls what they signify 2. And how plainly the third Agreement of the first Parallelism is evinced 3. What is meant by the Cup of abominations in the hand of the Whore 4. That it is a Philtrous Cup with an inference therefrom of the truth of the fourth Agreement of the first Parallelism 5. The chief charm used in the mingling of this Philtre 6. Fire from Heaven Excommunication 7. Other Miracles for the promoting Idolatry 8. What the golden Cup signifies in respect of the Metall Ver. V. The names of Whores inscribed on their forcheads 2. That the whole sentence is the Whore's Name and how ridiculous it is to understand by Mystery a mere Synecdoche 3. The Interpretation of these parts of her name Mystery and Babylon 4. As also of Babylon the Great the Mother of Fornications 5. A demonstration of the fifth Agreement of the first Parallelism 6. The different Rise of the Two-horned Beast from Others 1. IN this Joint-Exposition though I shall not be wanting in other Particulars my main drift shall be to note out and confirm the Agreements of the two Parallelisms I have above delineated And for brevity sake without any farther Analyse I shall guide my Exposition by the Order of the Verses of the Seventeenth Chapter passing from verse to verse and comparing those out of the Thirteenth which I have subjoined with what is comprized in each Verse of the Seventeenth accordingly as I have above intimated Ver. I. The Judgment of the Great Whore that sitteth upon many waters The Judgment or Condemnation of the Great Whore the Punishment to which she is sentenced is a special part of this Vision and therefore bears the Title of the whole I need not here insist upon what I have so fully instructed my Reader in in my Doctrine of the Prophetick Schemes How in the Prophetick style a Body Politick or a Multitude of Persons and their Succession is represented under one Individual shew or shape whether Belluine or Humane which Scheme we called Henopoeia And Ch. 3. Sect. 7. therefore he will easily understand that the Whore is no single or particular Woman but a Type of a Body Politick which being called a Whore implies their Idolatrousness as I have abundantly made good in the Explication of that Icasme in my Prophetick Alphabet Ch. 9. Sect. 9. 2. And that she is said to be that Great Whore it may either signify the height of her Whoredom or the extent of her Jurisdiction the latter whereof is agreeable to her being placed upon many waters The Greek has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems to be demonstrative and emphaticall pointing at the whole Roman Empire For that is those many waters indeed a great Sea or Ocean in the Prophetick style Whence I conceive the Great Whore to be the Roman Hierarchy in a larger sense understanding thereby the whole Body of the Idolatrous Clergy throughout the Roman Empire though I do not doubt but that this imputation will more notoriously concern one part then another more the Roman then the Greek Church and then especially when the Bishop of Rome had once got the Title of Universal

a Decreer of Idolatrous practices and a publisher of Doctrines of Adulterate Worship Whence the fifth Agreement of our first Parallelism is manifest both the Whore and the Two-horned Beast being found Introducers of Idolatry under pretence of promoting Christianity 6. That was the meaning of the Lamb-like Horns and Dragon's speech of the Two-horned Beast But concerning his rising up out of the Earth which is peculiar to him other Beasts being described both in Daniel and the Apocalyps to rise out of the Sea the Winds also bustling against one another on the surface thereof in those four Beasts in Daniel this discovereth this Beast to be quite of another kind getting up not by War nor by power of the Sword as the Potentates of the world doe but in a more still and concealed way and from a meaner condition Cui origo privata Apoc. 13. 11. non publica saith Grotius and he addes further Mos est Hebraeorum vocare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 populum terrae And Molinaeus also upon the Text Sic Latini homines novos ex sordibus provectos ad nobilitatem opes vocant Terrae filios ipsáque Scriptura dicit Deum attollere humilem expulvere Which how true it is of the Whore and the Two-horned Beast every one knows CHAP. XIII V●…r VI. What is meant by the Martyrs of Jesus 2. The sixth Agreement of the first Parallelism Ver. VII That the Woman is not Rome Heathen demonstrable from the Beast that carries her 2. That she rides the whole Empire 3. That the Two Horns of the Beast are the Two Imperial Patriarchates but by an Henopoeia may glance also at the Power of Binding and Loosing and at the Horns of the Episcopal Mitre 4. The seventh Agreement of the first Parallelism 5. The first Agreement of the second Ver. VIII What is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. That the end of the Vision of the Beast in this Chapter is to represent the Empire in that Succession wherein it is Pagano-Christian 3. That the prolixity of the Title hinders not but that it may be called the Name of the Beast 4. The meaning of the Name 5. That the Angel having considered the whole Successions of the Roman Kingdom or Empire fixed his mind on that time the Empire was purely Christian and why And that is thence appears what succession of the Beast's time is understood 6. As likewise from his name a little varied into Was is not and yet is Whence the fifth Agreement of the second Parallelism is also evinced 7 8. How the Angel came to give the Beast these Names And that there is an Ellipsis in the Angel's saying The Beast which thou sawest was and is not c. 9. That the Name Was and is not and shall ascend c. signifies the successive Order in being not the actual being or not being of the Beast with a confirmation thereof out of Alcazar 10. A plain Eviction from the Name Was is not and yet is that Was and is and is not do not signifie actual Existence or Non-existence but order of Existence and Similitude 11. That Is not and yet is would neither be good sense nor any elegancy unless the Laws of a right Contradiction were closely touched on in this mysterious Assertion 12. And yet that an absolute Sameness in either Essence or Qualification could not be under this affirmation and negation without falsity Whence Similitude is necessarily intimated thereby 13. That the certainty of the meaning of this Title Was is not and yet is confirms the sense of the former and demonstrates a latitant Ellipsis in the Application of these Names of the Beast which is farther argued from other considerations 14. Why he interprets the Re-existence or Image of the Beast of the Empire 's becoming Idolatrous again rather then of the Revival of its ancient Polity in the Pontifical Power 15. The third Agreement of the second Parallelism 16. The sixth Agreement 17. The seventh 18. The eighth Agreement 19. The third Agreement again noted with a Confirmation therefrom of the above-mentioned Ellipsis 20. That near Resemblance stands for Identity in common elegancy of speech Whence The Beast that was is not and yet is and the Image of the Beast is again evinced to be all one and the fifth Agreement of our second Parallelism thereby farther confirmed Ver. VI. ANd I saw the Woman drunk with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus that is to say with the bloud of the Saints which were the Martyrs of Jesus Which were not Martyrs for the Doctrine of this or that seducing Spirit or false Teacher who might besot them with a foolish confidence and hardy resolution of laying down their life to witness to a Lie cunningly contriv'd for the Interest Advantage of the Inventours of it No these were the close followers of the Lamb Jesus Christ and trode in his footsteps onely and in the footsteps of them that faithfully followed him I mean the Apostles according to their own direction Be ye followers of me as I am of Christ. And him they did follow through prosperity and adversity through good report and 1 Cor. 11. 1. evil report through life and death it self 2. Whose Death is imputed here to the Whore because she by her counsel and animation stirs up the Seven-headed Beast to this Murther and Bloud-shed Accordingly as it is said of the Two-horned Beast that he gave life and animation to this revived Beast and made this breathing Image speak and cause as many as would not worship that is obey and submit to the commands of the Image of the Beast even in those things wherein it was the slain Beast's Image viz. in Idolatry that they should be killed Which is plainly the sixth Agreement of our first Parallelism Ver. VII I will tell thee the mystery of the Woman and of the Beast that carrieth her Which Mystery of the Woman he unlocks by unfolding first the order and succession of the Beast that carrieth her for that is a demonstration that it is not meant of Rome Pagan as I have clearly proved in the eleventh Chapter of this Book and consequently that the meaning of this Mystery of the Whore's Title which displays her nature is such as I have declared upon the Fifth verse in the fore-going Chapter 2. Here we shall onely note that her riding of the Beast implies her to be such a Polity as had the Governance of the whole Empire was not confined to one part thereof As he that rides an Horse is not conceived to ride one part of him and leave the other unridden but to ride the whole So the Whore rides the whole Beast that is the whole Empire as well Oriental as Occidental Which agrees with the description of the Two-horned Beast whom I conceive to be so depainted in the Vision because of the two Imperial Patriarchates the one at Rome the other at

they changed the Ten Horns into Seven Heads and made the Horns of Antichrist to grow before the Heads So pitifully are they put to it in their prevaricatory Expositions of the Oracles of God And not content to adorn this great Potentate with that one single Miracle of raising the slain from the dead they also allow him a power of literally bringing down fire from Heaven and of making his own Statue to speak His Royal Palace they place in Judaea and derive his Pedigree from the Tribe of Dan and make his Throne the very Temple of God at Jerusalem and proclaim him the expected Messias of the Jews to whom they are all to gather themselves He must besiege Rome and burn it and call to himself the Nations from all the Quarters of the Earth to conspire the utter Extirpation of the Christian Name from under the Cope of Heaven and as it seems notwithstanding all the vigilancy of the Pope and his whole Conclave of Cardinals and their active Emissaries and all the Forces of Christendom will in a manner wholly effect it and all this which is the Miracle of Miracles within the space of three years and an half Nay which is still more miraculous This quadrimular Antichrist shall not onely over-run Christendom but subdue the Grand Signior over-run the Persian make the Tartarian Cham submit to him in the North and extort Homage from the remotest Kingdoms of Africa Which is such a piece of Prophetick Fabulosity as no man would ever vent in the most Romantick History So incredible therefore is this Exposition of Ribera in this regard also concerning the Seven Heads of the Beast 15. Sixthly and lastly To that Beast onely to whom the Seven Hills belong some way or other can the Seven Kings appertain for both are said to be signifi'd by the Seven Heads of the Beast and therefore both have a proper and peculiar reference to him for they being his Typical Heads to him must needs appertain what they are said to typifie But it is plain that the Seven Hills appertain to the Roman Beast that is to the Roman Empire Therefore it is necessary that the Seven Kings likewise appertain thereunto From whence it will follow that these Kings cannot be the Kings of the Seven Ages of the world For Rome was not built till about Anno Mundi 3200 when even the Fourth Age of the World according to Ribera's own reckoning was almost expired So impossible every way is this Exposition of his and against all sense and reason And yet it is the very best the Romanists have and in which they think they have the safest shelter as appears in Cornelius à Lapide and Lessius his adhering thereto rather then any other they have hitherto lighted upon 16. The weakness of all which Expositions Grotius as it seems friendly commiserating has minted one of a-new at his own Forge which though we have else-where in some sort examined already and found light and adulterate yet it being a matter of so great moment we will give it a second Trial wherein if it be again found manifestly salse and more fully detected to abound with gross Incongruities and Impossibilities I cannot imagine any thing omitted for the giving us the greatest assurance that any one can desire of the truth of that Exposition we have made of these Seventeenth and Thirteenth Chapters of the Apocalyps CHAP. II. 1. What the meaning of the Scarlet Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns and of the Woman riding him is according to Grotius 2. A Confutation of Grotius his Interpretation out of our Joint-Exposition 3. Two main Grounds or necessary Supporters of Grotius his Interpretation The one That S. John reckons the Seven Heads beginning at Claudius with the Confutation thereof 4. The other That this Vision was wrote in Vespasian's time with a Discovery of the weakness and falseness of that Opinion 5. That Claudius his banishing the Jews from Rome falls many degrees short of a proof that John was then exiled into Patmos And that Impulsore Christo in Suetonius does not so much as evince that any Christians were then expelled the City 6. And if the Decree reached Christians it does not strait follow that S. John was concerned therein 7. An Answer to a Passage in Epiphanius alledged for S. John's Exile then 8. An Answer to another alledged to the same purpose 9. That Epiphanius his Testimony makes against Grotius his main Project 10. That Epiphanius is but one single Father against the rest and that the Testimony of Irenaeus alone is far to be preferred before his 11. An unexceptionable clearing of the sense of Irenaeus his Testimony and that the very detorsion of it will not serve Grotius his turn 12. That there is not the least shadow of Probability that the Apocalyps was wrote before toward the end of Domitian's reign 13. Proofs out of the Apocalyps it self that it was not wrote before the Persecution under Domitian 14. The great consequence of the clearing this Truth it wholly subverting all Grotius his Interpretations of the Seals and Trumpets and all their Synchronals 1. LEt us therefore more accurately examine Grotius his Interpretation the summe whereof is this The Scarlet Beast ridden by the Whore of Babylon is the old Roman Idolatry guided and dispensed by the ancient Ethnick Roman State or Domination as he calls it The Seven Heads of the Beast are seven Roman Emperours Claudius Nero Galba Otho Vitellius which five were fallen when S. John had this Vision or at the least wrote it as Grotius supposes But Vespasian was then reigning Titus the seventh was not yet come and when he was come he was to continue but a while But the Beast that was and is not and is the Eighth King and consequently an Eighth Head that 's Domitian who as Grotius pretends reigned first in his Father Vespasian's absence but receding from the government of the Empire at Vespasian's return was then the Beast that was but is not but was after to emerge and resume the Empire again after Vespasian and Titus his reign and to die a violent death The Ten Horns he saith are Ten Kings which were not as yet that is in S. John's time in side reverentia Imperii Romani but should be for a time And those saith he were the Ostrogotthi Wisigotthi Vandali Gepidae Longobardi Heruli Burgundiones Hunni Franci Angli sive Saxones 2. These are the main strokes of Grotius his Interpretation of the Seventeenth Chapter of the Apocalyps the general lineaments of which not answering to those of the Thirteenth may make it upon that very account suspicable to those that duly consider what great presumption there is or rather demonstration that these two Chapters handle the very self-same things but are so contrived that the one may give light to the other Wherefore the Dragon in the Twelfth Chapter with seven Heads bearing seven Crowns which plainly shew that the signification of Kings not Hills is

of the Prophecie which speaks of a 1 Political not Moral Power over the Nations and of a thing as 2 new But that the Roman Empire had such a large Dominion was true in the reigns of the fore-going Emperours as well as in his 6. In the eighth here he makes the Beast whom all whose names are not in the Book of Life do worship to be in one Exposition Domitian and that to 1 worship him is to imitate him in Idolatry and Cruelty which is a very insipid sense and without example in this case and such as himself seems out of conceit with And therefore in his after-Exposition Domitian is not the Beast but Idolatry as if to 2 worship Idolatry were a more tolerable phrase But there must needs be this shifting and fridging when an Interpretation sits so uneasie on a Text as this does 7. In the tenth If any one strike with the sword he shall perish by the sword This he applies to Domitian who was stabbed by Stephanus But it seems to be 1 most natural to conceive the menaces of leading into captivity and perishing by the sword spoke concerning the same party And therefore Captivity being not understood of Domitian that being smitten by the sword is not understood of him but that the Prophecie concerns a Body Politick and not a Single Person For the 2 Patience and Faith of the Saints seems also to imply a larger exercise of these vertues then the term of three years and an half would urge them to as also there seems to be an Intimation of being 3 freed from their troubles after this Beast is vanquished but if Domitian be he not the smallest part of them are over by his death there being no fewer then eight grievous Persecutions behind Not to suggest that there was a greater affliction upon the Christians in Nero's time then in Domitian's whom Tertullian calls onely Portionem Neronis And therefore the Faith and Patience of the Saints were most exercised then Which further betrays the groundlesness and arbitrariousness of Grotius his Exposition 8. In the eleventh here he makes the Beast with two Horns like a Lamb to be Art Magick and the Two Horns themselves to be Abstinence from Meats and Chastity or Abstinence from Women Which he would have to be an imitation of Christianity and therefore to be called the Horns of a Lamb. But in that this Beast is said to speak like a Dragon that it is imply'd that what he utters is for the honour of the Devil In which Interpretation there are these flaws 1. That the Beast is an Art and not a Body Politick which is against the Laws of the Prophetick style 2. That the Horns are simulated Vertues not Political powers seated in some men or other which is the genuine meaning of Horns in the phrase of the Prophets and which is to be found first before we adjoyn any other secondary sense to the Type 3. Vowed Coelibate and Abstinence from Meats are so far from being the characteristical Vertues of Christianity that they are disavowed by her as being either Parts or Signs of the Great Apostasie that was to seize the Church 4. There seems plainly intimated a strange contradiction and opposition in the Property of this Beast That it looking so Christian-like should speak for the Devil but if this Beast were Magick it were strange if it did not speak the language of the Dragon Lastly The times which Grotius fixes this Prophecie to namely of Domitian and Trajan do not agree with his conceit these Emperours being no favourers of Magick but the former rather a persecutor of it and of that very Apollonius whom he conceives to be especially pointed at in this Prophecie 9. In the twelfth he makes the Two-horned Beast's exercising all the power of the former Beast before him to signifie that Magick also had her Sacrifices as well as Idolatry But truly Magick though it had Sacrifices yet they were clancular ones as being so horrid and execrable And Philostratus makes it his business several times to clear Apollonius from that suspicion Which is a sign that Magick had not so open an exercise of its abhorred Sacrifices as this Text would import if Grotius his Interpretation were true Plinie calls them Sacra Prodigiosa and tells us that this sacrificing of men was taken away by a Decree of the Senate bestowing this Epiphonema upon the Roman State for so doing Non satis aestimari Histor. Natur. lib. 30. cap. 1. potest quantum Romanis debeatur qui sustulere monstra in quibus hominem occidere religiosum erat mandi verò etiam saluberrimum And this certainly is properly that Magick which was distinguishable from Pagan Idolatry simply so called which worshipped and invoked the Devil as well as the Magicians but such as the Roman Idolatry would not suffer her to exercise her power in her sight upon any pretence Nor did Apollonius exercise any such power who being a Pythagorean abhorred all bloudy Sacrifices whatsoever 10. In the thirteenth he interprets the bringing down fire from Heaven of that Lightning which happened at Apollonius his birth and of that glimpse of Light that Achilles Ghost gave at his departure after Apollonius his conference with him by night at his Sepulchre Which is a very frigid Exposition For why should that Lightning which happened at Apollonius his birth be imputed to him as an effect of his Magick 1 who was neither capable then of being a Magician nor any thing else Besides that he was born before this Prophecie as Grotius himself must needs according to his own account acknowledge and admit and therefore upon 2 that ground the Interpretation is impossible That glimpse of Light also which Achilles Ghost gave at his parting that it should be the causing fire to fall from Heaven is altogether incredible 3 for this glimpse of Light was upon Earth where the Ghost was did not fall from the Skie besides it was in 4 private as the story in Philostratus will prove not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in the face or view of the world 11. In the fourteenth he interprets the making of an Image to the Beast of Apollonius his boasting that he had raised up the Ghost of Achilles in favour of Idolatry But who ever expounded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is to make an Image Picture or Statue to raise a Ghost For supposing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would signifie so as Umbrae in Latine of which notwithstanding I dare say there is no example yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would not be good sense forasmuch as these Umbrae are not made by Magical Evocations but made onely to appear 2. He would not have said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which ordinarily signifies no more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if it were a boast of something done already and not a precept or command to doe something 3. If the sense were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it would

which is the same with the Two-horned Beast who is the Restorer of the wounded Beast that is of the Pagan Empire become Christian into a new kinde of Paganism and is said to work Miracles in the sight of the Beast wherewith he deceived them that dwell on the Earth and made them worship the Image of the Beast and receive the Mark of the Beast c. Chap. 13. Which things are so plainly said of the False-Prophet Chap. 19. 20. that there can be no doubt but the Two-horned Beast and the False-Prophet are the same And the Beast was taken and with him the False-Prophet that wrought Miracles before him with which he deceived them that received the Mark of the Beast and them that worshipped his Image Wherefore it is plain that the False-Prophet and the Two-horned Beast and consequently the Whore of Babylon are all one as I have above noted and that therefore the Roman Idolatrous Clergy that pretend to be such an infallible Church as if God did unfailingly inspire them in what-ever is concluded upon by their Pope or at least by him together with what they will call a General Council are figured out here by way of reproach to this boast of infallible Inspiration in this Title or Style of Prophet But for that they delude the world by false Doctrines and either Diabolical Miracles or cunning Cheats and Forgeries of Miraculous Effects the same Company of men is more ignominiously and openly branded for this Impiety by the prefixing that deserved Epithet of False 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The False-Prophet What can be more plain then this Or what a more wicked Opposition to the Prophetick Office of Christ then for one to take upon him to be his infallible Vicar-General of Christendome and yet to fill the world with Idolatry and Lies Which this Body of Pseudo-prophets have done in some measure more or less for about these 1200 years as is manifest from the last Consectary of our Joint-Exposition 7. Whence we may be sure that the true Prophets who speak according to the tenour of Apostolick Doctrine would have but a sad time of it and the Prophetick Office of Christ as he illuminates these by his Word and Spirit be opposed and resisted nay these Instruments of his contradicted and oppressed with all imaginable injury and violence accordingly as this Mystery of Iniquity should grow up in the Church which seems to have commenced about 400 years after Christ. Which Condition of the Church I conceive is prefigured in the Vision of the Two Witnesses whose mournful Prophecy in Sackcloth is Synchronal to the Reign of the False-Prophet as has been above demonstrated But the Description of things is such as comprises the Opposition to the Kingly Office of Christ as well as Prophetical as shall appear in our Explication of the Vision For for any one to take upon him to be the infallible Interpreter of the Law of a King is to give Laws for him and to despoil him of his Throne and Sceptre Or by what-ever other Device his Laws may be suppressed and kept from the People and other Laws put in their room this Kingly Office is plainly made nothing by it But that the Word of God contained in the Old and New Testament is thus dealt withall by this False-Prophet I have in my Idea of Antichristianism sufficiently declared CHAP. XII 1. An Explication of the Vision of the Witnesses Ver. III. The reason why they are Two Ver. IV V. Why Two Olive-trees and Candlesticks and what meant by their killing men by the fire that proceeds out of their mouths Ver. VI. That their power of shutting up Heaven from raining may be attributed to them onely by a Metalepsis 2. Or rather by a Zoopoeia of the second sort 3. According to which Figure they are said to smite the Earth with every plague of Aegypt And what the meaning of these Plagues may be Ver. VII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The War and Death of the Witnesses what they mean Ver. VIII Aegypt and the fore-going Plagues fitly mentioned together Ver. IX The meaning of Three daies and an half and of the Bodies of the Witnesses lying unburied Ver. X. What meant by the Dwellers upon Earth Ver. XI What by the Spirit of God coming into the Witnesses Ver. XII That the true Witnesses do not invade Heaven but ascend thither when they are called Ver. XIII The Earth-quake City Fall of the City and the Slaughter of 7000 Names of men what they mean 2. That the Antichristian Opposition to the Regal and Prophetical Office of Christ is clearly prefigured in this Vision of the Two Witnesses 1. LET us now enquire what news of these Injuries in this Vision of the Two mournful Witnesses who complain not without a cause as well the Regal as Prophetick Office of Christ being so palpably opposed by that Man of sin We shall give a brief Explication of the Vision proceeding orderly from verse to verse beginning at the third and holding on till the fourteenth where the story of the Witnesses endeth Ver. III. And I will give unto my two Witnesses and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and three score daies in Sack-cloth That these Daies are so many Years appears from the last Consectary of my Joint-Exposition That these Witnesses are Two is partly from the Types they allude to in the Old Testament and partly from the nature of the things they signifie The Types they allude to are Moses and Aaron Elias and Elisha Zerobabel and Jesua three several Pairs of holy men that are famous for their conduct of the People in such times as bear also analogy to these of the Two Witnesses whose Prophecy is during the Conculcation of the Outward Court of the Temple by the Gentiles that is while it is polluted with Idolatry as Moses and Aaron were over the Israelites in the Wilderness where they often lapsed into Idolatry to which the Woman in the Wilderness may haply allude Elias and Elisha in their Baalitical Apostasy and Zerobabel and Jesua when they were yet in the Captivity of Babylon There are also three Pair of things that may be fitly signified by these Two Witnesses Either the suppressed Magistracy and Ministry such I mean as answer in opposition to the Ten-borned Beast and False-Prophet and bear a resemblance with Moses and Aaron Zerobabel and Jesua or else the People of the Jews I mean such of them as are so sincere that were it not for the sway of Antichristianism in the world would be converted to Christ together with the Virgin-company of Christians or lastly which answers to these two last Witnesses the Old Testament and the New which may be added by an Henopoeia to the other Ver. IV. These are the two Olive-trees and the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the Earth It is a plain Israelism alluding to that in Zachary Chap. 4. 11. What are these two Olive-trees upon the right sight of the Candlestick

confirmation of the truth of our Idea of Antichristianism therefrom 4. A summary Representation of this Idea in the Oppositions and Defeatments of the Privative Ends of the Gospel as also of those noted Offices of Christ. 5. Of his Divinity and other holy Titles 6. Of the Divine Life in Root and Branches 7. A Parable to set out the salvage Injustice and Cruelty of this Antichristian Synagogue 8. The Apodosis of the Parable 9. That we have set out the Idea of the most real and essential Antichristianism that can be with an Answer to what may be objected to the contrary 10. That it is that very Antichristianism that is foretold in the Prophets the clearing whereof necessitates us to an inspection into them before we make any punctual Application of our Idea to the Apostasy of the Church 173 The CONTENTS of the Second Part OR SYNOPSIS PROPHETICA BOOK I. CHAP. I. 1. THat the Antichristianism we have so punctually described in our Idea and is for the general so notoriously known to have everrun the Church is in truth a kind of Pagano-Christianism 2. That it is incredible that there should be no Divine Predictions of so considerable a Change 3. The ill-spent pains of those Interpreters who endeavour to obscure such Predictions by distorting them to other useless meanings 4. Whether this Great Antichrist be prophesied of in the Epistle of S. John under that very Name 5. That Barchocab if applicable at all to the Text may be a Type of this famous Antichrist 6. That the mention of those many Antichrists in S. John was occasioned from the fame of that Great Antichrist predicted in Daniel 7. That there is much-what the same reason of the slowness of Christians in discovering the true Antichrist as of the Jews in discovering the true Christ. 8. That a fraudulent and Hypocritical Opposer of Christ may be as real and considerable an Antichrist as an open Enemie as also S. John's description as easily applicable to him 9. The inept Niceness of declining the Name of Antichrist and that the Title was put upon this great Enemy of the Church by the ancient Fathers occasionally from this Epistle of S. John 10. Certain Considerations proposed touching the Obscurity of the Prophetick style 205 CHAP. II. 1. Why Prophecies are wrapt up in some considerable Obscurity 2. An indispensable necessity of these kinds of involutions in regard of mans Free will 3. As also in regard of the Enemies of the Church both Men and Devils 4. A recital of such Schemes and Figures wherein this Obscurity does most-what consist 5. What Diorismus is with several examples of Numeral Diorisms 6. That it seems most safe to expound the Rev. 9. 5 10. five months of the Locusts according to this Figure 7. The reason of the use of Numeral Diorisms 8. From whence also some light is offered toward the understanding the reason of the uncertain designation of Vers. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9. Examples of Proportional Diorisms 10. As also of Specifical 211 CHAP. III. 1. Hylasmus what it is with the kinds thereof 2. Eximious Examples of each kind 3. What the first and chiefest kind of Henopoeia 4. That one single Beast signifies a Body Politick demonstrated out of Daniel 5. That a Succession of Individuals is represented by one Individual 6. That one individual Beast represents a Kingdom or Body Politick from its rise to its fall 7. That one single Man or Woman does also represent a Body Politick in the Prophetick style 8. The second kind of Henopoeia what it is 9. What Zoopoeia with Examples thereof 10. A second kind of Zoopoeia proved and illustrated from Examples 217 CHAP. IV. 1. Israelismus what it is 2. That the reason of the frequent use thereof is the Sacramentalness of the Jewish Church in reference to the Christian as appears in their Tabernacle and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. In the brasen Serpent Manna strucken Rock and fiery Law 4. In the High-priest's Robes in his entring alone once a year into the most Holy and in the Jews worshipping towards the Mercy-seat 5. In their bondage in Aegypt and in their escape through the Red Sea 6. What is properly a Prophetick Ellipsis 7. What the meaning of the Apocalyptick Book being written within and without 8. The difference of a Prophetick Ellipsis illustrated by example 9. Homonymia what it is and in what it differs from an Henopoeia of the second kind 10. What Metalepsis with the proof and examples thereof 11. Antichronismus what it is together with the rise thereof 12. That the three days and an half of the unburied Witnesses put for three times and an half is apparently resolvible into this Figure 13. What Icasmus is and that the frequency of the Figure does not so obscure Prophecies but that they are as intelligible as ordinary Heraldry 221 CHAP. V. 1. The great Usefulness of an Alphabet of Prophetick Iconisms 2. What the best way of attaining to the right sense of them 3. What weight the Onirocriticks of the Ancients may cast in toward the determining their meaning 4. That there is the same reason of the Signification and Interpretation of Dreams as there is of Visions provided they be merely Typical and not Complexional 5. Angels Their Ministery in all affairs of Providence a noted Supposition in the ancient Cabbala and in the Apocalyps 6. Ascension into Heaven 7. Air the special Region of Devils 8. Balances 9. Beast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idolatrous Kingdoms 10. The reason of the Lamb 's signifying one single Person and of wild Beasts noting Idolatry as well as Cruelty 11. Blasphemy That it signifies Idolatry made out both upon the account of Reason use of Scripture and Authority of Interpreters 12. Bloud 13. Bow and Arrows Buildings Burial 226 CHAP. VI. 1. Candle 2. Character 3. Clouds of Heaven 4. Crown of precious Stones 5. Darkness Day Death 6. Desart 7. Dragon a figure of the Devil according to the ancient Cabbala and then of the chief Polities that oppose the Church 8. Drunkenness 9. Eagle Earth-quake 10. Eclipses 11. Eye an Hieroglyphick of Counsel and Prudence 12. Fishing Fish dead in the Sea 13. Fire the different significations thereof 14. Fire from Heaven its exact significancy of Excommunication 15 16. Flesh two notable significations thereof 17. Floud Fornication Frogs 18. Gemms and precious Stones God 232 CHAP. VII 1. Hail the signification thereof according to Scripture 2. And the ancient Onirocriticks 3. Harvest the evil and auspicious sense thereof 4. Head how clearly significative of Sovereign Power whether in Many or One. 5. Heaven and Earth 6. Horn. 7. Horse Islands 8. King and Kingdom 9. That Kinds or Sorts of things are sometimes expressed as if Individualls of the same Kind 10. Leopard Locusts 11. Male-childe Mark Measure Mill Month Moon 12. Mountain the several significations thereof 240 CHAP. VIII 1. Nakedness Paradise 2. Philtre That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Virus amatorium 3.

That Magical words were used in the mixing of Philtres 4. Pillars Rain Red. The seventh Head of the red Dragon what it intimates 5. Resurrection That to be cut off and stain signifies also Politically 6. Rivers what they signifie in reference to the Sea 7. What in respect of their limpidity and irrigation 8. Saints Scorpion Scorched by the Sun 9. Sea Serpent Slain Slaughter 10. Sun Moon and Stars The spiritual signification of Sun and Moon 11. A secular signification of them in general 12. A more particular signification of them in that sense 13. In what sense the King of Babylon is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Lucifer and the Western Caesar a Star in the Apocalyps 14. A more mystical signification of Stars and what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies 245 CHAP. IX 1. Tail Temple 2. Throes Throne of God 3. Thunder an Iconism of Divine assistence for the discomfiting of the Enemies 4. Other more mystical meanings thereof 5. Time Hours Days That Day signifying a Year is an Icasmus 6. The appropriation of Months and Days to the story of the Wicked and Righteous with an inference from the latter of a latitude of compute in the 1260 days in the Apocalyps 7. Trees Vintage Water 8. White-clothing Wilderness Winds 9. Whore and Whoredom 10. The exquisite Analogie Idolatry bears thereunto 11. Wine-press 12. That it signifies also spiritual Destruction and slaughter 13. Woman and Women 14. Worship World 15. That the Prophetick style is so determinately intelligible that the endeavour of understanding Prophecies is most unjustly reproached for any insuperable difficulties therein 16. Certain Rules to try Interpretations of Prophecies by which are more warrantable and genuine which less 253 CHAP. X. 1. The order and entrance of his Search into the Prophecies beginning at the Seventeenth Chapter of the Apocalyps 2. That the Seventeenth Chapter and the Thirteenth treat adequately of the same Subject proved by Two Parallelisms of Agreements 3. The Parallelism of Agreements betwixt the Two-horned Beast and the Whore of Babylon 4. The Parallelism of Agreements betwixt the Seven-headed Beast with ten Horns in the thirteenth Chapter and the Seven-headed Beast with ten Horns in the seventeenth 5. That the Parallelism of the Seven-headed Beasts in those Chapters is perfectly adequate and exact And also of the Two-horned Beast and the Whore saving that her Original is omitted and her Destruction mentioned in the Seventeenth Chapter of both which a sufficient account is rendred 6. The Adequateness of these Parallelisms demonstrated by comparing the Seventeenth and Thirteenth Chapters so as it may appear that the one does wholly imbibe the other saving in what is above excepted 7. That the naturalness and unforcedness of this Imbibition shall be made good by a joint Exposition of the two Chapters 261 CHAP. XI 1. The great importance of proving the Seven Heads of the Beast to be Seven Sorts of Governours 2. That the proving of the Seven-headed Beast to signify the Idolatrous Roman Kingdom or Empire quatenus Idolatrous will go far toward the proof of the former Position 3. That the Seven-headed Beast is a Kingdom or Empire 4. And particularly the Roman 5. That it is the Idolatrous Roman Kingdom or Empire 6. That it is this Idolatrous Empire or Kingdom through all those Ages it is Idolatrous 7. That it represents the Roman Kingdom or Empire in those Ages onely in which it is Idolatrous Whence the true meaning of the slaying of the Beast and a farther confirmation of the foregoing Assertion is to be understood 8. That this adequate Representation of the Idolatrous duration of the Empire implies that no Seven single Persons can be the Seven Heads thereof 9. The same conclusion inferred from the Stigmatizing these Seven Heads with the note of Idolatry whenas more then Seven nay all of the Pagan Emperours were Idolaters 10. Also from the ordinary form of speech in distinguishing Animals by the number of their parts 11. And finally from the certainty of the Seventh Head's being not one single Person but a Succession 12. That what-ever Interpretation supposes these Seven Heads Seven single persons is not onely false but impossible 13. That it follows from what has been evinced That the Beast in the 17 chap. of the Apocalyps is the Roman Empire degenerated again into a kind of Paganism 14. As also that the Whore of Babylon is not Rome Pagan but Pagano-christian 15. And that the coming of Antichrist at the very last end of the Worldis a Chimericall Fiction 16. The true Subject of the Visions of the 17 and 13 Chapters of the Revelation 269 CHAP. XII 1. The Scope and Order of his Joint-Exposition Ver. I. What is meant by Whore 2. What by her Greatness 3. That she is not Rome Heathen but Rome Pseudo-Christian Ver. II. Who the Kings of the Earth and what their Drunkenness 2. The first Agreement of the first Parallelism made good Ver. III. That the Two-horned Beast and the Whore's being in the wilderness might have made one of the Agreements of the first Parallelism 2. The second Agreement of the first Parallelism 3. What meant by the scarlet colour of the Beast 4. The second Agreement of the second Parallelism Ver. IV. The Woman 's purple and scarlet and precious stones and pearls what they signify 2. And how plainly the third Agreement of the first Parallelism is evinced 3. What is meant by the Cup of abominations in the hand of the Whore 4. That it is a Philtrous Cup with an inference therefrom of the truth of the fourth Agreement of the first Parallelism 5. The chief charm used in the mingling of this Philtre 6. Fire from Heaven Excommunication 7. Other Miracles for the promoting Idolatry 8. What the golden Cup signifies in respect of the Metall Ver. V. The names of Whores inscribed on their foreheads 2. That the whole sentence is the Whore's Name and how ridiculous it is to understand by Mystery a mere Synecdoche 3. The Interpretation of these parts of her name Mystery and Babylon 4. As also of Babylon the Great the Mother of Fornications 5. A demonstration of the fifth Agreement of the first Parallelism 6. The different Rise of the Two-horned Beast from Others 276 CHAP. XIII Ver. VI. What is meant by the Martyrs of Jesus 2. The sixth Agreement of the first Parallelism Ver. VII That the Woman is not Rome Heathen demonstrable from the Beast that carries her 2. That she rides the whole Empire 3. That the Two horns of the Beast are the Two Imperial Patriarchates but by an Henopoeia may glance also at the Power of Binding and Loosing and at the Horns of the Episcopal Mitre 4. The seventh Agreement of the first Parallelism 5. The first Agreement of the second Ver. VIII What is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. That the end of the Vision of the Beast in this Chapter is to represent the Empire in that Succession wherein it is Pagano-Christian 3. That the

the Pope's Crown and of a Woman-Pope 305 CHAP. XVI 1. What remains for the making up the fullest assurance that can be desired of the truth of our Joint-Exposition 2. That the Roman State from the beginning to the end is to be look'd upon as One Kingdom or Empire appears out of Florus 3. That there had been Five sorts of Supreme Magistrates in S. John's time in the Roman State Reges Consules Tribuni Consulares Decemviri Dictatores and that the Tribuni Plebis were no Supreme Power 4. Nor the Tribuni Militum simply so styled 5. But that the Decemviri and Tribuni Consulares were 6. As also the Dictators 7. That there had been no more then Five sorts of Supreme Governours in S. John's time and that the Interreges were not nor were at all reckoned by Historians a Supreme Government distinct from that of Kings 8. That the Triumviri Reipublicae constituendae was either a Scuffle and Confusion in the Roman State 9. Or else a formal Caesareate exercised by Augustus Lepidus and Antonius 10. That there is full and sufficient ground from Reason and History not to reckon the Triumvirate of constituting the Commonwealth a Sixth Form of Government distinct from Emperours and the Five fore-going Forms 11. That though there had been some other Forms truly distinct but yet of a near affinity with some of the other it had not been so harsh to have accounted them one with those they had that nearness with 12. But that there is a greater Exactness then this in the Application of this Vision and such as Scepticism it self can hardly doubt of 13. The Conclusion of the whole drift of the Chapter with a fuller enforcement of the truth thereof 317 CHAP. XVII 1. That a Relapse of the Empire into Idolatry in general were sufficient to make it the Image of the old Pagan Empire and yet that the Resemblance is more exquisite and particular 2. That there was an intended imitation of the Pagan Rites in the Church degenerating 3. The Pope compared with the Pagan Caesars and his Cardinals with the Roman Senate 4. The Tutelar Saints compared with their Tutelar Deities as also of adoring of what they eat 5. The minute multiplication of the Pagan Deities compared with and found to be out-gone by this Pagano-Christian Church in the Presidents of Physick and Rural Affairs 6. As also in the Presidents of Trades or Courses of Living 7. The Saints and Heathen Deities compared in their Offices and how punctually they have surrogated the Blessed Virgin into the place of Venus and the Moon 8. Most lively Lineaments of Restored Paganism in dedicating the Pantheon to the Virgin and all the Saints as also the Seven Hills to seven several Saints in erecting Altars and Images thereon in adorning these Images in appointing Festivals in Adoration and Prayers in Oblations of Wax-candles and Incense in carrying their Images in Procession and hiding them in Lent 9. In Vows Oathes Deifying dead men Pilgrimages Miraculous Cures with the Monuments of them hung up in the Temples 10. In Aspersions and Purifications by Holy Water 11. In the driving away the Devil by the jangling of baptized Bells 12. In their Jubilees general manner of celebrating their Festivals 13. In fetching in May in running about the fields with light Torches in their hands in sprinkling their Beasts with Holy Water by the Friars of S. Antony in leaping over S. John's Fires in Baptismal Spittle in their Master of Misrule at Christmas in their Carnavals and other Festivals 14. That the Image of the Beast is also in some sort revived in their Funerals 15. But more considerably in their Religious Fraternities under this or that Saint 16. As also in their shorn Crowns in their Vows of Virginity and in their Ninevites or Flagellants 17. In their pretence of bringing down Christ bodily and personally at the Mass 18 19. As also in their more pompous Processions 20. The great Usefulness of the Observation of the punctual correspondency of the Events hitherto to the Predictions touching the state of the Church 21. His amazement and astonishment at Grotius that he should decline so clear and easie a meaning of the Image of the Beast and take up with one so impossible and so unprofitable 323 BOOK II. CHAP. I. 1. The great Usefulness of shewing the folly of Ribera's and Grotius his Expositions of these two Chapters of the Apocalyps 2. That according to Ribera the Beast is the Devil 3. The seven Kings the wicked Kings of the seven Ages of the world 4. That five of these Ages were gone over in S. John's time and that the Reign of Antichrist is the seventh and Rome Heathen the Whore 5. The general Usefulness of our Joint-Exposition 6. That the Beast is not the Devil proved there-from by several circumstances Nor the seven Heads seven such Ages by the deadly wound in the sixth Head 7. Nor the Whore Rome Heathen more then the Two-horned Beast 8. That the Devil cannot be the Beast that was and is not c. proved by arguments not leaning on our Joint Exposition 9. Farther proof from that part of his Name and yet is with a Vindication of that reading 10. A confutation of Ribera's Exposition of the seven Heads from the groundlesness and exceptionableness of his division of the duration of the world into seven Ages 11. From the Ununitableness of the Kings of the Age into one Head 12. From the Devil's eminency and superiority over these Heads 13. From the leaving neither room nor time for an eighth King 14. From the disproportionableness of the seventh Age of the world to the rest and especially to the strange Feats they say Antichrist is then to atchieve 15. And lastly from the seven Hills necessarily appropriating those seven Heads to the Roman Empire 16. That these Expositions of Ribera as also of the rest of the Roman Interpreters were very weak even in Grotius his own judgment which set him upon minting new ones 336 CHAP. II. 1. What the meaning of the Scarlet Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns and of the Woman riding him is according to Grotius 2. A Confutation of Grotius his Interpretation out of our Joint-Exposition 3. Two main Grounds or necessary Supporters of Grotius his Interpretation The one That S. John reckons the Seven Heads beginning at Claudius with the Confutation thereof 4. The other That this Vision was wrote in Vespasian's time with a Discovery of the weakness and falseness of that Opinion 5. That Claudius his banishing the Jews from Rome falls many degrees short of a proof that John was then exiled into Patmos And that Impulsore Christo in Suetonius does not so much as evince that any Christians were then expelled the City 6. And if the Decree reached Christians it does not strait follow that S. John was concerned therein 7. An Answer to a Passage in Epiphanius alledged for S. John's Exile then 8. An Answer to another alledged to the

as being the seven last Plagues 9. The same farther proved from the Song of the Harpers upon their victory over the Beast 10. And from the order of the Vision of the Vials as also from the appearing of the Temple out of which the Angels come after the sixth Trumpet and before any of the Vials be poured out 11. In what sense the Middle Synchronals are to be fulfilled at the Exit of the sixth Trumpet 12 A larger Declaration how all the Middle Synchronals expire together in what sense or degree soever they do expire 13. Of the commencing of the last Synchronals and what the time of the Millennium more eminently so styled 14. The serviceableness of the premising these orderly Synchronisms for his farther search into the Prophecies that foretel the Lapse of the Church into Antichristianism 377 CHAP. VIII 1. That there are Three more Middle Synchronals that foretel the Churche's Lapse into Idolatry As the Vision of the Outward Court troden down by the Gentiles 2. The Woman in the Wilderness What meant by Wilderness 3. A brief account of the sense of the whole Vision 4. That there is an Hypallage in her being said to flie into the Desart like that of Hades being cast into the Fire and of the Kingdom being given to the Saints in Daniel 5. That our Interpretation of the Woman in the Wilderness does not clash with Mr. Mede's though different from it 6. The third Synchronal the Virgin-Company The meaning of the Number of their Regiments and of the new Song which none could learn besides them 7. How the Vision of these Virgin-souldiers implies the Lapse of the Church into Idolatry 383 CHAP. IX 1. Three more Prophecies predicting the Churche's Lapse into Idolatry As the Vision of the sixth Trumpet which is proved to respect the Roman Empire long after it became Christian. 2. That in this Vision the Greek and Latin Church are both apparently taxed of Idolatry and with Aggravations common to Pagans and them 3. That it appears from the same Vision of what great consequence it would be for Christendom to reform from this gross sin and that they are their best friends that plainly and freely rebuke them for it and for those other crimes reflected upon in this Vision 4. The Prophecy of Paul to Timothy proposed and the first part thereof expounded out of Epiphanius touching the Inspirers of this predicted Errour 5. As also that part that contains the Errour it self namely the worship of Daemons From whence it is plain the Prophecie concerns this notorious Lapse of the Church into Idolatry 6. As also from the Instruments of the Broaching this Errour 7. And from the mentioning of the Mystery of Godliness immediately before to which this Mystery of Iniquity is opposed 8. And lastly from the Times of the Lapse which are termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9. Which is proved to be a proper Term of the Prophetick style denoting that Time and Times and half a Time which is the latter section of the continuance of the Fourth Monarchy 10. That the course of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of the Reign of Antichrist is indigitated by th●…se Numbers of Days in the last of Daniel 387 CHAP. X. 1. Epiphanius his Exposition of the Prophecie of Paul to Timothy confirmed from the reference it has to that in Daniel 2. Grotius his miss-timing this Prophecie of Daniel and applying it to Antiochus how rash and groundless 3. A Confutation of his Application 4. The right timing this Prophecie by Calvin and Mr. Mede who both interpret it of the Roman State and Empire 5. A more particular account of the two first verses of the Prophecie Mr. Mede's way 6. As also of the third 7. And fourth 8. That the sense of this Prophecie so clearly accords with that of S. Paul that it is manifest he refers to it in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9. That though this Interpretation of Mr. Mede be unexceptionable throughout yet the two first verses of the Prophecie may be otherwise expounded and more suitably to S. Paul's Prophecie in his Epistle to the Thessalonians 393 CHAP. XI 1. The Reasons of his Prolixity hitherto in the Predictions of the Idolatry of the Church and of his future Brevity in the rest of the parts of Antichristianism 2. The Second member of Antichristianism prefigured in the Apoc. 11. 8. Witnesses lying slain in the Streets of the great City called Aegypt 3. A short Paraphrase and Exposition upon that verse of the Apocalyps 4. That the same thing seems to be prefigured in the Whore of Babylon her riding of the Beast 5. What Predictions concern the Opposition to the Priestly Office of Christ. 6. That the Two-horned Beast and the False-prophet are all one and that both prefigure the Antichristian Opposition against his Prophetick Office 7. That the Affliction of the true Prophets of Christ is prefigured in the Vision of the Two Witnesses as also the Antichristian Opposition against the Kingly Office 398 CHAP. XII 1. An Explication of the Vision of the Witnesses Ver. III. The reason why they are Two Ver. IV V. Why Two Olive-Trees and Candlesticks and what meant by their killing men by the fire that proceeds out of their mouths Ver. VI. That their power of shutting up Heaven from raining may be attributed to them onely by a Metalepsis 2. Or rather by a Zoopoeia of the second sort 3. According to which Figure they are said to smite the Earth with every plague of Aegypt And what the meaning of these Plagues may be Ver. VII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The War and Death of the Witnesses what they mean Ver. VIII Aegypt and the foregoing Plagues fitly mentioned together Ver. IX The meaning of Three days and an half and of the Bodies of the Witnesses lying unburied Ver. X. What meant by the Dwellers upon Earth Ver. XI What by the Spirit of God coming into the Witnesses Ver. XII That the true Witnesses do not invade Heaven but ascend thither when they are called Ver. XIII The Earth-quake City Fall of the City and the Slaughter of 7000 Names of men what they mean 2. That the Antichristian Opposition to the Regal and Prophetical Office of Christ is clearly prefigured in this Vision of the Two Witnesses 403 CHAP. XIII 1. That the little Horn in Daniel is a Type of that Power which should oppose the Regal Office of Christ. 2. That the Fourth Kingdom in Daniel is not that of the Lagidae and Seleucidae but the Roman proved from the universal Consent of Ecclesiastick Writers 3. From the eminency and greatness of the Fourth Kingdom 4. From the distance of time betwixt the Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae and the Kingdom of the Stone cut out without hands or the Kingdom of the Son of man which is also the Kingdom of Heaven or of God 5 Grotius his fond and profane Interpretation of the Son of man as if thereby were meant the People of Rome 6 The

by their recourse to the Bloud of Christ by which they are justifi'd and freed from that blind bondage they were held in under those hard Task-masters that the Concinnity is marvellous to consider the Type being so clear a Prophecy of what has happened within these last Ages in breaking from that Tyrannicall bondage of the Italian Pharaoh But such Instances as these are infinite 6. The next obscuring Scheme is Ellipsis which is an omission of some word or words which are requisite to determine the sense Examples of Ellipses occurre every-where in the Old Testament in the Psalms Job and other Books But by an Ellipsis here I understand not merely the defect of something to make up the full sense but such an artificial defect as shall make the sense seem compleat without the supplement understood For that seems to be the Genius of these Apocalyptick Visions especially that they are made so as to seem very trim and express very complete and articulate in the very outward Cortex as a Book that has some pleasing Embellishments on the back-side as well as the History of truth within 7. Which I little doubt but may be alluded to in that expression concerning this Volume of Visions that it was * Revel 5. 1. written within and without according to the ancient manner of the Cabbalistick Mysteries Touching which Traditions Parmenides had got that Principle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That there is a twofold traditionary Knowledge the one Truth it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Daniel in counterdistinction to his Aenigmatical Visions the other Types or Parables accommodate to the conceit and gust of the Vulgar S. Hierom also Rupertus and several others understand this being written within and on the back-side of a Literal and Mystical sense Grotius pretends the Text is not rightly comma'd but reads it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Written within and sealed on the back-side As if there were any Books written on the back-side and sealed within So unfortunate an Interpreter of the Apocalyps is the great Hugo even in lesser matters But to return to the matter in hand 8. The difference of those two kinds of Ellipses we have described may be seen in these Examples Exod. 3. where Moses asking God his Name he returns this answer I am that I am which is an Elliptical speech and fully supplied is My Name is I am that I am Something like this is that also in the * Chap. 1. 4. Apocalyps Grace to you and peace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which were more full 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But these Ellipses are such that they discover the defect of what is to be supplied But sometimes it is not so as Apocal. 17. 8. The Beast which thou sawest was and is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and goe into perdition And a little after When they behold the Beast that was and is not and yet is Which seems a smooth entire sense in the exteriour Cortex of the Prophecy whenas no good sense at all can be made of it unless there be conceived some such Ellipsis as before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But to have been thus express had laid this Mystery over-open which ought to be in a greater measure concealed and therefore it was thus carefully lock'd up in this Prophetick Ellipsis Of which Text more fully in its proper place 9. Homonymia is the Diversity of significations in one and the same Symbol whereof one alone is to be understood else it were coincident with an Henopoeia of the second kind Which Homonymia may fall out ex accidenti and is of no greater difficulty then that ordinary Homonymia of words whose sense the consideration of the contexture of things will determine or else it may be intended of set purpose to make up a more gracefull insculpture upon the external Cortex of a Vision As in the Vision of the Witnesses I suspect that the three days and an half that they lie dead in the street do not signify as in the beginning of that Vision three years and an half but three times and an half that is 1260 years Nay that they do signify so I do confess I do more then suspect am indeed well assured in my own judgement of the truth thereof But whether there be any likelihood of their signifying also three years and an half Events will better determine Which if they did there would not be a simple Homonymia in this Symbol of three days and an half but an Henopoeia of the second kind 10. Metalepsis is a Prophetick Scheme whereby an Effect or Event is transferred or communicated to some eminent Person merely or at least mainly because the place and time is coincident with his and there is the same reason of Things This Scheme I must confess is very Poetical but not unelegant nor unusuall Like to this is that of Virgil Candidus auratis aperit cùm cornibus annum Taurus and again Libra dies somnique pares ubi fecerat horas Where Taurus and Libra because they are then in conjunction with the Sun have attributed to them or transferred upon them those Effects which really are the Sun 's onely and not theirs But that there is such a Metalepsis as I have described in the Prophetick style that one example of the Rider of the red Horse in the * Chap. 6. 4. Apocalyps will make good who is armed with a great sword in his hand and is said to take peace from the Earth Whenas nothing else is signified but that in this Emperour's time there would be very furious killing and slaying in the Empire though by no fault of his For it is said they should kill one another as if the Text on purpose did cast in that key for the opening the meaning of the Vision as Mr. Mede has judiciously observed Whose interpretation of the First six Seals is so solid that it is impossible I think taking all things together for any unprejudiced Reader not to be assured of the truth of them Whence it is that I am so well assured of this present Prophetick Figure I have set down 11. Antichronismus is an obscurative Scheme in Prophecy which sets down one measure of time for another as a Week for Seven years as in Daniel a Month for Thirty years a Day for a Year Which Figure seems to be used in the Apocalyptick Visions not onely for concealment sake but for proportion and Decorum that the external Cortex of the Prophecies may not want their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that winning and pleasing Credibility of Story Wherefore these Antichronismi are a necessary Consequence of that Prophetick Henopoeia that contracts vast Empires and other Bodies Politick with their long Successions into the figure or shape of Beasts or single Persons whence that the duration of their lives may not be over-proportionated to their nature it was necessary to declare their

either of these latter and the first and the second are joyn'd together in the Vision of the Outward Court and the Two Witnesses Wherefore 42 months and a Time and Times and half a Time being the same with 1260 daies they are the same one with another But this little Horn in Daniel we speak of his reign is also set out by a Time and Times and half a Time Therefore it is of the same duration with the Whore or Two-horned Beast which is Synchronal to the Beast restored whose continuance is 42 months Wherefore it is a strong suspicion that there is a Coincidence at least of time if not of affairs or complication of natures if not Identity of some betwixt this little Horn in Daniel and those three Synchronals the restored Beast the Whore and the Two-horned Beast For that expression Dan. 7. 24. And another shall rise after them does not at all hinder since the Seventy translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 behind them it signifying order of situation as well as of time And this being placed behind is the most convenient posture for such an exploit as is attributed to this Horn which is said to throw down or humble three Kings which is more by treachery and craft then open force 14. Now from this equality of time it will also follow that the duration of this little Horn is 1260 years by the last Consectary of our Joint-Exposition Which again shews how impossible it is this Horn should be Antiochus Epiphanes To which you may adde that it is said to be different from the rest of the Horns in the explication of them * Dan. 7. 24. And the ten Horns out of this Kingdome that is the Roman Kingdome as has been demonstrated are ten Kings that shall arise and another shall rise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 behind them and he shall be diverse from the rest and he shall subdue three Kings Now I demand what one of the ten Kings or Kingdomes is so different from all the rest unless it be an Ecclesiastical Kingdome Wherefore the Coincidence of time with the Pagano-Christian Empire and the long continuance as also the difference of this Kingdome from the other ten is more then a strong suspicion that it is part of the succession of a Kingdome Ecclesiastick which is necessarily to run along with the Empire professing Christianity But if the question be whether this part of this Ecclesiastick Kingdome be the uncorrupted Kingdome of Christ or the Reign of Antichrist the solution is not difficult For that it is not the Kingdome of Christ is plain in that Christ is said to come to burn and consume it Whence it is manifest that the Church has not been out in their Conjecture in deeming this little Horn to be Antichrist and therefore say I the same with the Two-horned Beast and the Whore who is plainly Isochronal and I doubt not but Synchronal to this little Horn and is adjudged to be burnt in the Apocalyps as this little Horn is here in Daniel 15. To speak briefly therefore This little Horn is the Idolatrizing Clergy of the Empire but more chiefly and particularly that great and notorious part thereof under the Bishop of Rome who has been a more then ordinary stickler for both the obtaining this degenerate Ecclesiastick Empire in the Roman Empire and in lapsing and keeping down the Empire in Superstition and Idolatry and therefore is rightly said to be an Horn growing out of this Beast the Symbol Beast itself according to Grotius his own Confession intimating Idolatry 16. And if exquisite fitness of Application will assure us of the right sense of a Prophecy we cannot fail in this examining every character of this little Horn. For as it is little so is the Original of the Popes mean and obscure and their Secular Principality small in comparison of those Princes they have contested with Again As this Horn had the Eyes of a man so it is well known that for politick quick-sightedness there has not been any Body of men comparable to the Roman Hierarchy insomuch that it is Proverbial to say That the Roman Religion is nothing else but a mere trick of Policy to encrease and keep up the honour power and wealth of the Pope and his Clergy See Sir Edwyn Sandys his Speculum Europae and you shall finde this part of the Prophecy fulfilled to admiration and that it is not for nothing that this little Horn is said to have the Eyes of a man in it which is said of no Horn in all the Prophecies besides this Thirdly As this Horn is said to have a mouth speaking great things whether you mean thereby boasting of its own Sovereignty or Blaspheming it is well known that from this Horn are uttered such words as imply the Pope greater then all Princes and Emperours nay that he is not onely said to be Infallible but styled God and declared worthy of divine worship Fourthly For the humbling and subduing three Kings which this Horn is foretold to doe is it not long since performed by the Pope of Rome in his usage of Leo Isaurus in ruining the Kingdome of the Lombards to get to himself the Exarchate of Ravenna and in tormenting and disquieting Henry the Fourth and his Successours with his Thunder-claps and mischievous Political Plots till he wrested from them all their Right and Jurisdiction in Italy 17. Fifthly and to come nearer to our purpose in hand Whereas it is said that he shall speak great words against the most High and shall wear out the Saints of the most High and think to change Times and Laws and they shall be given into his hand for a time and times and half a time I say this Idolatrous Clergy has bid fair toward the fulfilling this Period of times already the Degeneracy of the Church beginning about four hundred years after Christ and which is more considerable they having received so notorious a Check in the Decursion of this Half-Time which is elsewhere called a Half-Day in which his swaggering is pretty well diminished and chastised Sixthly And for his wearing out and consuming the Saints of the most High he has done it even more bloudily and cruelly then the very Pagans on the Primitive Christians which is the most furious Opposition against the Regality of Christ that can be imagined thus to wast and destroy his true Subjects Seventhly And for his speaking great words against the most High that is against the Divine Sovereignty is it not plainly done in the Pope's pretences of having power to dispense with or lay aside the Laws and Injunctions of Christ of which we have given several Instances in our Idea of Antichristianism and such as are notoriously well known to appertain to that Church Besides that he is Reus laesae Majestatis Divinae in appointing Religious worship to his canonized Saints which is an Honour due to God alone Lastly In that he is said to change Times and Laws what