living God and therefore resolving to settle on these and not to be distracted by new Appearances he did what he could to winde himself off from any Divine or supernatural Direction as all true Prophecies are that he might the more fully follow the swing of his own carnal mind And this is the usual case of those that pretend such a shyness and modesty touching the understanding of Daniel and the Apocalypse they would not have their judgments so plainly and irrevocably determined to the truth by Divine sentence but be left free to shuffle as occasion serves to maintain their worldly Interests But if really they do not understand them it is no fault of the Prophecies themselves but that they are not duly qualified that read them For as that the Apocalypse is intelligible is manifest from that passage in the beginning of it Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this Prophecy and keep those things which are written therein that is observe them which is impossible for them to doe unless they understand them So it is likewise declared touching the Prophecies of Daniel those parts especially that concern the Christian Church that after such a time namely the expiration of one thousand two hundred and ninety Prophetick days which are so many years from the profanation of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes though none of the wicked shall understand them yet that the wise namely those whose wisedom is according to Godliness they shall understand them But otherwise those that have heaps of Arts and Learning and Reading 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having a disorderly rabble of collections and notions in their heads as Thersites is described in Homer yet these things being not managed in order to the discerning and maintaining of those grand truths that concern the Kingdome of God and Christ and the opposing of the Kingdome of Antichrist I say in the midst of this full light they phansie themselves in they do become stark blind as to any discovery of the true meaning of the Prophecies of Daniel Wherefore from the expiration of those one thousand two hundred and ninety days the understanding of Daniels Prophecies when the sense is fairly represented to one seems to be the touchstone to try a mans condition by whether he be in the rank of the wicked or the wise ones mentioned Dan. Ch. 12. 10. Which is no small argument of the utility if not necessity of studying these Prophecies of Daniel and reading impartial Interpreters of them the rightly understanding of them being amongst other arguments no obscure mark of our being sound sincere and intelligent Christians Which I would have those seriously to consider who though they would take themselves much injured if they were not numbred amongst the godly yet are so boastfully big of their ignorance of the meaning of the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse that they cannot forbear the declaring of it in their publick writings as if it were forsooth such a special perfection of nature or Gift of the Holy Ghost not to be able to understand those Prophecies Whenas the Holy Ghost himself does declare those blessed that understand them and that the wicked shall not understand them but that the wise shall understand them Whence we may note a further ignorance in these men more than they are aware of or willing to acknowledg They seem ignorant or insensible that they thus publickly and boastfully professing their ignorance in these Prophecies do but glory in their own shame and basely and shamefully beg the applause and approbation of the Wits of the age and the worldly Wiselings who for coarse carnal ends decry all pretence to the understanding of Prophecies And thus out of a fond and light ambitious desire of being entred into the list of the Wits of the times they really record themselves in the catalogue of the Scriptures Fools For if the Scripture tell us that the wicked shall not understand these Prophecies but that the wise shall understand them certainly according to Scripture they that understand them not to suppress the other more odious part of the glosse are plainly insinuated to be no better than Fools This is the Holy Scriptures express charge against them not mine And thus much briefly to shew how usefull if not necessary the reading of any impartial Exposition of these Visions of Daniel may be But now for the pleasure thereof I profess that to my self it was unspeakable And indeed what man is there that has 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that has a soul sincerely in love with God his Creatour and Christ his Redeemer but he must be enravished in contemplation of so clear footsteps of the Providence of God at large in the world and more especially of that tender care and inspection of Christ our Lord the Sovereign of all Souls that are to be saved over his Church whether Iewish or Christian That in dear regard to his charge the people of the Iews then carried captive to Babylon and there remaining in servitude under the Babylonian Monarch he should condescend personally to converse with his servant Daniel first near the River Ulai under that mysterious name of Palmoni and afterwards on the River Hiddekel or Tigris in the Pontifical Habit of the High Priest of the Iews which with other circumstances shews plainly that it was Christ of whom the High Priest with his Pontifical habit was but a Type Who I say without tears of joy in his eyes can consider this solicitude of the Son of the most High God for the despicable sons of men who yet further though he did not personally appear to Daniel saving in those two Visions yet by his appointment and the ministry of his holy Angels as of Gabriel particularly were the rest of the Visions to say nothing of the Hand-writing upon the wall communicated unto him And it is an astonishing consideration to observe how the Holy Messias bore in his breast the care not onely of the present people of the Iews but had pourtraied in his mind the solicitous comprehension of the affairs of the whole Church of God from that time even to the end of the world over whom his Father had ordained him universal Protectour and Governour and accordingly he has described in these Divine Prophecies the state of his Church as well Christian as of the Iews and indeed mainly of the Christian the largeness of the Christian Church both for duration of time and amplitude of place being exceedingly more considerable than that of the Jews Whence even those Visions that concern the Iews are so framed that they also by way of Type lively set out both the Apostasie of the Christian Church and the Persecution of those that bore witness against the Apostasie Which persecutions both Iewish and Christian this dear Sovereign of Souls the Messias faithfully forewarns his true servants of not to avoid them but manfully to suffer them his care and
Time is naturally divided into two parts The Time before the beginning of the ten persecutions which began in the tenth of Nero and the Time from thence to Constantine when the Pagan Persecutions ceased The former is the Ephesiâ—…e Interval the latter the Smyrnean The Persecutions are threatned in the former executed in the latter So we see the order of these four Churches placed according to the order of Time and known History And the Sardian Interval naturally follows where there is no complaint of eating things offered unto Idols as in the two former the Pergamenian and Thyatirian Intervals which intimates that the true non-Idolatrizing Church had now whenas before she was but the Woman in the Wilderness become according to Promise in the Thyatirian Interval a visible conspicuous Church and Polity of her self got from under the Pagano-Christian Yoke as well as the Primitive Church before had got from under the Pagan Not that this is the best constitution of the Church that ever will be though incomparably or if you will infinitely better than Popery but that it is introductory to the Blessed Millennial State when the New Ierusalem descends upon Earth according to the Prophecies in the Opened Book For now Prophecy shews the order of these latter Intervals not History as being things to come And it is said expresly to the Church of Philadelphia I will write upon thee the name of the city of my God even of the New Ierusalem c. But now as in the Visions of the Opened Book Prophecy after the thousand years Satan is let loose and Gog and Magog besieges the Holy City so after this excellent Philadelphian Interval succeeds the Laodicean who by their laziness and their luke-warmness will permit Gog and Magog to grow upon them and as Fire from Heaven puts an end to that Siege so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laodicea combusta puts a Period to this Stage of the Earth together with the Church So that the account of the placing of the Seven Churches without any respect to Paronomastical Allusions you see is steady and orderly and according to Time and History for what is past and according to the Prophecies in the other part of the Apocalypse for what is to come Which ordering of them who can be so stupid as not to acknowledg to be done by design From whence again it will follow that this Vision of the Seven Churches is a Prophecy properly so called of the Condition of the Church from the beginning to the end And the same will be still more particularly and exquisitely proved by the Paronomastical Allusions of the Names of these Churches and other Names that occurr in the Epistles to the Churches But as the former way of Proof I have pursued but sparingly so I must let this alone altogether both because it would take up too much space whenas my Notes are swollen to too great a bigness already and because the Reader may peruse what I have copiously enough writ in my Exposition it self I will onely here take notice that if the Paronomastical Allusions all along from the beginning to the end suit exquisitely to the order of Time and Things as I am well assured they do they are also a notable confirmation or demonstration of the Visâ—…on of the Sevâ—â— Churches being a Prophecy properly so called of the state of the Church from the beginning to the end that it was as ceâ—â—ainly intended a Prophecy by the Spirit of God as the skilfull Structure of the Bodies of Animals are an assured Argument of his Providence or that Flower-work or Imagery in Carpets or Clothes made of variously coloured Feathers which are things light and slight enough one would think are an argument of the Art of the Indians that are said to make them And for my part I look upon this Paronomastical way let others make as light and slight of it as they will to be made use of on purpose because as it is where seriously taken notice of a sufficient key of Revealment so it is here as pleasant a pieâ—…e of the Artifice of Concealment from high and lofty Wits that would be likely to stalk over such Allusions with a disdainfull gate and overlook them There being more ways than one wherein that of the Apostle may be verified That God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty and chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise THE END Errata sic corrige PAge 60. l. 8. For is rightly r. is rightly p. 96. 〈◊〉 r. Geniconâ—â—a ibid. r. Idiconâ—â—a p. 105. l. 11. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 114. l. 11. r. good p. 116. l. 7. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 117. l. 15. r. retracting ibid. r. â—… p. 119. l. 1. r. Mithridath p. 121. l. 5. r. 202 We. p. 122. l. 6. r. Pamphylia p. 152. l. 32. r. from uttering p. 176. l. 31. r. called in p. 228. l. 4. r. therein accordingly p. 257. l. 19. r. Ioint-Exposition Books Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-yard HEnrici Mori Cantabrigiensis Opera omnia tum quae Latinè tum quae Anglicè scripta sunt nunc verò Latinitate donata Fol. 3 Voll Apocalypsis Apocalypseos Or The Revelation of Saint Iohn Unveiled Quarto His Tetractys Anti-Astrologica A Confutation of Judiciary Astrology in Answer to Iohn Butâ—…er B. D. Quarto His Remarks on Judge Hales's Treatise of Fluid Bodies Octavo Answers and Replies in Defence of his Antidote against Idolatry Octavo T. Burneti Telluris Theoria Sacra Orbis Nostri Originem Mutationes Generales quas aut jam subiit aut olim subiturus est complectens Figuris Aeneis Quarto 1681. Dr. Falkner's Libertas Ecclesiastica Octavo Christian Loyalty Octavo Vindication of Liturgies Octavo Dr. Sherlock's Discourse of the Knowledg of Iesus Christ with a Defence and Continuation Octavo A Reply to a Pamphet called The Mischief of Impositions which pretends to answer the Dean of St. Paul's Sermon concerning the Mischief of Separation Quarto 1681. N. Resbury's Sermon Preached at the Anniversary Meeting of the Charter-House Scholars On Monday December 13. 1680. Quarto His Sermon at the Funeral of Sir Alan Broderick Kt. November 25. 1680. Mr. Long 's History of the Donatists Octavo His Character of a Separatist Octavo The Nonformists Plea for Peace impleaded against Baxter Octavo Against Hales of Schism with Mr. Baxter's Arguments for Conformity Octavo The Spirit of Enthusiasm Exorcised in a Sermon before the University of Oxford on Act-Sunday Iuly the 11 th 1680. By G. Hicks D. D. Quarto The Spirit of Popery speaking out of the Mouths of Faâ—…atical Protestants Grovâ—…i Responsio ad nuperum Libellum qui inscribitur Celeusma seu Clamor ad Theologos Hierarchiae Anglicanoe c. Quarto Mr. Grove's Vindication of the Conforming Clergy Quarto A Farewell to Popery to Dr. Nichols Vice-Chancellour of Oxford and Warden of New Colledge from Walter
solicitude being not so much for the gratifying of their bodies as the safely bringing back their Souls out of this Region of Mortality and Corruption as a glorious spoil snatcht out of the hands of Satan and Antichrist to present to God his Father in those higher Regions of Immortality and Bliss And certainly so dear and tender as well as so potent a Patron as the Messias would never have permitted his best Clients to suffer such grievous things for his sake had there not been a certain reward in the other world for the Souls of them that so suffered and that been true which he told his Disciples after he was come in the flesh Joh. 14. In my fathers house there are many mansions I go to prepare a place for you Whence these things add a mighty weight to our faith and assurance of the Immortality of the Soul and of an unexpressible happiness to be enjoyed after we have left this body These considerations I think must bring abundance of pleasure to them that have an heart to believe them And yet I will add one thing more which I have observed that cannot but be taking with the judicious That as the miracles of our Saviour Christ here upon earth were never done out of any vanity or ostentation of his wonder-working faculty but as the principle of goodness and needfull beneficency directed him and limited him so likewise the same Christ has behaved himself in like manner in the communication of these Prophecies Wherein there is not the least shew of affectation of foretelling future things as future but merely as they are in subserviency to the most certain information of his Church whether Iewish or Christian concerning their own state and condition what it would be This is more largely insisted upon if the Prophecies be rightly understood but the Pagan Concerns more sparingly and in subordination onely to the affairs of the Church which is a thing methinks very gracefull and becoming the weightiness and authentickness of these Prophecies And this shall briefly serve to intimate what Pleasure the pious soul may reap from the reading and rightly understanding these Divine Visions of Daniel as well as what other fruit or profit he may have thereby The more particular usefulness of which it was less needfull for me to insist upon here they being muchwhat the same with those I have noted in my Preface to my Apocalypsis Apocalypseos to which the Reader may have recourse I shall onely give an account of my adding The Threefold Appendage to this my â—…xposition of the Visions of Daniel and then conclude And the reason of my adding the first part thereof viz. The Confutation of Grotius his opinion who makes the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae the fourth Kingdome in Daniel is this It being the constant tradition of the Church and opinion of the Primitive Fathers besides other Interpreters it would make too great a rattle or noise to rehearse the names of them you may see them in Cornelius à Lapide and Ribera that the times of the ten-horned Beast and two-horned Beast Apoc. 13. and also of the Beast that was is not and yet is Apoc. 17. are the times of Antichrist and Ribera expresly says of this last viz. the Beast that is said to ascend out of the bottomless pit that Antichrist ascends with him and that the other Beast Chap. 13. with ten Horns is Antichrist from the authority of the Fathers and the two-horned Beast his Armour-bearer or Squire of his body though more properly the two-horned Beast is to be called Antichrist and the ten-horned his Squire I wish he had had a better office and not been debased to so mean and unbecoming a ministry by the Imposture of the two-horned Beast I say it being according to the common stream of Antiquity and Interpreters that those times of the ten-horned Beast are the times of Antichrist and the same being founded mainly upon that which is unexceptionably sound viz. That the times of these Apocalyptick Beasts and of that in Daniel with ten Horns amongst which appears that little Horn with eyes which the ancient Tradition of the Church and all the Primitive Fathers with one consent declare to be the formidable Antichrist then to come that those times I say do synchronize or are the very same times and both necessarily conceived in the latter time of the Roman Empire Grotius discerning that unless Porphyrius his opinion may be admitted viz. That the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae not the Roman is the fourth Kingdome in Daniel and having so much wit and perspicacity of Iudgment as to perceive that the Papistical notion and declaration touching Antichrist is such a Romance so incredible and ridiculous you may have it pretty well at large in Cornelius à Lapide upon 2 Thess. 2. that it is more fit for old wives and children to listen to than any one that can pretend to have the understanding of a man he and as it seems to me partly out of the distaste he had taken against the Reformed Church of Holland for their usage of him and partly to glaver and curry favour with the Pontifician party that he might make all sure in the behalf of the Pope and his Hierarchy rejects the Primitive Orthodox opinion of the Church who ever made the fourth Kingdome in Daniel the Roman and strikes in with Porphyrius a mere Pagan who conceited the fourth Kingdome to be that of the Lagidae and Seleucidae By which device Grotius forsooth would excuse the Pope from being the little Horn with eyes and consequently Antichrist and cast it upon Antiochus Epiphanes the little Horn according to him not belonging to the times of the Roman Empire but to the times of the Kings of Syria and Aegypt Wherefore I thought it a business of no small importance to shew the shamefull groundlesness of Grotius his opinion and to restore truth to her due possession and place But in the mean time it is worth our observation that Grotius being ashamed of that Romish or rather Romantick fable which that Church entertains of Antichrist as that he shall be born of a Iewish Female of the â—…ribe of Dan and be begotten by an Incubus or at least that he shall be of the abovesaid 〈◊〉 and make himself the Messias of the Jews shall doe strange miracles to deceive them shall make mountains seem to remove out of their place shall raise himself or some other mortally wounded Prince from the dead shall bring fire from Heaven and like the story of Frier Bacons brazen Head his statue shall be made to speak He shall fly in the air the Devils in the appearance of Angels doing homage to him He shall rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem and there require to be honoured as the sole God of the Vniverse and in the mean time Enoch and Elias appearing again in the Flesh shall Prophesy against him whom he shall slay and their
calls the man of sin and from the little Horn with eyes Which false Seer or Pseudo-prophet as also that King of Pride is by St. John according to the vulgarly known name then in the Church called Antichrist Touching whom they which he wrote to in his Epistles being solicitous he acknowledges indeed that grand Antichrist to come that Daniel foretells of but in the mean time warns them of such Antichrists false Seers or Pseudo-prophets as were more near and under their noses as it were already and gives them characters of them to shun them as being very wretched and mischievous Antichrists in their time and place as well as that other to come So authentick a name is that name of Antichrist for that Party and Polity that should prove the little Horn with eyes the King of Pride or the two-horned Beast c. So that if the Pope with his Hierarchy be they and I have demonstrated them in my Synopsis Propherica and Apocalypsis Apocalypseos to be so it is evident that the Papal Polity or Hierarchy is as I said the very Antichrist properly so called which the Châ—â—ch in the times of the Apostles was so solicitous about they not knowing how near his coming might be nor having any distinct â—…otion of him what an one he would prove when he came though they were assured out of the Prophecies of Daniel that when he did come he would prove horribly bad as all the sincere Servants of Christ have found him his tyranny and salvage cruelty against them being unutterable as the monstrosity of his doctrines and gross enormities in practice a thing beyond all conceit of any of the Apostolick Age that one that professes himself the successour of St. Peter the Vicar of Christ the Bridegroom or Husband if you will of his Spouse the Church and the Holy Father of Christendome nay such an one as is styled Holiness in the very abstract should be such a man of Idolatry and bloud a Destroyer and Murderer of the most faithfull and loyall Servants of Christ whose Vicar notwithstanding he pretends to be But how well this name of Antichrist which St. John and the Primitive Church has bestowed upon him does suit with him that is with the Pope or Papal Hierarchy I have so fully set out in my Idea of Antichristianism that I may well forbear to say any thing more here but onely remind the Reader which is the thing in hand to what good purpose this first part of my Appendage is added it making for the fuller confirmation that the fourth Kingdome is the Roman which is the foundation of the ancient Fathers Interpreting those Visions which we know certainly to belong to the Papacy concerning the times of Antichrist and that consequently according as our Reformed Churches have ever declared the Pope is he For that is but a childish and foâ—…d subterfuge and fit for nothing but to fobb off fools to interpose the above described Romish prefiguration of Antichrist as if Antichrist must not be said to come till a bastard of the Tribe of Dan sit in the Temple of God at Jerusalem and declare himself the onely supreme God and that he himself alone is to be worshipped c. I say besides the ridiculous fabulosity of Enoch and Elias their coming again in the Flesh and their being slain by this Antichrist and their bodies lying dead three days and an half in the streets of Jerusalem and then raised to life and ascending into Heaven all the people of the City gazing upon them that very one thing of his declaring himself to be the onely true God that is to be worshipped is a figment impossible the Devil himself would not have that impudence nor any Devil incarnate so little wit as to declare so besides that it is perfectly repugnant to the description of Antichrist in Daniel Ch. 11. where he is said to worship the Mahuzzim together with a strange God Nor is Antichrists description 2 Thess. 2. such as implies that he declares himself to be the supreme God who-alone is to be worshipped For he is not said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew himself that he is the true and onely God but onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he behaves himself as if he were a God rather than a man an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one of the Popes boasted that the people took the Successours of St. Peter to be or Supremum numen in terris as his glozing Canonists call him and he abundantly exalts himself above God I trow that takes upon him to dispense with his Laws and enact things quite contrary to them But such pitiful shifts are they put to that wilfully maintain a wicked cause for worldly Interest that they must thus pervert the Idea's and notions of things to delude the ignorant and draw such an Image or representation of Antichrist though never so salse and fabulous so be it may but shelter the Pope from appearing to be him And to coin false notions of Idolatry such as Rubenus Essendiensis has defined it That it is the worship of Latria or truly Divine worship given to an accursed Devil and that directed in such a sense as it is directed to God whereby he would excuse the Church of Rome from Idolatry But we have insisted too long already on this first part of our Appendage we will onely add this That in making such gross shifts as these they do but betray their own guilt and insinuate to the sagacious that unless such a ridiculous and fabulous Image of Antichrist as they set forth be admitted the Pope must be Antichrist and unless such a false and illogical definition of Idolatry be allowed the Church of Rome must be Idolatrous that is in brief they confess their own guilt and acknowledge the Pope to be Antichrist and his Church Idolatrous But now for the second part of the Appendage which proves that the Vials are to follow the Rising of the Witnesses besides that it is a confirmation of our Exposition of the Prophecy of the Opened Book as the former part of the Appendage was of my Exposition of the Visions in Daniel and the third is of the Epistolar Prophecy in the Apocalypse it does also confirm Mr. Mede's Scheme of Synchronisms such as I have exhibited it in my Epilogue to my Apocalypsis Apocalypseos with such emendations and supplements as I have signified there Which cannot but be a gratification to men of a stable and judicious Spirit and who are delighted with a settled and orderly comprehension of things But sundry being not aware that the Vials all of them follow the Rising of the Witnesses and consequently that the Witnesses are risen already in the late Blessed Reformation busy themselves in the inventing new Epocha's of the Medial or Antemedial Synchronals to fit themselves for the foretelling out of an itch of Prophecying or prognosticating things future when that will come that is already past as
I have demonstrated the Rising of the Witnesses to be in this second part of my Appendage And they that have applied the late Blessed Reformation to the second Vial as Mr. Mede and after him Peganius has done it was from this errour that they took it for granted that most of the Vials preceeded the Rising of the Witnesses And such is the humour fansifulness and partiality of many that they can hardly believe of themselves that the Witnesses are risen till Kingdomes Nations and Principalities of their own party rise into Political power namely all Episcopal all Presbyterian all Calvinists all Arminians all Socinians and so of Anabaptists Quakers and Famulists But they erre knowing not the Scriptures or the true meaning of them nor rightly considering the Records of History where they may find what was the testimony of these Witnesses who are predicted to rise in the Reformation and to be warred against before by the Beast and cruelly persecuted As there was nothing to alledge against the Apostolicalness of their faith they professing the Triunity of the Godhead and Divinity of Christ and such like Articles of the Christian belief and living accordingly whereby they became idoneous Witnesses so their plain and simple testimony against the Church of Rome was this That the Pope was that Man of sin or Antichrist and their Church Idolatrous by reason of their adoration of the Host invocation of Saints and worshipping of Images and their Religion otherwise also grosly corrupt in seeking to propitiate God by their adhering to the multifarious vain and wicked inventions of men excogitated onely for the gain of the Priest and the keeping the people in blindness and ignorance This was the tenour of the Testimony of the Witnesses both in the Pergamenian and the Thyatirian Interval of the Church which they witnessed with great favouriness and assurance in virtue of the Spirit of life and holiness in them And persons innumerable that bore the same testimony and were of the same sentiments instead of being still mournfull Witnesses in sackcloth or lying dead in a Political sense in the streets of the Mystical Prophet-murdering Jerusalem the same with Babylon or Aegypt which signify the large jurisdiction of the Pope of Rome at the Reformation had a reviving into Political Power again and ascended in several Kingdomes to the highest Honours Dignities and Employments in Church and State Which therefore as I have proved in this part of my Appendage must needs be the Rising of the Witnesses they being of the same mind and profession with those that were so grievously persecuted and kept out of all power nay burnt at the stake murdered and massacred God knows how many hundred thousands of them And at this very day our own Church of England partly in her Homilies partly in her Articles and Liturgy gives the same testimony of the Church of Rome even that she is that old painted harlot of Babylon with her cup of fornication that is of Idolatry and that the Pope is Antichrist as I have shewn in my Synopsis Prophetica Book 2. Ch. 21. Which whenas our own Church which seems most moderate does so plainly attest we may be sure the rest of the chiefest writers of the Reformation do not mince the matter at all And if there be any persons in the Reformation any where that at all recoyl from this testimony it is because the Spirit of life and holiness is decayed in them and the gross Spirit of this world has blinded their eyes and darkened their understandings and hardened their hearts against the truth they preferring worldly power pomp and riches before the purity of Gods worship Wherefore I say this is one great usefulness of my demonstrating the Vials to follow the Rising of the Witnesses in that it is thence manifest that the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses was fulfilled in the late Blessed Reformation there being thus no other Vision to predict it but this Which conclusion contains a manifold usefulness in it For first that acclamation in Heaven upon the Rising of the Witnesses That the Kingdomes of the world were become the Kingdomes of the Lord and of his Christ namely after so many Principalities Provinces and Kingdomes had cast off the Pope in the late Blessed Reformation what does this imply but that they were before in the hands of Antichrist and that were the Pope has any Dominion it is ipso facto Antichrists Kingdome and on the contrary that all the Reformed parts of Christendome are the Kingdome of Christ and indeed the fifth Monarchy begun Which ought to stop the mouths and carrears of an ignorant and Fanatical sort of men that cannot see wood for trees and seek for a fifth Monarchy in a fifth Monarchy whenas so considerable a part of it is erected before their eyes already But as I noted above such is the folly and freakishness of ignorant and conceited men that they would not willingly acknowledge the Witnesses to be risen till those of the same crotchets with themselves whole Kingdomes and Nations of them have got into power But it is very true and extremely worth our nothing that as in the times of the old Roman Paganism all those that professed Christ according to the tenour of what we call the Apostles Creed though in the mean time they had several different conceits about things that appertained to the Christian Religion were notwithstanding lookt upon as the Kingdome of Christ in opposition to the Kingdome of the red Dragon the Pagan persecutive Roman Empire so all the Reformed Churches States and Kingdomes though some Lutherans others Calvinists some of one opinion others of another yet they keeping to the old Orthodox Faith of the Triunity of the Godhead and Divinity of Christ acknowledged by the Church in the Symmetral times thereof and renouncing the Communion of the Roman Church for her gross Idolatries and wretched and intolerable Superstitions and humane inventions whereby she has so notoriously adulterated the purity and simplicity of the Christian Faith and worship all these I say are justly deemed the Kingdome of Christ in opposition to the Dominion of the Pope or Kingdome of Antichrist Whence as I was a going to say a second special use of this our demonstration that the late Blessed Reformation was the fulfilling of the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses is the undeceiving of those they call the Fifth-monarchy men who would pretend to begin the fifth Monarchy and upon that account raise commotions and tumults whenas it is so stupendiously and surprisingly by the special providence of God begun already And let a third usefulness be to reprove them that out of rashness and conceitedness or any other worse principle vilify and contemn this great work of God the late happy Reformation whether it be those that think there is too much done already they having an hankering again after the Flesh-pots of Aegypt the worldly bigness and downbearing
the true servants of God who will never suffer them to be tempted above what they can bear which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are Temporal but the things that are not seen are Eternal Even to the time of the end that is To the time of their ending For God had set his time wherein these afflictions of his Church should end as bounding all human affairs by his Power and Providence so that there may be a respiration to his people from these extremities of affliction And therefore there is put an end to this affliction of his Church because it was foreseen that another would begin as it is intimated to us by what follows according to the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because it is yet for a time appointed The vulgar Latin has it Quia adhuc aliud tempus erit Because there will be yet another time namely of persecution of the Church of God viz. under the Roman Empire Pagan and Pagano-Christian Wherefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an Elliptical speech as was observed above v. 27. Which verbatim is thus to be rendred Because yet-again at the time appointed subaudi There will be a persecution of my People or Church viz. under the Roman Empire whose succession begins in the next verse For hitherto is described from vers 21. the Reign and feats of Antiochus Epiphanes But that now the times of the Roman Empire succeed both the mention of A Time and Times and half a time Ch. 12. 7. and those other numbers there vers 11. that point to them and that vast gap that would be betwixt Antiochus his time and the Resurrection of the dead mentioned v. 2. may sufficiently assure us To which you may add that the Passage here from the Greek Empire to the Roman in the next verse is as distinct and plain as from the Persian to the Greek vers 3. and the like great success and Prosperity expressed in both in that of both Kings it is said And he shall do according to his will * Which therefore cannot be understood of Antiochus Whence they that would drag what follows of the Prophecy to that scope are fain to run back and apply the same things that were predicted before and so make the Prophecy to tautologize Besides many things are most wretchedly distorted and very weakly and faintly accommodated to the person of Antiochus Which Calvin being sensible of applies all to the Roman Empire from the times of the Roman Empire after Antiochus his death to the coming of Christ. In which besides that many things are dilute or forced he leaves a vast gap as well as those others viz. from the beginning of the Gospel to the Resurrection Which makes the Prophecy less worthy of that Pompous Preface to it viz. the Prefatory vision Ch. 10. as I noted above Wherefore there can be no doubt with them that consider the matter but that this Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth does not only here pass from the Greek Empire to the Roman upon the death of Antiochus and the vanquishing of Perseus the last King of Macedonia by Aemylius Paulus and turning his Kingdom into a Roman Province but that the Prophecy continuedly goes on though in general strokes through the whole series of times of the Roman Empire to the end of the world or general Resurrection And that as there has hitherto been predictions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Literally or Historically to be understood of the affairs of the Persian and Greek Kingdome and more particularly of those two parts thereof the Kingdoms of Syria and Aegypt where the real gests of Antiochus Epiphanes are foretold and are but onely as other Historical parts of Scripture drawn to a Typical sense so whatever follows touching the affairs of the Roman Empire has a plain Historical meaning and is so to be understood till its utter dissolution So that there will be no room left for such a Chimerical Antichrist as some of the Fathers have fancied and others have been either themselves such children or would have others to be such as to believe them Wherefore bidding adieu to Hugo Grotius and laying aside all the fancifull and Chimerical Crotchets of mistaken Antiquity I shall clear the sense of the remaining part of this Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth as follows 36. And the King shall do according to his will and shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every God This may be understood of the Roman Empire at large and the words be rendred thus Then shall a King do according to his will shall have all things go prosperously according to his desire by King understanding here as it is elsewhere in Daniel a State or Kingdome which is here the Roman upon the expiration of the Greek Empire Macedonia being conquered by the Romans of which Perseus was the last King contemporary to Antiochus whom Daniel foretels to reign Ch. 8. in the latter time of the Greek Kingdome And therefore the Roman is very fitly here supposed to succeed it after Antiochus Epiphanes the rest of his Successours being taken no notice of for the same reasons that all but one after Xerxes are past by in the Persian Empire And this Roman King or Kingdome is said to magnify himself above every God in that the Romans by sacred charms called out the Gods of those Cities they conquered and so as it were led them captive to Rome See my Synops. Prophet Book 2. Ch. 10. And shall speak marvelous things that is blasphemous against the God of Gods that is The officers of this Roman Power shall do so namely against Christ Jesus himself who was truly God as well as man and therefore the God of Gods and yet was he in word and deed most despightfully used by them and crucified And how the God of of Gods viz. the God of Israel was despised by the Romans a man may collect from that greatest Wit of the Roman Empire Marcus Cicero and one of the best men of them who yet speaks but contemptibly of the Religion of the Iews as unworthy of the greatness of the Roman name and Empire and insults over their Nation as less befriended by the Gods because they were vanquished and subjected to the Romans If a person of his quality went so far in reproach to the God of Israel what would others of less sagacity and morality blurt out See his oration pro Flacco And shall prosper till the Indignation be accâ—…mplished for that that is determined shall be done And yet they shall prosper notwithstanding this their villany towards Christ and bloudy persecution of his members wherein he was again reproached and blasphemed till the determined time of this rage ran out and that the Empire became Christian which was certainly determined to be
dispersion of the holy people the Iews shall be ended which will be under the first Thunder about the sixth and seventh Vials All these things shall be finished All these marvellous things even to the first and second Resurrection when there shall be no more time upon Earth according to the oath of that Angel Apoc. 10. 6 7. which answers to this For it is about the same thing as the Persons are the same and therefore the time the same But the Oath of that Apocalyptick Angel is That there shall be no more time saving in the days of the voice of the seventh Angel when he shall sound and the mystery of God be finished that is Upon the expiration of the Time and Times and half a Time there shall be no more time on Earth or series of things there save what are contained within the seventh Trumpet or seven Thunders Within the expiration of that time and the Time and Times and half a Time all these things as the Angel tells Daniel shall be finished So excellent a key is the Apocalypse to this passage of Daniel 8. And I heard but I understood not namely where to pitch these Time and Times and half a Time or where the latter part of the Times of the End which is the Time of the fourth Monarchy is supposed to be Then said I O my Lord. He speaks to the man clothed in linen upon the waters with this reverence and respect as being the same Angel described ch 10. which I there shewed to be Christ. What shall be the end of these things The Hebrew has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What the latter part of those whether Times or things transacted in those Times 9. And he said Goe thy way Daniel for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the End Which Time of the End here has a more restrict signification it being an answer to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What the latter part of those Times Which latter part the Apostle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the latter Times of these last And therefore is as much as if the Angel had said The Vision touching these Time and Times and half a Time is sealed up or concealed till the being of those very Times which are the Times of the End in the more strict sense In which Time of the End or Time and Times and half a Time which is the Time of the Apocalyptick Whore and Beast and the Little Horn with Eyes which wars against the Saints it is said here likewise that 10. Many shall be purified and made white and tried viz. In the furnace of affliction and persecution under the Whore and the Beast or little Horn with eyes or under the above described King of Pride the very Antichrist But the wicked shall do wickedly that is shall persist in their gross Idolatries and sensual lewdnesses and all manner of wickednesses of Pride and Avarice and persecution of the pure Apostolick Christians And none of the wicked shall understand that is None of the followers of Antichrist and immersed in the foul Idolatries and gross Sensualities or blinded with the deceitfull Hypocrisies of that Antichristian Synagogue None of these or others as carnally or worldly minded as they shall understand either these Visions of Daniel or those of the Apocalypse which tend to the same scope But the wise shall understand viz. Those that the fear of God has made so which is the beginning of all true Wisdome These will prove competent Judges of the true sense of these Prophecies And will not be such fools as to expect light from the antient Fathers for the understanding of them whenas it is expresly declared that theâ—… are closed up and sealed till the latter Times And then those that are truly wise will understand them as it is further intimated by what follows that it will not be till then And it is an hint and a sufficiently certain though something obscure subindication 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what are the latter Times of the last or the Times of the Reign of Antichrist This intimation I say that follows is sufficient 11. And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away and the Abomination that malieth desolate set up The same that is mentioned and in the â—…ame words ch 11. 31. in this very prophecy of the Scripture of Truth There shall be a Thousand two hundred and ninety Prophetical days or eighty six Roman Indictions such as not onely the Emperours but the Popes of Rome make use of in their Decrees and are peculiar to the Roman State In the latter part of the last Times at the end of this number will that King of Pride above described Ch. 11. v. 36 37 c. be revealed namely in the year of Christ 1120. * Then will this Antichrist by a publick writing be exhibited or set out to the world in his colours that all may â—…ee him that are not wilfully blind 12. Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days that is years as before or 89 Indictions Blessed are they that come to this Time for they will have the opportunity of not onely knowing Antichrist but of suffering Martyrdome by opposing of him and witnessing against him in behalf of Christ and his true Church This number therefore thus augmented by three Indictions viz. by forty five years reaches to the Time of the Waldenses and the beginning of their persecutions viz. to the year 1160. Which continued upon them so long and with that cruelty that many hundred thousands of them lost their lives in witnessing to the truth of Christ against the Deceits Impostures Idolatries and barbarous and tyrannical Pride and cruelty of the Roman Antichrist And so became Martyrs for Christ and purchased to themselves the priviledge of Martyrs which is the priviledge of having their share in the first Resurrection Whence it is said Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the Thousand three hundred and five and thirty days For Blessed and Holy is he that has part in the first Resurrection on such the second death hath no power Apoc. 20. 6. These numbers therefore served for the pointing out the Times of Antichrist to them that should be born in those Times though Daniel understood nothing by them and therefore the Angel says 13. But goe thou thy way till the end be Which Translation is somewhat hard and obscure Vatablus his Interpretation seems more natural to me who interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not imperatively but in a future â—…ense as is often in the Hebrew Tu autem vades ad â—…inem tuum But thou shalt come to thine End that is Thou â—…halt dye long before these things come to pass or be understood And thou shalt rest in an happy peacefull and secure condition as it is said The Souls of the righteous are in the hand of God and there shall no torment touch
the Coincidence of time with the Paganoâ—…Christian Empire and the long continuance as also the difference of this Kingdome from the other ten is more than 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 Apocalypse 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 than 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 it self 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 increase and keep up the honour power and wealth of the Pope and his Clergy See Sir Edwyn Sandys his Speculum Europae and you shall find 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 than 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 his 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 towards 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-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 than the very Pagans on the Primitive Christians which is the most furious Opposition against the Regality of Christ that can be imagined thus to waste 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 Divinae Majestatis 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 innumerable Institutes are there of the Pope's injoyning of which may be truly said what our Saviour told the Scribes and Pharisees 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From the beginning it was not so And what is this therefore but to change Times and Laws and in many of them in a most perfect Opposition to the Laws of God and Christ as I have already noted in its place Whence we see plainly that this Antichristian Opposition against the Regal Office of Christ is very expresly foretold in this Vision of the little Hornâ—… which rose up with the ten Horns in the Roman Empire and did fabricate Imperium in Imperio as some phrase it and became a Two-horned Beast in the Ten-horned Beast erecting an Ecclesiastick Antichristian Empire within the Civil in opposition to the true Empire or Kingdome of Christ and in defeatment of his Power and Laws in the Church nay in opposition to those Immutable Laws of the Eternal Logos that enlightens every man that comes into the world NOTES Upon the Confutation Sect. 2. Was neither greater more excellent nor a more viâ—…torious Kingdome c. For they both viz. the Kingdomes of the Lagidae and Seleucidae put together were yet but part of Alexander's Kingdome And for their victories and spoils they were of one against another which was a farther weakning of this but part of the Kingdome of Alexander which still argues the less excellency of the said part Sect. 4. For Antiochus Epiphanes was dead almost two hundred years before Christ so much as c. And yet Grotius would have Antiochus Epiphanes the little Horn upon whose destruction notwithstanding the Ancient of days gives the Kingdome to the Son of man Dan. 2. 44. In the days of these Kingdomes the fourth and last of which is according to Grotius that of the. Lagidae and Seleucidae shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdome which is the Kingdome of the Gospel of Christ whenas the Kingdomes of the Lagidae and Seleucidae were both of them utterly vanquished and abolished by the Romans before
Moses the servant of God and of the Lamb. Nothing I think can be more demonstrable And it is worth our noting here How that the whole two Chapters viz. Ch. 15. and 16. though they be so divided are indeed but one Partial Vision Synchronizing with the last part of those two more universal Visions comprised the one in the eleventh Chapter the other in the three following Chapters and beginning with the second main Ioynt of them the Acclamations in Heaven and Doxology of the Elders or joyfull Annunciation of the news of the Fall of Babylon So that that Doxology of the Elders the joyfull Annunciation and the Triumphal Song of Moses and the Lamb fall in together to which you may add the commencement of the Church of Sardis which also signifies a Song of Ioy. Which coincidency of things to my reason is very harmonious the Sardian Church being the state of the Church commencing with the Rising of the Witnesses which state is promised to the Church in Thyatira the preceeding interval thereof To all which you may add Whereas Mr. Mede cannot deny but that the Vial-plagues are called the last Plagues in reference to the Trumpet-plagues and that the Trumpet-plagues are just Six as well as the Vial-plagues Seven I would appeal to Mr. Mede if St. Iohn had had occasion to express himself therein whether he would not have called the Six Trumpet-plagues the Six first Plagues as well as he calls ch 15. the Seven Vial-plagues the Seven last Whence it will necessarily follow that all the Seven last Plagues of the Vials must follow all the Six first plagues of the Trumpets whenas according as Mr. Mede has placed the Vials onely one of the seven Vial-plagues namely the seventh follows the six Trumpet-plagues which is an apparent Repugnancy Nay merely in that the Vial-plagues all seven of them are said to be the last Plagues that I say does plainly imply that none of them are to be before the ending of all the Trumpet-plagues else they all seven though they are said to be so viz. the seven last plagues could not be the last but five of them according to Mr. Mede's placing of them would expire before the six Trumpet-plagues which is apparently absurd For last of all in Succession supposes the other all to have given place and to be gone but by no means the last themselves to expire before them And these Vial-plagues all seven of them are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very last seven Plagues which they cannot be if any of them expire before any of the six Trumpet-plagues These arguments are so considerable to me that I make no doubt at all but that the Vials are to be placed in the Seventh Trumpet after the Rising of the Witnesses and whether they satisfy others so as to make them of one mind with my self or no yet I hope they will not stick to acknowledg that I have not rashly deviated from the Tract of Mr. Mede and so not violated that Right which is due to so excellent an Interpreter But there is yet I confess another thing touching the Witnesses that Mr. Mede and I do not agree in which is the time of their lying dead which the Vision expresses by three days and an half He will have it to signify three years and an half but I must confess I am fully assured in my own mind that those three days and an half are the very same that three Times and an half Nor is this a new opinion of my own but I met with it near fourty years ago by chance at the end of a Socinian Book in Quarto but the Title of the Book I have forgot and the Socinians every one knows are rather dry Reasoners than phancifull Writers And after I met with it again in Clavis Apocalyptica ad Incudem revocata published A. D. 1652. and since that in that pious and learned Authour A. B. Peganius his Genuine Explication of the Visions of the Revelation who though he most-what follows Mr. Mede in other things yet he leaves him in this And that all people are not of the same mind herein with Peganius and my self the onely objections that I know are First That the Witnesses are said to be slain at the ending or finishing of their mournfull Prophecy Secondly That if the three days and an half be the same with the three Times and an half which is the same with 1260 days or 42 months which are but various expressions of the three Times and an half then the Witnesses will be conceived to speak and prophesie while they lie dead than which nothing can be more absurd This I confess would be an harsh repugnancy Wherefore to remove these Obstacles the Reader must learn to distinguish betwixt the Cortex and the Pith betwixt the Rine and the Pulp of these Parabolical or Symbolical Visions In which if the parts of the Pith or Pulp agree amongst themselves as well as those of the Rine or Cortex amongst themselves all then is sound compleat and harmonious But those that make the above named Objections seem to me to doe as the Welch-man did that bit the Rine of the Orange into his mouth together with the Pulp which made him sputter and make hard faces The Vision or Prophetical Parable it self is very neat and coherent taking it in its Literal sense which represents the two Witnesses lying slain three days and an half after their 1260 days Prophesying in Sack-cloth So that as their natural Death and Prophesying in Sack-cloth are inconsistent one with another so they are disjoyned one from another in the Cortex of the Parable and their death represented as an effect of their 1260 days Prophesying But by this natural Death being signified their Political Death or Deprivation of all Power in Church or State for their Resurrection is into that Power which Political Death is part of the Pulp or Pith of the Parable this is not onely consistent with their mournfull Prophecy but the very cause thereof So that the parts of the Pith or Pulp of the Prophecy cohere one with another singularly well and the contrivance of the Prophetick Parable is of admirable elegancy and festivity For the matter to be represented being this That for a certain time holy good and Apostolical persons sit for employment in Church or State shall in the Apostasie of the Church be for a time kept out of employment namely for that time denoted by Daniel's Time and Times and half a Time which is three Prophetical years and an half resolvible into 1260 Days or 42 Months Prophetical Which being kept out of power and employment is a Political Death to them though they in the mean time in this low condition bear witness against the corruptions of the said times but it being also that at the end of the said Times there will be such a change of things that they will come again into power both in Church and State First
be satisfied if not of the Truth of the thing yet at least that I have not rashly dissented from Mr. Mede therein We having thus solidly stated the sense of this Vision of the Death and Resurrection of the Witnesses which was the true sense thereof many hundred years ago and ever will be we may now the more seasonably enquire whether the Prophecy be yet fulfilled or no. Which if it be not and the Witnesses be not risen it is evident from what we have proved above viz. That the Vials follow the Rising of the Witnesses that there is not yet one Vial poured out But there is no Protestant Interpreter that I know but will allow that some of the Vials are already poured out Wherefore unless they will shamefully recoil they must of necessity acknowledg that the Witnesses are already risen But I shall use but one Argument for all to prove that this Vision or Prophecy of the Rising of the Witnesses is already fulfilled What a remarkable Providence as touching the Church of God and what a vast change of affairs there was in the Papacy at the late Reformation is notorious and what an innumerable company of people were delivered out of that worse than Aegyptian Bondage of the Pope and multitudes who because of their supposed Hereticalness lay dead useless and unactive to all Political Power whether in Church or State being excluded therefrom for their falsly suspected Heresy got into the most honourable employments at the Reformation both in Church and State Nay that the highest honours were in the hands of the Protestants in many intire Kingdomes and Principalities which had been under the Papacy before What a marvellous nay stupendious change this was no man can but be sensible of and therefore that it must be and that in no slight manner predicted in the Apocalypse Now it cannot be predicted in any of those Visions that in order of time follow the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses as the Vials do because this notable and stupendious mutation of things has happened already and as those of the adverse party would have it before the Rising of the Witnesses Wherefore I demand of them in what Vision which is antecedent to the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses is this so remarkable and marvellous a piece of Providence predicted or prefigured I am confident they cannot find any before this of the Rising of the Witnesses Wherefore it must be this Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses which prefigured this stupendious piece of Providence in the Reformation or else none at all Which were an absurdity intolerable and utterly incredible Wherefore it is even Mathe matically evident that the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses is a Prophecy of the late Reformation and that it is fulfilled therein And this it would be though it were less significative of that marvellous passage of Providence than it is But that it is most fitly and fully significative thereof as if made on purpose for it my Exposition of it in my Apocalypsis Apocalypseos and elsewhere will I hope abundantly make good which is needless here to repeat as also how naturally the Song of Moses the Servant of God and of the Lamb follows the Rising of the Witnesses which contains a deliverance of the Servants of God from that worse than Aegyptian Bondage of that Mystical Pharaoh the Pope and how the Sardian Interval of the Church which signifies a Song of Ioy commences at the same time Which things fall in with that Congruity and Harmony that he must be something more than ordinary stupid that is not enravished therewith But in the mean time having observed that neither the Messias who is called the Christ when he was come though predicted plainly enough by the Prophecies was taken notice of as such by them that were concerned to take notice of him nor yet Antichrist as fully nay more fully and repeatedly predicted and prefigured was taken notice of by them who were sufficiently concerned so to do I less wonder that the Prophecy of the Rising of the Witnesses so punctually predicted and manifestly fulfilled in the Reformation should be so little taken notice of as it is but that several men as the Iews expect a Messias to come and the Romanists an Antichrist so they a Rising of the Witnesses to come when the impletion of that Prophecy is so evidently already past Wherefore it was the duty of some or other to remind them of it The Authours twenty Arguments whereby he does prove that the seven Epistles to the seven Churches are a Prophecy of the state of the Church cast into seven Intervals from the beginning thereof to the last Iudgment out of his Exposition of the seven Churches Chapter X. 1. AS in Natural Hypotheses those are accounted truest that solve the Phaenomena of Nature the most naturally and easily and especially if such as are no otherwise solvible than upon the proposed Hypothesis so that meaning of Scripture I mean especially of any considerable portion thereof ought to be esteemed truest that can solve the most Difficulties that may be raised concerning the same or the Contexts precedent or subsequent thereto and if all still the more certain and if unsolvible otherwise there is still the more assurance of undeniable Demonstration Now how near this Mystical or Propheticall Exposition of these Epistles approaches to the clearness of this case I will leave to the Reader to judge after he has considered the Solutions of the questions easily raised out of the Epistles themselves or the precedent Chapter and not easily answered nor at all satisfactorily at least most of them but upon the Hypothesis we have gone 2. As first If a man enquire why the Spirit of Prophecy after he has so expresly given notice that this Book of the Apocalypse is to shew unto his servants things that are to come and called it plainly a Book of Prophecies should start so unexpectedly from the Title and intended Subject as to write no less than seven Epistles to certain Churches that have nothing considerable of Prophecy in them before he deliver any Prophecies properly so called but onely Promises and Comminations and that he should do this * with as great Pomp and as high a Preamble as he does when he begins so famous Prophecies as those of the seven Seals and the opened Book But according to our Hypothesis the Answer is easie viz. That though these seven Epistles to the seven Churches of Asia have a Literal sense yet they are also a Parable or Prophecy and of as high concern for both matter and extent of Time they reaching from the beginning of the Church to the end of the world as the Prophecy of the Seals and Opened Book and that they are ushered in with this great Pomp on purpose to give us notice thereof Secondly A man would be prone to enquire why the Spirit dictates Letters unto the Churches in Asia and not rather
Intervals of the Church of Pergamus and of Thyatira must come after Ephesus and Smyrna because till the expiration of those two Intervals Idolatry had not again reentred the Apostatizing Church And the three following intervals of Sardis Philadelphia and Laodicea are the Intervals of the true Church elapsed out of the hands of domineering Idolatry and therefore we hear no more in them of things sacrificed unto Idols nor of any Iezahel And Philadelphia which is the most holy and the most glorious Interval of the Church that is to appear on the face of the Earth is not to be named accoâ—…ding to her Dignity but according to her Succeâ—â—ion in time toward the latter end of the World as she is here ranged But of this more than enough because we had touched of it in the general before 5. Tenthly Why is Christ in his Description before the Epistle to the Church in Pergamus set out by a two edged Sword coming suppose out of his mouth according to the Ellipticalness of the Apocalyptick style what reason in the Letter can be given of that for especially if this Supplement be made it cannot respect the slaying of Antipas with the sword What peculiar thing then in this Church of Pergamus is there to require this Description Truly nothing at all appears in the Letter but in the Prophetical sense it is very proper The Waldenses and Albigenses in this Interval assaulting the Church of Rome or at least defending themselves and their pure Faith so signally by this Weapon I mean by the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God though themselves died so many thousands of them in the field by the sword for the Faith they thus defended And in the Eleventh place The description of Christ before the Epistle to the Church in Thyatira And his Feet like fine Brass as if they burned in a Furnace for that Supplement is to be understood out of his Description in the first Chapter as before But now what peculiar significancy has this description or what congruity to any thing in the Church of Thyatira Literally understood surely none But in the Prophetical sense it is very expressive of those lower members of Christ's Body his Church here on Earth of their invincible Zeal and Patience and Sincerity of Affection such as did abide the most fiery Tryals that could be put upon them and made them stand at the Stake amongst burning Faggots with the Flames about their ears and never flinch for it As has been noted in the Interpretation of that Epistle This was the state of that Interval of the Church Twelfthly In a Book that is so full of Aenigmatical Involutions and coverings upon coverings where he calls the Churches Golden Candlesticks and the Bishops or Pastours Stars and Angels even then when he interprets and offers to be more plain that the same Authour should so openly and plainly mention any one by name as he does the Martyr Antipas if there were not some farther Mystery in it would be a great Difficulty and hardly to be digested by the more sagacious and curious I must confess I have often wondred at this naming Antipas by name till I understood a further sense thereof such as we have rendred in the Exposition of that Epistle 6. In the thirteenth place One might well demand why Christ expresses a greater disgust against the Church of Laodicea than that of Sardis For though the former is said to be luke-warm yet the other making a great shew of life is notwithstanding declared to be dead That Christ should be more inraged against Luke-warmness than Hypocrisie and threaten it more deeply than the other I will spew thee out of my mouth which is quite to cast a thing away never to be resumed again must seem marvellous to the onsiderate Certainly if there were not some greater matter in it the Spirit of Christ would not speak so severely onely to follow a Metaphor But in the Prophetical sense the solution is easy that passage being predictive of the Extermination of the Church from the face of the earth at the close of the world as I have expounded it In the fourteenth place it may be demanded why so affectedly and repeatedly in every Epistle that Phrase is used I know thy works without any variation or omission Which seems a thing but of-small importance in the Literal sense of these Epistles but in the Prophetical it seems on purpose so repeated to intimate an Allusion in Asia to the Hebrew word * as if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was intended on purpose to answer to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * that Asia may also be significant as well as the names of the Seven Churches which they all being it is a shrewd presumption this repetition was for some such design as has been declared Whereas the Literal sense can give no account thereof Fifteenthly Alcazar himself is much stumbled that the Spirit of God should be thought to take notice of any one particular Woman in the Church of Thyatira and so call her by the name of Iezabel as is ordinarily supposed And indeed these things are too little for the Majesty of this Writing of the Apocalypse But how can we help it in the Literal sense if we will interpret with constancy and coherency But in the Prophetical sense there is no such incongruity The Object is worth the Spirits taking notice of in this kind this Iezabel being that painted Woman of Rome intoxicating the Kings of the Earth with the Cup of her Spiritual Fornications as has been shewn upon the Text. 7. Sixteenthly It seems very strange that that Promise of ruling over the Nations and receiving the Morning Star which doubtless are Political Promises should be made to the Church in Thyatira more than to that in Pergamus or Ephesus and others What Victories or Dominion did the Church in Thyatira in Asia get over the Nations more than other Churches This is an hard knot in the Literal sense But in the Prophetical it is loosened at the first sight For the Closure of the Interval of the Church of Thyatira brings in the time wherein whole Nations revolted from the Pope and his Idolatrous Church and professed the Reformed Religion and so in these parts got the Pontifician party under them Seventeenthly In the Epistle to the Church in Philadelphia there is mention made of a mighty Temptation that is to come upon all the World to try them that dwell upon the Earth touching which he saith Behold I come quickly Why should this be said to the Church of Philadelphia more than to any other of the Churches here specified There are not the least footsteps of reason to be found in the Literal sense But in the Prophetical sense the thing is plain For the Interval of Philadelphia beginning in the last Vial wherein that mighty and terrible Earthquake is to happen the great Temptation what it is is plainly thence understood and how in
rather Superstition as whose very nature is to abuse that Religious inclination in humane Souls by making them swattle away their love and zeal upon false objects and to spend their obedience on the vain inventions of men by making them rely on the falsly supposed merits of Saints and to depend upon the person and Trumperies of an ignorant or deceitful Priest instead of having their sure repose in the richness of the mercy of God through Christ Iesus our Lord. To whom if we be immediately united by faith and love and shew our love by endeavouring sincerely to our power to keep His commandments this is the plain and compendious way to salvation All other Interposals of humane invention are but distractions and obstacles thereto and wicked elusions of the power and comfort of the Gospel of our Lord Iesus This seems to be the sound and savoury sense of the Homilies of the Church of England and that in opposition to that Aegyptian servitude and vile bondage that Gods people were held in under the Church of Rome And certainly it must have been a most loathsome slavery and a sight intolerable to as many as whose eyes God had opened to see the whole scope of the Gospel thus â—…luded for filthy lucre's sake by the wretched inventâ—â—ns of men besides the sordidness and foulness of 〈◊〉 intermingled therewith Which made the sâ—…ate of that Church intolerable to as many as God had visited with his saving grace and had made to understand this mystery of Iniquity by the illumination of his holy Spirit insomuch that it was more tolerable to them to quit this world and life itself than to comply with such horrid Impieties How can we then whom God long since has delivered out of this vile bondage and have sung that Triumphal Song of Moses and the Lamb return again into Sodom and Aegypt How can we desert a Religion to the Witnesses whereof God has given so ample a witness in that blessed and Apostolick Reformation in raising them from the dead after three days and an half according to prediction and calling them up into the Political Heavens and setting them to rule in high places How can we return like a dog to his vomit to a vomit cast out and lying so long time cold and sour in the dirt and mire a vomit cast out as nauseous to all that is sound or sacred in the faculties of a man Nauseous to the outward senses and inward senses Nauseous to common Reason Nauseous to the principles of Logick and all sound Philosophy so nauseous to all these was that figment of Transubstantiation forged for the gain and honour of the Priesthood but quite repugnant to all the abovesaid faculties of man and nauseous to all common honesty and modesty to obtrude such an impossible fiction upon deluded people and to make them profess it whether they will or no for fear of being cruelly and barbarously murdered which must be exceeding nauseous to all such as have but the least sense of Iustice or humanity remaining in them How shall we again incorporate with that Church whom the Spirit of God has so plainly as well as the Homilies of our Church of England declared to be the Whore of Babylon May we take the Members of Christ and make them the members of an Harlot How shall we forsake the Kingdome of Christ and make our selves subjects of the Popedome which out of St. John and the Prophet Daniel to say nothing of St. Paul three sufficient Witnesses I trow to put an end to this controversy is most evident to be the Kingdome of Antichrist If treason and rebellion against an earthly Prince be so hainous a crime as most certainly it is what a crime is rebellion and treason against him who is assuredly King of Kings and Lord of Lords even the Lord Christ Iesus And lastly How can we turn our backs of a Religion unless we will wilfully run into eternal perdition that has all the assurance of truth against that of the Church of Rome that the heart of man can wish or his curiosity require Is the vote of Primitive antiquity of any value that stands for us the Church for the first four hundred years being the very platform of our Reformation Has Sense common Reason the Rudiments of Logick the sound Principles of Philosophy any weight with them all these assuredly witness for us against the impossible figments and fond forgeries of the Church of Rome Has Morality and indispensable Principles of common Honesty which the pretence of no Religion ought in any wise to deface Has the eternal law of God and Nature implanted in our hearts any right to be appealed to we right willingly appeal to it how innocent the Form of our Religion is as to this and how foul and obnoxious will be found the Principles of the Papacy And finally has the attestation of Scripture and bloud of Martyrs some hundred thousands of innocent and holy Souls burnt and massacred by these Antichristian Persecutors have such serious Testimonies any force with them then have we even a cloud of Witnesses in the behalf of the Truth of our Reformed Religion against the impious corruptions of the Church of Rome The plain places of Scripture expresly condemn the worship of Images the praying in an unknown tongue the communicating but in one kind and the like And the Prophecies do not onely declare the Church of Rome to be the Whore of Babylon and the Pope Antichrist but those that professed the faith of the Reformed Churches to be the Witnesses to be the Martyrs of Iesus and the Saints of the most High Such a Seal is there set to the truth of the profession of the Reformed Religion against the enormous corruptions of Popery even by the bloud of infinite numbers of the serious and faithful servants of our Lord Christ that I may not say even by the bloud of Christ himself Who gave himself and shed his most precious bloud on the cross for his Church that he might sanctify it and cleanse it as with the washing of water by the word of God and the Pope keeps the word of God from the knowledge of the people that they may wallow in the black mire of ignorance and the filth of Idolatry for the gain of Holy Church Christ the true Bridegroom gave himself for his Church that he might present it to himself a glorious Church most illustriously shining forth in the fruits of the Spirit and the works of real Righteousness declared in the Gospel But the Pope blasphemously arrogating that Title of Sponsus Ecclesiae to himself has debauched the Church not presenting it a glorious Church to Christ her true Husband but in a whorish pompous dress contrary to the Christian mans very promise in Baptism to forsake the pomps and vanities of this wicked world presents it to himself a garisâ—… gorgeous Idolatrous Church for the satisfaction of his own pride and lust And whenas
For as the Stone was cut out without hands so it will be carried without hands to smite the Image on the Feet namely by the power and conduct of the Spirit of Christ who will then open a door of success that no man shall be able to shut as it is said to the Church of Philadelphia considering I say that Omnipotency it self is the Spring of this motion and that it does not depend on the humours and purposes of men I can of a truth declare unto the King that The Great God hath made known to the King what shall come to pass hereafter or after this namely after the demolition of all these Four Empires the Vision reaching to the end of the World which that expected glorious State of the true Church will precede when the Kingdom of the Stone cut out of the Mountain that is out of the Roman Empire shall it self become the Kingdom of the Mountain and fill the whole Earth that is when that State of the glorious and pure Church shall spread over all And the Dream is certain and the Interpretation thereof sure and more particularly touching that excellent State of the Church concerning which it is said Apoc. 21. 5. And he that sate upon the Throne said Behold I make all things new And he saith unto me Write For these words are true and faithfull And he said unto me It is done I am Alpha and Omega the Beginning and the End The Dream that he has interpreted is certain especially the most concerning part thereof the Glory and Prosperity of the true Church of Christ it being to be atchieved by the irresistible power of the Lord Jesus NOTES upon VISION I. Ver. 43. * Alliance by Marriages whereby one Kingdom c. That this is not the sense of the place viz. The Marriages of those of great rank in these Principalities mutually with one another thereby to bind these distinct Kingdoms in peace and amity besides the reasons alledged in my Exposition this may be one also that the words which seem to import it are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a very improper word to signifie that Noble Princely Royal sort of Men or Women who matching with one another of several Kingdoms might tie those Kingdoms in the bonds of unity and friendship It would then have been said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall mingle themselves with the seed of Nobles or Men of great power and interest or at least 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the seed of Men in a common or indifferent sense But here it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the seed of mean abject weak despised Men such at least in appearance as Cornelius à Lapide very well Comments upon those words Dan. 7. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est saith he alluding to the Roots 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi filius hominis miseri aerumnosi mox morituri obliviosi oblivioni tradendi haec enim omnia significat Enos from the Two Roots above named the one whereof signifies to be sickly the other to be oblivioâ—…s Whence he makes Enos which is the same with the Chaldee Ansa to denote a wretched weakly sickly contemptible Wight and at least seemingly dull and oblivious and whose Name is quickly to be drowned in oblivion Which certainly is a very unmeet Character for the Princes and Great ones of Kingdoms But may very well decipher those of the Papal Seminaries Covents or Monasteries those Monks and Fries mob'd in their Cools and long Coats and making a shew of great mortification and despicableness as if they were altogether dead to the world and the vigour of nature were quite extinct in them they pretending to nothing but holiness and interest of Holy Church whether in these mob'd habits or got into a more brisk dress to carry on affairs in the behalf of the Papal Dominion either in their own Country or other Nations The very propriety of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I say intimates that this mingling with the seed of Men does not signifie matches of Great persons of several Kingdoms and that therefore it will naturally point to that sense I have pitch'd upon in my Exposition And how hugely applicable this is to History see that Excellent English Gentleman Sir Edwin Sandys his Speculum Europae Which shews what fast hold the Pope takes on the Secular party by the activity and fedulity of the Monks and Friers and other Emissaries that are sent out of their Seminaries for the purpose For the Religion that is taught in those Seminaries being framed more for the Power of the Pope and worldly interest of Holy Church than for safe guidance to the Eternal salvation of Souls those that come out of these Seminaries to instruct the people do reaâ—…ly the work of the Papacy that is bind the Laick party to obedience to the Pope and so make the Iron stick to the Clay VISION II. The Vision of the Four Beasts rising out of the Sea whereby the Four above-named Empires are prefigured Dan. 7. AS by the Statue consisting of Four Metals those Four Empires the Babyloâ—…ian Medo-Persian Greek and Roman from their beginning to their ending were represented so they are here in the very same extent of time notwithstanding this Vision was seen towards the end of the first of these Empires namely the Babylonian Which manner of representing in Prophetical Type part of time past in a Set of Visions is made use of also in the Apocalypse the greatest part of the time of the first of the Six Visions in the First Six Seals being expir'd when S. Iohn saw them And there is the same reason of the Set of Visions of the seven Churches which begin as that of the Seals from the first Epocha of Christianity as does also the Vision of the measuring the Inner and Outer Court and the Woman clothed with the Sun with Twelve Stars upon her head c. There was about Sixty years from the Epocha of S. Iohn's Visions to the time he saw them and less from the beginning of the Babylonian Empire till Daniel's seeing of this Vision of the Four Beasts So that this is no obstacle but that the Babylonian Empire may be here represented from its beginning though Daniel saw this Vision toward the end thereof But because that in a Set of Prophetical Visions a little snip of time in comparison of what the whole Set of Visions takes in may be set out by some inconsiderable part of that Set of Visions to take the liberty of interpreting a whole Set of Visions viz. all the Six Seals nay Two whole Sets of Visions succeeding one another viz. all the Six Trumpets succeeding the Six Seals of things past when S. Iohn saw those Visions as Grotius does is so wild and extravagant that it may well astonish any sober man
according to the sense of all Interpreters on that place of the Apocalypse and the thing is evident from the Text it self But how like to this description of Christ in the Apocalypse this of the Angel here appearing to Daniel is I shall take notice in my exposition of the Vision I will only observe for the present that there being so pompous an Introduction to the Vision of the Scripture of Truth which reaches from the times of the Persian Empire to the end of the World that there must be most remarkable matters revealed therein such as concern not only the Iews but the Christian Church as well as them or else the Gate will be too big for the City 1. In the Third year of Cyrus King of Persia * namely in the Third year of the Persian Monarchy begun upon the death of Darius the Mede who immediately succeeded Belshazzar the Grand-child of Nebuchadnezzar A thing was revealed unto Daniel whose name was called Belteshazzar There are Three names that occurr in Daniel that sound like one another in the Hebrew but are not the same The first is of the Grand-child of Nebuchadnezzar called Belshazzar in the Hebrew it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is compounded of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Pronoun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies Thesaurum colligere where Grotius interprets it Belus est cujus opes q. d. In Beli potestate sunt opes imperia The other two names in Hebrew belong both to Daniel and have a distinction in writing and signification but they are writ alike in the English viz. Belteshazzar and so other languages make no discrimination But here in the Hebrew the name that was given to Daniel by Ashpenaz the Prince of the Eunuchs is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Iunius in Gregorius Gregorii his Lexicon sanctum interprets Beli abdita thesaurizans from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 absconditum though with something an hard Hypallage and from the Pronoun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is thesaurizare Which sounds as if they would make Daniel Arcanorum Beli thesaurarium the Treasurer of the Secrets of Belus understanding thereby the God of the Babylonians which new name partly because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is of a large and indifferent signification and may signify simply Dominus and partly because he could not help it he bore as well as he could But here in this Vision there is a variation of the writing and it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being put before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence Grotius would have it to signify as if it were compounded of these parts of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Preposition and Noun put together will signifie latenter and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ignis and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hostis Latenter ignis hosticus And Daniel calls himself so says he signifying that thereby what he had predicted did suddenly and unexpectedly come to pass upon the Babylonians But yet though he a little changed the writing of his name the sound being so near that which was given him by Ahpenaz Master of the Eunuchs he thought fit to record it here as well as his own genuine name Daniel which by long disuse in those parts was in a manner buried in oblivion and therefore he thought requisite to record this more known name of his that it might be more certain to those Nations that this was his Prophecy To this sense Calvin writes upon the place But indulging to a little liberty and putting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Belteshazzar may signify Homo host is in abscondito whereby Daniel cries quits with them For when they would have besmeared him with the name of their Idol Bel as if he were a professed Client of his this little change of the name declares himself to be inwardly a downright enemy to the Babylonish Idolatry though always a faithfull subject to the Kings of Babylon as all good men are to their Princes be they of what Religion they will though they never close with the palpable erours and gross mispractices therein And the thing was true that is to say the matter that was communicated unto him was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chidah a prophetick Parable or Aenigm such as was communicated hitherto unto him under the Types or Figures of an Image of various Metalls and of severally shaped Beasts and therefore wanted an interpretation but it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Emeth a matter declared plainly and apertly without any such Riddles or figurative Involutions But the time appointed was long that is this clear and plain Prophecy or Vision of the Scripture of Truth without any Aenigmatical shadows which begins at the next Chapter and reaches to the end of Daniel comprehends a long extent of time even from the beginning of the Persian Empire to the end of the World or Conflagration as is exprest in the Apocalypse And he understood the thing and had understanding of the Uision that is he understood the aforesaid Prophecy of the Scripture of truth for Vision is here as much as Prophecy as I noted above it wanting no Interpretation as those Aenigmatical Prophecies did This further confirms that that passage and the thing was true is to be understood as I have expounded it viz. that the matter was plainly delivered without any Aenigmatical Figure or Symbols of Beasts or Statues as in the former Prophecies Otherwise if and the thing was true should be understood in that other sense as opposed to False it would imply that the foregoing Visions were not true than which nothing can be more false or absurd 2. In those days i.e. On a certain time in that Third year of Cyrus King of Persia after the adversaries of the Iews notwithstanding the gracious Decree of Cyrus had so prevailed with Caâ—…byses his Son his Father being busy in a foreign War against the Scythians and others as to hinder the building of the Temple as it is recorded in Ezra Ch. 4. That they hired Counsellers against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus King of Persia. I Daniel was mourning thrée full Wéeks And the reason thereof I have already specified the Hebrew has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Weeks of days in counter-distinction to the Seventy Weeks in the foregoing Prophecy which signify Weeks of years that when in any Prophecy it self of Daniel Years or Weeks or Days are mentioned and nothing intimated to the contrary it may be presently taken for granted that it is to be understood of Prophetical Years Weeks and Days Which being an observable Rule in Daniel the putting days for years can bring no obscurity on the Prophecy
Moses there was sent to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an old man of Athens a venerable Sophist I warrant you to give them to understand that this Image which they were so affrighted with was but the Image of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iupiter Olympius that is of the God of Heaven Olympus signifying Heaven with them and Zeus that God which according to the notation of his name is the living God and gives life and motion to all things and that their very Law or Scripture calls their God the God of Heaven also so that they will worship but the same God still and thus the whole Kingdom of Antiochus will be of one Catholick Religion the Iews joyning with the rest in the same worship Which will be much for the honour safety and peace of Antiochus his Kingdome And as for the worshiping of the Image would that reverend Sophist say that we directing our intention aright the worship of the Type passes to the Prototype and that we do not give divine worship to the Image but such as it is capable of nor to the rest of the Inferiour Gods whose Altars might be set in other parts of Iudea but such is meant to them as they are capable of and no more At which grave Harangue of this old Greek the Apostate party might find themselves much edified and it may be others drawn in but the sounder sort it 's likely would cry out To the Law and to the Testimony and that those that spoke not according to that word there was no light in them And certainly it is most safe to hold to the plain and obvious sense of that Doctrine which is delivered by Inspiration And the like just and safe appeal there is of the reformed Churches to Scripture given by Divine Revelation in the plain and apert sense thereof against the Church of Rome But by the Sophistry of that old Athenian if they will listen to his deceitfull speeches they may be seduced to worship not onely Iupiter Olympius but Pluto also and all the Fiends of Hell with their most deformed and affrightfull Images such as the Indians Idols are in reference to that great and terrible God as he is in judgment as well as infinitely sweet and alluring in mercy under pretence of their being the ministers of his wrath and that we intend no higher worship to them than is due Wherefore the worship of God is the most safely bounded by his own inspired word not by the humour some or fraudulent and self-interessed prescripts of men or by their subtile and perverse Interpretations of Holy Writ which is abundantly plain in any thing of moment touching Divine worship But now for this Idol of Iupiter Olympius its proving an Abomination of desolation it was so in that it caused the Temple to be left desolate and deserted of all good men driving them into secret places wheresoever they could fly for shelter and it is said 1 Macc. 4. 37. How the Sanctuary was desolate and shrubbs grew in the Courts as in a Forrest or one of the mountains 32. And such as do wickedly against the Covenant shall he corrupt with flatteries Eos qui sacerdotium sayes Grotius contra legem nundinati sunt blandimentis eò perducet ut ad Idololatriam conniveant Those that had merchandized and given money for the High Priesthood contrary to the law by fair insinuations and flatteries he would further persuade to comply with his Idolatrous designs Where we may observe Earthly-mindedness Covetousness and Ambition in the Priesthood what an occasion it is of and what a prop to Idolatry and the corrupting the worship of God But the people that do know their God Calvin well upon this place says Cognitio autem hîc non tantundem valet ac frigida Imaginatio sed accipitur pro fide quae radicem vivam egit in cordibus This knowledge says he of God is no frigid Imagination but is Faith that has a living root in the heart which implies a purity there from whence all firm assurance of knowledg in Divine matters doth arise And that is pitifull knowledg indeed that has not firm assurance For how can we be said to know what we are not assured of that it is true It is vain Imagination and conceit but not knowledg such as a man will adventure any thing upon And hence it is that men crumple so in persecution in that they do not know God with any assurance their hearts being not purified sufficiently for such a kind of knowledg and real sense of God as it were according to that saying of our Saviour Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God and act always as in his sight and presence which will give them invincible courage and fortitude whiles they are assured that He looks on in whom they trust and for whom they suffer and who will plenteously reward their fidelity to him Shall be strong and doe exploits that is by the strength and power of God and by Faith in his assistance they will not be forced through the threats of mortal men be they never so great and potent to forsake the law of God or to relinquish their loyalty to him who brings these persecutions on his people on purpose to try them Wherefore if they prove faithless and disloyal to him the note of condemnation is branded upon their own consciences whereby it shall be either enraged with everlasting disquietness or hardened into eternal deadness and stupidity Which is a sad thing and worth our serious consideration But as for the fullfilling of this Prophecy touching the exploits they doe that truly know God and are not mere sons of talk and Imagination besides both the Books of the Maccabees Iosephus also witnesses to it lib. 12. cap. 7. where he says though many of the Iews partly of their own accord and partly to avoid the punishment threatned by King Antiochus to them that disobeyed his command which command was to disobey Moses and embrace Gentilism they submitted to what he decreed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are here the people that knew God they listened not to him but had more regard to the Law of God than to the threats of King Antiochus against those that Disobeyed his Decree and accordingly they endured murders and tortures rather than they would forsake the law of God Which is a lively Type of the sufferings of Gods people under Antichrist for adhering closely to the law and will of Christ and avoiding that Pagan-like worship of Idols that Antichrist has introduced into the Church of God 33. And they that understand among the people shall instruct many These that understand among the people are those that before were said to know their God from such a principle of life in their heart and not in dry Imaginative opinion These therefore being assured of the truth whether Priests or Lay-men instructed many For so Gasper Sanctius says Hi vero non sunt
Defenders Guardians Helpers as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is very often rendred in the Scripture The Septuagint five times in the Psalms render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mahoz 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the vulgar Latin as often Protector See Mr. Mede his Apostasie of the latter times ch 16. part 1. There can be no doubt of the sense of Mahuzzim in this personal signification And in the other two places where Mahuzzim are named though it were translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Walls Towers Bulwarks and the like yet the persons of the Saints or Daemons are easily understood thereby forasmuch as the antient Fathers gave those very names to the Saints in reference to their reliques disposed of in this or that Church or Monastery I will onely add one citation of Mr. Mede's out of Theodoret who calls the holy Martyrs Guardians of Cities Lieutenants of Places Captains of men Princes and Champions c. which are plainly Military terms and so leave the Reader to see the rest in that excellent Authour in the abovesaid place But hence it is plain how wonderfull easy and naturall the Exposition of this place of Daniel is Vers. 45. Or the Hill of Sabi Kodesh of the God who is called his holiness That the Pope affects a kind of Divinity was the complaint of Frederick the second and how he is twice placed upon the holy Altar which is the proper Throne of the body of Christ after his Election and at his Coronation you may see in Laurentius Bank his Roma Triumphans and what adorations are done unto him And in the Gloss of the Canon Law the Pope is called Dominus Deus noster Our Lord God as Bishop Downham has noted in his De Antichristo lib. 4. cap. 10. And there are many passages to that purpose in their Canonists and Theologers who think fit to give all the names to the Pope that are given to Christ to assert his Primacy over the Church Powel De Antichristo lib. 1. c. 15. thes 32. And therefore Sabi which no man can deny to be justly given to Christ may be given to the Pope And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Septuagint render Ierem. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God Omnipotent suits excellently well with what the Canonists call Omnipotentiam Pontificiam the Omnipotency of the Pope In Papa omnem esse potestatem supra omnes potestates tam Caeli quà m terrae which Bishop Downham cites as the saying of an Arch-Bishop of that Church in a publick oration of his in the Lateran and there are several to that purpose as you may see them cited by Bishop Downham and by Gabriel Powell in their Books De Antichristo So that the Pope is a Sabi Sabaoth indeed and take it in the most military sense he is as one predicted of him that Rex Superbiae cui paratur sacerdotum exercitus that King of Pride with his Army of Priests of severall ranks and as well ordered as themselves will not stick to acknowledge as an Army with Banners So little unfitness is there that the Pope should be called Sabi Scoptically by the Prophet he in the mean time in good earnest foretelling how immensly he would extoll himself and be extolled by his own But Kodesh is added that there may be no mistake and that we may understand that the same Sabi is not here meant that is meant vers 41. where the land of Iudaea is called the land 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of that true and eminent of that solid not tumid Sabi even of the God of Israel himself But here this Hill the Hill Coelius in all likelyhood where the Popes proper Imperial Palace is and Chair of State whose feet are as high as the top of the Emperors Chair and other great Princes is onely called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Hill of Sabi not of that true and eminent Sabi the God of Israel Kodesh I say is added that no man may miss of who is meant thereby namely his Holiness of Rome For this is his known Title nothing more celebrated And that it may be the Title of a man notwithstanding it is the feminine gender and in the abstract Cornelius à Lapide very well makes out upon Dan. 9. 24. where says he Sanctitas Sanctitatum the most Holy is to be understood of Christ not of the Temple and signifies no more than Sanctus Sanctorum or Sanctissimus Sic Pontificem says he vocamus Sua Sanctitas that is Sanctissimus Dominus and Gasper Sanctius on the same place speaks to the same purpose What can be more easy or plain So manifest is it that no Grammatical or Critical violence is done to the Text by thus expounding of it but by the coherence of things and of the Context the place thus expounds itself By rescuing the Hill and consequently the City c. I do not love to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a messenger of ill news to any but this is more tolerable and less affrightfull it being of a thing in all likelyhood so far off But whether this be not the natural and easy sense of this passage in Daniel I appeal to any unprejudiced Reader And it is no more than has been threatned to old Rome as well as it has happened to new Rome already namely to Constantinople by men of their own Church that their City would be destroyed by reason of the wickedness of their Clergy So St. Bridget St. Catharine of Sienne Abbot Ioachim and others have denounced against them and some of their being overrun by the very Turk But of all predictions of that kind none seems more considerable than that which Bartholomaeus Georgivitz a zealous Pilgrim of the Roman Church and one who was a slave for some thirteen years in Turky delivers in his Epitome De moribus Turcarum Cap. 3. as a Prophecy of the Turks themselves to this sense That after their Emperour the Grand Senior has taken the red Apple if at the seventh year of his Reign the Christian sword does not advance he shall rule unto the twelfth but after the twelfth year that he shall have won the red Apple the Christian sword shall appear and put the Turk to flight Which is an odd Prophecy amongst the Turks and the more considerable in that it seems so impartial as to declare against themselves But what this Red Apple should be saith Georgivitz is a question amongst the learned of them there being a various reading in the Prophecy either Kusul Almai which signifies a Red Apple or Vrum Papai which may indigitate says he the Patriarchacy of Constantinople Vrum signifying the Greek forasmuch as all Greece was once under the Roman Empire otherwise Vrum would more immediately signify Roman but taken in that other sense Constantinople would be aimed at But it is so long since Constantinople was taken that Vrum Papai will either signify the seat of the Pope of Rome or else must be excluded for
by an Henopaeia the succession of these two sorts of men thus kept out of power are turned into two single persons called two Witnesses Then they are clothed in sack-cloth as well as made to Prophesie to shew their low condition in the World Thirdly it being incredible that two single persons should each of them live 1260 years they are said by an Antichronismus to Prophesie onely 1260 Days namely the days of their deprivation of all power in Church or State wherein they lay like dead carcases as to any Political Power or Influence upon the World though they were yet in Being then as being the woman in the Wilderness as it is expressed by another Symbol But this dead condition of theirs representable by an unburied carcase that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Cortex might be observed is not to expatiate unto 1260 days much less to so many years but by another Antichrenismus though the same time is signified is to be contracted into three days and an half For who could endure that two carcases should lye stinking in the streets of the City suppose 1260 days or three years and an half Besides the incredibility of their being raised to life after so long a time And though these three days and an half be set at the end of the 1260 days yet by a Lemmatosynechia a figure usual in the Apocalypse they are easily understood to belong to the antecedent time and to Synchronize with it See my Synopsis Prophetica Book 1. Ch. 4. in Antichronismus Therefore this is the external Decorum observed in the outward Cortex of the Vision that their Political Death which is exactly Synchronal to the time of their mourning in sackcloth which is said to be 1260 days is contracted into three days and an half signifying there Daniels three times and an half as Day and Time sometimes signify the same thing This Parabolical Prophecy of the two Witnesses thus understood has a most enravishing festivity and elegancy in it and is one of the choicest examples of that Divine wit and Artifice of Concealment as well as Revealment that occurr in the whole Apocalypse Nor does that expression ver 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 put a bar to the supposed Lemmatosynechia and hinder their Political Death from running back into the same time with their mournfull Witnessing For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here is a word which the Spirit of Prophecy has made choice of to serve as well the sense of the Pith of the Parable as of the Cortex thereof But our English Translation has pitched upon that sense which onely comports with the Cortex of the Parable while it renders it And when they shall have finished their Testimony as if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were Futurum exactum which it is not and besides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies as well agere or peragere as finire And so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will easily and naturally signify While they shall be performing or declaring their Testimony the Beast shall make war against them and kill them that is the successive body of them kill them all successively in that Political sense or keep them successively dead from the first suppression of them and kill some of this successive body according to a natural death even many Myriads of them as History can witness So easily is the difficulty of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 removed Where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has two senses the one serving the Pith the other the Cortex of the Parable as Day has two senses vers 9. and relating to the Cortex signifies a natural day but to the Pith it signifies Time in such a sense as Time is taken in Daniel Ch. 7. vers 25. And now I hope I have made it abundantly plain that there is no Incongruity in this Opinion of Peganius and mine in making the three days and an half the same with Daniel's Time and Times and half a Time or 1260 days Prophetically understood Nothing hinders but this may be the sense But now I shall produce reasons to prove that it really is so As first It being a Number consisting of three Integrums and an Half as Daniels three Times and an half is and the 42 Months and 1260 Days being but the varying of the phrase for the Three Times and an Half if a man have but any competency of Apocalyptick Nasuteness or Sagacity in him he will easily smell out the high probability of these three days and an half being the same with the three Times and an half in Daniel and consequently the same with the 1260 Days of the mournfull Prophecy of the Witnesses Secondly There being no example in all the Apocalypse at least and I think no where else of the affectation of predicting things to the curiosity of half a year it is plainly incredible that there should be any such affectation here Thirdly If the condition of the Apostolick Church be ever brought to so sad a condition again as is represented by the carcases of the two Witnesses lying dead in the streets of the great City it is incredible that they should recover again within the space of three years and an half The conceit looks almost as Romantickly or fabulously and out of the same ignorance of the Apocalyptick Antichronisme as that of the Romanists who tell us what strange feats Antichrist shall do in the same space of Time namely within the space of three years and an half when an age would scarce be sufficient to compass such Atchievements Fourthly If we restrain the lying dead of the Witnesses to the three years and an half at the end of their Prophesying there is nothing in the Vision to represent their Political Death to which their Resurrection relates before that time though they have been dead in that sense at least 1260 years already Which is exceeding absurd Fifthly Being that the witnesses have lyen slain in a Political sense and have been so often slain many hundred thousands of them in a Natural sense before the end of their mournfull witnessing it is unconceivable what persecution or oppression in these last three years and an half different from what they had endured before should â—…efall them or more worthy of taking notice that the former should be omitted and these by the carcases lying three days and an half in the street be represented Sixthly and lastly Whereas it is said v. 7. And when they shall have finished their Testimony the Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them and shall overcome them and kill them unless my sense be admitted Till the end of their Prophesying there is neither any war nor any overcoming nor any killing of the Witnesses which is point-blank against the Truth of History This which I have produced as it does fully satisfy my self that the three days and an half are the same with Daniel's three Times and an half so I hope that other will also
to the Churches in Europe Asia and Africk For certainly the Church had disspred it self into all these Quarters of the world by that time As if the Spirit of Truth were a respecter of persons For these are not the Letters of Iohn but of the Holy Ghost But our Answer is ready at hand * That for the significancy of the word Asia to comport also with the significancy of the names of the seven Churches Asia alone was pitched upon But according to the Prophetical sense the true Catholick Church is writ unto under such distinct conditions as she was to vary into unto the end of the world So that there is no Partiality nor Acception of Persons in this Thirdly If a man demand touching the order or precedency of these Seven Churches that are writ unto What a plain and manifest account is there to him that compares the Epistles in their Prophetical sense with the Intervals of the Church Catholick lying in that order that these Churches are ranged This is a satisfactory reason and worthy the Spirit that wrote these Epistles But whether they are ranged in this order * because that a Letter-carrier going from Patmos his first journey will be to Ephesus and then to Smyrna and so in order till he come to Laodicea whether the holy Spirit of Prophecy regarded that in the dictating of his Letters though Alcazar the Jesuit be for it I cannot but suspend my judgment and that not without a smile But of this Ataxie more particularly anon 3. Fourthly If it be demanded why just Seven Churches in Asia are writ to neither more nor less especially that in Thyatira according to the acknowledgment of Epiphanius being then not founded but after the writing of these Epistles it is hard to give a satisfactory answer in the Literal sense For to say this Book of the Apocalypse affects the number Seven and that because it runs upon the number Seven altogether in the ensuing part of the Book which is Prophetical it therefore for Conformity sake chuses this number in writing to the Churches though Literally understood seems but a meagre mean and trifling account a design unworthy the Holy Spirit that dictated this Book But the using this number Seven all over is rather an intimation that the Book is Prophetical all over and that these Epistles are also a Prophecy accordingly as we have explained them And taking them so the Answer is plain and obvious viz. The number Seven is here chosen out as Symbolical it being the note of Vniversality whence the Pythagoreans as I elsewhere have noted call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore Seven and no more than Seven Churches are writ unto as standing for the seven Intervals of the Church from the beginning to the end of all Fifthly If it be demanded why these seven Churches rather than any others which in all likelihood may have the same Vertues and Vices that these are commended and taxed for The Reason of this is writ in the very Notation of their Names every Name being significative of the Condition of the Church Catholick in that successive Intervall of time that this or that Church so named standeth for and in such order as they are repeated Sixthly If one require a Reason why Christ is described by holding the seven Stars in his right hand in the Epistles to the Churches of Ephesus and Sardis why the same description in both or why in either In the Literal sense it will be hard to find any peculiar Reason but in the Prophetical sense already declared it is obvious For the seven Stars signify all the Pastours whether in present existence or succession And Ephesus is the begnning-state of the Church and therefore it is both very seasonable and methodical to represent the First Founder Sustainer and Continuer thereof by this Emblem Lo I am with you to the end of the World And that this again is hinted at in the Epistle to the Church of Sardis is with evident Proportion and Analogy to the Affairs of the Church there represented For the Church of Sardis is as it were the beginning again or the emerging of the true Church or Kingdome of Christ out of the Power and Kingdome of Antichrist 4. Seventhly Why the Church of Ephesus of all other Churches should be commended for their trying false Apostles Why might not other Churches be attacqued by them and also discover them as well as the Church of Ephesus The Solution of which Problem is easy in this Mystical sense of the Epistles * that places the Ephesine Interval within the Apostles times but the rest on this side of them Eighthly If any one demand why it is said to the Church of Smyrna more than to any other Church Be thou faithfull unto death and I will give thee the Crown of life and again He that overcometh shall not 〈◊〉 hurt by the second death In the Literal sense it will be very hard to find any peculiar Reason why this might not as well be said to the Church in Pergamus where there was killing for Religion it seems by the mention of the Martyr Antipas I but there was no obtaining the Crown of life there in any peculiar sense but the Crown of life that is the Imperial Crown was given to the sufferings of the Primitive Martyrs under the Ten Persecutions to whom also according to the opinion of the Antient Church the Promise of the first Resurrection belonged Which is here obliquely glanced at according to the mode of the Apocalyptik style that loves to hint things by Ellipses in that Promise He that overcometh shall not be hurt by the second death implying thereby that he shall be made partaker of the first Resurrection Ninthly If any one will again object more particularly against the Ataxie of the Churches that they are raâ—…ged neither according to the merit nor congeneracy of their Conditions pretending that it had been far better to have joyned the two irreprehensible together Smyrna and Philadelphia against whom there is no complaint at all and then Ephesus Sardis and Laodicea against whom there is no complaint of eating things offered unto Idols and afterwards Pergamus and Thyatira in which Churches alone there is If any one I say contend that this method had been more exact truly in the Literal sense it will be hard to frame an handsome and satisfactory answer especially if he urge that God is the Authour of Method as well as the God of Order But in this Mystical or Prophetical sense the Answer is solid and exquisite and much what the same that was given to the like difficulty more generally propounded before namely That the Churches of Asia are named in that order the Successive intervals of the Church Catholick were to proceed in of which these Asiatick Churches are but the Symbols or Hieroglyphicks And therefore those two Intervals of time which take in the Reign of the Beast and the False Prophet viz. the
respect of this Philadelphian Church it will come quickly she commencing but in the very same Vial that this is to happen under Eighteenthly Why upon this Philadelphia a private Asiatick Church should the name of the City of God the new Ierusalem which cometh down out of Heaven from God the very same that is expressed Apoc. 21. be said to be written This Title were too big and turgent for any private Church were it not a Type or Symbol of some greater matter But by the Prophetical interpretation this difficulty is quite removed For the Interval of the Philadelphian Church is coincident with the times of the new Ierusalem mentioned at the end of the Apocalypse and of the Millennial Empire of Christ upon Earth 8. Nineteenthly The Curious may be prone to enquire why the Church of Laodicea in those times should account her self so hugely and extraordinarily rich encreased in goods and to have no want of any thing And truly why this should be her estate rather than any of the Churches specified from the Literal ground we can fetch no reason But admitting the Prophetical sense and that this is the last Interval of the Church of Christ it will naturally so come to pass For this Laodicea will be left Heir to all the Riches of her Sister Philadelphia to Peace Prosperity Purity in Worship abundance of natural Knowledge universal skill in the Interpretations of the Prophecies and whatever good thing there is belonging to the Church saving the Life and Spirit which Philadelphia carried along with her into the other World How easily then and naturally or rather necessarily does this Description of the Church of Laodicea fall upon the last Interval And Lastly It is a Question extremely obvious to demand Why that phrase * He that hath an ear to hear let him hear which our Saviour so often is found to adde at the end of his Parables to the People should be used here so repeatedly in every Epistle they being no Parables but Epistles sent to each of those Seven Churches in Asia respectively And then why this Epiphonema is sometimes the last close of the Epistle sometimes not To which Problem there is no tolerable Solution in the Literal sense of these Epistles But supposing a Mystical or Prophetical sense there was a necessity of affixing this Epiphonema to shew there was a farther sense intended than that of the Letter and also that sometimes this Epiphonema should come last of all as in the four last Epistles that the Promise to the Conquerour to him that overcomes might be more certainly understood to be of a proper Prophetical or Political sense not merely Theological Moral or Spiritual as has been abundantly declared in the Exposition 9. We might have drawn many more Questions and Solutions from the consideration of the Letter and of this Hypothesis we go upon to shew its solidity and fitness but that we hold it needless having produced so many already which jointly considered with the perpetual easiness and naturalness of the whole Exposition of all the Epistles * and the exact Correspondency of the Names of the Churches to the Events of the successive Intervals of the true Catholick Church which they represent one would think they should not fail fully to satisfy any unprejudiced Peruser of our Exposition of these Epistles touching the truth thereof But I am abundantly taught by Experience that both the finding out and receiving of Divine Truths found out by others is a special gift of God And therefore to him alone be the Glory for ever and ever Amen NOTES Upon the Twenty Arguments Sect. 2. With as great Pomp and as high a Preamble as he does where he begins so famous Prophecies as those of the Seven Seals c. You may adde to this of the Seven Seals and that of the Opened Book the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth in Daniel To which Prophecy the Vision Chap. 10. vers 5 6 c. is a Preamble as this Vision is to this Prophecy of the Seven Churches and which is yet more remarkable the Person represented in the Vision the same Person in the like attire and other circumstances as here And there set before the most concerning Prophecy in all Daniel which reaches from the Persian Monarchy to the end of the World Whence it is the more â—…rigid and absurd not to make these Epistles of the Seven Churches a Prophecy as well as those three other are that reaches to the end of the World as they do That for the significancy of the word Asia to comport also with the significancy of the Names of the Seven Churches c. And there is one significancy more in this Name Asia than I was aware of when I wrote my Exposition of the Seven Epistles to the Seven Churches For besides that Allusion to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fundamentum and to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies operari to work from whence I know thy works is so often repeated there may be also a further Allusion to the Cabbalistical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies as they call it Mundus Asiathicus of which the Earth is the lowest Region So that the Churches in Asia will sâ—…gnify according to this Cabbalistical Notion the Churches dispersed over the whole Earth Because a Letter-carrier going from Patmos his first journey will be to Ephesus c. This is Alcazar his conceit and yet as Literâ—â— as it is it will not hold For he must be an unskilfull and indisâ—…reet Letter-carrier that setting out from Patmos to Ephesus will pass to Smyrna and to Pergamus if he intend what he ought to doe the delivering most of his Letters in the shortest time he may For then if we consult Ptolemies Mapps in Asiae Tabula 1 he being to deliver the most of his Letters in the shortest time is not to go from Ephesus to Smyrna and so to Pergamus but from Ephesus to Laodicea from Laodicea to Philadelphia from Philadelphia to Sardis from Sardis to Thyatira and from Thyatira to Pergamus and then from Pergamus to Smyrna from whence he may take shipping to Patmos again to give Saint Iohn an account of the delivery of his Letters This is very evident out of Ptolemie's Geographical Table especially if we understand by Laodicea that Laodicea which is situated betwixt the Rivers Meander and Lycus which questionless Alcazar understands And that Laodicea is near to Philadelphia and Philadelphia to Sardis and Sardis not far off from Thyatira But there is a Laodicea at a great distance from them all that lies a good deal East of the Mountain or Valley Aulocrene from whence the River Meander runs which Ptolemy calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laodiceam combustam which were it understood would alter the account And yet for ought I know it may be chiefly alluded to in the Prophetical sense of the Epistles to these Churches the Laodicean Interval in a manner conterminating with the Conflagration of the World
So that not onely the Notation of the Name of Laodicea intimates that to be the Interval of the Church that reaches till the last Judgment but that Epithete also of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or combusta that it is the Interval next to the Conflagration of the Earth Sect. 4. That places the Ephesine Interval within the Apostles times c. For the Ephesine Interval terminates in the tenth year of Nero as I have shewn in my Exposition In which Interval all the Apostles were living Saint Iohn long after But another Character of this Interval is that the Nicolaitan Sect appeared not till presently after it Whence they are commended that they hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans that is such deeds as the Nicolaitans after were found guilty of And Spondanus places the Sect of the Nicolaitans some two or three years after the tenth of Nero. The Church hitherto had kept free from such wretched Debauchery as that Sect. 6. As if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was intended on purpose to answer to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though there be two other Paronomastical Allusions in the word Asia besides this yet I do not doubt but this is also intended and the rather from the repeating so perpetually 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know thy works and it is the most usefull and the most accommodate to vulgar capacity That Allusion to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mundus Asiathicus lies more deep and is less intelligible to the vulgar Sect. 8. He that hath an ear to hear let him hear c. namely what the Spirit saith unto the Churches This Additional put to that excitation to attention to what the Spirit saith unto the Churches shews that all these seeming private Epistles to particular Churches are indeed one Sett or Compages of Epistles which concern the succeeding Intervals of the Universal Church from the beginning to the end of the World Whence the Epiphonema of each Epistle to every Church is so framed as if it were directed to all the Churches that is to every Interval thereof The whole being a Representation of the State of the Church Universal according to several Intervals from the beginning to the end which they are bound to take notice of and consider and compare together for the better understanding of the whole Sect. 9. And the exact correspondency of the Names of the Churches to the Events c. And not onely of the Names of the Churches but of whatsoever Names of Persons are mentioned in any of the Epistles to the Churches there is a correspondency of these with the state or affairs of that Interval of the Church whereever they occur It may be that some strong Spirits as they are called or high and hard lofty Wits will overlook these Paronomastical Correspondencies or Allusions in words or names as Trifles But the great Hugo Grotius himself does not that makes the Names of every one of the Seven Churches to be significant Nor does Peganius that incomparably learned as well as singularly pious German who knowing nothing of my Exposition of the Seven Churches nor I of his gave about the same time muchwhat the same Prophetical Exposition with Allusions to the Words or Names that I have done Which shews the obviousness and naturalness of this way of opening the Prophetical sense of these Epistles to them whose Judgments are free And though I knew none when I set my self to the Prophetical Exposition of the Seven Churches that held it a Prophecy of the State of the Church distinguished into so many Intervals from the beginning to the end unless he that put me upon it might surmise some such thing yet after the publishing my Exposition I met with one who was something a curious enquirer after Expositours of the Prophecies of Scripture that named to me at least half a dozen that held the Seven Churches to be such a Prophecy reaching from the beginning of the Church to the end thereof and I have had some such like information since But none of these that were of this Opinion had attempted to make the thing out as I was informed from the same hands And very lately by chance looking again into Mr. Mede I find him also explicitly to declare his opinion that the Vision of the Seven Churches is a Prophecy touching the Church Universal à principâ—…o ad finem setting out the different states of the Church in several Intervals in that order that the Seven Churches are ranged in the Apocalypse which I have noted in my Preface to the Exposition And he gives two reasons for it The one that the Number Seven is a Number of entire Revolution of Time to which I would adde expresly that As the Seven Seals reach from the beginning to the end of the entire Apocalyptick Period whose Epocha is the beginning of the Christian Church and Exitus in the end of the World so doth also the Vision of the Seven Churches and that for that reason they are likewise exhibited under the Number of Seven His other reason is That if this Prophetick sense was not intended the Spirit of Prophecy would not have pitched upon these Seven Churches in Asia but the Letters would have been directed either to all the Churches or the most famous such as the Church at Antioch at Alexandria and Rome and many others and such as no doubt says he had need of instruction as well as those named in the Apocalypse These are his two Arguments which I have not missed in my twenty though I never met with them before that in Mr. Mede And these two Arguments were sufficient to perswade that Person of so excellent a wit and judgment of the truth of the thing in general Into how deep a sopor therefore or lethargy is their wit and judgment cast whom twenty Arguments of like nature will not awake But now for a further assurance upon a more particular account Which is briefly this I first considered the Integrum which was to be distributed into these seven parts Which is the true Apostolick Church not contaminated with either Pagan or Pagano Christian Idolatry though living in various circumstances from the beginning to the end Now there being a complaint of eating things sacrificed unto Idols under the third and fourth Intervals and none in the two first and three last made me conceive that those middle Intervals both put together did comprehend no less space than the times of the Apostasy of the Church before whole Kingdomes and Nations had emerged out of it as it happened at the blessed reformation This is the first fast hold I seemed to have of things viz. that the Pergamenian and Thyatirian Intervals included the times of the Apostasy of the Church till the Time of Reformation came The Time antecedent to this was all that Time before the Apostasy or at least which I look upon as the more probable before the Roman Empire became Christian by the Conversion of Constantine Now this antecedent