convey us upon this Line this wonderful Line we have discoursed so long upon the Line of the 1260 Days with which the forty two Months of the Beast are now combin'd Prophecy will I say very speedily in the fifth Trumpet convey and set us upon a new Line of the Mahometan Hegira or Computation of Time so that we shall run upon it for the space of eight hundred and thirty Years together with the 1260 Days and with the Bestian Line comprehending in short the most Oecumenical and illustrious Points of History at that Time in the Universe viz. of the Bestian and the Mahometan Grassation or Invasion into the same kind of Universal Power and both upon the Account of Pseudo-Prophetism the due Observation of which will persuade us of the Divineness of this Prophecy and that we are upon the true Explication of it As it were then between the ending of the Time of the fourth and the beginning of the Time of the fifth Trumpet there was a loud Voice as of an Angels flying through the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that upper Region like the Voice of Thunder reaching down to the Earth and saying Woe Woe Woe to the Inhabiters of the Earth because of the Voices of the Angels that are yet to sound Now it were wonderful if merely by the chance of Imagination running such a Path so great and remarkable Configurations both of Prophecy and History should meet it so often just where it would choose and desire to be so met For at this very Time Gregory call'd the Great Bishop of Rome a Personage of so great Eminence for Vertue Learning and Eloquence declar'd aloud in his Epistles to the Emperour Mauricius and to John the Bishop of Constantinople So also to the Bishops of Alexand. and Antioch That Antichrist was near That the Title of Vniversal Bishop was a certain Indication of him That it was Pride to assume such a Title It was like Lucifer Son of the Morning ascending the heights of the Stars setting his Throne above the other Angels above the other Stars affecting to be like the Most High Now seeing no such could be fix'd in the Firmament or Heaven of the Gospel he must needs Fall How close then is this to the prophetick Language I saw a Star fall from Heaven or as Christ in a like case speaks I saw Satan fall as Lightning from Heaven as the Dragon fell but found in the Beast a Kingdom on Earth as before said Just as when Satan fell from Heaven he had a Kingdom assign'd him by the Divine Permission and Decree viz. God of this World Ruler of the Darkness of this World This Star who is the Son of Perdition whose coming is after the manner of Satan had the same in Proportion the Key of the bottomless pit is given to him that is permitted to him given judiciarily into his hand by God's wise and holy sufferance and over-rule of all things to his Glory This Fall then of this Star is like the Angels leaving their own Habitation their first Estate or true original Principality Jude v. 6. a Fall not like that of the Stars the Dragon swept down with his Tail or of the Star Wormwood an involuntary Fall a Fall from the Heaven of a political Order and Supremacy to a low State without Power but a Fall of Apostacy from his due Station a planetary Defection from his own Orb v. 16. into a Kingdom of the bottomless Pit to which Darkness is reserv'd for ever And whenever the Antichrist came the Beast rose out of the bottomless pit or which is the same this Star had fallen there must be then Woe Woe Woe for the Vengeance of God at the same time made him way and pursued him every Trumpet sounded against him The first was to hurt only the Revel 9. 4. Men that were not seal'd of which he was the Prince the second was upon those who were guilty of Murthers Sorceries v. 20. Thefts Idolatries The Woman whom the Beast carried was guilty of all these was impenitent in them although c. 11. v. 15. compar'd with c. 14. c. 15. c. 16. God gave her space to repent The Third Woe-Trumpet brought with it the Kingdom of Christ and the Destruction of Antichrist or the Bestian Kingdom so there was Woe Woe Woe on the Bestian Earth whenever Antichrist came Immediately after this Remonstrance of the Bishop Gregory the Bishop Boniface accepts from the parricidick Emperour Phocas this Vniversality so that in his sense Antichrist then came and the first Woe-Trumpet according to Prophecy is dated from his Fall What can be more wonderful as Gregory was at all a good Man his Prediction must be own'd to a better Spirit and to the Knowledge Divine Prophecy gave him and to the Impression it had made upon him As he was himself part of that Body upon which his own Prediction ran it was like Nebuchadnezzar's prophetick Dream of Dan. 2. the Ruine of that Image by the Stone of which he was the head of Gold or like the Prophecy of Caiaphas a very bad Joh. 11. 51. part of which himself was concern'd in however his eminent Station gave the Rebound of his Prediction as through the World And the time of Rome lying so low is noted most emphatically by Prophecy viz. Rome without any eminent Light of Government and then follows such an immediate Appearance of Antichrist according to the Signal given of him by that Bishop of Rome and according to Prophecy the Star Fell. This is in some sense I may say but too remarkable in so plainly declaring who is Antichrist and that his Kingdom holds by the Key of the bottomless Pit It is true the Beast had been in his forty two months above a hundred Years yet as a Tyrant prophetically declar'd to be a Tyrant is not yet so in his Infancy or Under-state no more than Hazael was a Tyrant when Elisha told him what 1 Kin. 8. 11. he as such a Tyrant should do no more was the Beast such a Beast while he was under the Inscription Is not So that though he was a Beast by way of Succession and some presagious Actions He might yet not be a falling Star till he now fell and receiv'd this Key for the whole Bestian Body or Succession is consider'd in the whole Beast not in its several Ages nor in the single Persons making it some better some worse all that enter its Composition are consider'd as one Beast in the prophetick Scheme in any Age in any Bestian Qualities more or less yea though so moderate as that they should only bear up the Title and maintain the Succession And this removes all possible Objection as thus Was he that had been a Beast so long a Star yet to Fall You see he might be so while he was the Beast Is not and yet not a falling Star for this fall prepar'd his rising out of the bottomless Pit and so
having the Key of the bottomless Pit not judicially given but committed to him not to open the bottomless Pit and let out the Smoak not to loose nor draw out at greater liberty and by provoking God to give the Malice of Devils greater scope by the Angel of that Pit raging like a roaring Lyon in a hellish Mahometanism but to lay hold on him to bind him to cast him into the bottomless Pit to shut him up and to set a Seal upon him that he may deceive the Nations no more for the 1000 Years which very Consideration of that so opposite Vision does much inlighten this of the fifth Trumpet we are now upon It remains that we consider now what the Service of the two Witnesses might at this time most agreeably with Prophecy be and as so considering it I look upon this joynt of Time this Proclamation of the three woe Trumpets to be the very entrance of the Witnesses in the second Type of that eminent Binary or Pair of Witnesses and Prophets Elijah and Elisha The Witnesses had now a long time as the Sons of Oyl emptied their golden Oyl by way of preparatory Furniture of those two golden Candlesticks the true Churches of Pergamus and Thyatyra that stood this whole Line of Time before the God of the whole Earth and though we have not the clear and unmixed Records of any such Testimony for that were to lessen the Prophecy besides that the Indignation of the Apostate Church must needs have suppress'd them they must needs have suffer'd more so than under the Injuries of Time but I say it were to lessen Prophecy which says They were cover'd with Sackcloth they were seal'd they were retir'd within the Temple the Church was in the Wilderness through the scattering of its Seed It is not then possible according to the Prophecy there should be pure liquid Remains of their Testimony But now the Antichristians like Sanballat and Tobiah and other the Enemies of the Jews disturb'd their Service and in building with them hinder'd the Operation and infus'd their Venome in some part into the Writings and Discourses of Persons of a much more excellent temper in the main Now the Witnesses therefore as we may in part see by Gregory praised before passed into the Spirit and Power of Elijah and Elisha they began now to have fire proceed out of their Mouths to devour their Adversaries They began to declare the Wrath of God against Idolatry and Antichristian Pride and Blasphemy And this entred as Fire into the Consciences of their Enemies that in this manner they were kill'd as it were by the Sword of Christ's Mouth which he threatens to the Balamites in the Church of Pergamus and herein they imitated the Zeal of Moses and Phincas against the spiritual Fornication and Nicolaitanism of that time and also prepar'd the Servants of God in Thyatyra with a holy Zeal against the Jezebelism and Idolatry and Fornication of that Time also when the Apostacy was increas'd But how can we hope for much of Monument hereof The Prophecy of Gregory is more than we could expect and were it not that he serv'd the Apostacy to many other great purposes we had not had so much of him but God over-rul'd so far Now the Witnesses were coming into the closest time of being seal'd and therefore we have the mention of it reviv'd within the fifth Trumpet They were sed with hidden Manna They were hardly known one to another at the very Time Elijah knew not of the seven thousand Knees that had not bowed to Baal nor their Mouths kiss'd him but thought himself alone How much less then can we now know them And which is very characteristical of this Period of the Witnesses Prophecy and Testimony They have Power to shut Heaven that it rain not in the Days of their Prophecy so that there arises a Famine not of Bread but of hearing the Word of the Lord and this endured for the intimate Time of which we are to speak in the next Period of the Witnesses and the Remark of shutting Heaven for three Years and six Months will be of great Conduct to us SECT X. Wherein is undertaken to be prov'd That the Mahometan Sarazens are the Locusts design'd in the fifth Apocalyptick Trumpet and that the five Months given to them comprehend Four hundred-thirty five Years from the Mahometan Hegira at 622 and so reach to 1057. upon Rev. c. 9. v. 1. c. I Pass on from this joynt of Time engraven with the real and substantial Characters of the Angel proclaiming the three Woes the Star falling the Key of the bottomless Pit given to him All which I have explain'd I come now to speak of the Descent of this Star to the opening the bottomless Pit and of that Smoak that issued out upon it and the unexpected Events of Locusts coming out of the Smoak which produce a new Line of Time beginning at 622 and not ending till 1453 but divided by Prophecy into two parts the five Months and five Months of the Locusts and the Hour Day Month and Year of the Army of Horsemen between which will come in the Account of intimate Time and so we will discourse each in their order Antichrist then appearing in the Star fallen to the Earth to shine there as an universal Pastor of which sort the Firmament of Heaven knows none nor can bear any such so he must needs fall to the Earth and the Beast here transmigrated into by the Dragon and beginning to exalt the Woman by carrying his Vniversality in an Image inscrib'd with the Name of the Woman and having receiv'd the Key of the bottomless Pit in place of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven he immediately proceeds to open it and le ts out Error Falsehood Blasphemy the Doctrine of Balam Nicolaitanism Antichristianism spiritual Pride and Tyranny like the Smoke or perpetual Vapour of the Abyss and its open Mouth that darkned the whole Air of the Christian Doctrine and Profession and in this by degrees he ascends higher and higher till he comes to his number 666. But Sathan above him in this bottomless Pit turning every way and moving more ways than one to advance his Kingdom especially over-rul'd and govern'd by God in fulfilling the course of his Judgment so impregnates this Smoke in that time of spiritual drought and of the Heaven shut as Brass and the Earth as Iron a Time specifick for these Locusts as drought is for the natural ones that unawares to this fallen Star there comes a swarm of Locusts out of the Smoke and they prove armed crowned Locusts dreadfully annoying and Tormenting the Antichristian World viz. by the Mahometan Saracens Having thus far then prepar'd to it I come to the main position of this Section the proof of which I am to undertake that these Locusts are the Mahometan Saracens whose five and five Months measure from 622 to 1057 The first Argument I derive from the Style in which
late Other Parts of the reform'd Church have not pursued the true Principles of the Reformation the Regulation of all Things in Doctrine Worship Conversation and Discipline according to the pure and perfect Rule of the Word of God but that Word in many things is regulated by Antiquity not considering how early the Mystery of Iniquity was at work and where the Foot of the account of the Beast's Number ought to be plac'd even at 25 or 26 from the Resurrection Revel 3. v. 1. c. so that these as in the Church of Sardis affecting too much outward Pomp and Grandieur are to strengthen the Remainders which are ready to dye that are to fill up the Reformation to endeavour to open the Voices of the Thunders among themselves and to prophecy more vigorously before Peoples Nations Tongues and Kings concerning which Things the generality are so asleep That there are but a few Names who have not defiled their Garments but will be in great danger of a shameful Devestiture or Degradation when Christ appears Revel 3. 3. compar'd with Revel 16. 15. The Church of Philadelphia although in a general Zeal to have a perfect Square with pure Evangelical Truth be indeed v. 7. c. in Being yet not come to make the Apocalyptick Line of Time by its proper Interval or space nor can do before the end of the 1260 days as it is drawn upon these Churches to the New Jerusalem which appears in Philadeph and the Right of a Church Their Door of the Profession of Christ according to his Word is endeavoured to be shut although Christ as by immediate Power hath hitherto kept it open yet They of this Church have but a little strength outward Power or Glory Revel 3. 7. c. The Synagogue of Sathan is ready on all Accounts and at all Advantages to Dissinagogue them and cast them out to controul and brow-beat them and that Synagogue must be of the Reformed so the naming them Jews imports as in the Church of Smyrna Jews signified Christians in Profession but becoming Gentiles so here it signifies Reformed but so far relaps'd as to be falsly so call'd who are at the same elevation of Corruption the Apostacy was at in the Church of Smyrna Not long before the 1260 dark days came in so that though they disallow the Apostacy since that time yet they are ready to Cannonize it so far as to that Time it had proceeded and might if they had Time find the same Path to the same End Yet still they escape the Beasts Number 666. Now in regard of all these things it is most evident The Witnesses must be yet in Sack-cloth but they are if they are not wanting to their own Priviledges and Office like Moses and Aaron commission'd to smite with Plagues as often at they will that is to declare the foulness of the Apostacy to Revel 11. 6. remonstrate the Bestianism and Antichristianism of it and to foretel the seventh Trumpet and its Voices and Vials in Ruine of the Kingdom of the Beast and the great Judgments to be executed on his City Church Himself and his false Prophet and all the Impenitents of his Kingdom from first to last and also to declare the Redemption of the whole Israel of God from this spiritual Egypt and its Slavery the opening the Temple that the Ark of the Testament the Tabernacle of Testimony may be seen in Heaven and the Kingdom of Christ appear in the New Jerusalem And this they may do as often as they will That is There is abundant Evidence of Prophetick Truth to do it by There are abundant Promises of Acceptance Favour and Support in the doing of it so that it is a Remisness of Will that is of Zeal not to do it For Blessed is he that heareth and they that read the Words of this Prophecy especially when the Time is so near at Hand The last part of this Time is the most Glorious because Revel 11. 11. c. it issues out into the seventh Trumpet and then those great things will come to pass in Preparation of which all that was at the beginning of that Time was but a shade and semblance Then the Spirit of Life in full and perfect measure shall enter into the Witnesses and set them on their Feet and great fear shall fall on them that see them there will be then so wonderful an appearance of divine Power and Judgment as upon the Apostles Doctrine and Miracles in the very first Times Where if things had gone on with the same Power from Heaven as at first the Kingdom of Christ had then appear'd but the Mystery of Iniquity surpris'd them at 25 or 26. There shall be a Voice calling them up to Heaven and as in the Cloud wherein Christ himself ascended They shall Ascend and whereas only the Servants of Christ beheld Him Their Enemies shall behold them which speaks the publickness of their Ascention and the mighty Influences it will have And in the same Hour the Tenth that is the Decem Principality of the great City viz. most necessarily That great City in which the Witnesses lay dead in the breadth of it fell For when the Ten Horns that give State and Altitude to the Beast fall off from his seventh Head the Woman that sits on the Beast which is this very same City-Church must needs fall from that Height with which the Beast carried it while exalted with his Ten Horns which substantial Reason will recompence for the seeming Impropriety of such a use of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Tenth being both in Dan and this Prophecy so essential to the Beast that carries the Woman The Ascent of the Witnesses into Heaven I understand to be some Exemplification on Earth of the Glory and Triumph The Witnesses of Christ that have gone out of the World suffering for Christ in any degrees of Martyrdome have at this time in Heaven upon this change of the World to Christ's Kingdom as undoubtedly the Saints have on all such Changes even as the Angels joy in the Repentance of Sinners As the Saints in Heaven triumph'd at the Desolation of Heathenism or the casting down of the Dragon The Exemplification then of this on Earth by the exalted state of the true Servants of Christ there is the Importance of these Symbols And in the same Hour oppos'd to the same or one Hour of Revel 17. 12 13. the Ten Kings receiving Power with the Beast and giving then their Kingdom to him and therefore comes now into a fit Counter-parallel There shall be an Earth-quake such a mighty Concussion shake and change of the State of the Christian World that Cities shall be removed as it were and not be the same they were before That great City although it shall remain on its Heap yet its tenthly or Ten Kingdom'd-state shall utterly fall seven thousand not Names only but Names of Men shall be slain They shall be slain in
that so in the Mouth of not only two or three but many Witnesses every word might be establish'd yet it appertains to the Glory of the New Testament the Gospel and Kingdom of the Mediator there should be so great and stupendious a Prophecy peculiar to it as that of the Revelation wherein God and Jesus Christ are for ever to be ador'd and had in reverence of all that approach the Profession of Christianity I say It must be of necessity agreeable to the Excellency of the New Testament there should be besides many Incidental Prophecies so divinely majestick a Prophecy as this of the Apocalyps such a Temple of Prophecies whose Symbols should be so high and lofty its Light more clear and full its Lines of Time in what it pleas'd to give more evident and certain the Doctrines intermingled more spiritual the Promises more heavenly and explain'd the Threats more dreadful and more open that in every thing there may be a Becomingness of All to the Old Testament unveil'd fulfill'd and excell'd in the New And accordingly we shall find all these to the very height taken care of and adjusted we shall see this all along the Iconisms and Figures of Things in the Churches in the several Visions in the Doctrines in the solemn mentions of the Lamb of his Blood so often memorializ'd as an Antidote against the Poison of Antichrist as also the Ministeries of Angels and their most peremptory Abhorrence of all Worship offer'd to them It s only numbred Line of Time till the 1000 Years is so often repeated and ascertain'd that it does in all things illustriously shew it self to be that grand Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to shew to his Servants to the transcendent Honour of the Son by whom he thus spake last of all Who is the Heir of all things especially of the World to Heb. 1. 1. come of which this Prophecy speaks So that to ravish this from the Search and Enquiry of his Church or by Imputations of immodest Presumption to bar from it the utmost Endeavours of his Servants to compare so great a Prophecy and its Events is to take from them one of the principal Props of Christian Faith and Obedience and to devest the New Testament of so high a Glory as this sure Word of Prophecy to which we ought to take heed as to a Light that shineth in the obscure and even squalid Ayr of the Apostasie till the Bright Morning-Star appear and therefore notwithstanding all Prejudices the Apostacy hath rais'd against Researches into it Blessed is he that Readeth and they who hear the Words of this Prophecy That which this Prophecy reveals is the glorious Restitution of all things in the Kingdom of Christ and his Reign with his Saints the Destruction and Consumption of all the wicked so as to be no more as they have been in God's Creation and Earth Psal 104. 35. The Sense in which it reveals is not only Prophetical Doctrinal and Verbal but Real and Eventual and that immediately from the very Beginning of it All the Visions in their own Order each in their Season come quickly or shortly to pass that is begin to come to pass and so go on to their End according to the Types wherein they are imprinted This Revelation begins justly at the Resurrection of Christ conjoyn'd as in one entire Act and Time with his Ascension when all power in Heaven and Earth was given to him at the Lord's Day dedicated by himself to the Glory of his Rising and the Publication of his Anointing by the coming down of Act. 1. c. 2. the Holy Spirit Then could he say Behold I was dead am alive and live for evermore Then he was brought near to the Ancient of Days and receiv'd the Assurance of his Kingdom Then had he Right to be the Prince of the Kings of the Earth though he was pleas'd to stay and to joyn Patience to and with his Kingdom And this was as in the middle Rev. 1. 9. of the Five hundred sixty second Ev. Mor. from Cyrus and in the middle of the last of the seventieth of the seventy Weeks and at the Time the Roman Empire was come to Maturity in the AUTONOMY of Augustus and Tiberius in the Time of which the first Right of his Kingdom began and e're that Empire in its last State ends it shall be set up in Glory For though the Apocalytical Prophecy was not actually given to the Apostle John till some years after yet as Prophecy calls the future so that which is past to the present Time and represents in an entire Frame both together a Priviledge as to that which is past necessarily allowed to History and to a prophetick Frame much more when it hath occasion for it The Period of the Revelation till the thousand years is most evidently those two Apocalyptical Pillars bearing the two answering Inscriptions IT IS DONE IT IS DONE Apoc. 16. 17. c. 22. 6. from whence the Kingdom begins So that this Book of the Revelation is justly to be styl'd the Book of the Kingdom of Christ in its several Offers of Appearance and rending the very Clouds to shew it self in the Acts 1. 7. Dan. 12. 7. Justice of its Claim and yet retiring it self till the very moments appointed by the Father and sworn by himself In which Regards this Prophecy is call'd A Book both in Daniel and here in the Apocalyps on all occasions So that the thousand Years are properly within this Book as the Book of the Kingdom There is also beyond the thousand Years a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a little Space as it were the Revel 20. Hour of the thousand-years-day of the Lord or of the Son of Man in which the natural Apostacy of Humane Nature shews it self in the lukewarm Laodicean Church and in Gog and Magog as at a blush but the whole of any State either 1 Cor. 15. of Church or Nation below immediately is swallow'd up in Flames and Death and Hell with their whole Propriety shut up within themselves and the Kingdom resign'd to God ALL in ALL. The Passage or Conveyance of this Apocalyptical Time is through the seven Churches comprehending the whole Time within themselves as also Symbols proper to the Prophecy as peculiar to the Christian Church and then the whole Time begins again and runs in seven Seals seven Trumpets seven Voices as unseal'd Thunders seven Vials as so many Conduits Tubes or Pipes of the whole Prophecy under the Conduct and Government of the Lamb with seven eyes and the guiding Operations of the seven Lamps the seven Spirits of God that is of the Divine Spirit in its sevenfold Operations And in all I understand the sabbatical Number deriv'd from the first Sabbath and terminating in the last great Sabbatism of Christ's Kingdom continued with the Sabbatism of Eternity Thus the Prophecy is divided into two Systemes or Complexes of Visions The Systeme of the
by which they are all kept in a close successional Connexion one with another and the seventh Seal hath its Hold upon the whole even to the last Day of Judgment when the whole Book of the Kingdom is resign'd back into the Hand of God out of whose Hand it was received by Christ seal'd 1 Cor. 15. 24. c. I am therefore now and in the first place to speak of the first part of this second giving of the Line of Time and that as in the Seals before it came to the Trumpets 1. And because there is one general Preface to this whole Repetition of the Line of Time I shall first consider how adequate it is to the whole Line and to the great Administrations of it in a brief or summary Survey of it For to assure us The Preface was to the whole Apocalyptical Book or Time adorn'd with new Figures and Sculptures John heard the first Voice that spake to him and it was as it were of a Trumpet saying to him I will shew thee Things that must be hereafter Rev. 4. v. 1 2. and immediately he was the second time in the Spirit where the Distinction of things hereafter from the things that are as Rev. 1. 19. was made only as the Types of the Churches had a real Existence at that Time as Types in the then begun Christian Church but the following were deriv'd from things to come And after this there was no more any such Voice of a Trumpet speaking to John no more being in the Spirit except a being carried in the Spirit into the Wilderness to see the Apostate Church and then to a Mountain to behold the Holy City The Voice speaking again c. 10. v. 8. evidently relates to the first Voice in that chap. saying seal and write not v. 4. and then take the Book and eat c. and c. 1. 10. c. 4. 1 2. not to these Trumpet-Voices 2. At this second Apocalyptical Volume we have the great Theatre of the Throne and the whole Grandeur of it and adorn'd every way suitable to the Doctrine of the Gospel and as it were in the first Apostolical Church settled first in God as the Doctrine of the One God made known in the Father the Son and the Spirit is the Foundation of Christianity For the Father the Word and the Spirit bear Record of it in Heaven and these three are one in that Record as they are in themselves ONE 3. About this Throne at each Angle or at each of the four Points of it are four Living Creatures so I choose to translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not Beasts properly and distinguishingly in this Prophecy call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and these four Living Creatures represent the Apostolical Church of the New Testament as in four Ternaries or Threes of the twelve Apostles in perpetual Action and therein as it were encircling the twenty four Elders of the pure Israelitish Church The Elders are upon Seats round about the Throne and with Crowns on their Heads as being of old a Kingdom of Priests and they are in this Prophecy introduc'd in Service to the Kingdom of Christ that shall be at the New Jerusalem together with and as by the Apostolick Church who shall be Kings and Priests together with them represented by these four and twenty Elders Heads of the priestly Courses who are first plac'd as leading the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his Kingdom by Prophecy but yet in the very first Action the Order is revers'd and the living Creatures are first in giving Glory First there is the particular Song to the Divine Nature on the Throne as the absolute Creator and Lord of all ending in this For thy Pleasure all things are and were created and so are absolutely under his Dominion and Dispose before whom they cast their Crowns 4. The grand Symbol of the whole Apocalyptical Time and its Events and of the supreme Conduct and Government till they issue into the Kingdom of Christ is the seal'd Book in the Hand of Him that sat on the Throne seal d with the seven Seals which Seals have under them the whole Course of preparatory Events to this Kingdom and the Kingdom it self till it be resign'd back to God Thus Daniel saw Prophecy and Vision seal'd up Dan. 9. and the Book seal'd Chap. 12. 5. There is Proclamation made by the loud Voice of a strong Angel for the finding out a worthy Person to open the Book and loose its Seals And none in Heaven or Earth was found worthy to open the Seals or so much as look thereon All which is certainly as Divine a Symbol to set out the supream and sole Excellency of the Lord Jesus Christ as far above all Principalities and Powers and every Name in Heaven or Earth as could be found out and surpassing all Understanding or Invention finite and is in surprize of any Admissions of Angels or Saints into any parts of his Mediatory Office the very least so much as an Ability to look thereon as also to foreclose that grand Antichristian Assumption of the man of Sin for his very Supremacy is hereby plainly declar'd to be Antichristianism who undertakes not only to look upon this Book but to open the Seals and herein he shews himself in the Temple of God as God 6. The much weeping of John that none was found worthy to open the Book does most exactly and critically point to the time of the Death of Christ or his lying in the Grave when there seem'd a Despair upon all the Creation in that dark Interval and a suspension of the Consolation of Israel and when all the Apostles had given up as it were the hopes of it of which the Apostle John was here a Symbol and represented all the Apostles 7. The same Article of Time is farther assur'd and confirm'd by the one of the Elders as a Representative of the whole Israelitish Church who lead to Christ Thus Christ open'd the Scriptures of the Old Testament especially of Daniel That Christ was thus to suffer and to enter into his Glory viz. of sitting first at the Right-hand of God till his Foes should be made his Footstool He sate down on his Fathers Throne in his Father's Kingdom He shall have a Throne and Kingdom properly his own 8. Christ hereupon exactly as in the Time according to the History of the Gospel appears as on the sudden and unexpectedly in the midst of the Throne of the Elders and the living Creatures a Lamb as it had been newly slain and now risen and ascended and so the Epoch of the Apocalyptical Time is most strictly defin'd and fully assur'd And at this Point of Time he receives the Book which is the very same with sitting on God's Right-hand till his Foes shall be made his Footstool for when the Book is unseal'd and the thousand Years begin Then there is a putting down all Rule and Authority At the End of the thousand Year and the Day of
final Judgment over the Book is quite unseal'd in Death the last Enemy overcome and then the Book the Symbol of the Kingdom is resign'd with the Kingdom it self into the Hand of the Father 9. Hereupon the State of the Christian Church in its Apostolical Purity with the Order of the Living Creatures first and then drawing that of the Elders along with it in a Song of Redemption in Praise of the Lamb with a Prophecy of his Kingdom in which his Servants and Saints shall reign above the Earth or over it as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies in several Places of the New Testament joyn'd with a Genitive Case particularly Matt. 25. 21. 23. I will make thee Ruler over many things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 10. To sum up all The State of the Church in the thousand Years Kingdom of Christ is given in a second Song of Praise wherein all things bow in the Name of Christ as Lord and that not ceremonially but in real Subjection Phil. 2. 10. Things in Heaven and in Earth and under the Earth and that to the Glory of the Father For the four Living Creatures having said Amen to this high Celebration of Christ the four and twenty Elders as having by the Apostolical Church receiv'd an explicate Knowledge of Christ to shew The New Testament did not at all derogate from the Old The four and twenty Elders after they had fallen down with the four Living Creatures and joyn'd in a Song of Praise to the Lamb now as making up the Concent worship him that liveth for ever and ever and conclude that which the four Living Creatures or the Apostolical Ministry began and herein shew the Resignation of the Kingdom of God at last that he may be All in All Rev. 4. 10. compar'd with Rev. 5. 8. 14. For as all began in God that made all things so here it ends in him The sealed Book being now in the Hands of Christ and all due Acknowledgments made to him that sits on the Throne and to the Lamb immediately follows the opening of the Seals and therein the Course of Time flows out and so flows on of which we are now to take a particular and strict Account only I would desire every Person that sets his Mind and Thoughts to view this so august Inthronization of God and of the Lamb That he would ponder within himself Whether the desolating either the Jews or the Heathen Empire can be Events great enough for so stupendious a Pre-Representation or any thing less than the Glorious Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ could answer to it And now that we may establish the Line of Time according to these Seals and the Time of their opening there are three Things to be consider'd 1. What it is that is the principal Jewel and Treasure that lies under these Seals and so to be set free by the unloosing them 2. What is the principal and supream Visum or Thing to be seen in every Seal and the opening of it and how it serves the disclosing that Jewel 3. What is the true method of fixing the certain Time that the whole Course of the Seals took up and how it is to be measur'd and fix'd If we can now determine and settle aright upon the Resolution of each of these Particulars we shall be able to understand this first Sett of Apocalyptical Visions and to have ample satisfaction concerning them and have great Light into the following Visions also 1. As to the First then That great Treasure and Jewel of Truth that is inclos'd within these Seals and so also as we shall see that the Trumpets ultimately sounded unto is the Glorious Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ Every Event and the Stage of Time it was to pass over is as a Seal or Stop upon this Kingdom till it opens into Glory and the opening of every Seal was an Advance towards it and although when the seven Seals were open'd there appeared a greater and more prodigious Cause of Delay viz. the Antichristian Kingdom yet every Trumpet was as an Alarm of War to the subduing that Mock-Kingdom that rose in Despight and Opposition to the Kingdom of Christ And because all things were so set and placed in their Season and Order that no one thing could come to pass before that which was set before it had had its free Egress and Event therefore every of these Events and the opening of the Seals to let them out though they did not in the Issue open to the true Appearance of that Kingdom yet because they did as it were what they could and there was a Remove of so many Prohibents or Obstacles to that Kingdom and Time so advanc'd from Point to Point that by the opening every Seal the Kingdom of Christ might be nearer to its Appearance therefore they are justly understood and expounded to be Seals unloos'd and opening to the Kingdom of Christ Now besides those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or IT IS DONE IT IS DONE at the End of the Apocalyptical Time and all its Events whither they one and all run together besides this there is this absolute Assurance That the Kingdom of Christ was under the Seals The Kingdom made so magnificent a show of it self at the sixth Seal that had not the Servants of God been seal'd in their Fore-heads that they should not then appear with him in Glory the Kingdom had even then appear'd for in Constantine's Christian Empire to the End of the Reign or at the Victory of Theodosius the Great over Heathenism of which he endeavour'd the utter Extirpation that Kingdom so far came out of its Retirement that there was a solemn and loud Doxology in Heaven that the Kingdom of God and the Power of Christ were come and yet at the very same time the Woman is recorded as fled into the Wilderness Rev. 12. 10. 2. The first Particular then being resolved with so much Evidence and Assurance we may with the greatest Clearness resolve concerning the second or the principal Visum of every Seal open'd for it must be some State of the Kingdom of Christ defin'd by the joyning together the Voices that summoned to the Sight and Observation so far as these Voices continued and then when they ceased the State of the Kingdom of Christ must be considered by the Visa themselves as under the Cessation of those Voices and by any sort of Voices we can find equivalent to them And in this Method and no other that I can understand we may justly and truly comprehend the Intention and Signification of the Seals For if all the Seals carry on the Kingdom of Christ by so many Degrees and Steps of Advance as I have in some measure I hope made evident they do By undeniable Proof then it must needs be That every Seal hath some State of that Kingdom protuberant or swelling out in its Appearance upon that opening and that the Voice that says Come and see calls to observe it and
as to the State of the Church all along these Seals past There was a plain Appearance of it in the Apostolick Voices till just the Entrance of the fourth Seal From that Time these Voices ceas'd which had so far as supported by the Characters of Imperial History declar'd to us the Times and States of the Church as before drawn out in the Labour and Patience and Sufferings of the Ephesine Church while those Apostolical Voices lasted although there was such a Leaven of the Apostacy hid in it that it was charg'd to have left its first Love one great Instance of which was in Victor's Excommunication of the Asian Churches upon the score of the unwritten Ceremony of keeping Easter at all much more unwritten as to Criticism of Time which made that so great Fewd The Fifth Seal so plainly opens in the Sufferings of the Seal 5 Christian Martyrs as to assure us This Prophecy as also other Scripture-prophecies and Notes of Time are for the sake of the Church and not of Heathen Empires and States yet by the Course of the Seals we may easily know at what hour of the Empire it was as by referring to the peculiar foregoing Church-prophecy we know under what Symbol of the Church it lies and from both That it was the last and cruel ten Years Persecution or ten Days Tribulation begun by Dioclesian while the Christian Church was under that peculiar Symbol of the Church of Smyrna That it was about the Time of Dioclesian the Current of the former Seals and the immediately following Desolation of Heathenism under Constantine assure us That it was under the Symbol of the Church of Smyrna its peculiar Character of Sufferings and ten Days Tribulation make out as also in that there was no longer any Apostolical Voice but the Voice of Souls that were gone out of martyr'd Bodies it signifies the Synagogue of Sathan near an height and from that very occasion of the Tombs Relicks Memories and Veneration of Martyrs and Trust in their Negotiation out of the Body for those they left behind in it growing much higher However God graciously accepts this Suffering Church and lays no Imputation upon it but only on the Sathanick Synagogue He seems to have more respect to the Souls Complaint than to the Survivers of that Church He appoints them white Robes but as unconcern'd in Mediations for any in this World they are commanded to rest and there is on their Instance a Signification of a new Roll of Martyrs under Antichrist when the whole Number of those of the first Resurrection should be compleat over whom the second Death should have no Power This Seal then is the very Joynt betwixt the Kingdom of Paganism falling but not yet fallen and that short Appearance of Christ's Kingdom in the Christian Empire till Theodosius the Great The Army of Martyrs had not yet overcome by the Word of the Testimony which they held The Kingdom of Christ was not yet celebrated with that Doxology chap. 12. But there was nothing came between this Cry of the Souls and that Kingdom although speedily surpris'd by Antichristianism into which Pagan Demonolatry was first transplanted on this very occasion of Martyrs Sufferings compleated within this Seal especially And thus we have the State of the Kingdom of Christ in the Church within this Seal assur'd by one of the most famous Monuments of Ecclesiastick History The sixth Seal is that great Seal opened by which the Heathen Seal 6 State of the Roman Empire was demolish'd and which carries most abundant Instruction of this whole Time of the Seals and also of the Kingdom of Christ in his Church during that Time 1. That Heathen Idolatry that had seated it self as in the Heavens and from thence reach'd down it self into the Earth and in the Deep is as by an Earthquake remov'd from below and as by a Tempest above is dismounted and deposed from thence so that here Sathan as the Dragon was cast down from Heaven as by Lightning according to the Vision chap. 12. 2. The Emperours or Kings of the Earth and all its great Men lay'd aside their Greatness even to their Imperial Purple and Diadems as particularly Dioclesian the Arch-Persecutor and Maximian with him mov'd not so much by any thing as by a divine Terror by the Fear of him that sate on the Throne and of the Lamb. And this is given as a lively Type of Christ's glorious Appearance in the Destruction of his Enemies Who will be able to stand in that Day of his Wrath What Mountains Dens or Caves will then open to receive affrighted men 3. From hence it plainly appears What was to be open'd by Christ's opening of these Seals even no other than the glorious visible Kingdom of Christ and not his spiritual Kingdom only As an eminent Assurance of which He declar'd himself in the preaching of the Gospel and a Crown was given to him as an Acknowledgment of his Right though to obtain it he was to go out conquering and to conquer Here then in this Christian Empire beginning at the sixth Seal and so going on in the seventh Seal to Theodostus's Victory over all the Remains of Heathenism after Julian in the Senate Magistracy and People of Rome gather'd to a Head in Eugenius and Argobastes This Kingdom appear'd as in an Emblem and earnest of it self and so it is celebrated chap. 12. with Praise and Triumph as in Heaven though even there surpris'd 4. Here the State of Christ's Kingdom in the Church is solemnly declar'd and also as in the Christian Empire In the Church to shew the high towring Synagogue of Sathan There is no Voice of the Church but of an Angel crying to the four Angels not to hurt c. a certain Indication of bad Symptoms appearing at this in it self happy Change 2. There was a pure Church and Kingdom of Christ yet publick and visible but upon the Retreat for it was just now retiring and about to be seal'd that is under that over-growing Synagogue 3. This Kingdom of Christ in his Church was to have abating the general Unhappiness of fallen sinful Man a more quiet and illustrious State than heretofore viz. in a Christian Empire for till the whole Time of sealing the Servants of God was past the four Angels that had the four first Trumpets were commanded to hold the Wind that no such Hurt could be done upon the Empire as was after to be done when they sounded This was Smyrna's Crown So that tho' God had determin'd the Period of the Blood-guilty Roman Western Empire as Imperial yet it was kept off till it became Pagan-Antichristian a new Paganism Then God gave it in Wrath after a Time an Antichristian King its former Imperial King being taken away in Wrath first 5. The precise Time of Sealing that is of covering all the True visible Glory of Christianity in the Christian Empire is hereby set viz. until the First Trumpet For till all was sealed no
Originals of the Old or New Testament and according to the very Design of Prophecy it is Appointed Time Appointed Times Appointed Half Time or Season Seasons half a Season and so in that first Distribution of Time according to the Motion of the Sun and the Moon the great Luminaries of Heaven it is used Genes 1. 14. for Design'd and Appointed Times and this is very necessary to be layd in the Foundation For accordingly it will follow The measures of this Season Seasons half a Season must be found out by observing the measures of the other Notes of Time wherewith they are joyned for that Character of Season it self speaks high and notorious Designation of this Time Times Half a Time and that most remarkable Season of which after-use is to be made arises from such a Designation and not an immediate Definition of the Space But then secondarily Because a Year and a Day are the most natural and ready Measures of designed Time and so may in that forenam'd Scripture be the Explanation of Seasons Gen. 1. 14. or remarkable and signaliz'd Times as they are immediately added to Seasons and because in all probability seven Times passing over Nebuchadnezzar under his Delirium Dan 4. 23. mean seven Years since they cannot mean Days or Months or less than Years nor more we may first consider Time Times Half a Time as three Years and a half and that with Authority because they are diversifyed into other such Extents of Time or Spaces as we shall see that point to so much So then the signification of Time Times Half a Time is taken from that first most known and honourable Account of Time the Suns Motion from Point to Point in its annual Circle This is a more honourable Circulation than that of a Day because the Sun more knownly varies every day from the Point from which and the Point to which it daily moves which makes the change of the Year to those several Seasons so that although as Solomon tells us The Sun riseth and goeth down and hasteth to the place where he arose distributing Day and Night to the World yet he neither sets nor rises two Days together at the same exact Point but veres towards one of the Tropicks although therefore a Day of the Suns being with us is the most noble measure of Time next to the Year yet it cannot deserve the Name of a Time of a signaliz'd Time as a Year doth both because it is not so exact to a Point of Revolution and because it is not so full a Year excelling a Day in being the greater and ampler and so the most perfect known and generally observ'd Circle for a Season comprehending that of a Day above three hundred sixty five times within it self and is the Suns perfect Emensuration of its way from one end to the other end of the Heavens and of its Visitation of the whole Earth with its Beams A Year must yet more excel a Month than it does a Day because the Sun hath the Government of the Day and of the Year but the Moon the much more ignoble Planet and Governess only of the Night gives to the Months their Character and Measure and tho there are twelve Points of the Space the Sun emensurates in a Year viz. the twelve Signs in the Zodiack and the Suns first Touch upon Aries to its gliding off from it to the next Sign may be call'd a Solar Month yet neither is it the proper Month which is defin'd by Lunations nor is it any Circulation of the Sun with it self or with its own Motion or with its great end of encompassing the World with its enlivening Beams there is no space therefore that can properly merit the Name of a Time or Season in the first place but a Year first and then a Day Times absolutely so call'd must needs also be most properly two Times for the first Plurality or more than one is two and the more so because it is set betwixt one Time and half a time for that Number which exceeds and removes from Unity first is two and that which is bounded by half a Time in its remove from one Time can be no more than two for if it had proceeded to more than two and had not been stop'd or cut off as the Hebrew significantly It had been three Times Half a Time therefore as it refers to the Beasts Time must be Time decurtated or cut off at the middle as the Garments and Beards of David's Servants half'd by Hanun in Disgrace and Dishonour to the Beasts eternal Infamy and in recompence to his surprise of the Churches Peace and Purity at its half Hour as shall be noted Apoc. 8. 1. Time then as One denotes Beginning as One is the beginning of Number Times as Two denotes Increase and Consistency as it is a progress of Time from One and settles in the first even Number Half speaks an endeavour of Motion to be continued but surpris'd and cut off at its middle Now these Time Times Half a Time might signifie only the three Years and a half they first import but that they must signifie more we shall find very full assurance when therefore we shall have reason'd that it must be more than three Years and a half it will then appear most reasonable that each Time should have its most perfect Circle And if a Year be the perfectest Circle of Time then a Year of Years must be the most perfect and full Circle beyond which there can be nothing but a Repetition or Multiplication of the same again and again so then the Time must be a Year of Years the two Times must be the same Circle twice told and the Half Time the same Circle attempted the third Time and clip'd off at the Semicircle which is the Account of this Character of Time Times Half a Time and which is the first and as will appear the most comprehensive of the Characters of this Line and tho there may be other Revolutions of the Heavens and of the Sun particularly known to learned Astronomers containing greater numbers of Years and there is a more perfect Number also of Years viz. the thousand Years given us in this Prophecy as we shall see afterwards yet there is none so fit to the present Purpose as Days and Years nor so full as a Year of Days and then a Year of Years or of prophetical Days most agreeable to Prophecy every way I come now to the second Character of Days A Day then Character the Second is the first most known and observable date of Time as it was first in use to measure Time by The Evening and the Morning were the first Day assoon as Time began A Day Gen. 1. 5. c. then is the Time in which the Sun performs his Motion speaking as the Scripture does to general Apprehension without regard to strictnesses of Philosophy whether the Motion be of the Sun or of
the Earth from East to West and gives Light to one of the Hemispheres and then from West to East and so hastens to the Place where he arose as near as the aforesaid Variation will allow and gives Light to the other Hemisphere as Lord of the Day to the World of both Hemispheres As then on this Account Days are in all Languages expressive of length of Time so one Day was by God made choice of to signifie a Year and one Day by Moses Psal 90. and by the Apostle Peter is singled out to parallel with a thousand Years and Man's Day by the Apostle Paul is us'd to express the whole course of Man's time of judging in opposition 2 Pet. 2. 8. to the Day of Judgment and the whole course of 1 Cor. 4. 3. Judgment is call'd frequently the Day of Judgment as one Day and as it is taken a Day for a Year in this Line of Time so we shall find in the three Days and a half it is taken for a Day of Years equal to a Year of Years Day threfore is a Standard of Time fairly to be accommodated to any Measure of Time the Conjunction it hath with such Measure otherwise given requires when therefore three Days and a half are joyn'd with twelve hundred sixty Days with twice forty two Months and all these within Time Times Half a time there is a fair Reason to understand them of the very same Tenor of Time with what they are so conjoyn'd But as for the accounting a Day for a Year that rests upon that Divine Institution of a Day for a Year first in a Case near and parallel of the Forty Years Commoration of the Church of Israel Numb 14. v. 34. to omit Jacob's old Stile of Time a Week of Years in the Wilderness and after that by the solemn Institution as of a prophetical Key Ezek. 4. I have appointed a Day for a Year so that when there is a concurrence of Prophecy and Things to be transacted that cannot be transacted in so short a space as of Days litterally and naturally understood they must be so understood as we are directed by Prophecy to understand them viz. a Day for a Year even as without Hesitation we compute into Weeks of Years Daniel's seventy Weeks and so into 490 Years Now we shall find such Transactions fitted to the twelve hundred and sixty days that cannot possibly be suppos'd to have their Motion in three years and a half so that they must be Prophetical days or days for years And thus we have settled the two first and most noble Characters of Time A year signified by a time and a day as it is used in the three dayes and a half and in the twelve hundred and sixty days with their most truly Prophetical Indications viz. three years and a half of years in the three times and three days and a half and twelve hundred and sixty years in the 1260 days Let us then proceed to the third Character of Months or the forty two Months A Month then we know is that Space of Time the Moon describes by Night in its progress through the Zodiack Third Character For whatever Hemisphere it moves in it is still Night it rules in which Motion is indeed so full of Variation and Incertainty in its Remove from the Ecliptick Line the Sun 's certain Path that it is said The Sun knows its way but the Moon does not even as the Phasis or figure of the Moon is upon perpetual change even to a Proverb upon the unadjustableness of any ones Humour or Manners Who can saith the Proverb fit a Coat to the Moon and so is excellently adapted to describe the Antichristian Tyranny that changes Times and Laws Not onely by rescinding the truly Christian Laws by mens own Additions contrary to those Laws themselves but also making perpetually changeable even the Counterfeits of them by innumerable new Traditions whereas the Religion of Jesus Christ is yesterday and to day the same for ever Besides that Judaisme and Heathenisme that had so many dependencies on the Moon is the Constitution of Antichristianism and therefore the true Church so distant from it is cloathed with the Sun and hath the Moon under its feet and therein abdicates Judaism Heathenism and Mahometanism that also claims a Kindred with the Moon as the Votaries of the Moon Now this Moon as Governess of the Night as so variable in its Motions and Measures gives no Rule of Time by Motion from East to West but only from one Lunation to another it denominates Months or Moons being certain onely in this to return from one Conjunction of the Sun to another which because it gives a new Phase to the Moon is therefore called in the Hebrew Novitas and the Lunations Novitates or New Moons But I understand No Way that it can describe the Circle of a Year but by its Attendance on the Sun in its Motion by so many new Conjunctions as will most agree with the Annual Motion of the Sun and the nearest This can be brought to by the Natural Motions of the Moon there will be between Ten and Eleven Days betwixt the Motion of the Sun and the motion of the Moon upon twelve Conjunctions call'd therefore Synodical Months of the Moon with the Sun For so many the Sun requires more to the finishing its Annual Course than the Moon needs to its twelve Conjunctions with the Sun And this be spoken of Months as they are most properly to be understood of Lunations For if we would interpret them of Solar Months besides another greater Obstruction or Caution to be entred against that Interpretation hereafter they could be only progressive not Circular and so not agreeable with a day or a year there being more of a Circulation of motion by that most Illustrious Prince of Time in a day than in a Month. And therefore we account a Day the first Circle of the Sun's motion with Light from East to West and so to East again and a Year the most perfect Circle of his motion in going forth from one end of Heaven and in Circuit to the other end thereof with Heat and Influential Vertue in neither of which Solar Months correspond as to any Complement and therefore not so fit Symbols of Time as the Lunar Months which have a circle from one Conjunction to the Sun with another Now these Lunar Months are in conjunction with Time Times Half a Time or three years and a half of Years and with Twelve hundred sixty Days or Years Twice Forty two Months of Years also but the former coalescing or falling into One within the latter as a River that had been a River before may be suppos'd to do into a new Cut or Channel prepar'd to receive the confluence of neighbouring Waters lying in the way of that former River so near that by the great confluence of Waters and the more ample Channel of the new River the old may
the beginning of this Line which is one great Confirmation that we are upon the true Time of it for to declare this as it were with Industry there are even thirty joyn'd to the 1260 and more openly Three Fifteens or Forty Five to the 1290 that we may thereby be engag'd to look back upon the whole Line and find it throughout so compacted as may be easily computed and hath been before observ'd on Daniel's Vision 3. Each Community hath its just share in the intimate and full extended Time of this Line and each twice given The Beast hath first his intimate Time twice given in Daniel and by two forty two months given first to his Gentiles till his own rising and then forty two Months to himself he hath the utmost extent of Time Times half time as before declared and drawn out of the 2300 Evenings In just correspondence with which the Servants of God as collected and congregated in the Woman the Church that they might not be accused as having Relation to no Church and single in the Witnesses and the Seed who have the Witness that Apo. 12. 17. the Church might not seem a Notion onely have each one and the same 1260 da. drawn out of the 2300 mornings assign'd to them and the Witnesses three dayes and a half and the Woman three times and a half or season or intimate Time answering the Beasts intimate Time who must have the Servants of God as a subject to work upon while his Tyranny lasts Now that the Time at large or the Twice 1260 Days must needs be the same and differ only in notion as the Church and the Witnesses or the Seed that have the Witness of Jesus do is most evident because lying within the same Continent of Time Times Semi Time and being both of the longest reach and exactly of the same size it is not possible they should begin or end sooner one than another as we have found it possible the Gentiles and the Beasts months may do For neither are they so united as the Woman and the Witnesses And their months though of the same size one with another are yet not of an equal extent to time times half time at their full length nor to the 1260 dayes the just measure of the three times and half although both the Forty two months uniting as we have said are neither longer nor shorter than the 1260 dayes nor than the Three Times and half the common Womb of all And even so the three Times and half of the Woman and the three dayes and half of the Witnesses must be the same also seeing the Witnesses and the Woman are the same and the 1260 dayes the same and no difference but only notional as was explain'd For if they were different the Woman should have no parallel to the three dayes and half of the Witnesses nor the Witnesses have any parallel with the three times and half of the Witnesses which as most unbecoming so Uniform a Type are impossible also in such a sameness Thus the Marches or Out-lying Borders as well as the Intimate Time are full on the side of both Communities the Beasts Tyranny and the Sufferings of the Servants of God The last Seventy five years by the Voices Revel 14. and by the Vials Rev. 16. move on to the two utmost Pillars of Time It is done It is done Rev. 16. 17. Rev. 21. 6. Object In the former or after Parts of this Discourse I offer as I hope most Convictive Proofs of all these things in particular and answer all Objections I shall only at this time remove this one viz. There seems no more reason to understand the forty two Months as Lunar Months than the days of Years as Lunar Years Answ There is very great difference for if we look throughout the Scripture and the whole manner of Jewish Computation of Time we shall find They always understood Months Lunar Months and the very Solemnity of their New Moons absolutely requir'd it so that to understand them otherwise must needs be to understand against that constant use of Scripture and the Importance of the Name of their Months Scripture uses But now their Years were so necessarily Solar Years for there can indeed be no Year but strictly Solar that they most industriously provided to Adequate their Lunar Time to their Solar by Intercalations and Inserted Months or a double Adar which was their last Month of the Year we every Leap-Year by a double Twenty Eighth of February As may be seen by the Learned in that Excellent Tract of Maimonides of Intercalations which gives great light to this whole Matter As shall be farther taken notice of in the after Management of this Discourse Having given this general View of this Grand Prophetical Line of Time which appears to be of sovereign Use to the Church of God by the so often Repetition of it I think it necessary to make these Practical Remarks upon it for the universal profit of all that read it It ought to administer no Scandal to us that Christianity Remark 1 hath yet had no greater Effect in the Universe upon Jews Mahometans Pagans That it hath not won upon the world to an universal Conversion to it That it hath not prevail'd upon Christians themselves to higher degrees of Religious and Holy Affections and Actions That it hath not reconcil'd Men more to one another and made the Wolf and the Lamb to lye down together That it hath not fill'd the Earth with the knowledge of God as the Waters cover the Sea That it hath not deriv'd down a more universal state of outward Blessing Prosperity Peace and Happiness For these are the great Promises and Pretentions of the Kingdom Christ design'd to erect in the World now an Enemy hath done all this in the Wisdom of God and Christ the old Dragon the Serpent Satan hath inhabited and acted a Bestian Empire first as Pagan and in the very appearance of a Dragon watching to devour the manly Birth of Christianity and since That Empire became Christian in a Bestian Kingdom of Apostasie and this hath surpris'd and cut off the blessed Emanations of Christianity and the Gospel and made the Christian World except in some small chosen Parts of it like the Wilderness like Heathen Pagan Nations and Kingdoms full of Scandals to the great hinderance of the other parts of the World from submission to the Scepter of Christ or taking upon them his Name and Profession and made ineffectual this Profession to the very Professors of it And this hath been lo these twelve hundred and fifty years wait only till the ten are run out also and you shall see a greater change in the World than ever yet it hath known Christianity shall then prevail more in a little time than it hath done ever yet The Light of one day shall be as the Light of seven till it grows brighter and brighter to the perfect Day of Christs Kingdom the first
or sell that hath not the Mark or Name on his Right-hand or on his Fore-head or the Name or the Number of the Name nor so much as live if he doth not worship the Image The end of which intimate Time is by Proportion 1517 and so on Rev. 13. 15. to the end But now besides this measure of intimate Time because the Beast is Lord of Time Times Half a Time and so constituted by God his Forty two Months are an exact Measure also of the whole Line beginning at that most famous Epoch so well known to History the Cessation of the Western Empire 475 whence his Forty two Months to be set as Lunar Time to the 1260 Days of Solar Time must be 1222 and so beginning at 475 must end at 1697 with the 1260 Days beginning 437 thirty eight Years before them with the Gentiles Forty two Months according to the Laws of this Line of Time and of the Sun 's and Moon 's Motion collated one with another And to confirm the right Calculation of this whole Time to us Imperial Time is adjusted to it by the Emblems of the falling Empire in the West till the vulgar 606 when the Beast as a Star falling to the Earth enlightned that Western Empire so darkned before that neither Sun nor Moon or Stars shined in its third part and presently after arose the Mahometan Hegira or Account of Time at 626 the which Imperial Time is accounted till the Fall of the Eastern Empire under the same Emblem of the third part of Men which also is to be cleared within seventy Years of which intimate Time ceases and that Change we call the Reformation ensu'd at 1517 represented by its most significant Emblems and the Mahometan Power still continued and yet is to continue to the end of the whole Line 1260 which goes to 1290 and so to 1335 the happy end of all the 2300 Ev. Morn All which I cannot but hope will be acknowledg'd a rational and clear Account of this admirable Line Now of every of these particulars I undertake particularly to discourse and although I confess the Order of Nature is first to speak of the Kernel of Time or the intimate Time to which the Fore-going Time at large is but a Preparation and After-Time but an Accomplishment yet because I must follow as the Divine Spirit hath gone before I begin with the Ambient Time of the Gentiles Forty two Months and of the Witnesses twelve hundred sixty Days in Sack-cloth and of the Woman in the Wilderness that first appear and are plac'd as in Complex one with another before the Inner Time or Season In beginning with which Sacred Prophecy is pleas'd to make the way plainer to us To begin then first with the Gentiles Treading the Holy Court and City which as hath been declared does not run as a principal Character but at farthest to the first part of the intimate State or Season and there is supported by the latter Forty two Months of the Beast to the very end of the whole 1260 dayes Now the knowledge of this either State or Character of Time is peculiarly given by the Apocalypse and hath no other Intimation in Daniel than what is common to the Time Times Semi-Time and to the Twelve hundred sixty joyn'd with the Thirty more and so making Twelve hundred ninety at the taking away the Daily and yet because it is of very great Use and Necessity in this Account of Time therefore is given so distinct and express in this excellent Apocalyptick Prophecy which surpasses Daniel even as the New Testament exceeds the Old and as Revelation however mystical excells Type and Figure of an older date Now the great Use of this Character is this When the Beast does neither in the Account of Prophecy nor Accord of History rise till some years after the Twelve hundred sixty years began nor reach his State especially design'd to be set out by Daniels Prophecy till many years after the 1260 years began viz. the very beginning of his most intimate State at his so often mentioned 666 in prevision of which it is said The Saints Times and Laws are given into his hand Season Seasons Dan. 7. 25 and half a Season meaning this intimate Time Upon all this it may well be ask'd How came the Daily to be Taken so early away what is the occasion of the Witnesses putting on Sack-cloth or the Womans flying into the wilderness seeing all these belong to the Beasts Tyranny who did not yet exist nor till so long after appear'd Regnant or why are the Twelve hundred sixty days made to begin so much sooner than the Beasts Forty two months Now in Answer to this The Gentiles treading under foot the holy Court and City appears timely to give cause to all these things and to shew the Agreement of Prophecy herein with it self These Gentiles are no other than they that are said Revel 13. to dwell on the Earth whose Names are not written from the foundation of the world in the Lambs Book of Life whom that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that other Beast ver 11. of whose two Horns like a Lamb was spoken before and who is hereafter further to be explain'd instructed to worship the Grand Apocalyptick Beast as one with the Pagan Roman Empire in its Idolatrous Universality call'd therefore the First Beast and to make an Image to it viz. an Image unto its Idolatry and to its Monarchy which Things are hereafter to be explain'd upon the Beast but at present it is easie to be understood The newly Christianiz'd Pagans of the Roman Empire were under the Change of the Emperours to Christians violently chang'd to the Profession of Christianity and yet at the same time fond of their Ancient Pagan Rites and Customs as also of the Glory of their Vniversal Empire East and West Now meeting with that Two-horn'd Lamb-like Beast fond of the same Sensual Religion but in another sort of Imagery as also of the Earthly Universality and Glory but of it in another Appearance also it may very readily be conceiv'd how complyant they were one with the other in both these things so as immediately to fill up the Outward Court and to Take away the true Datly Publick Worship of God and so to prepare for the Bestian Kingdom under the Seventh Head before his Existence in his own Forty two months and much more before his Regnancy to which he himself as a principal or chief Member of the other Beast though not yet the Grand Beast and after in his own Infancy when his 42 Months began as that Grand Beast was never wanting in his Contributions All which rightly conceiv'd does wonderfully conciliate the Prophecy to the History especially when I come to clear all Doubts upon those two Beasts Apoc. 13. For thus according to Daniel All these things were negotiating for the Beast who was the Prince design'd and on whom all redounded in the Issue and these Gentiles under
did not appear to be hurt during the time times half a time according to the Oath of Christ immediately therefore in pursuance of the former Symbol the Servants of God are seal'd the Worshippers worship not in an open but reserv'd Temple the Witnesses do not enjoy but prophecy and that in Sackcloth the Woman flies to her close Receptacle in the Wilderness and even in pursuance of this same Symbol the seven thunders are seal'd as we shall see Cap. 10. And all this to that very purpose that the Beast may have his time times till the Morning of the half-time when in Declaration of the Right of Christ even then to take the Kingdom because the half-time was entred as the third Day was in the Morning of Christ's Resurrection the Thunders began But that the Beast might have his whole half-time also the Thunders were again seal'd down For were not the Kingdom of Christ thus under Seal its Brightness would immediately consume the man of Sin and his Bestian Kingdom as will be seen at the end of the 1260 Days viz. Ann. 1697 in the first appearance of Christ's Kingdom and more fully at the Appearance it self 75 Years after Let us now inquire when this sealing had its Efficacy and we shall find it hath its Efficacy distinguishingly as to the fixing its Epoch or Beginning at the first of the first Trumpet and so on during the whole Time of the first and second Trumpets until the falling of the Star in the third Trumpet So that the Trumpets and the sealing necessarily begin together as they ought For we find it is thus expresly determin'd to the first of the first two Trumpets for nothing that was hurt in those two first Trumpets viz. the Earth nor the Sea nor any Tree was to be hurt till the sealing past And why was it so but that the Seal might have its defensive Vertue on the sealed which Defence was certainly as early as the hurt else it could not defend It is expresly continu'd all the first and second Trumpet by naming the Earth Sea and Trees for all these were hurt in the two first Trumpets But the Fountains are not nam'd nor the Sun c. not because the sealing did not continue for we find the express mention of it rising within the Time of the first woe Trumpet Revel 9. 4. as of a thing suppos'd to have continued all along But because the Spirit of God would lead us to the new date of Time viz. the Beasts forty two Months negotiated by the event of the third Trumpet or the Imperial Star falling which Star as all History knows fell at 475 immediately on which the Beast in prophetical Account succeeded as the eighth King So that then in the very space of the third Trumpet those Months began and the fourth Trumpet ran upon that new Line of the forty two Months concurrent with the 1260 Days and so forward till Both end at 1697 the one as Time of the Moon or Months the other as Time of the Sun or Days by which we know also when the 1260 days began viz. by computing and adjusting the Lunar Time of forty two months to the Solar Time 1260 days If the months began so famously at 475 The days that both may end together within time times half a time must begin thirty eight Years before or at 437 as hath been before intimated so as to be plainly understood but shall be fully proved Now because of all this the Spirit of God comprehends only what pertain'd to the first two Trumpets within the express security of not being hurt viz. the Earth and Trees of the first Trumpet and the Sea of the second Trumpet till the Servants of God were seal'd Revel 7. 2 3. shewing plainly that then the Efficacy of the sealing began where first the Earth and all green things were hurt in the first and the Sea in the second Trumpet and as it were to hint the Beasts forty two months falling within the third Trumpet and so going on in the fourth There is no mention of the securing the Fountains nor the Lights of Heaven until the Servants of God were seal'd which the Beast could not yet surrogate for being in his Infancy till a Star fell to the Earth Revel 9. 1. which by all Count was at the Time Phocas gave Universality to the Bishop of Rome Then Rome seems to be again enlightned not long before the Mahometan Hegire when the Locusts came forth and therefore then Divine Judgment pursues by three woe Trumpets because then the surprise of the Kingdom of Christ by the cheat of Antichrist reigning more appear'd But after another concurrent date of Time viz. the Five and five Months of the Locusts Revel 9. 15. 10. given new in the fifth Trumpet the sealing is there mention'd again and in the sixth Trumpet where the Hour Day Month and Year of the Horsemen began there is a parallel Symbol of Secresie and Security with the sealing viz. the true Worshippers crying out from the Altar of Incense where they were hid Revel 9. 13. within the first of which viz. of the Locusts fell in the Beasts intimate Time or Season with his Number 666 as shall be shewn Revel 13. ult Now by all these the Spirit of God does interpoint and distinguish the beginning of the Lines of several Times that fall in with the great entire Line of the 1260 Days and notes when they began which new Lines do some way or other note when that great Line began and when it shall end viz. by the Proportion those other Lines however beginning after hold to it all joyning with it when they are once begun and by that Proportion The Beginning must be 437 and the end of it 1697 as shall be shewn upon all of them Wherein also the Time remark'd with the Voices of the seven Thunders seal'd will admirably shew it self at 1517 when the last 180 Years or Half-time began at which Time the Division of so many States from Rome first appear'd also And the End of all at 1697 will declare it self So strongly although requiring strict Attention and Observation hath God secur'd the fixing of this Line both in its Beginning and End as shall be all along by Gods gracious permission to proceed made evident I shall but just salute the Third Enquiry and finish the first Point discours'd viz. its Beginning And because it joyns in assuring this Beginning I must as I say salute it And this Third Enquiry is to Research what is the meaning Enquiry 3 of this Grand Apocalyptical Symbol the Trumpets Now from the general Use and universal Signification of a Trumpet as an Alarm to War and the dismal consequences of it these Trumpets certainly signifie the same as appears by the course of the Trumpets for every Trumpet calls to some War and the seventh to the Battel of Armageddon They are therefore so many loud Sounds of the Indignation of God upon those
God pleases their strong Holds are like the first ripe Figs that fall into the Mouth of the Eater Their Nahum 3. 12. Warlike People are as Women This is a visible Pledge God will be ready with all things else the Tenth of the great City falling and that Turkish woe passing away when his Witnesses shall rise Revel .. 13. 11. Our Duty is to stand still to be in our Station of Subjection to the Powers that are over us and to see the Salvation of God and He that put it into the Hearts of Princes to agree and give their Power to the Beast untill His words shall be fulfill'd will also put it into their Heart to agree to do what shall then be to be done by his Appointment Our right sense of which and suitable Obedience to our Prince will be an Honour to Christianity to our Hearing and Reading this Prophecy and a Safety to our Souls if it should not be as it is most likely to be and we have the Royal Promise it shall be and I much hope it in these Nations even according to this Prophecy to our Concernments in this World And thus I have brought to a Point the Beginning of this Line at 437 which is the Foundation of all and accordingly we shall find the whole going on to 1697. The End of this first Point settling the Epoch or Beginning of this Line of 1260 Dayes ERRATA PAge 20. Line 3. for sixth read seventh p. 23. 6th line before the last for Witnesses read Woman p. 24. l. 15. As every Leap-Year we double February 24 to equal the Suns Year to our Account p. 58. l. 1. blot all of p. 64. l. 14. read Myrtle SECT VI. Wherein The Third Part of Men upon which the Trumpets have their Effects is more fully made clear to be the Roman Imperialness and that the Symbols of the Three first Trumpets do most plainly agree with the History in full Answer to the second and third Enquiry HAving given a general Account of the things nam'd in the Contents so far as is necessary to settle the Beginning of that Line upon the beginning of which we have been so intent it is now necessary to give a more ample Satisfaction concerning the Third part of men both that It means the Roman Imperial Power as also why the Empire being Christian there was such an Effusion or Wrath upon it that so the whole Line may be thereby ascertain'd The first Time then in true order of nature in this Prophecy though not in Place or in the Contexture of it this Third Part is found and made use of is in that Vision of the Dragon Revel 12. 3. Where I think hardly any Interpreter does not think there is a Representation of the Roman Pagan Empire in one Line or other of that Table And indeed when we consider the Prophecy hath the Roman Empire for its great Subject seeing in the Days of that and at the end of that Christ's glorious Kingdom is to be establish'd it is every where where it can be to be suppos'd and seeing here All things agree to it and that the Careir of Time was guided directly to it in the parallel Vision to this viz. of the fifth and sixth Seals upon the Dragon watching to destroy the Prince the Christian Church was to bring forth and to devour it in which Cause so many Souls lay under the Altar and yet that the Lamb was on the Throne from all this we cannot but suppose the Roman Pagan Empire intended The third part then of the Stars brush'd down as it were with the Tail of the Dragon whatever spiritual Signification it hath of the Sathanick Power does also suppose those Supreme Princes and States that the Roman Imperialism dismounted and made tributary stamping upon them with its Legs of Iron according to Daniel The Emblem is lively Dan. 7. 7. and elegant to present their Dominions converted into Provinces subjected to the Roman Dominion So that from hence That Empire Thirding the East and West of the Sovereignties of the habitable known World in the divine Judgment of it is symbol'd by a third part of Nature it self viz. Earth Trees Sea Fountains Sun c. for of the third part of the Stars brought under its universal Monarchy it was constituted And in this very Vision where the Holy Spirit who fore-knew and fore-saw what Interpretations would be made of what he writ and what Interpretations he would have to be made and in what Time and to what degrees of Certainty and Assurance these Interpretations should rise and so from thence what was fit to be laid in the Foundations and what to be superstracted The Holy Spirit that knew all this knew that in the Vision of the Dragon there would be found the Roman Monarchy agreedly so that there would be a fair Conduct to its third part in Dominion and wherever that Imperialness resided whether in the East or the West it was mounted upon the Ruine or Subjection of the third part of the Stars and so the third part became the Figure of the Roman Imperialness not of the whole Territory of the Empire but of the Imperialism or Grandeur of Supremacy And what was most immediately and properly to touch that is according to the most solemn Symbolicks of this Prophecy said to touch and impeach that third part For otherwise the whole Empire is call'd in the Evang. Luke the whole Habitable World and in the course of the Luke 2. 1. four Judgments of the fourth Seal which rang'd equally as it were over the whole Territory and Dominion of the Empire Death is said to have Power given it over four parts of men or over every fourth part with each Judgment signifying the free Expatiation of those Judgments upon the whole Latitude of the Empire and as it were quartering it with a judiciary staff But here the Territory of the Empire with its far and wide Dominion over the Earth was under the Ravage of Death without any touch upon the Imperialisme it self although so many Emperours fell under it and so there is no mention of the third part Revel 6. 8. So in the change of the Empire from Heathenism to Christianity there was no Change upon the Imperiality which continued as high still in the Christian Emperours from Constantine to the Death of the Great Theodosius as it was before the Description therefore is as if Heaven and Earth were concern'd in the Mutation but there is no mention of a third Revel 6. ult The opening of the bottomless Pit darkned the Sun and the Air with the Smoak out of which the Locusts came upon the Earth and they had Power to hurt men universally but Revel 9. 6. because the Imperial Sovereignty was not to be hurt in the very Imperiality there is no mention of the third part but when the Turkish Number was to seise upon the Eastern Throne that had its first Establishment upon the
now the Church was indeed out of view by the Apostasie introduc'd by the Gentiles the Beasts people under the other Beast so that the False Church hid the True as in a wilderness The Gentiles crowded the True worshippers into a clos'd Temple The Daily was taken away The witnesses were in Sackcloth where then could the True Church be seen All was scatter'd no Body of a Church appear'd but the Antichristian to this state things grew more and more under the Regnancy of the Beast till the Woman was fled from the Serpent himself All this is then to be accounted to the Beast serving the True Church by Gods overruling Hand so far as that it was out of the Dragons reach who was deceived thinking to strike the True but the False lay bleeding In the mean time Satan however in his Serpentine and draconick Nature jealous of any thing of Christ even in his own Kingdom first persecutes the Empire by the Barbarians where He knew the woman very lately was by her bringing forth the Manly Birth He struck at it by way of distinction in his own Aym but finding He could not reach it by the rude strokes of the Barbarians but the Eagles wings had convey'd it away and finding that those Barbarous Nations setled by degrees into the Antichristian Christianity and so help'd it forward into the wilderness He then resolved to be sure of it attempted to swallow it by the Mahometan Flood But This neither distinguishing it nor succeeding because the Bestian Earth drunk up the Flood not only receiving it upon it self but maintaining the name Doctrine Profession and Church state of Christianity so far as is necessary absolutely to Antichristianisme and its Kingdom so drunk up the Flood by setting it self against the blasphemous monstrous Mahometan Imposture and with a deadly hate because Mahometanism is no less against Antichristianity than Christianity so the Serpent disappointed is wroth and as so necessitated determines now to sift for his Ends by Draconism refin'd into Beastianism Heathenism guilded with Christianity but pointed and edg'd with Antichristianisme which is a compound of the Dragon and the Beast And because this Antichristian state allowed such a thing as a Christian Church tho but it self only He can make war only with the womans seed And to the purpose and as we say with a Vengeance He makes War with the womans seed who keep the Commandments God and hold as witnesses the Martyry of Jesus that is by the Beast whose History immediately follows cap. 13. and to whom the Dragon deputed his power and seat even Great Authority which Delegation the other Beast that spake as a Dragon viz. the False Prophecy received and managed for him the Grand Beast until He came to his Image and Number and so the Dragon and the Beast continue together till the Beast is taken and cast into the Lake and the Dragon and all his Draconism bound Chain'd and Seal'd up by the Kingdom of Christ appearing Rev. c. 19. c. 20. v. 1. And this is the True History of Draconism as entred into Bestianism by which it plainly appears the scattering of the Power of the Holy People or the state of the Woman in the Wilderness is wholly owing to the Beast and his Bestianism whose are Time Times Half Time and that the Dragon and his Persecution were wholly defeated by the Bestian Apostacy conveying the Church from the Serpent till He wrought by the Beast and made over his Power to Him in revenge upon the Womans Seed it self being still safe Now how admirable is all this according to the Symbols the Beast still in all appearance and semblance secures Christ on the Throne while it supplants his true Kingdom and Power for how could Antichrist's Kingdom stand if Christ were not in Title upon the Throne But how could it stand if Christ did indeed reign No it presently falls then or rather vanisheth away Again the Wings of the Apostatiz'd Empire while they convey the true Church out of all ordinary Visibility yet secure it in the Name and Notion of a Church the Beast's Earth thus helps it for a Christian Church is his Claim and Title to his Kingdom but it must be hidden for a true Christian Church visible destroys his Kingdom Thus all things even to Astonishment at the divine Prophetick Wisdom have a Harmony in Truth greater than that of the Spheres in Imagination Mahometans and Pagan Infidels by subverting Christianity necessarily overthrow Antichrist's Kingdom also it is in indispensable need of Christianity so far as a Pretence goes but the Brightness and native Glory consumes it while Christianity under a false mask supports it true Christianity scorches it to nothing as will be seen at the Vial pour'd into the Sun true Christianity and the Church therefore must be hidden and in the Wilderness and its Seed persecuted as if not of the Church that false Christianity and the false Church may reign in its Absence under its Name and Appearance Thus while the Dragon persecutes in his Aim and Intention the Christian Church the Apostacy pretending it self the Vniversal Church conveys the true Church into a Wilderness and so befriends the Notion of a Church while it conveys it out of sight the Dragon by the Beast makes War with the Seed and scatters them that they could not possibly be found in the Body of a Church not but that the Church was truly visible in the single Witnesses however anathematiz'd but it could not be reach'd in a Body even by the Serpent himself for it was not in a Body and yet the Notion of a Church was dear to the Antichristians for They and the Beast usurp'd it At this Time therefore according to this Prophecy it could be no Argument against the Church Where was it or It was not visible in a Body for it was not to be visible in a Body but in the Suffering scatter'd Seed So that it was hid from the very Serpent And yet even to the end of the 1260 Days there is a Mahometan Draconism levelling at Christ Christianity and the true Church but falling almost wholly upon the false Church and the Antichristian King and his Subjects who is therefore always principally concern'd to drink up this Flood and so helps the true Church by his Earth There is nothing at the present I can think necessary to add to this Explication of the Apocalyptical Dragon but that the whole Vision Rev. 12. to v. 13. is presented as in Heaven so that the Assumption of the manly Birth the Joy upon the Dragon 's casting down upon the Kingdom of our God being come c. is given as in Heaven and is reserved also in Heaven till the glorious Appearance of Christ and there is no more but such an imperfect cognisance of those great Things upon Earth as was given by the Christian short Empire to be expected till that glorious Kingdom of Christ at the end of the Beast's Reign which may
to shew himself a Beast whereas yet he could not appear so but must remain in his State Is not till this fall and after it too even till he came to his number that Prophecy might be fulfilled when he ascends out of this Abyss And though his fall was but to the Earth yet because instead of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven he pretended to he had only the Key of the bottomless Pit he is justly said to rise out of it for that he ascended what was it as the Apostle argues in a much better Case but that he descended first Ephes 4. 9. for seeing he rises to his Power by the Efficacy of his deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish by his sathanick Signs and Wonders by his excommunicational Thunders from beneath by which he affrights men downwards and that much of his Potentacy lies in the management of a false Hell of his own founding It is very proper to him to ascend out of the bottomless Pit and the Power of the Keys he assumes is very ominous to him for what he calls Keys is this one Key of the bottomless Pit and so in just derision of him he carries this device in Prophecy The Key of the bottomless Pit was given him I confess The Patriark of Constantinople was the First in this Assumption the Emulation of which mov'd Gregory it is to be fear'd as a lower cause to so high an Exclamation but though he was First yet he was not to have the Key of the Abyss in Supremacy for Prophecy sees not as Man sees by degrees and as in parcels but at once it therefore calls him that fallen Star alone who was to have this Key although the other was a falling Star also and spake as a Dragon He is then and he alone He that hath under Sathan the Key of the bottomless Pit and though an Angel is call'd afterwards the Angel of the bottomless Pit whom we shall find in its due place very diverse from this Star who may seem to have a better right to this Key we shall yet find he was only a Warlike King of the Locusts under the Title of a Prophet the false Prophet Mahomet but was not could not be this Star whose fall must be from Heaven perpetual even as his aspiring Pretensions to Heaven are so continual as shall be further declared as one who once had a fixation in Heaven which Mahomet never had He that ascends out of the bottomless Pit is he that open'd it and let out the Smoke he opens it he lets out the Smoke out of which the Locusts came but against his own Intention he intended himself to ride in this Cloud as in an infernal Chariot alone but with the Smoke Sathan also ascended and became an Angel of the bottomless Pit in the King of the Locusts who were the Flood out of his Mouth propagating his Kingdom by both the Star and by the King of the Locusts The latter of which was principally a great Judgment of God on the Antichristian Star as shall be shewn at large In the mean Time we find the other Beast ministring to this delivery of the Key of the bottomless Pit under the decree and judicial Ordination of God For they made Trial for him of the Efficacy of the Lamb-like Horns joyn'd with the draconick Idolatry and Persecution and so exercis'd the Power of the first Beast before him while he as one and the chief Revel 13. among them look'd on They essayed the calling fire from Heaven and working lying Miracles in his sight to establish the Grandeur of false Prophecy they stirred up all to worship the first Beast viz. The Roman idolatrous Supremacy and to make an Image of Vniversality to it in such a Roman Catholick Supremacy as of the Vicar of Christ on Earth And even the Eastern Horn that aspired for it self above this Beast yet by approving the Idea by making the Experiment by assuming the Title provok'd and inkindled the Ambition of him who by the divine Decree had the Permission got the Possession and hath for many Ages wedg'd himself fast into it and left the other Horn leisure only to be angry at his defeat while his vain claim justifies the thing as lawful and desirable and therefore gave the occasion to the High sounding Voice of Gregory the Great And it is very observable on this very account the Divine Justice fell all along severely upon the Eastern Empire and Patriarchate by the two first woe-Trumpets especially at the taking of Constantinople and to this day lies heavy upon them so that as the Grecian Emperours gave first to the Constantinopolitan Patriarch and then to the Bishop of Rome this Antichristian Vniversality so most distinctly the Wrath of God was very dreadful upon both the Empire and the whole Hierarchy as so antichristianizing and so it continues and will so far conjoyn them in the Punishment of the Beast and false Prophet as they shall not divorce themselves from them by Repentance For this Prophecy looks upon both the Eastern and Western Hierarchy as one and the same Beast with two Horns under the same grand Beast and their People as one Body of Men Gentiles Inhabitants of the Antichristian Earth and Sea and as two Wings of the same Eagle And they all along are both punish'd in and with one another 'T is not the lesser Controversies among themselves concerning Primacy or some other matters that can dissolve the Antichristian Vnion wherein this Prophecy leaves them it must be sincere Repentance turning from Idolatry Superstition Enmity to the pure Religion and from Pride and Tyranny enjoyed only by one one of the Horns indeed for many years as most nearly allied to the Grand Beast but affected by both that must make that Wall of Partition that hath not yet been made between the Eastern and Western Antichristians or between any parts of each and their Antichristianism In the Interim from this very Time we are upon the Beast falling as a Star to the Antichristian Earth receives as Latin that is strictly Roman the Universality of both East and West as was always design'd by God to be so given or permitted and so by degrees enlightens Rome when all the Rulers of the Day and even of the Night were smitten gone down and set and now he begins to carry the Woman on high even at his first ascending and so gradually as he ascends to his Number And hereby the fallen Star appears to be the same Beast that rises out of the bottomless Pit to war with the Witnesses and therefore must be the same that wars with the Saints who are the Witnesses and who is led captive or taken by the Lamb and his Army of the faithful and true and goes into Perdition that is is cast into the Lake and so the same throughout And when he is so cast into the Lake an Angel of another Character does not fall but descends from Heaven
as we shall see presently Now that it so began at Twenty five or six we have a threefold Testimony Of the Apostle Paul that the Mystery of Iniquity viz. the Apostacy as a Womb in which the Man of Sin was curiously form'd as in the lower parts of 2 Thess 2. 7. 1 John 4. 3. Revel 2. 4. the Earth was then at work that it might bring forth the Man at his full growth at 666. The Apostle John assures us Antichrist was then in the World and the supreme Apocalyptes Christ tells us Ephesus the Image of the Apostolical Church had even in the Apostles Times left its first Love when therefore Apostolical Time had doubled it self from Twelve to Twenty Four and was moving onward as at a precise Time from Conception the Mystery of Iniquity began to work at 25 or 26. And it is no wonder the Man of Sin beheld by the Apostle in Spirit when no Eye saw him in this his Embrional Condition in his first Principles was thus remark'd by him For then every thing receives its nature Even as Jacob in the Womb as John the Baptist as our Lord in his Conception is celebrated so this Man of Sin is dated from the conceiving of Sin as well as from the manly State from the Conception as well as from the grown Man till then Iniquity fully accomplishing its Time brings forth Death This Psendo Abrahamite this spiritual Edom and Esau struggled as another Nation in the Womb of the Apostacy while the pure Israelitism without guile lay in the Womb of true Christianity to both which the outward Profession was a common Womb. This prophane Esau is he that sold the Birth-right of the Gospel for a Mess os Pottage and the Heavenly Kingdom for an Earthly Dukedom and wherein he got the start Thus the Number of the Name of the Beast and the number of the Beast or the time of his adult and man-like Bestianism so closely related so closely joyn'd as not possible they should lead two several ways both being the Time of worshipping the Image receiving the Mark the Name and the Number of the Name assure beyond all doubt that they are both one Nature appearing manifestly at one and the same Time and by both mathematical and prophetical Certainty if the Top of the Number be 666 Twenty five must be the Root and Bottom and if the Root be Twenty five from the Resurrection the top must be 666 from that twenty five viz. 725 or 726 and so both from the nature counter-Apostolical under the pretence of Apostolical as also the Root and the top of Time being compar'd It can neither be Mahometan not so early up as twenty five nor Pagan that did not live so long as 725 but must be Antichristian or the Beast And by this wonderful Hieroglyphick of Number God hath surpris'd all defence from Antiquity out of the hand of Antichrist that is not built upon his Word Truth and solid Reason for seeing the Mystery of Iniquity wrought so soon as 25 from the Resurrection all Proof from Antiquity only is but proof for Antichrist taken from the Mystery of Iniquity beginning to work and so not to be for that cause allowed I come therefore now to the second point viz. To see Head 2 where this Pillar of intimate Time this six hundred sixty six can be only duely and proportionably plac'd And we shall find evidently where it is thus to be plac'd That we may then understand this we must consider that there is in Time Times Half Time an intimate Time or Season signified to us 3 ways 1. By the force of the Words us'd in the Chalde in the Dan. 7. 25. Dan. 12. 7. Rev. 12. 14. Hebrew and in the Greek Originals to express this Line It is indicted appointed Time or Season Seasons half Season Now Season is the most virtual lively point of Time for though all Season must have Time to support it yet Time is only Season to those things whereunto it is especially appointed and gives advantage the very words therefore import Season within Time and thus the Apostle says The Man of Sin is reveal'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were in the same Words with that of the three Seasons and half in his own Season 2. The intending and elevation of the Events speak the same for as much as Prophecying in Sackcloth is transcended by lying dead as much as being in the Wilderness so as to be hid from the face of the Serpent exceeds being in the Wilderness only in general as much as changing Times and Laws and wearing out the Saints and scattering the holy People by the Antichristian Prince himself exceed the rude Gentiles trampling the holy Court or the Beasts mere Power of Continuance so does the intimate Time or season of seasons seasons half season transcend the Time at large and in general and therefore all these Notes of Time are first given and then Inward time with this Exaltation of the Effects 3. The Three times and a half pointing and propending towards though not rigidly denoting three years and a half even as twelve hundred sixty days do and as forty two months of Lunar years do they have two great Paralels one of Years the other of Days and both fitted to the very 1260 days of the Witnesses The first of years is that of Elijah declaring that there 1 Kings 17. 1. should not be these years Rain nor Dew but according to his Word Now the Time of this Drought is most expresly affirmed twice that we might take the more notice of it to be three years and six months once by Christ himself a second Luc. 4. 25. Jam. 5. 17. Time by the Apostle James And yet by the History we cannot find that the Drought was any longer than a part of the three years and a part of 1 King 18. 1. the six months for it is said in the third year Elijah appeared to Ahab and Rain ensued accounting then from the latter end of the first year to the beginning of the six months after two years there might be no Rain a part of the first year the whole of the two years nor till the six months began and yet it might be in the third year according to precise account of years as may be easily understood For there may be three full years within a part of the first of the three years and of the six months viz. the latter part of the first year and the beginning of the last six Months comprehending two whole years in the middle That of Days is the instance of our Lords three days in the heart of the Earth which by the full evidence of the Evangelists we know was but a part of the first day the whole of the second and a part or the first part only of the third Now these three days both lay as an intimate part of Time within the three full years and half of our
to the taking Constantinople and then going on there remain just sixty years to the Reformation during which Time God expected the Repentance of the other or Western part of the Antichristian World upon so great a Judgment on that Eastern part in which the Western had so great an Interest by such an Union in Antichristianism while the Eastern Horn so earnestly affected and aspir'd to the same Primacy and Universality and also were guilty of much the same Idolatry and Superstition and as the Union was thus near so the claim of Dominion by the Western Horn over the Eastern was very bold confident and impatient of denyal and submitted to at that Councel of Florence 1439 just before this killing the third part of men as it were providentially the more apparently to interest the Western Antichristian State in this Woe by the Greeks which made them one before men as they were always before God Immediately after the severe censure upon the impenitency of the whole Bestian State compar'd with the very worst of the Gentiles in all manner of Idolatry Sorcery of Seduction Sensuality Blood hateful sacrilegious Thefts Cheats Frauds and Emunction of mens Estates on religious Pretences on all these I say follows the divine Portraicture of the Reformation under the next Head Now the Argument confirming this true Motion of things upon the Line of Time as hath been stated is very forcible for it shews the descent of it so many years from that famous date of Mahometanism at 622 so often mention'd and it leads to a Period so very grand in History as the Expiration of the Grecian Monarchy after that The continuing Impenitency of the Western Apostacy and Eastern also as we shall see was so notorious as to improve it self rather than to abate any thing This Impenitency the very essential Character of the Apostacy to its final Destruction draws the course of Time at this present Juncture down to the Reformation or the last 180 years in the mean while the Turkish Woe continues its hour as an Evidence That the 1260 days of the Witnesses Prophecy in Sackcloth are not yet at an end nor are they yet in full sense risen nor can the seventh Trumpet yet have sounded because the second Woe however in this face of Affairs now in the World it seems upon its remove is not yet gone nor shall go till all other things declar'd to come to pass before that shall have pass'd shall be ready to their proper motion also The People of God at the beginning of this Trumpet seem like the Israelites under the Egyptian Slavery when the Conduct of those two Witnesses Moses and Aaron appear'd to them they cry out to Heaven groaning under their Burdens And there are many loud Sounds by way of Return from many eminent Servants of God declaring his Judgments upon spiritual Egypt and smiting it with Plagues in a free publication of the Vials of this Prophecy to be fulfill'd in their Season The Mahometan Woes were the first Plagues and the Vials the last and from this Time especially the Strokes of these Plagues were as often as it were as they would call'd down first by Prayer and then foretold by the Witnesses but much more it shall be done and much more their Duty to do thus in the next State of the Witnesses within the Reformation as we shall then shew By all which by way of Remark we may see God did not leave himself without Witness of his dreadful Displeasure upon the Apostacy and Antichristianism of the Bestian Earth and Prince against whom these two Trumpets sounded the second of which cannot expire nor cease its Sound and Blast till the Tenth of this anathematiz'd City Jericho fall in the full Revolt of its ten Kings till the Earthquake slay the 7000 and the rest give Glory to God in the Conversion that shall be at that time in the midst of a yet persevering general Impenitency and the Beasts forty two Months end as to his Monarchick Power however he survive till the Brightness of the coming of Christ in some low state of Being and Attempt to recover his Power And even as the Grecian Antichristian Empire was now desolated the third part of men kill'd and the Imperial Seat turn'd to the Ottoman Port so in a much higher degree of Judgment Babylon shall then be burnt with a perpetual burning and not only the third part of men but the whole rest of men who have not repented shall be kill'd with the Sword of Christ's Mouth that is so utterly subdued and condemn'd as never to return to Empire any more and the Beast himself and false Prophet who had deceiv'd them cast into the Lake In the time of the second Trumpet Rome had been thrown as a burning Mountain into the Sea where it was not only preserv'd but as it were new cast for a future Glory under the Beast But at that time its Smoak shall ascend for ever and its Glory sink as a Mill-stone not to be recover'd In the third Trumpet many men died but not so many as to rise to a third part of men shewing the Imperial Bestianism Rev. 8. 7. did immediately succeed and keep that Imperialism alive according to our Explication of the third part In this sixth Trumpet the third part of men died the Grecian Empire is irrecoverably ceas'd but the Western Empire lives still in the Beast and his ten Kings But the whole Residue of men are kill'd to shew the utter end of Bestianism Eastern and Western also when the seventh Trumpet shall have its full effect In the fourth Trumpet the Sun and the Stars were smitten in their third part The supreme and subordinate Magistrates so that the day shined not for a third part and the Night likewise Yet within a space after the Bestian Star fell from Heaven to Earth and gave a new Light but at that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is done The Beast and all such impure Lights such wandring Stars are deliver'd up to the Blackness of Darkness for ever And as a Pledge of such a Desolation The Grecian Antichristianism so far as not repented of so far as the Members of the Grecian Churches are not Witnesses in Sackcloth is kept up by God in so despicable and ruin'd a condition to this day as a monument prophetical of the last Judgment on Antichristianism within the Number of which I fear all such Impenitents fall All which may serve as a brief Remark on this joynt of Time SECT XIII This Section enters into the Half Time of the Reformation and by the Agreement of the Prophecy with the Event demonstrates the Beginning and End of that Time on Rev. c. 10. HAving thus far travers'd this Line of Time there remains yet the last part of it or the Half Time very great and remarkable in its Dawn but to be much more remarkable in its Setting and Close and it is to be assign'd to the Reformation from 1517
to 1697. We have found the order in which it hath come on very clear brought down by Prophecy in Symbols so justly proportionate to matters of Fact and Events all along History first to the Apostacy and from thence by as unquestionable a Chain of Events during that Apostacy as hath been before describ'd till the Reformation and now we shall find the Reformation as admirably set out and no other things in the whole course of Time answering to each Representation as those Cardinal Points of History do What greater Demonstration then can we have that we are upon the right sense and scope of Prophecy Since such admirable Correspondencies as if we our selves by our own Judgments had been to contrive the one for the other we could not under Veils have desired so much and therefore they can no more be suspected of chance then that the Letters Sillables and Words of the Apocaliptick Prophecy should come out by chance into that exact System wherein we now find them I pray therefore which of these grand Events can by History be contested or what fitter prophetical Symbols could be found out for them or in such a Succession And so we shall find in this particular of the Reformation so recent and fresh in History and all most in Memory at this day and at this day running on so that the Instances of it are most notorious confess'd and even to be admired in the Wonders of Providence that brought it to pass and yet sustain it When therefore the Bestian or Antichristian Kingdom was coming so near its number as that the Image of Supremacy had been made to the Beast at the 606 confirmed to it and Life given to it to speak and to cause c. by the Lateran Councel at 649. come to its very number at 725. The War was between the Beast and the Witnesses represented by the Jeconoclastick Emperours and their Constantinopolitan Councel damning Image Worship 754 but then the Witnesses were overcome by the Cessation of those Emperours and by that Councel of Nice 787 and so they lying dead till their first motion to a rising 1517. While all these things were the Judgment of God in just Degrees and Measures pursued with Vengeance this Antichristian Kindom First by Mahomets setting up his false Prophetism as near the Supremacy given by Phocas as 622 to 606 by the Locusts or Mahometan Saracens ready to enter their first five Months and to strike as a Serpion about the Time of the War with the Witnesses especially at their Death 787 And together with the Apostacy strengthning it self they advanc'd into their second five Months of hurting with the stings of their Tails and when a winterly torpidness seiz'd them then by the Turks as a far greater and more severe as also more continuing Scourge God Executed his Judgments on this Antichristian Empire But the Impenitency still continuing Christ Appears as it were from Heaven in the Reformation and how evident is it that the Reformation followed on such a state of the Latine or strictly Roman World for can any pretend there was after the taking of Constantinople any shew of Repentance Repentance of their worshiping Demons departed Spirits or Images and Pictures of Gold or Silver Wood or Stone which neither hear see or walk nor did they repent of their Murthers those cruel Butcheries of the Saints and Servants of God nor of their Sorceries those bewitchings of Men with a false sensual Religion their lying or magical and Necromantick Miracles ascrib'd to Relicks Images and the Idolized Host nor of their Fornications allowed Concubinacies and Stews nor of their Thefts their pious Frauds and wiping men of their Goods and Estates by Cheats and to false and impious Ends and that this high and avowed impenitency was not only then but hath continued ever since appears too much by the Councel of Trent and the whole Tract of time after the Reformation 1. Let us then consider the Appearance as it were of Christ from Heaven against this Impenitency He the mighty supream Angel of the divine Presence comes down from Heaven though sitting in Heaven in his mighty Administrations 2. He is cloathed with a Cloud his Face as the Sun breaking out of the Cloud and creating a Bow as in the day of Rain These Appearances are as after a Flood not yet removed the Clouds were yet hovering and flying the Rain not yet gon the Brightness watery and yet with significations of Mercy and the Grace of the Covenant That the Flood should be drawn off and return no more to cover the Earth 3. His Feet as Pillars of Fire signifying both the refining and purification of his Servants as also their Vivi Comburin their Death in the midst of Flames as we know how frequent they were at that Time 4. He had in his Hand an open Book the Book of his Kingdom as if he were now ready to publish the Decree of his universal Psal 2. 7. Reign which had been so often stay'd by sealing and now after the Seals opened and the six Trumpets sounding ready to reveal it self 5. As a signal of his unbounded Dominion He sets his Dan. 12. 6. right Foot on the Sea and his left Foot on the Earth as from the Sea to the end of the Earth 6. He cried with a Loud Voice as when a Lion roars when he received the Book He is call'd the Lion of the Tribe of Judah Then he prevail'd to open the seven Seals now as the same Revel 5. 5. Lyon he holds the Book open shewing his just right to the Throne of David the Throne and Empire of the new Jerusalem and roars from his Holy Habitation 7. When he had thus roared seven thunders utter their Voices as in an Eccho or resound of Heaven above to his just 2 Sam. 2. 10. claim and as Hannah prophecyed of old The Lord shall thunder from Heaven on his Adversaries so he on the Adversaries of his Kingdom when he comes to judge the end of the Earth when God gives strength to this his King and exalts the Horn of his Anointed Now all these things were that powerful sound of the Gospel and divine Truth by Luther and the first Reformers like the Angels coming down from Heaven and rouling away the Stone in Preparation of the Lords Resurrection This arous'd Matt. 28. 1. and amaz'd the World then even as the Keepers of the Grave were as dead Men when Christ arose and this was more a dreadful stroke upon the Bestian Kingdom then Mahometanism it self For this was an Arrow levell'd at the Heart of his Kingdom and declared it to be Antichristian an Usurpation upon the Glory of Christ This was a dawn of the most terrifying Appearance of Christ and shaked the very Foundations of his State This accompanied with the Separation of so many Princes and States from that Antichristian Empire was more formidable then all the Assaults of a false and barbarous Religion however
the fifth Voice Write Now Writing in this Prophecy as contrary to the Sealing signifies an Impresencing of Things so unsealing and writing most naturally begin together 3. These Voices are begotten by the seventh Trumpets fruitful sound for tho' there were many Voices and Thundrings before and after yet none made a course of Apocalyptick Sevens but these I have thus far settled this divine Sett of Visions or the seven Voices as they conduct the course of Time or the first thirty of the seventy five Years which are not indeed numerally given in this Apocalyptical Prophecy either for the secrecy of Prophecy or for the distinctest securing the right understanding of that alone given Number the great prophetical Line before discoursed which fall upon a Time of greatest Obscurity and of all other least discernable and lastly be-because this Time when it comes will be fullest of Light But this notwithstanding by that whole Symmetry of Prophecy and the compare of Daniel's Numbers viz. the Grand one of 2300 Ev. Mor. and the 1290 Days and 1335 Days and comparing them with this Complex of Voices it is enough clear and demonstrative This is an Order of seven Voices I will not do so much injury to so divine a Mount of Vision as to give an imperfect Landscaph of it nor of the following awful one of the Vials a Mountain in some Regards like that which burn'd with Fire and was not to be touch'd nor of that glorious Mountain of the Heavenly Tzebi the Mountain of Spices and Delights on which the New Jerurusalem is planted as to give imperfect Landscaphs of them by half Treaties upon the Delineations of them in this and other Prophecies Seeing therefore that part of the Discourse which I design chiefly to the Line of Time will not allow me a full Treaty I will satisfie my self with the Evidences of Prophecy concerning the spaces of Time destin'd to each and the naked Summary of them and reserve the fuller draughts to another Treatise if God shall vouchsafe me opportunity concerning the seven Churches of which I have only also given a short view and as in perspective The seven Churches the seven Voices the seven Vials and the cubical thousand Years I reserve to a distinct full Discourse This Sett of Voices therefore is the wide door and effectual c. 14. that will be open'd at those thirty Years ensuing the Rising of the Witnesses at 1697 who are here set as a contrary Number to the Men mark'd with the Beast's Number and at that Number expir'd at the 1260 Days ending and the 75 beginning in the Gospel discover'd first in that purest clearest Doctrine of the Redemption of Jesus Christ the Lamb in that as it were new Song of Praise communicated from the c. 13. ult triumphant Witnesses with the Lamb on Mount Zion by the Holy Spirit to the Servants of God here below who are Followers of Christ in the Philadelphian Church in that as it were new Song so long out of use or not sung by skillful Musicians that excell'd that shall now be full of all Sweetness and Delight upon which shall follow a Propagation of it to the whole World as if a flying Sermon were borne thro' the midst of Heaven that all Nations People and Tongues under Heaven might hear founded on that grand Principle The one God Creator of Heaven Earth c. that had been so long abused by Heathen and Antichristian Idolatry dividing their Gods and Mediators to the several parts of the Creation upon which the Fall of Babylon the City of Graven Images mad of Idols mad of false Mediators must needs ensue as most naturally to be declared next And that Declaration is most worthily attended with that righteous Denunciation That if any one shall continue upon so clear Evidences from Heaven against it to worship the Beast their Case is irremediable and becomes like the unpardonable Sin Which Denunciation shews the just and necessary Situation of this Voice in space of Time and so of the other Voices so orderly connex'd with it it could not be before the Beasts 42 Months ended for it must have immediately broken his Kingdom as the Cedars of Lebanon are broken with the force of Thunder nor can we suppose it after the Effusion of the Vials for God gives warning before he destroys Within these thirty Years therefore it is necessarily plac'd together with the other Voices Between this and the following Voice of the Saints Resurrection is Recall'd an Inscription engraven upon as it were a Boundary-pillar of the Beasts Tyranny and the Saints Sufferings c. 13. 10. Here or thus far reach the Faith and Patience of the Saints viz. to the Beasts Captivation and his Party kill'd with the Sword Between these two Voices of the Eternal Burnings of the Lake into which the taken Beast and his Worshippers are cast and of the declar'd Resurrection of the Saints that Inscription here Recall'd is declar'd as appearing in its Verification Here viz. Recorded in Glory and speedily to be Rewarded is the Faith and Patience of the Saints Here appear as ready to enter into Glory those suffering Witnesses spoken of c. 12. 17. who keep the Commandments of God and the Faith of Jesus Next in order follows the Promulgation of the first Resurrection so nearly approaching which is not trusted only to a created Ministry nor to a Sound only but the Holy Spirit takes it at the Rebound and declares it by it self and commands it to Writing Upon this follows a loud Voice of Prayer and Supplication to the crowned Son of Man Lord of the Harvest to reap the Earth by an abundant Conversion of Jews and Gentiles which is graciously answer'd by him to whom the Crown was given at the first preaching of the Gospel in the first Seal and at this Harvest he appears crown'd as the ultimate preaching of it And as the last of Remedies a Supplication for Vengeance upon irreconcilable Enemies follows on which the Guilt of former and present Ages of such Enemies who as the Grapes of Sodom or the Fruit of the degenerate Vine are cast into the Wine-press of the Wrath of God the Demerit and Guilt comes out like Blood from which are fill'd the Vials of the Wrath of God and that in the seventh Vial flows out upon the whole Circumference or Quadrature of 1600 Furlongs the whole Latitude of the City of Sathan even to the Horse Bridles of the Armies of Heaven with Christ the supreme Prince treading this Wine-press and executing â—â— 19 â— the Vengeance of this Vial when he appears with many Crowns How glorious and how terrible will God be at this Remark Time in his Word How admirable and how dreadful will be the Spirit of Christ's Mouth and the Breath and Rod of his Lips That which is now accounted the Foolishness of Preaching and the Burden of Prophecy grown into a Proverb of Contempt shall then be the perfect fulfilling of that Prophecy on
his profess'd Enemies Isa 30. 27. which I desire may be turn'd to and pondered by every considering Person that reads these Lines And on mere Sardian Professors that are not among the Few Names nor the Overcomers It will be Christ coming as a Thief and they not knowing at what hour he comes but to all his Servants it will be with Tabrets and Harps a Song of Praise excelling the imaginary Musick of the Spheres SECT XV. Wherein is given a very brief Display upon the Vials Vpon c. 15. c. 16. I Am now come to the last part of the 75 Years or the 40 of the Vials at the end of which is Blessedness and yet it self is a Time of Trouble such as never was since there was a Nation even to that same Time and it is yet that Time in which shall be the Deliverance of Daniel's People even of Dan. 12. 1. every one of them that is found written in the Book It is most evidently the Time of the course of the last Plagues in which the Wrath of God is fill'd up But who can declare before-hand his Judgments that are as the deep Waters I will therefore warily pass by the Banks and remonstrate only upon what is most plain And first besides the contiguous and even continuous Issue of the Vials out of the last Voice we shall find the Sword of Christ's Mouth fighting against the Balaamites and the Nicolaitans and the Rod of Iron assur'd to Thyatyra brought forth in the last Vial and then the Hour of Temptation that shall come on all the Earth foretold to the Church of Philadelphia comes from which by peculiar Favour Christ will preserve it Then the Days of Vengeance prophecied of by our Lord which shall yet be shortned for the Elects sake are to be fulfilled in these Vials to which that shortned Time agrees Of which Vengeance the Destruction of Jerusalem was but an Exemplar for in that Destruction all things written were not accomplish'd but in these all that is written shall be accomplish'd And yet there is a closer Relation this whole Vision hath and it is to be found in those very first Words of this Vision I saw another sign in Heaven great and marvellous This may indeed seem to be another sign with regard to the precedent course of the Voices but because there is a very lively Juncture betwixt a former Vision and the Entrance to this and the beginning of that Vision was call'd a great sign and c 12. v. 1. v. 3. c. 13. ult c. 14. 1. there is added another sign viz. of the Dragon from whose both History and Power is deriv'd that of the Beast that leads to his End viz. his Captivity and his Armies and People being kill'd with the Sword The Vials are introduced as another third sign to that and consequently derives it self from the Voices and the Voices begin at the End of the Whatever divine Instruments lye under this Type it is certain They are of unexceptionate Authority and Commission from God and of an undeniable Purity Beasts Number and so go on to his being taken and his Partisans kill'd by the Sword of Christ. So the Angels coming out of the Temple in Linnen pure and white and the Witnesses standing on the Sea of Glass before the Throne having the Harps of God are the Continuation of the Vision of the Voices advancing to greater Glory and Perfection at the Time of the Vials as shall be farther manifested in a full Treaty of these Things if God permit This only may suffice to the settling the Time and the Continuation of both the Time and History of the Vials to that of the Voices That only is to be by no means omitted or inobserv'd Till the seventh Trumpet and its Voices and Vials there is no mention of the four living Creatures and the twenty four Elders nor of the Temple as opened but only as shut viz. from the Half-time of the Churches Purity ballanced by the Symbol of the third Seal which ended and the fourth just begun was the last Voice of the fourth living Creature or of any mention of them but only a farewel mention in the sixth Seal as proper to the Time of the sixth Seal but as there is grafted on the Appearance of the Kingdom of Christ in the Christian Empire as an Emblem of it a Scheme of the New Jerusalem and here as a Signal of the Calling of the Jews the Order grows towards an Inversion and the Elders are set first and before the Apostolical Church represented by the four living Creatures and extending it self over the Christian Empire as is intended in a future Treatise to be more particularly clear'd whereas the Elders present the true Israelitish Church Rev. 7. 11. with c. 19. 4. But to proceed to a summary Enumeration of the Vials That they are an orderly individed course of seven Vials is so evident that I shall not offer one Word in Confirmation beyond the most visible Letter of the Prophecy But the sense and importance of this course of Divine Judgments I conceive so heavenly and spiritual as to be impossible to be explain'd but by either immediate Revelation or the nearer Approach of themselves only God hath assign'd to them 45 Years and hath given Lineaments of each of them the Particulars whereof I referr to a farther Discussion and present only this Breviate of them But that we may know they are not yet begun whenever they begin they move with so swift a Course that it is impossible there should be any delay in them after they are begun or that Any of them should be enter'd and not All of them in their order swiftly pour'd out That Earth out of which Antichristianism and the Worship c. 16. v. 1. of the Beast rises that earthly and sensual Religion that is his Foundation by Divine Judgment upon him sends out a poysonous Vapour that becomes a most loathsome and tormenting Boyle upon his Worshippers His Foreign Dominion compared to a Sea is not only staguated but corrupts as the v. 3. Blood of a dead Man His inward Fountains of Riches Power and Pleasure are made like drinking of Blood in just Recompence v. 4. 5. of the Blood of Saints and Martyrs The supreme Kingdom and Monarchy of Christ like the Sun which Antichrist surpris'd and borrowed from it as the v. 8. Moon his false Glory now intollerably searches him His Throne of Supremacy is by the Vengeance of God made a Hell of utter Darkness to him And in all these He and his Bestians v. 10. repent not but gnaw their Tongues and blaspheme The beginning Glory of Christ in the Jews returning to be the Imperial v. 12. Metropolitan Church on Earth and to reign as Kings is made use of by God in just Judgment to call to Armageddon the whole World of Enemies as acted by Furies the v. 13 14. Spirits of Devils Upon which Christ with