I have demonstrated the Rising of the Witnesses to be in this second part of my Appendage And they that have applied the late Blessed Reformation to the second Vial as Mr. Mede and after him Peganius has done it was from this errour that they took it for granted that most of the Vials preceeded the Rising of the Witnesses And such is the humour fansifulness and partiality of many that they can hardly believe of themselves that the Witnesses are risen till Kingdomes Nations and Principalities of their own party rise into Political power namely all Episcopal all Presbyterian all Calvinists all Arminians all Socinians and so of Anabaptists Quakers and Famulists But they erre knowing not the Scriptures or the true meaning of them nor rightly considering the Records of History where they may find what was the testimony of these Witnesses who are predicted to rise in the Reformation and to be warred against before by the Beast and cruelly persecuted As there was nothing to alledge against the Apostolicalness of their faith they professing the Triunity of the Godhead and Divinity of Christ and such like Articles of the Christian belief and living accordingly whereby they became idoneous Witnesses so their plain and simple testimony against the Church of Rome was this That the Pope was that Man of sin or Antichrist and their Church Idolatrous by reason of their adoration of the Host invocation of Saints and worshipping of Images and their Religion otherwise also grosly corrupt in seeking to propitiate God by their adhering to the multifarious vain and wicked inventions of men excogitated onely for the gain of the Priest and the keeping the people in blindness and ignorance This was the tenour of the Testimony of the Witnesses both in the Pergamenian and the Thyatirian Interval of the Church which they witnessed with great favouriness and assurance in virtue of the Spirit of life and holiness in them And persons innumerable that bore the same testimony and were of the same sentiments instead of being still mournfull Witnesses in sackcloth or lying dead in a Political sense in the streets of the Mystical Prophet-murdering Jerusalem the same with Babylon or Aegypt which signify the large jurisdiction of the Pope of Rome at the Reformation had a reviving into Political Power again and ascended in several Kingdomes to the highest Honours Dignities and Employments in Church and State Which therefore as I have proved in this part of my Appendage must needs be the Rising of the Witnesses they being of the same mind and profession with those that were so grievously persecuted and kept out of all power nay burnt at the stake murdered and massacred God knows how many hundred thousands of them And at this very day our own Church of England partly in her Homilies partly in her Articles and Liturgy gives the same testimony of the Church of Rome even that she is that old painted harlot of Babylon with her cup of fornication that is of Idolatry and that the Pope is Antichrist as I have shewn in my Synopsis Prophetica Book 2. Ch. 21. Which whenas our own Church which seems most moderate does so plainly attest we may be sure the rest of the chiefest writers of the Reformation do not mince the matter at all And if there be any persons in the Reformation any where that at all recoyl from this testimony it is because the Spirit of life and holiness is decayed in them and the gross Spirit of this world has blinded their eyes and darkened their understandings and hardened their hearts against the truth they preferring worldly power pomp and riches before the purity of Gods worship Wherefore I say this is one great usefulness of my demonstrating the Vials to follow the Rising of the Witnesses in that it is thence manifest that the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses was fulfilled in the late Blessed Reformation there being thus no other Vision to predict it but this Which conclusion contains a manifold usefulness in it For first that acclamation in Heaven upon the Rising of the Witnesses That the Kingdomes of the world were become the Kingdomes of the Lord and of his Christ namely after so many Principalities Provinces and Kingdomes had cast off the Pope in the late Blessed Reformation what does this imply but that they were before in the hands of Antichrist and that were the Pope has any Dominion it is ipso facto Antichrists Kingdome and on the contrary that all the Reformed parts of Christendome are the Kingdome of Christ and indeed the fifth Monarchy begun Which ought to stop the mouths and carrears of an ignorant and Fanatical sort of men that cannot see wood for trees and seek for a fifth Monarchy in a fifth Monarchy whenas so considerable a part of it is erected before their eyes already But as I noted above such is the folly and freakishness of ignorant and conceited men that they would not willingly acknowledge the Witnesses to be risen till those of the same crotchets with themselves whole Kingdomes and Nations of them have got into power But it is very true and extremely worth our nothing that as in the times of the old Roman Paganism all those that professed Christ according to the tenour of what we call the Apostles Creed though in the mean time they had several different conceits about things that appertained to the Christian Religion were notwithstanding lookt upon as the Kingdome of Christ in opposition to the Kingdome of the red Dragon the Pagan persecutive Roman Empire so all the Reformed Churches States and Kingdomes though some Lutherans others Calvinists some of one opinion others of another yet they keeping to the old Orthodox Faith of the Triunity of the Godhead and Divinity of Christ acknowledged by the Church in the Symmetral times thereof and renouncing the Communion of the Roman Church for her gross Idolatries and wretched and intolerable Superstitions and humane inventions whereby she has so notoriously adulterated the purity and simplicity of the Christian Faith and worship all these I say are justly deemed the Kingdome of Christ in opposition to the Dominion of the Pope or Kingdome of Antichrist Whence as I was a going to say a second special use of this our demonstration that the late Blessed Reformation was the fulfilling of the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses is the undeceiving of those they call the Fifth-monarchy men who would pretend to begin the fifth Monarchy and upon that account raise commotions and tumults whenas it is so stupendiously and surprisingly by the special providence of God begun already And let a third usefulness be to reprove them that out of rashness and conceitedness or any other worse principle vilify and contemn this great work of God the late happy Reformation whether it be those that think there is too much done already they having an hankering again after the Flesh-pots of Aegypt the worldly bigness and downbearing
and Tyrannical Principles and Practices will over-spread the whole World in a manner the Kingdoms of this world as it is predicted in the Apoâ—…alypse becoming the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. This State of the Church may be termed Regnum Montis the Kingdom of the Mountain as Mr. Mede has well noted as the State before this may be called Regnum Lapidis the Kingdom of the Stone 36. This is the Dream Which miraculously and by the mere inspiration of the Spirit of the most High was communicated unto me and which the King cannot deny but to have been the Dream which he was so desirous to recover into his mind And we will tell the Interpretation thereof before the King Which he may be sure is true and Divinely inspired it being impossible any man should know the thoughts of another man especially so strange and operose as these unless he were inspired Whence my declaring the Dream ought to be look'd upon as a certain assurance of the truth of my Interpretation which is this 37. Thou O King art a King of Kings that is The greatest King on Earth For the God of Heaven hath given thée a Kingdom Power and Strength and Glory Thou hast a Strong Potent and Glorious Kingdom and it is the gift of God unto thee and therefore thou shouldst remember to govern as his Vice-gerent 38. And wheresoever the Children of men dwell viz. the cultivated places of his Kingdom The Beasts of the Field The desart places of Arabia and Africk says Grotins And the Fowls of the Heaven Invious and inaccessible Rocks where only the Fowls of Heaven can nest Hath he given into thy hand and hath made thée Ruler over them all All these diversities of the vast places of thy Kingdom art thou Lord over And God having given thee so large an Empire so prosperous and glorious I declare unto thee Thou art this Head of Gold Which is briefly and figuratively spoken by a Synecdoche or Metonymie for Thou art the Head of this Golden Kingdom of Babylon or Thou art the Lord and Owner of it From whence we may be assured that the Head of Gold signifies the Babylonian Kingdom Nebuchadnezzar being then King of Babylon and Cyaxares the Made conjoyn'd in aâ—â—inity and confederacy with Nabopolassar the Father of Nebuchadnezzar having subverted Nineve the Metropolis of the Assyrian Empire together with the Empire it self some Four years before and near an Hundred and twenty years after Salmanasser had taken Samaria and carried the Ten Tribes away captive 39. And after thée shall arise another Kingdom inferiour to thée The first Empire comprised in this Image being thus evidently the Babylonian it does naturally follow that the Second must be the Medo-Persian begun in Cyrus Who first having taken Babylon and Belshazzar the last King being slain by the Medes and Persians he brought along with him though he delivered the Empire to his Uncle Darius the Mede yet he being aged and dying within a year or two he presently succeeded him and became Monarch of the Medes as well as Persians himself also being a Medo-Persian by extraction on the Mother's side a Mede and on the Father's side a Persian Whence he was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Mule as Grotius notes But that the coalescency of these Two Nations into One Kingdom or Empire is signified by the Silver part of the Image which is the Breast from which the Two Arms come has been noted above The hardest scruple is how this Medo Persian Empire should be said to be less than that of Nebuchadnezzar's the Babylonian there being the accession of Persia and all the Acquists of Cyrus added thereto Grotius his answer is Quia Cyrus successores ejus Africam non tenuerunt Gasper Sanctius That there was not that pacateness nor tranquillity in the Medo-Persian Empire that there was in the Babylonian or so continued prosperity and success Calvin makes one Empire inferiour to another as the Metals are from Gold to Iron in Morality Temperance Justice Faithfulness c. according to that vulgar opinion expressed in Horace Carm. lib. 3. od 6. Aetas parentum pejor avis tulit Nos nequiores mox daturos Progeniem vitiosiorem Whence sprung that Poetical description of the World 's degenerating according to the Four Ages thereof from Gold to Silver from Silver to Brass and from Brass to Iron Which in all likelihood was more particularly occasioned from Nebuchadnezzar's Dream of this Image of those Four Metals Antiquity not understanding the true sense thereof But it is possible that forasmuch as it is read And after thee shall arise another Kingdom inferiour to thee that to thee is here on purpose put for to thine that the first Head of this following Kingdom might be understood to be more especially compared with him in which there seems apparent odds For Cyrus the first Head of the Medo-Persian Monarchy or Empire reigned not past Two or Three years in that inlarged Empire and not passing Thirty in his Kingdom of Persia whenas Nebuchadnezzar in his Babylonian Empire reigned Three and forty years most splendidly and prosperously insomuch that the excess of his prosperity cast him into that Septennial delirancy out of which he was recovered and gave praise to the God of Heaven But Cyrus as he reigned but a small time in the Medo-Persian Empire so he was vanquished ingloriously by the hand of a Woman Tomyris a Scythian Queen who cut off his Head and cast it into a Vessel of bloud saying Satia te Cyre sanguine quem â—…itisti But whether this way or that way please best to make the easiest sense of the Text it is unavoidably plain that this second Monarchy is the Medo-Persian nor does any Interpreter doubt of it And another third Kingdom of Brass This shews plainly that the Golden Silver and Brass parts of the Image signifie Three distinct Kingdoms But now it is evident in History that as the Medo-Persian Empire succeeded the Babylonian so the Macedonick or Grecian succeeded the Medo-Persian For Alexander Macedo after he had vanquished Darius Codomannus in his last Battle at Arbela Darius being slain some Six months after by Bessus one of the Peers of his own Empire and Babylon taken translated the Monarchy from the Medes and Persians to the Greeks about the third year of the 112 Olympiad And that the Greek Empire was not unfitly set out by the Two Thighs of Brass by reason of those Two most eminent parts of it into which after Alexander's death it was divided and stood so divided for a long time namely the Two Kingdoms of the Lagidae and Seleucidae I have noted above And it may not be altogether impertinent to Note also what Iustin writes Lib. 12. Eâdie quâ natus est Alexander duae Aquilae totâ die praepetes super culmen domû patris ejus sederunt omen duplicis imperii Europae Asiaeque praeferentes Which shall bear rule over all the
seed of men The Septuagâ—…nt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By this Interpreters usually understand * alliance by Marriages whereby one Kingdom may be more surely obliged to keep peace and amity with another But dominandi cupido cunâ—â—is affectibus flagrantior est as the Historian observes And if this may go for a good sense as to the sodering of the Ten Kings one to another the Iron to the Iron yet we are to consdier that the Text here speaks of the Iron being mixt with Clay and how they come to unite They shall mingle one with another faith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It might as well be rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in sementi hominum that is by placing of men in Seminaries where they shall be so brought up informed and instructed suppose in Covents Monasteries and other such like places that they shall be made notable instruments so to insinuate into the Secular Powers and also into the People as to ingage their affections to his Holiness the great Ecclesiastick Sovereign and to all the Rites Institutes and Doctrines that are fittest to support that Papal Greatness The Propagation and Dissemination of such instruments as these I conceive to be alluded to as if he should say They shall mingle one with another agree or unite together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie by the sowing or planting of men in the Seminaries abovesaid fitting them for the foresaid purpose the more brisk cunning and gentile attacking Princes and great Men and other Monks Priests and Friers hanging fast on the people and clarting upon them and keeping warm in them all the modes of Idolatry and Superstition and all the Principles and Practices that may be gainfull to the Papal Hierarchy Thus the Clay sticks to the Iron as well as it can But they shall not cleave so very firmly one to another even as Iron is not mixed with Clay And what Bickerings and Clashings there have been betwixt these Two Powers the Secular and Ecclesiastick in particular Kingdoms the Chronicles of each Kingdom will declare As also what combates there have been betwixt the Pope and the Emperours both Greek and German is notoriously known to all I will only cite one passage out of The Defence of the Right of Kings written by King Iames of blessed Memory Let Histories be searched saith he Let just accounts be taken and beside many Sieges laid to Cities it will appear by true computation that Henry the Fourth and Frederick the First fought above Threescore Battles in defence of their own Right against the enemies of the Empire stirred up to Arms by the Popes of Rome And indeed the dealings and usurpations of that Hierarchy grew so intolerable that many Kingdoms at last shook them off and would admit the Papal Authority and Religion no longer Whereby was manifestly fulfilled which is here predicted by Daniel That they shall not cleave one to another even as Iron is not mixed with Clay It is an unnatural and heterogeneal union and therefore not durable and permanent This passage therefore in Daniel seems to answer to that in the Apocalypse Ch. 17. v. 16. And the ten Horns which thou sawest upon the Beast they shall hate the Whore and make her desolate and naked c. Which was performed in some measure in the happy Reformation begun in Luther's days and when there will be a farther accomplishment of it lies wholly in the pleasure of the Almighty 44. And in the days of these Kings shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdom which shall never be destroyed After Daniel in his Interpretation has gone through all the Empires comprised in that Image which Nebuchadnezzar saw from head to foot now he begins to explain the mystery of the Stone cut out without hands whereby is understood Christ with his truly pure Apostolick Church Wherefore by in the days of these Kings must be understood in the days of the Fourth viz. in the time of the Roman Empire For Christ was born and his Gospel divulged and his Church first gathered in that time as every body must acknowledge And the Seventy weeks plainly carry to that time also But now this pure Church of Christ being called the Kingdom which the God of Heaven shall set up we may observe from hence how in our Saviour Christ's preaching and mentioning the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God that it had a respect to this Prophecy And the use of those Phrases with him does further ratifie our interpreting it thus of the appearance of Christ with his true Church Which is rightly called the Kingdom of Heaven or of God because the raising of it was by the special miraculous power of the God of Heaven And the administration of this his true Church is by his Spirit from above in the hearts of his true Believers God does truly rule there by his Spirit whence it is rightly called the Kingdom of God Which shall never be destroyed The Gates of Hell shall never prevail against it The true and living Church which the Spirit of Christ actuates this shall never fail And the Kingdom shall not be left to other people The Persians succeeded the Babylonians the Greeks the Persians and the Romans the Greeks but no Empire shall succeed nor any People the true Christian Church which is the Kingdom of God which either as Regnum Lapidis or else as Regnum Montis will last to the end of the World But it shall break in pieces and consume all these Kingdoms that is When it has become Regnum montis it will have overspread and will possess and keep in rule all the Countries that the Four great Monarchies signified by the Statue had occupied And the Three former Kingdoms being as it were incorporated into the Fourth or because the Four Kingdoms are in this Image exhibited at once the Kingdom of the Mountain for the embellishing the cortex of the Vision is said to break in pieces and consume all the other Kingdoms together striking the Image on the Toes as I noted above And it shall stand for ever According as it is said Apoc II. 16. The Kingdoms of the world are become the Kingdoms of the Lord and he shall reign for ever and ever 45. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the Stone was cut out of the Mountain without hands that is Forasmuch as the State of the true Church of Christ is the absolute work of God carried on by his special Providence not by humane arts or policies and that it was thus begun and that he is with his Church to the end of the World And that it broke in pieces the Iron the Brass the Clay and the Silver and the Gold Forasmuch as thou sawest the Stone cut out of the Mountain without hands to do this Which signifies the true Church of Christ thus supernaturally begun and as supernaturally emerging to this glorious issue at last
For as the Stone was cut out without hands so it will be carried without hands to smite the Image on the Feet namely by the power and conduct of the Spirit of Christ who will then open a door of success that no man shall be able to shut as it is said to the Church of Philadelphia considering I say that Omnipotency it self is the Spring of this motion and that it does not depend on the humours and purposes of men I can of a truth declare unto the King that The Great God hath made known to the King what shall come to pass hereafter or after this namely after the demolition of all these Four Empires the Vision reaching to the end of the World which that expected glorious State of the true Church will precede when the Kingdom of the Stone cut out of the Mountain that is out of the Roman Empire shall it self become the Kingdom of the Mountain and fill the whole Earth that is when that State of the glorious and pure Church shall spread over all And the Dream is certain and the Interpretation thereof sure and more particularly touching that excellent State of the Church concerning which it is said Apoc. 21. 5. And he that sate upon the Throne said Behold I make all things new And he saith unto me Write For these words are true and faithfull And he said unto me It is done I am Alpha and Omega the Beginning and the End The Dream that he has interpreted is certain especially the most concerning part thereof the Glory and Prosperity of the true Church of Christ it being to be atchieved by the irresistible power of the Lord Jesus NOTES upon VISION I. Ver. 43. * Alliance by Marriages whereby one Kingdom c. That this is not the sense of the place viz. The Marriages of those of great rank in these Principalities mutually with one another thereby to bind these distinct Kingdoms in peace and amity besides the reasons alledged in my Exposition this may be one also that the words which seem to import it are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a very improper word to signifie that Noble Princely Royal sort of Men or Women who matching with one another of several Kingdoms might tie those Kingdoms in the bonds of unity and friendship It would then have been said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall mingle themselves with the seed of Nobles or Men of great power and interest or at least 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the seed of Men in a common or indifferent sense But here it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the seed of mean abject weak despised Men such at least in appearance as Cornelius à Lapide very well Comments upon those words Dan. 7. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est saith he alluding to the Roots 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi filius hominis miseri aerumnosi mox morituri obliviosi oblivioni tradendi haec enim omnia significat Enos from the Two Roots above named the one whereof signifies to be sickly the other to be oblivioâ—…s Whence he makes Enos which is the same with the Chaldee Ansa to denote a wretched weakly sickly contemptible Wight and at least seemingly dull and oblivious and whose Name is quickly to be drowned in oblivion Which certainly is a very unmeet Character for the Princes and Great ones of Kingdoms But may very well decipher those of the Papal Seminaries Covents or Monasteries those Monks and Fries mob'd in their Cools and long Coats and making a shew of great mortification and despicableness as if they were altogether dead to the world and the vigour of nature were quite extinct in them they pretending to nothing but holiness and interest of Holy Church whether in these mob'd habits or got into a more brisk dress to carry on affairs in the behalf of the Papal Dominion either in their own Country or other Nations The very propriety of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I say intimates that this mingling with the seed of Men does not signifie matches of Great persons of several Kingdoms and that therefore it will naturally point to that sense I have pitch'd upon in my Exposition And how hugely applicable this is to History see that Excellent English Gentleman Sir Edwin Sandys his Speculum Europae Which shews what fast hold the Pope takes on the Secular party by the activity and fedulity of the Monks and Friers and other Emissaries that are sent out of their Seminaries for the purpose For the Religion that is taught in those Seminaries being framed more for the Power of the Pope and worldly interest of Holy Church than for safe guidance to the Eternal salvation of Souls those that come out of these Seminaries to instruct the people do reaâ—…ly the work of the Papacy that is bind the Laick party to obedience to the Pope and so make the Iron stick to the Clay VISION II. The Vision of the Four Beasts rising out of the Sea whereby the Four above-named Empires are prefigured Dan. 7. AS by the Statue consisting of Four Metals those Four Empires the Babyloâ—…ian Medo-Persian Greek and Roman from their beginning to their ending were represented so they are here in the very same extent of time notwithstanding this Vision was seen towards the end of the first of these Empires namely the Babylonian Which manner of representing in Prophetical Type part of time past in a Set of Visions is made use of also in the Apocalypse the greatest part of the time of the first of the Six Visions in the First Six Seals being expir'd when S. Iohn saw them And there is the same reason of the Set of Visions of the seven Churches which begin as that of the Seals from the first Epocha of Christianity as does also the Vision of the measuring the Inner and Outer Court and the Woman clothed with the Sun with Twelve Stars upon her head c. There was about Sixty years from the Epocha of S. Iohn's Visions to the time he saw them and less from the beginning of the Babylonian Empire till Daniel's seeing of this Vision of the Four Beasts So that this is no obstacle but that the Babylonian Empire may be here represented from its beginning though Daniel saw this Vision toward the end thereof But because that in a Set of Prophetical Visions a little snip of time in comparison of what the whole Set of Visions takes in may be set out by some inconsiderable part of that Set of Visions to take the liberty of interpreting a whole Set of Visions viz. all the Six Seals nay Two whole Sets of Visions succeeding one another viz. all the Six Trumpets succeeding the Six Seals of things past when S. Iohn saw those Visions as Grotius does is so wild and extravagant that it may well astonish any sober man
it is a representation of Christ the humane nature of the Messias united with the Eternal Logos and according to his Divinity every where existing in the Father as well as according to his Humanity he is here represented distinctly from him Thousand thousands ministred unto him and Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him This Judgment of the little Horn is so magnificently set out as if it were the last Judgment of all and I do not doubt but that it alludes to it and touches upon it in the following words The Iudgment was set and the Books were opened This sitting of the Judgment corresponds with that Apoc. 20. 11 12. Where there is a White Throne and the Books are opened and this is at the Final Judgment and General Resurrection immediately preceeding the Conflagration which in another sense this Fiery description here in Daniel sutes very well with and then the Fiery stream out of the mouth of the Ancient of Days will presignifie that final Sentence Depart from me ye accursed into everlasting Fire But Ver. 4. of the same Chapter And I saw Thrones and they sat upon them c. This answers to the ninth Verse of this seventh of Daniel And I beheld till the Thrones were set For these Thrones are set to judge the little Horn the same with the Whore or False Prophet which is said together with the Beast Apoc. 19. to be taken and cast both alive into a Lake of Fire burning with Brimstone which is to come to pass under the Seventh Vial which immediately preceeds the coming down of the New Ierusalem and the Reign of the Saints Here is onely the difference betwixt these Two Sessions that the Apocalyptick Session mentions only the Reign of the Saints this the instant dooming and executing the Doom of the little Horn in order thereto and the giving the Son of man the Kingdom But being that Corruptio unius is Generatio alterius and the things are so closely connected we may very well admit that these Two preceding Sessions or Sentences declared therein have a considerable correspondence one with another that in the Apocalypse manifestly belonging to this part of this Judgment here in Daniel that gives the Kingdom to the Son of man So that so far the correspondence is palpable 11. I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the Horn spake namely Such blustering and boastfull words as were recited above upon Ver. 8. to see what would become of this Horn that so magnified himself above all and had acted accordingly in deposing Kings and trampling upon the Necks of Emperours and murthering massacring and burning God knows how many Hundred thousands of innocent Christians for not submitting to his Tyranny and Idolatry I beheld even till the Beast was slain and his body destroyed and given to the burning Flame What then is the Beast destroyed and the little Horn escape punishment This therefore is a very compendious and Elliptical Form of Speech But the Sense is fully made out by S. Iohn Apoc. 19. 20. For it is impossible but the little Horn must be concerned in that destruction of the Beast himself being the Two-horned Beast in the Apocalypse Chap. 13. but in this Chapter stiled the False Prophet for his false pretence to Infallibility And the Beast was taken says he and with him the False Prophet that wrought Miracles before him that is who transubstantiated Bread into a Man and brought Fire from Heaven and had power over Purgatory and Hell thither to strike innocent Souls by his fulminant Excommunications These both were cast alive into a Lake of Fire burning with Brimstone And thus the Fourth Empire the Roman as to its Idolatrous Tyranny of which the Pope makes himself the Head as his Canonists and Theologers declare is quite demolished under the Seventh Vial. 12. As concerning the rest of the Beasts they had their Dominion taken away that is And if any one shall be so curious as to enquire what became of the rest of the Beasts the other Three above mentioned let that suffice that their Dominion was taken away and that Yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time they had their certain periods allowed them too by the Doom of the Ancient of Days This is enough as touching them but the great business of all is touching the Fourth Beast the Roman Empire forasmuch as the true Church of Christ for so long a space of time is so much concerned therein and therefore that deserves more special observation and enlargment The Affairs of the Iews under the Three first Beasts are not considerable in respect of these of the Christians And therefore the Three first Beasts in this Vision seem to be brought in meerly as a preamble to the Fourth and the Fourth with the Three first to be first described as being of one sute namely Idolatrous But then there is a Fifth Kingdom which is Christ with his true Church commencing in the Apostles times and lasting till the end of the World Of which in the following Verse 13. I saw in the night Uisions in this Divine Dream as was above-said And behold one like the Son of man The Son of man is a Title which Christ so inculcatedly assumes to himself to whom the Kingdom does belong that it is impossible but he should have a regard to this very place in the so perpetually using that style touching himself And therefore it being Christ it is plain that the second Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity is here exhibited in this Divine Vision as well as the first and third as I have noted they all Three are in the Vision of Ezekiel This Title of Christ the Son of man occurrs in innumerable places I need name none And yet there is one I will not omit Matth. 26. 64. When the High Priest had adjured him to tell him if he was Christ the Son of God Iesus saith unto him Thou hast said Nevertheless I say unto thee though thou hast hit it already yet I will give thee a further confirmation thereof Hereafter shall you see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of Power and coming in the Clouds of Heaven namely as it were at the head of the Roman Army to take vengeance of the murtherous unbelieving Iews I say the Roman Army out of which People especially he was to raise to himself his Kingdom the Church Which yet was but Regnum Lapidis as I noted in the foregoing Vision but would be in time Regnum Montis Came with the Clouds of Heaven To be carried with the Clouds of Heaven denotes that a King shall be master of his Enemies and get glorious Victory saith Achmetes And the destruction of the Iews was the establishing of the Church of Christ or his Kingdom among the Gentiles the Romans especially whose Empire became at last Christian. And came to the Ancient of Days and they brought him near before him
presented him as a Candidate for the designed Kingdom 14. And there was given him Dominion and Glory and a Kingdom that all People and Nations and Languages should serve him that is That some of all People should serve him in the pure Apostolick way of Doctrine and Worship and indeed the whole Roman Empire in a manner did so for a while after Constantine's time till the Apostasie came in Which small Interval of time in this Vision is not taken notice of as being inconsiderable But in the mean time it may be here seasonable to note that this Right of the Kingdom being given to the Son of man answers to the first Vision of the Seals the Vision of the Heros on the white Horse with a bow in his hand and who had a Crown given unto him Apoc. 6. 2. the right of the Imperial Crown So that this part of Daniel's Vision here commences with the Epocha of the Apocalypse or the beginning of Christianity For there seems Four Sentences to have been represented in this Iudicial Session of the Ancient of Days besides that touching the Three Beasts Ver. 12. one assigning the Kingdom in general to the Son of man the other the Judgment of the little Horn the third the giving of the more inlarged Kingdom to the Son of man upon the destruction of the little Horn and the fourth the final Doom of all at the day of Judgment properly so called But the first and the last there is only a slight perstriction or brief intimation of them but that of the little Horn is insisted on the abolishing of his power and the giving the great enlargement of the Kingdom the Regnum Montis to the Saints of the most High His Dominion is an everlasting Dominion which shall not pass away and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed The true Church which is the genuine Kingdom of Christ and of which he alone is the Head as being Universal never yet from the beginning thereof has failed nor ever will fail to the end of the World 15. I Daniel was grieved in my Spirit in the midst of my body and the Uisions of my head upon my Bed troubled me that is I was very anxious to know what the meaning of this Vision might be And methought 16. I came near to one of them that stood by to one of the Assistant Angels in this great Session not to those that were placed on Thrones And asked him the truth of all this that is The plain meaning of this Prophetick Parable So he told me and made me know the Interpretation of things namely as follows and first in general 17. These great Beasts which are Four are Four Kings with their Kingdoms or Empires viz. the Babylonian Medo-Persian Greek and Roman which shall arise out of the Earth And therefore be but Earthly Kingdoms minding Earthly Things here below 18. But the Saints of the most High of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the most High God or of Christ who is called in the Apocalypse King of Kings and Lord of Lords Shall take the Kingdom of the Stone Regnum Lapidis from the first planting of the Gospel but Regnum Montis the Kingdom of the Mountain upon the destruction of the little Horn. And possess the Kingdom for ever even for ever and ever that is The true Church of Christ shall never fail till the end of the World as was intimated above And thus far in general touching the Vision but he holds on 19. Then I would know the truth the true meaning of the Fourth Beast which was divers from all others And in what regard we have above declared as also why so Excéeding â—â—â—adfull whose 〈◊〉 were of Iron and his Nails of Brass which 〈◊〉 brake in pieces and stamped the residue with his 〈◊〉 that also we have above explained 20. And of the Ten Horns that were in his Head And of the other especially which came up For the Interpretation is spent most in describing it Ver. 24 25. And before whom 〈◊〉 fell those three I above named Even of that Horn that had Eyes and would admit no other Horn to have Eyes besides it self especially in Spirituals And a Mouth that spoke 〈◊〉 great things both against the Law of God which this Horn the Papal Power pretends to have a right to dispense with and act contrary to and against the right of Kings and Emperours whom he pretends a Power of excommunicating and deposing and absolving their Subjects from their Oath of Allegiance if they submit not to the Decrees of his infallible Mouth which will be sure to pronounce nothing that is not agreeable to the worldly Interest of Holy Church For this Horn has the eyes of a man merely and directs all by the measure of humane Policy let him pretend never so much to inspired Infallibility Whose look was more stout than his 〈◊〉 That is that has a bold assured look affecting the greatest Grandeur imaginable as pretending to be Lord of the whole World in whose presence his Fellow Horns did but sneak as whose stirrop they are â—…ain to hold even Emperours themselves as well as Kings and other Princes when this little Horn is to ride on Horseback and to bear on their Shoulders his Chair when he will be carried in State to hold the Bason and Towel when he washes his hands and in publick Assemblies to sit at his Feet and if they will not be dutifull enough to be trod upon by his Feet as Frederick Barbarossa was served by Pope Alexander the Third who treading upon his Neck in conspectu populi with a bigg look and loud voice abused that of the Psalmist to his barbarous insulting over the Emperour Super aspidem leonem ambulabis c. Thou shalt tread upon the Lion and Adder c. These hints are enough to shew how fully this part of the Prophecy is accomplished whose look was more stout than his Fellows 21. I beheld and the same Horn namely the little Horn made war with the Saints and prevailed against them that is The Papal Power by using the forces of the Ten Horns or Secular Power makes war against the Saints the true Apostolick Church that stand out and cannot admit the gross corruptions and Idolatrous usages of the little Horn. This answers to that of the Apocalypse Ch. 13. v. 7. And it was given unto him to make war with the Saints and to overcome them It is spoken there of the Ten-horned Beast as the Executioner of the War but in Daniel of the little Horn as the Instigator or Authorizer of the War But this in the mean time is no small indication that the times of the little Horn belong to the times of the Ten-horned Beast healed which are the times of the Apostasie of the Church 22. Until the Ancient of Days came viz. Till he proceeded to that part of the Doom that pronounced Sentence against the little Horn. And Iudgment was given to the
the Coincidence of time with the Paganoâ—…Christian Empire and the long continuance as also the difference of this Kingdome from the other ten is more than a strong suspicion that it is part of the succession of a Kingdome Ecclesiastick which is necessarily to run along with the Empire professing Christianity But if the question be whether this part of this Ecclesiastick Kingdome be the uncorrupted Kingdome of Christ or the Reign of Antichrist the solution is not difficult For that it is not the Kingdome of Christ is plain in that Christ is said to come to burn and consume it Whence it is manifest that the Church has not been out in their Conjecture in deeming this little Horn to be Antichrist and therefore say I the same with the two-horned Beast and the Whore who is plainly Isochronal and I doubt not but Synchronal to this little Horn and is adjudged to be burnt in the Apocalypse as this little Horn is here in Daniel 15. To speak briefly therefore This little Horn is the Idolatrizing Clergy of the Empire but more chiefly and particularly that great and notorious part thereof under the Bishop of Rome who has been a more than ordinary stickler for both the obtaining this degenerate Ecclesiastick Empire in the Roman Empire and in lapsing and keeping down the Empire in Superstition and Idolatry and therefore is rightly said to be an Horn growing out of this Beast the Symbol Beast it self according to Grotius his own Confession intimating Idolatry 16. And if exquisite fitness of Application will assure us of the right sense of a Prophecy we cannot fail in this examining every character of this little Horn. For as it is little so is the Original of the Popes mean and obscure and their Secular Principality small in comparison of those Princes they have contested with Again As this Horn had the Eyes of a man so it is well known that for politick quick-sightedness there has not been any Body of men comparable to the Roman Hierarchy insomuch that it is Proverbial to say That the Roman Religion is nothing else but a mere trick of Policy to increase and keep up the honour power and wealth of the Pope and his Clergy See Sir Edwyn Sandys his Speculum Europae and you shall find this part of the Prophecy fulfilled to admiration and that it is not for nothing that this little Horn is said to have the Eyes of a man in it which is said of no Horn in all the Prophecies besides this Thirdly As this Horn is said to have a mouth speaking great things whether you mean thereby boasting of its own Sovereignty or Blaspheming it is well known that from this Horn are uttered such words as imply the Pope greater than all Princes and Emperours nay that he is not onely said to be Infallible * but styled God and declared worthy of Divine Worship Fourthly For the humbling and subduing three Kings which this Horn is foretold to doe is it not long since performed by the Pope of Rome in his usage of Leo Isaurus in his ruining the Kingdome of the Lombards to get to himself the Exarchate of Ravenna And in tormenting and disquieting Henry the Fourth and his Successours with his Thunder-claps and mischievous Political Plots till he wrested from them all their Right and Jurisdiction in Italy 17. Fifthly and to come nearer to our purpose in hand Whereas it is said that he shall speak great words against the most High and shall wear out the Saints of the most High and think to change Times and Laws and they shall be given into his hand for a Time and Times and half a Time I say This Idolatrous Clergy has bid fair towards the fulfilling this Period of times already the Degeneracy of the Church beginning about four hundred years after Christ and which is more considerable they having received so notorious a Check in the Decursion of this Half-Time which is elsewhere called a Half-Day in which his swaggering is pretty well diminished and chastised Sixthly And for his wearing out and consuming the Saints of the most High he has done it even more bloudily and cruelly than the very Pagans on the Primitive Christians which is the most furious Opposition against the Regality of Christ that can be imagined thus to waste and destroy his true Subjects Seventhly And for his speaking great words against the most High that is against the Divine Sovereignty is it not plainly done in the Pope's pretences of having power to dispense with or lay aside the Laws and Injunctions of Christ of which we have given several Instances in our Idea of Antichristianism and such as are notoriously well known to appertain to that Church Besides that he is Reus laesae Divinae Majestatis in appointing Religious worship to his canonized Saints which is an Honour due to God alone Lastly In that he is said to change Times and Laws what innumerable Institutes are there of the Pope's injoyning of which may be truly said what our Saviour told the Scribes and Pharisees 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From the beginning it was not so And what is this therefore but to change Times and Laws and in many of them in a most perfect Opposition to the Laws of God and Christ as I have already noted in its place Whence we see plainly that this Antichristian Opposition against the Regal Office of Christ is very expresly foretold in this Vision of the little Hornâ—… which rose up with the ten Horns in the Roman Empire and did fabricate Imperium in Imperio as some phrase it and became a Two-horned Beast in the Ten-horned Beast erecting an Ecclesiastick Antichristian Empire within the Civil in opposition to the true Empire or Kingdome of Christ and in defeatment of his Power and Laws in the Church nay in opposition to those Immutable Laws of the Eternal Logos that enlightens every man that comes into the world NOTES Upon the Confutation Sect. 2. Was neither greater more excellent nor a more viâ—…torious Kingdome c. For they both viz. the Kingdomes of the Lagidae and Seleucidae put together were yet but part of Alexander's Kingdome And for their victories and spoils they were of one against another which was a farther weakning of this but part of the Kingdome of Alexander which still argues the less excellency of the said part Sect. 4. For Antiochus Epiphanes was dead almost two hundred years before Christ so much as c. And yet Grotius would have Antiochus Epiphanes the little Horn upon whose destruction notwithstanding the Ancient of days gives the Kingdome to the Son of man Dan. 2. 44. In the days of these Kingdomes the fourth and last of which is according to Grotius that of the. Lagidae and Seleucidae shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdome which is the Kingdome of the Gospel of Christ whenas the Kingdomes of the Lagidae and Seleucidae were both of them utterly vanquished and abolished by the Romans before
solicitude being not so much for the gratifying of their bodies as the safely bringing back their Souls out of this Region of Mortality and Corruption as a glorious spoil snatcht out of the hands of Satan and Antichrist to present to God his Father in those higher Regions of Immortality and Bliss And certainly so dear and tender as well as so potent a Patron as the Messias would never have permitted his best Clients to suffer such grievous things for his sake had there not been a certain reward in the other world for the Souls of them that so suffered and that been true which he told his Disciples after he was come in the flesh Joh. 14. In my fathers house there are many mansions I go to prepare a place for you Whence these things add a mighty weight to our faith and assurance of the Immortality of the Soul and of an unexpressible happiness to be enjoyed after we have left this body These considerations I think must bring abundance of pleasure to them that have an heart to believe them And yet I will add one thing more which I have observed that cannot but be taking with the judicious That as the miracles of our Saviour Christ here upon earth were never done out of any vanity or ostentation of his wonder-working faculty but as the principle of goodness and needfull beneficency directed him and limited him so likewise the same Christ has behaved himself in like manner in the communication of these Prophecies Wherein there is not the least shew of affectation of foretelling future things as future but merely as they are in subserviency to the most certain information of his Church whether Iewish or Christian concerning their own state and condition what it would be This is more largely insisted upon if the Prophecies be rightly understood but the Pagan Concerns more sparingly and in subordination onely to the affairs of the Church which is a thing methinks very gracefull and becoming the weightiness and authentickness of these Prophecies And this shall briefly serve to intimate what Pleasure the pious soul may reap from the reading and rightly understanding these Divine Visions of Daniel as well as what other fruit or profit he may have thereby The more particular usefulness of which it was less needfull for me to insist upon here they being muchwhat the same with those I have noted in my Preface to my Apocalypsis Apocalypseos to which the Reader may have recourse I shall onely give an account of my adding The Threefold Appendage to this my â—…xposition of the Visions of Daniel and then conclude And the reason of my adding the first part thereof viz. The Confutation of Grotius his opinion who makes the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae the fourth Kingdome in Daniel is this It being the constant tradition of the Church and opinion of the Primitive Fathers besides other Interpreters it would make too great a rattle or noise to rehearse the names of them you may see them in Cornelius à Lapide and Ribera that the times of the ten-horned Beast and two-horned Beast Apoc. 13. and also of the Beast that was is not and yet is Apoc. 17. are the times of Antichrist and Ribera expresly says of this last viz. the Beast that is said to ascend out of the bottomless pit that Antichrist ascends with him and that the other Beast Chap. 13. with ten Horns is Antichrist from the authority of the Fathers and the two-horned Beast his Armour-bearer or Squire of his body though more properly the two-horned Beast is to be called Antichrist and the ten-horned his Squire I wish he had had a better office and not been debased to so mean and unbecoming a ministry by the Imposture of the two-horned Beast I say it being according to the common stream of Antiquity and Interpreters that those times of the ten-horned Beast are the times of Antichrist and the same being founded mainly upon that which is unexceptionably sound viz. That the times of these Apocalyptick Beasts and of that in Daniel with ten Horns amongst which appears that little Horn with eyes which the ancient Tradition of the Church and all the Primitive Fathers with one consent declare to be the formidable Antichrist then to come that those times I say do synchronize or are the very same times and both necessarily conceived in the latter time of the Roman Empire Grotius discerning that unless Porphyrius his opinion may be admitted viz. That the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae not the Roman is the fourth Kingdome in Daniel and having so much wit and perspicacity of Iudgment as to perceive that the Papistical notion and declaration touching Antichrist is such a Romance so incredible and ridiculous you may have it pretty well at large in Cornelius à Lapide upon 2 Thess. 2. that it is more fit for old wives and children to listen to than any one that can pretend to have the understanding of a man he and as it seems to me partly out of the distaste he had taken against the Reformed Church of Holland for their usage of him and partly to glaver and curry favour with the Pontifician party that he might make all sure in the behalf of the Pope and his Hierarchy rejects the Primitive Orthodox opinion of the Church who ever made the fourth Kingdome in Daniel the Roman and strikes in with Porphyrius a mere Pagan who conceited the fourth Kingdome to be that of the Lagidae and Seleucidae By which device Grotius forsooth would excuse the Pope from being the little Horn with eyes and consequently Antichrist and cast it upon Antiochus Epiphanes the little Horn according to him not belonging to the times of the Roman Empire but to the times of the Kings of Syria and Aegypt Wherefore I thought it a business of no small importance to shew the shamefull groundlesness of Grotius his opinion and to restore truth to her due possession and place But in the mean time it is worth our observation that Grotius being ashamed of that Romish or rather Romantick fable which that Church entertains of Antichrist as that he shall be born of a Iewish Female of the â—…ribe of Dan and be begotten by an Incubus or at least that he shall be of the abovesaid 〈◊〉 and make himself the Messias of the Jews shall doe strange miracles to deceive them shall make mountains seem to remove out of their place shall raise himself or some other mortally wounded Prince from the dead shall bring fire from Heaven and like the story of Frier Bacons brazen Head his statue shall be made to speak He shall fly in the air the Devils in the appearance of Angels doing homage to him He shall rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem and there require to be honoured as the sole God of the Vniverse and in the mean time Enoch and Elias appearing again in the Flesh shall Prophesy against him whom he shall slay and their
dead bodies shall lye three days and a half in the streets of that City but then a voice from Heaven calling to them to rise they shall get upon their feet and ascend into Heaven in the sight of all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with other such like stuff which would be but too tedious to rehearse I say Grotius being ashamed of such a childish story occasioned first from the ignorance of the Prophetick style but entertained afterwards by the Roman Clergy to save the credit of the Pope from being suspected to be the Antichrist it is worth our noting that he had no way left to doe them a more solid piece of service or to offer them any plausibler pretence That the Pope may not be thought to be the little Horn with eyes which all Christian Antiquity with one voice declare to be the Antichrist than by espousing the opinion of Porphyry that the fourth Kingdome in Daniel is not the Roman and therefore the little Horn not the Papacy nor the Pope Antichrist For Grotius was certainly a person of so much Wit and Iudgment as clearly to discern that that wooden conceit of Mahomet's being the little Horn with eyes and consequently the Antichrist was altogether impossible That was such a blockish device or rather such a stumbling-block that so sober a man as he would never break his shins against it it being a thing absurd at the very first sight For it is plain out of the Text that the little Horn is an Horn growing up amongst the Horns of the fourth Kingdome which is the fourth Beast and therefore it is an Horn of that Beast or Kingdome not of the Kingdome of the Saracens or Turks Otherwise there would have been mentioned another Beast to which this Horn should belong But there being no mention of another besides this fourth which I say is the Roman Empire nor does Grotius allow it to be the Mahometan it is necessary that this little Horn be an Horn of the Roman Empire not Mahomet nor any Horn of the Mahometan Kingdome And therefore accordingly Ch. 7. ver 20. the other ten Horns are called his fellows as belonging all to one and the same Polity the Roman Empire and as being all politically conjoyned or consociated into one Community as the words in the Original imply which no Saracenical or Turkish Horn is with the Roman Empire thus divided into ten Kingdomes This could not but lye obvious to the sight of so perspicacious a person as Grotius besides the unapplicableness of the description of the little Horn to the Mahometan Empire which it would be too long to insist upon I will onely add one notable bar more against this conceit of Mahomet's being the little Horn with eyes viz. That what the Clay is to the Iron feet and ten toes of the Image Dan. Ch. 2. what the King of Pride is to the Roman Empire Dan. Ch. 11. what the two-horned Beast is to the ten-horned horned Beast Apoc. Ch. 13. what the Whore is to the Beast that was is not and yet is Apoc. Ch. 17. the same is the little Horn with eyes to the Beast with ten Horns Dan. Ch. 7. So that if the Horn with eyes be Mahomet or the Turk the Clay the King of Pride the two-horned Beast and the Whore must be the Turk also This he that understands the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse throughly is certainly assured of and consequently as certain that neither Mahomet nor any Turkish Polity is that little Horn with eyes Dan. Ch. 7. But what was so very obvious you may be sure turned Grotius his stomach sufficiently from so fond and frivoloùs a conceit See my Synopsis Prophetica Book 2. Ch. 5. Consect 9. where it is undeniably demonstrated That the Whore of Babylon or Antichrist sits not now at Constantinople but that old Rome is his Imperial Seat Wherefore it is plain That Grotius shewed a great deal of Iudgment in not adventuring to let the Roman Empire be the fourth Beast and so to pretend that Mahomet is the little Horn or Antichrist it being a thing so absurd and impossible And therefore to give a stop to this grand inconvenience that the Turk not proving the Antichrist or little Horn the Pope would be surely he he was forced to deny that the fourth Empire was the Roman thinking that less absurd than that Idea of the Pontifician Antichrist or that Mahomet should be he Whence it plainly appears of what great moment it is to be assured of this ancient Truth of the Church that the fourth Kingdome in Daniel is the Roman Which made me therefore though I have competently well confuted Grotius or made good that the fourth Kingdome is the Roman in my Exposition itself yet for more full persuasion and impression of so concerning a truth upon the mind of the Reader to add this first part of my Appendage namely a particular Confutation of that opinion of Grotius Which being found so weak and impossible as I have demonstrated and this fable of the Romanists so foolish and ridiculous as well as that of Mahomet's being Antichrist or the little Horn even in Grotius his own judgment and in any ones else that has any sagacity or reason this very Effort of his recoyles with the greater strength against the Romanists to prove that the Pope is Antichrist he methinks thus plainly insinuating that if this conceit of his and Porphyrius his will not hold the Pope will be Antichrist and no mortal man knows how to help it Wherefore none ought to take amiss my diligence in making good this point Forasmuch as the fourth Kingdome in Daniel its being the Roman is a necessary foundation of the ancient Fathers interpreting the little Horn with eyes Dan. Ch. 7. the King of Pride Ch. 11. the Man of sin 2 Thess. 2. the ten-horned Beast and the two-horned Beast Apoc. Ch. 13. and the Beast arising out of the bottomless pit Ch. 17. of the times of Antichrist And if this foundation stand as it is most sure the Interpretation of the Fathers so far in general as that those Prophecies concern the times of Antichrist must stand also But now by undeniable demonstration in my Apocalypsis Apocalypseos and in my Synopsis Prophetica I have proved that those times which the ancient Fathers declare to be the times of Antichrist are in reality the times of the Papacy Whence it necessarily follows That the times of the Papacy if we stand to this verdict of the Fathers are the times of Antichrist and that it is not a piece of angry or reproachful language but a just and sober charge laid upon the Pope with his Hierarchy by the Reformed party that he is that very Antichrist which the ancient Christians in the very Apostles time so much dreaded that he would come Which Rumour and Fear most certainly was raised from the Prophecies of Daniel and more especially from that of the King of Pride which St. Paul
Dominion of a tyrannical Clergy over an affrighted and besotted Laity who are made to believe or at least out of fear to profess any thing that makes for the worldly Interest the Gain or Revering of the Priest for who without astonishment and affright can look upon such a Priest as professes himself and is believed to be a Creatour of his Creatour and by a few words to be able to change a piece of bread into the very person of Christ who is to be worshipped with Latria as being God Blessed for ever or it be those that have private phansies or freaks of their own and think never enough is done till Reformation come up to the measure of their conceit nor will suffer the Witnesses to rise or acknowledg them risen till things ascend to the pitch of that peculiar Idea which they have formed in their private imagination Whenas God be thanked things are in so good a frame for example in our English Church that nothing hinders but that a man may be a most perfect and accomplished Christian holding Communion with her The fruits of the Spirit are Love Joy Peace Longâ—…suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance Which of these fruits or priviledges of the Spirit I beseech you may you not injoy if it be not long of your self holding Communion with the Church of England And as for the works of the Flesh Adultery Fornication Uncleanness Lasciviousness Idolatry Witchraft Hatred Variance Emulation Wrath Strife Seditions Heresies Envyings Murders Drunkenness Revellings are these any of them any conditions of the Communion of the English Church as some of them are of the Church of Rome as particularly that of Idolatry to say nothing of Heresy of Murder and Bloud of which that Church stands so deeply guilty which yet she justifies herself in and they in a manner subscribe to it that joyn in Communion with her But as our Church engages none in the guilt of such detestable wickednesses so it apertly declares against all the rest of the vices of this black roll and has a pure and unexceptionable form of the worship of God devoid of all Idolatry and Superstition Whence those people that so slight and vilify the Reformation which Gods providence has brought to pass amongst us their Ingratitude is monstrous and horrid and I pray God it may be never laid to their charge They will be reforming the Reformed Churches in things indifferent why do they not reform themselves from their own vices and corruptions which are not indifferent they having so full and fair opportunity by the free enjoyment of the Gospel and no man requiring unlawful things of them as they were required in that deplorable condition under the Church of Rome Wherefore fourthly All Magistrates supreme and subordinate in Reformed Christendome being in truth the established Powers whether spiritual or temporal of the Kingdome of Christ in opposition to the Kingdome of Antichrist this ought to be a rousing motive I trow to all in the Reformed Churches to give due Reverence and Honour to them as the appointed Ministers of the Kingdome of Christ and be obedient in all things lawful to the powers both Ecclesiastical and Civil and make no Schisms in the Church much less behave themselves rudely and malapertly as the custome of some has been as if they forsooth were the only children of the Kingdome when nothing but fanatical pride or mistake or the perfidious suggestions of foreign Emissaries or the envy of Satan has driven them to such misdemeanours to slur and disgrace the Reformation as much as he can But it being thus apparent that the Reformed Magistrates are the Risen Witnesses ruling in the Kingdome of Christ in opposition to the Kingdome of Antichrist or Dominion of the Pope whom the Reformed Princes have justly cast off as it appears out of the fulfilling of the Vision not onely â—…hose of the Reformed Persuasion are to come in to the Church and leave their Schism but those also that yet continue Romanists it is not onely lawfull for them the Dominion of the Pope being thus by Divine sentence abrogated and made null in England and in the rest of the Reformed Countries but their indispensable duty to renounce their Communion with the Church of Rome and communicate here with our English Church as elsewhere with other Reformed Churches and so become both good Christians and good Subjects at once But for those of the Protestant Persuasion to divide and subdivide which is but to doe that which all the activity of the Emissâ—…ries of Antichrist is chiefly employed about surely is a strange fruit of the Spirit which yet the most factious amongst them most of all boast of If it be not the Spirit of Pride and Hypocrisie it is yet certainly the Spirit of Giddiness Imprudence and Indiscretion Fifthly The Impletion of this Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses in the Reformation justifies all the Reformed Princes in Christendome in their casting off the Pope from all shew of injustice or Heresy which the Papal party would charge them with and demonstrates a Right in all the rest of the Princes of Christendome to doe the like it being but the recovery by degrees of the Kingdome of Christ out of the hands of Antichrist and delivering themselves and their people like so many good Moses's from that salvage Idolatrous and impious Dominion and worse than Aegyptian servitude of that mystical Pharaoh the Pope of Rome who has so notoriously and prodigiously defiled Christendome with Idolatry and bloud Sixthly it being so manifest that the Kingdomes and Principalities recovered out of the hands of the Pope that signal Antichrist predicted by Daniel John and Paul are indeed the Kingdomes of the Lord and of his Christ and that the supreme and subordinate Magistrates both temporal and spiritual set over them are set over them as the Vicegerents and Ministers of Christ in opposition to the Kingdome of Antichrist the duty of all such is so to discharge their offices as remembring they must one day give an account to Christ how well they have defended or enlarged his Kingdome or protected his loyal subjects in it nor given any advantages to those of the Kingdome of Antichrist to incroach upon or get foot-hold against the faithful Subjects of Christs Kingdome But that any Magistrate spiritual or temporal should be so disloyal to Christ as to betray any part of Christs Kingdome into the hands of Antichrist that is a thing that none can think on without unspeakable astonishment and horrour Certainly they must have a deep Melancholy and darksome jealous mind that can so much as fansie it possible to come into any ones breast so to doe that remembers he is intrusted with such a charge from our Saviour Iesus Christ who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and has the keys of Hell and Death Which consideration touches also private persons in proportion as well as publick Magistrates as many
as leave the Reformed Communion to joyn themselves to the Church of Rome For how can they excuse themselves from treachery against the Kingdome of Christ by thus listing themselves amongst the slaves of Antichrist But it is no pleasure to me to insist on so Tragical a subject Seventhly and lastly There is this use also of our demonstration that the late Blessed Reformation is the fulfilling of the Prophecy of the Rising of the Witnesses in that it may free men from falsly conceived fears and hopes of the Witnesses being to be slain and their bodies to lye three years and an half dead and then presently to rise again and then that there will insue such glorious times as none can easily pre-conceive Which is founded upon as little ground or reason as that conceit of 6 was of being the year of the ruine of Rome a thing which I always declared against as having no ground on any Prophecy in Scripture But that London was burnt that year all know And whether this conceit was not furthered by some in order thereto to put a dodge upon the Protestants to weaken their Faith and to make the pretending to understand Prophecies in prejudice to the Popedome ridiculous let those that understand the Intrigues of the burning of the City better than I declare their opinion In the mean time since all may rest satisfied that the Rising of the Witnesses is past and consequently their being slain and lying dead three days and an half in the street of the great City that is called Sodom and Aegypt let every one discharge himself of that Panick fear as if it were a thing yet to come and of that Romantick hope if it were to be done that they would rise again within three years and an half that so they forsooth may wisely step aside under some convenient shelter till the fatal storm be blown over but let all that have any faith in or kindness for the Reformmed Religion with joynt Effort resist five rushing in of Popery by sincere repentance and hearty prayer to God that it may never re-enter this Nation again nor any Nation else that has been gained out of the hands of Antichrist and let us bewaile our unworthiness and unthankfulness to God that we have not sufficiently esteemed nor valued this wonderfull work of his that he has brought things to that pass he has in the late Blessed Reformation and be morigerous to the Magistrate as well Spiritual as Civil in all things indifferent and heartily love one another of whatever different persuasion we may be that has no Impiety nor Immorality in it and then God will love us all and be our mighty Deliverer and Protectour But if ye bite one another saith the Apostle take heed ye be not consumed one of another But of this I may have further occasion to speak in the giving my reasons why I added the third part of my appendage viz. My twenty Arguments for the proving the Vision of the seven Churches to be a Prophecy of the State of the Church from the beginning thereof to the end of the world For I think it of very good use and moment that we be assured of this truth for these two main reasons especially First that it appearing so plainly That the Church of Sardis stands for the Reformed Churches as they are called we may look our selves in that glass and see our spots and blemishes therein to amend them For that we are signified by that Church even they do acknowledg who otherwise differ something from me in the determining the Seven Intervals of these Churches but have declared as I find long before me that this Vision of the Seven Churches is a Prophecy of the State of the Church to the end of the World while they expresly deliver that the Sardian Period as they call it is the Period of the Reformed Churches commencing from Luther and Melancthon's time c. Thus Balthasar Willius a sober and learned German Doctor in his Commentary on the Prophet Zachary and indeed he is so well assured of the truth of the Vision of the Seven Churches being a Prophecy of the Church from the beginning thereof to the end of the world that he makes it the Basis of a special part of his Commentary borrowing his first light from his Master Ludovicus Crocius whom he calls clarissimum suo seculo Theologiae Astrum gives his suffrage touching the fifth Period of the Church in these words Quinta Periodus saith he est Sardensis à Reformatione coeptâ per Lutherum Melancthonem Zwinglium aliósque veritatis Doctores in hunc usque diem durans in qua puritas doctrinae Apostolicae morte operum proh dolor dedecoratur ii quibus lux Evangelii fulget limpidissima contentionibus odiis ac discordiâ colliduntur somno vitiorum ac luxuriae sepulti jacent Which is a free perstriction of the disorders observable in the Reformed Churches how they hold the truth of God in unrighteousness and I wish it were not as true as free But there be a few names God be thanked even in this Sardis which have not defiled their garments of whom Christ foretells that they shall walk with him in white for they are worthy But the rest may read their defects or corruptions in the Epistle itself Where Christ tells the Sardian Church that is the Reformed Churches that they have a name that they live because they have zeal and heat which seems to be a symptome of life but it is not for the true indispensable Christian life but for or against this opinion or that ceremony whenas they are cold at the heart to what is the onely life of a Christian Humility Purity and Charity To which they are either dead or in a profound sopor Whence Christ says to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul in the behalf of Christ in another place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Awake out of this deep sleep or lethargy and keep they self awake and strengthen the things that are ready to dye that is Faith in God and Christ and of a life to come For it is horrid to consider how far Atheism Vnbelief and Epicurisme has spread itself even amongst the Reformed Churches themselves these monsters having grown upon us as our zeal has relaxated against the Church of Rome For to such all Religions are alike if the worst be not the most eligible with them especially of the Clergy it serving best for the pride power and profit of a corrupt Priesthood But Christ bids them remember how they have received and heard from the ancient Prophets and Apostles and from the late Witnesses to the truth as by whom they were expresly informed that the Pope of Rome was the great Antichrist and his Church a Synagogue of Idolaters That the Popedome is Antichrists Kingdome and consequently for one to forsake the Reformed Religion and betake himself to the Church of Rome is
salute not the cloven toe but the hairy backside of the black Goat in a Nocturnal conventicle of Witches The Consciousness of which baseness and impiety of spirit to him that has any sense of Religion left in him one would think should be more affrightful to him than the menaces of the most cruel Tyrant or the very flames of Hell Wherefore there being so strong an Effort and tugg to debauch a Nation on this manner how can it be unseasonable by all honest means to endeavour to keep them sound that God be not dishonoured nor Religion slurred before the eyes of this Atheistical world by so foul an Apostasie Nor is there any thing of Immoderateness or Extravagancy in this my zeal for so good a cause For I herein offend neither the Law of God nor man And I doe but that duty I owe to my Prince Church and Country in defending the established Religion of the Land against all Opposers or Vnderminers of it and being what I defend is true I have the Apostles warrant if not command to be zealous in it who tells us It is good to be zealously affected always in a good matter It is not onely asserted by our Church but it is irrefutably proved by able writers of our Church that the Church of Rome is Idolatrous And the most horrid murders they have committed upon innocent souls hundred thousands of them because they would not commit Idolatry with their Church all Histories ring thereof Wherefore our Church in her Homilies does not stick to intimate this bloudy Idolatrous Church to be that Harlot in the Apocalypse upon the Seven Hills as also that the Pope of Rome is the Antichrist And Bishop Jewel in his Volume against Harding appointed by authority to be in every Church expounds the Man of sin 2 Thess. 2. whom all the Ancients understood of Antichrist of the Bishop of Rome making the Antichrist predicted there to be the Pope And indeed what Protestant writer before Grotius ever expounded that Prophecy of any other than the Pope But how absurd and ridiculous Grotius his Interpretation is I have abundantly shewn in my Synopsis Prophetica Now what extravagance is it in me who further confirm what our Church holds to say nothing of other Churches by a more perfect and accurate account of the Prophecies of St. John and Daniel Wherein I shew all those Prophecies that the Ancient Fathers interpreted of the times of Antichrist himself necessarily to belong to the Papal Hierarchy And for Antiochus Epiphanes whom they lookt upon as a Type of Antichrist I have further shewed how lively a Type he also is of the Pope So fitly do things agree and cohere all along in every place And verily I am so well assured of the truth of the Expositions I have exhibited of Daniel and St. John those parts especially that appertain to the deciding of those grand Controversies betwixt the Church of Rome and the Protestant Churches viz. whether that Church be Idolatrous and the Pope Antichrist that I dare in an humble confidence spread them in the sight of Heaven before God and his Holy Angels and the Blessed Spirits of the Saints departed and particularly St. John and Daniel the two inspired Pen-men of those Divine Visions which the special Providence of God has left to the comfort and direction of his Church and appeal unto them whether the Expositions be not true Not that I expect any miraculous voice from Heaven in attestation to the truth of the said Expositions but to signify thus to all the world with what sincerity and assurance I have written them Which I would have chiefly understood of the abovesaid Controversies and of my Applications of things past But as for what is to come that of the Poet may here take place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he is the best Hariolus that guesses well so he the best Interpreter of Divine Prophecies that gives a rational account whatever the Event may prove touching such passages of them as concern things yet future Which I speak in reference to my Expounding Dan. Ch. II. vers 45. of the taking of Rome by the Turk which I heartily wish the Papal Hierarchy may prevent by a timely repentance of their Idolatry and bloud But the like fears and jealousies of holy men in former time touching the Turks over-running the West for their Idolatry are expressed in our Churches Homily upon that subject to which I refer the Reader But as for the truth of my Expositions which reach the main points whether the Church of Rome be not that Babylon the great the mother of Harlots with the golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of Fornication the woman on the Seven Hills that is drunk with the bloud of the Saints and the bloud of the Martyrs of Iesus and whether the Pope be not the Antichrist and the Papal Hierarchy understood in all those Prophecies in John and Daniel which the Ancient Fathers and Primitive Writers understood of Antichrist whence it is manifest that the Pope with his Hierarchy is he these things I profess are as clear to me as any point in all Theology and Philosophy Geometry itself being not excepted But as for those that answer this our well-grounded confidence of the truth of our Expositions instead of endeavouring a solid confutation of them which they are conscious to themselves they can never perform and therefore have discreetly declined the taking notice of my Joynt-Exposition of the seventeenth and thirteenth Chapters of the Apocalypse in my Synopsis Prophetica published at least fifteen years agoe which alone would make good the conclusions aimed at of the Antichristianity and Idolatry of the Church of Rome for those I say which answer this well grounded confidence of mine with mocks and mowes with distorted drollery and course buffoonry I have no other Reply to give to them but that I heartily pity them and that I humbly conceive if there were any remainders of a mans heart left in them they would pity themselves could they but once consider what a few hairs breadths their souls are elevated above those of Monkeys or Baboons and would sadly sit down on their breech with their arms or rather forelegs if you will across and sigh deeply to the Maker and Former of all things that he would vouchsafe to transform them into the shape and state of men And I in the mean time it being something doubtfull how much the braying of their brutish nature may prevail shall desire all good people to pray for them But for those to whom is given a more sober and understanding heart and capable of the mysteries of God I hope by perusing the Expositions which I have written upon the Prophet Daniel and the Apocalypse they will not stick to acknowledge with our own Church and other Reformed Churches that the Popedome is the Kingdome of Antichrist and the Roman Church most foully and
loathsomly besmeared with Idolatry and bloud and that those that shut their eyes from seeing and their mouths from professing so plain a truth are but dough-baked Protestants and in great peril if occasion offer itself to be amassed and kned again into the old soure lump of Popery worse than the very Leaven of the Pharisees which Christ advised his Disciples to beware of Moreover That the Rising of the Witnesses was fulfilled in the late Blessed Reformation and that as the Popedome is the Kingdome of Antichrist so Reformed Christendome the Kingdome of Christ in opposition thereunto and a more visible emersion of the Fifth-Monarchy ever distinct from the four Monarchies so much guilty of Idolatry and bloud And that as the many Sects in the Primitive times more in number and more hainous in quality as you may see in Epiphanius than have appeared since the Reformation did not hinder but the Christian Church was then the real Kingdome of Christ no more do those Sects that appear in the Reformed Churches but are disallowed by them hinder at all but they are the true Kingdome of Christ also and rightfully oppose the Kingdome of Antichrist as the Primitive Christians did the Kingdome of the Dragon And that Reformed Christendome being in truth the Kingdome of Christ our inference therefrom is very sound that we ought from the very heart to give all Reverence and obedience in things indifferent to the Magistrates thereof a duty which is owing even to Pagan Magistrates from Christians much more one would think to Christian Magistrates from those that pretend to be Christians themselves This is a Truth so firm and sure that I have placed it amongst my eight Principles for the support and enlargement of the Kingdome of Christ in my Divine Dialogues in these express words The fifth Document or Instruction should be to all the Members of Christs Kingdome wherever their abode is that they do not suffer themselves to be stain'd with the least blemish or taint of Disloyalty to their lawful Sovereign upon any account whatsoever but especially upon a Religious one there being no greater disinterest to the true Religion than to appear to be promoted or maintained by so gross an Immorality as Disloyalty nor any greater advantage than through Faith and Patience to bear all tryals and hardships as the old Primitive Christians did whose eyes being lift up Heavenward and their feet wholly in that path by Providence stumbled on the Imperial Crown the Emperour at last becoming a professed Christian. Furthermore The Rising of the Witnesses and the Sardian Period commencing together That they of the Reformed Churches are bound in the fear of God with all attentiveness to read Christ's Epistle to the Church in Sardis and especially we of the Church of England and to impress those weighty words on our minds Remember how thou hast received and heard and hold fast and repent as of our carnal and sensual lives so of our wantonness and stipperiness in matters of Doctrine as those two great points attested by the Witnesses of Christ That the Popedome is the Kingdome of Antichrist and the Papal Hierarchy the mother of Spiritual fornication or Idolatry That we are to remember what we have heard and received and hold fast and repent us of either our coldness in or Apostasie from the profession of so grand concerning Truths as also of our Schismaticalness and Rebelliousness That we remember I say what we have received and may still read in that excellent Book of Homilies of our English Church touching these main points of the Pope being Antichrist the Papal Church Idolatrous and of that hainous wickedness of Rebellion against our lawful Sovereign and of mingling any Righteousnesses or Satisfactions and Penances of humane invention with our Justification and Remission of sins in the bloud of Christ. The profession of the Risen Witnesses in the Book of Homilies is so sincere savoury and genuinely Christian in this point without the least leaning towards Libertinism and Antinomianism that I do not doubt but this profession of the Reformed Churches is alluded to Apoc. 15. in the placing those Harpers that sing the Song of Moses and the Lamb upon the Sea of glass mingled with fire namely upon the shore of the Red Sea for what reason so called it matters not in which Pharaoh and his Host was overthrown as the Pope and his Pontifician Clergy defeated by the Witnesses professing That a true and living faith in the bloud of Christ which the Title of the Red Sea is a Symbol of for remission of sins does alone justify us before God Whereby they flung off a load of trumperies and tedious impositions of humane invention by which they were kept in a worse than Aegyptian servitude under the Pope and Pontifician Clergy And therefore the Reformed Churches are brought in in the above-cited place of the Apocalypse in imitation of the Israelites that had escaped the thraldome of Pharaoh singing a triumphal song on the shore as it were of the mystical Red Sea where the Roman Pharaoh and his tyrannical Hierarchy were overthrown and that wretched bondage which those true Israelites had been kept in for filthy lucre's sake and gain of the Church cast off utterly and quite escaped For all that sweet alluring power and genuine comfort from the Gospel and wonderfull efficacy to make men truly good they hid from the eyes of the people and whenas the very specifick nature and essence of the Christian Religion is a sincere and vehement Love of our Saviours person and peaceful repose of our Souls in his Passion and Merits we in the mean time acting sincerely as our Homilies require in this Covenant of grace this high honour and affection we bear to Christ this repose and peace of mind we have in the merits of his most precious bloud and passion those supplies by his promised Spirit of illumination comfort and direction all this is so miserably and perfidiously squander'd away or sold if you will for the gain of the Church by multiplying of false Patrons and the vain worshippings of Saints and their images by making men to depend on the Infallibility of the Pope and his Priests and by stifling all hopes of illumination and direction from the blessed Spirit of Christ that the members of that Church are made not onely so many slaves bereft of their Christian liberty and enjoyment of the love of Christ that procured it but so many senseless stocks or stones as to Divine matters and are taught to transfer all that recumbency that every true Christian has on the person of our faithful High Priest upon the persons of these unskilful and which is worse unfaithful Tamperers with the Souls of men Whose Salvation consisting in a lively faith and sincere love honour and dependance on the person of our Blessed Saviour and doing the things that He commands these deceitful Emissaries of Rome O Detestable Treachery carry on such a Religion or
rather Superstition as whose very nature is to abuse that Religious inclination in humane Souls by making them swattle away their love and zeal upon false objects and to spend their obedience on the vain inventions of men by making them rely on the falsly supposed merits of Saints and to depend upon the person and Trumperies of an ignorant or deceitful Priest instead of having their sure repose in the richness of the mercy of God through Christ Iesus our Lord. To whom if we be immediately united by faith and love and shew our love by endeavouring sincerely to our power to keep His commandments this is the plain and compendious way to salvation All other Interposals of humane invention are but distractions and obstacles thereto and wicked elusions of the power and comfort of the Gospel of our Lord Iesus This seems to be the sound and savoury sense of the Homilies of the Church of England and that in opposition to that Aegyptian servitude and vile bondage that Gods people were held in under the Church of Rome And certainly it must have been a most loathsome slavery and a sight intolerable to as many as whose eyes God had opened to see the whole scope of the Gospel thus â—…luded for filthy lucre's sake by the wretched inventâ—â—ns of men besides the sordidness and foulness of 〈◊〉 intermingled therewith Which made the sâ—…ate of that Church intolerable to as many as God had visited with his saving grace and had made to understand this mystery of Iniquity by the illumination of his holy Spirit insomuch that it was more tolerable to them to quit this world and life itself than to comply with such horrid Impieties How can we then whom God long since has delivered out of this vile bondage and have sung that Triumphal Song of Moses and the Lamb return again into Sodom and Aegypt How can we desert a Religion to the Witnesses whereof God has given so ample a witness in that blessed and Apostolick Reformation in raising them from the dead after three days and an half according to prediction and calling them up into the Political Heavens and setting them to rule in high places How can we return like a dog to his vomit to a vomit cast out and lying so long time cold and sour in the dirt and mire a vomit cast out as nauseous to all that is sound or sacred in the faculties of a man Nauseous to the outward senses and inward senses Nauseous to common Reason Nauseous to the principles of Logick and all sound Philosophy so nauseous to all these was that figment of Transubstantiation forged for the gain and honour of the Priesthood but quite repugnant to all the abovesaid faculties of man and nauseous to all common honesty and modesty to obtrude such an impossible fiction upon deluded people and to make them profess it whether they will or no for fear of being cruelly and barbarously murdered which must be exceeding nauseous to all such as have but the least sense of Iustice or humanity remaining in them How shall we again incorporate with that Church whom the Spirit of God has so plainly as well as the Homilies of our Church of England declared to be the Whore of Babylon May we take the Members of Christ and make them the members of an Harlot How shall we forsake the Kingdome of Christ and make our selves subjects of the Popedome which out of St. John and the Prophet Daniel to say nothing of St. Paul three sufficient Witnesses I trow to put an end to this controversy is most evident to be the Kingdome of Antichrist If treason and rebellion against an earthly Prince be so hainous a crime as most certainly it is what a crime is rebellion and treason against him who is assuredly King of Kings and Lord of Lords even the Lord Christ Iesus And lastly How can we turn our backs of a Religion unless we will wilfully run into eternal perdition that has all the assurance of truth against that of the Church of Rome that the heart of man can wish or his curiosity require Is the vote of Primitive antiquity of any value that stands for us the Church for the first four hundred years being the very platform of our Reformation Has Sense common Reason the Rudiments of Logick the sound Principles of Philosophy any weight with them all these assuredly witness for us against the impossible figments and fond forgeries of the Church of Rome Has Morality and indispensable Principles of common Honesty which the pretence of no Religion ought in any wise to deface Has the eternal law of God and Nature implanted in our hearts any right to be appealed to we right willingly appeal to it how innocent the Form of our Religion is as to this and how foul and obnoxious will be found the Principles of the Papacy And finally has the attestation of Scripture and bloud of Martyrs some hundred thousands of innocent and holy Souls burnt and massacred by these Antichristian Persecutors have such serious Testimonies any force with them then have we even a cloud of Witnesses in the behalf of the Truth of our Reformed Religion against the impious corruptions of the Church of Rome The plain places of Scripture expresly condemn the worship of Images the praying in an unknown tongue the communicating but in one kind and the like And the Prophecies do not onely declare the Church of Rome to be the Whore of Babylon and the Pope Antichrist but those that professed the faith of the Reformed Churches to be the Witnesses to be the Martyrs of Iesus and the Saints of the most High Such a Seal is there set to the truth of the profession of the Reformed Religion against the enormous corruptions of Popery even by the bloud of infinite numbers of the serious and faithful servants of our Lord Christ that I may not say even by the bloud of Christ himself Who gave himself and shed his most precious bloud on the cross for his Church that he might sanctify it and cleanse it as with the washing of water by the word of God and the Pope keeps the word of God from the knowledge of the people that they may wallow in the black mire of ignorance and the filth of Idolatry for the gain of Holy Church Christ the true Bridegroom gave himself for his Church that he might present it to himself a glorious Church most illustriously shining forth in the fruits of the Spirit and the works of real Righteousness declared in the Gospel But the Pope blasphemously arrogating that Title of Sponsus Ecclesiae to himself has debauched the Church not presenting it a glorious Church to Christ her true Husband but in a whorish pompous dress contrary to the Christian mans very promise in Baptism to forsake the pomps and vanities of this wicked world presents it to himself a garisâ—… gorgeous Idolatrous Church for the satisfaction of his own pride and lust And whenas
Christ the true Husband gave himself for the Church that she might have neither spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing but be holy and without blemish the whole body of the Religion of the Roman Church so far forth as it differs from the Ioynt Profession of the Reformed Churches is nothing but an overspread leprosie of grosly false Doctrines and of foully Superstitious and Idolatrous Practices besides being smeared over and over again with the bloud of the innocent and carrying on a perpetual design and trade of eluding all the force of true Religion and piety by a multitude of humane inventions and breaking off our comfortable recumbence and dependence upon the lovely person of our Lord Iesus our faithful Saviour and Redeemer to depend upon the person of some ignorant or deceitful Wight that bewilders a deluded Soul with a world of false devices and trumperies giving her no solid rest after she has once strayed from the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ and fallen into the hands of these deceivers who are sealed and occrustated in the trade of their impieties by a false and boastful pretence of their Churches Infallibility and under the colour thereof declaring the true and faithful servants of Christ Hereticks they thereby snatch all occasions to drink and swill and make themselves drunk with the bloud of the Saints of the most High From whence it is plain that the Roman Church is an estranged Synagogue which is no Spouse of Christ but the Spouse of the Pope as he boastfully pretends to be her Husband So contrary does this Successour of St. Peter to the example of St. Paul who espoused the Church of Corinth as a chast virgin not to himself but to Christ but the Pope the Church of Rome not to Christ but to himself and not a chast virgin but all to be polluted with the filth of Idolatry which is Spiritual fornication But Reformed Christendome is the Spouse of Christ as acknowledging no Husband but him and depending immediately upon him by faith in his bloud alone and sincere obedience to his commands and not to the vain injunctions and inventions of men for her justification and salvation And for such a Church his own chast Spouse has Christ given himself and poured forth his most precious bloud and not for those that have espoused themselves to another Husband Which is also a sound Witness and may go for a most firm and authentick Seal to the saving Truth of our Reformed Religion These things I have taken the boldness to speak with all freedome out of sincere love and faithfulness to the Souls of men of what communion soever that those that are already deluded may be undeceived and they that are yet of our Communion may never so deeply sin against their own souls as to depart from it and so dislodging themselves out of the bosome of Christ run into the arms of that man of sin and son of perdition the declared Antichrist according to the testimony of the Holy Scriptures and more especially of those Divine Visions of the Prophet Daniel which I have with so faithful care and diligence expounded for mens fuller satisfaction and instruction that they may return into or if they be there already continue and persist in the way of Truth and of everlasting Salvation A Plain and Continued EXPOSITION Of the several Prophecies or Divine Uisions OF THE Prophet Daniel VISION I. The Vision of the Image of the Four Metals signifying the Four Empires Babylonian Medo-Persian Greek and Roman seen first by Nebuchadnezzar and after revealed to Daniel Dan. 2. IN the second Year of his Reign which is now about 2300 Years ago did Nebuchadnezzar being sollicitous concerning the Fate of his own Empire and what would be afterwards his thoughts coming into his mind upon his Bed as it is said Ver. 29. fall into a Dream which much affected him when he was in it and therefore was earnestly desirous to recall it into his mind again but not being able he sent for his Magicians Astrologers Sorcerers and Chaldeans to try if they could divine what this Dream was For the thing was gone from him neither could he recover it into his mind But if they could have declared unto him what it was he could then have very-well remembred he had dream'd it Which forgetfulness of Nebuchadnezzar in not retaining the Dream in his mind as well as the Impression of the Dream it self is no small Argument of the Providence of God over his Church and People for whose sake these things happened viz. That Nebuchadnezzar should dream this Dream that concerned the Church of God infinitely more than himself and that he should forget it to the baffling of all his Magicians Sorcerers and Chaldeans and that Daniel a Jewish Youth and one of the people of God should by Divine Revelation have the honour of declaring the King's Dream unto him so that the King could not but acknowledge that this was the Dream By which alone it was manifest that the Spirit of the Holy God was in him And the Dream it concerning the people of God more than Nebuchadnezzar himself whether Jews or Christians there was this singular good effect thereof that they could not but be more certainly assured that it was a truly Divine Dream neither feigned by Nebuchadnezzar nor by Daniel but communicated to both by God either immediately or by the ministry of his Holy Angels And that therefore Daâ—…iel having this privilege of declaring Nebuchadnezzar's Dream had also the same supernatural privilege of rightly interpreting thereof The Declaration and Interpretation whereof is as follows which we shall expound as briefly and as clearly as we may where there is need beginning at the 31 Verse For it will be admirable to observe how the Preâ—…iguration of things in this Prophetical Dream reaches from Nebuchadnezzar's time not to our days only but even to the pouring forth of the seventh Vial whereupon all the Kingdoms of the World will become the Kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ. 31. Thou O King when thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy Bed and thou didst fall into that Dream sawest and behold a great Image or great Statue of a Colossean bigness it comprehending in its extent no less than the succession of Four Famous Empires This great Image whose brightness was excellent it representing the Splendour and Glory of those Empires it did prefigure stood before thee And the form thereof was terrible setting out thereby the great Fear and Awe these Empires viz. the Supreme Powers therein and their Ministers cast the World into by their severity violence and cruelty For which cause in another Vision they are resembled to wild Beasts for their rage and bloud-thirstiness as the true Church of God has too often found them 32. This Image's head was of fine Gold There being a Succession of Four Empires here to be prefigured by Four kind of Metals the order of dignity or pretiosity
in the Metals is made use of to set out the order of time in the succession of the Empires And therefore because Gold is first in esteem amongst Metals therefore the Golden part of the Image the Head both because it is the Head and of Gold denotes the first Empire the Church of God or People of the Jews were concerned in viz. The Babylonian under whom they were then Captive But as for the Ten Tribes they were carried away into perpetual Captivity by Salmanasser King of Assyria long before never to be heard of again at least during the time of these Four Empires here prefigured But the Jews properly so called were concerned first under the Babylonian Empire then under the Medo-Persian decrees being given out first by Cyrus then Artaxerxes in their behalf though Cambyses was unkind to them And under the great Xerxes by reason of his Queen Esther a Jew they had a signal deliverance from their bloudy Enemy Haman And how they were concerned during the Greek Empire especially under Antiochus Epiphanes and much more under the Roman is so notorious that it is enough only to name it Which reasons may suffice why no more Kingdoms or Empires and why these especially Babylonian Medo-Persian Greek and Roman are comprised in this Image The first whereof was signified by the Image's Head of fine Gold as Daniel himself will anon interpret His Breast and his Arms of Silver The Arm is properly that part of the Body which reaches from the Shoulder to the Wrist and so excludes the hand of which there is here no mention though there be mention of feet adjoyned to the Legs Which is not fortuitous but designed For this Breast with its Arms of Silver denotes the Medo-Persian Empire which consisting of Two People the Medes and Persians they are fitly represented by these Two Arms but with no mention of Hands of which the Ten Fingers would be the Natural parts because there was no division of the Medo-Persian Empire into Ten Kingdoms as there was of the Roman His Belly and his Thighs of Brass By this Belly and the Two Thighs of Brass is understood the Greek Empire which was One in Alexander but after his death divided more notably and durably into the Two Kingdoms of the Lagidae and Seleucidae For at first there was a Quadripartition of his Empire but that not lasting so long or all parts of it being not so famous or the Iews not so much concerned in them this general Prefiguration of the succession of the Four Empires takes notice only of what is most remarkable as those Two were 33. His Legs of Iron Here begins the Roman Empire suppose upon Aemylius Paulus the Roman Consul his vanquishing of Perseus the last King of Macedonia From which time the Roman Empire in the Prophetical account may rationally seem to commence the Greek or Macedonick Empire properly so called being then put an end to though other parts still remained And here the Roman Empire may very well be represented by the Two Legs that State for many Hundred years being most-what supported by the Supreme Power of their Two Consuls And so this Character may be alluded to by the Two Legs to understand what People is meant though the succession of the Empire commence no higher than from the vanquishing Perseus King of Macedonia by Aemylius the Consul Which Consular Power continued above an Hundred years after and the Name much longer So fit an Emblem are these Two Legs of Iron of the People of Rome and their Empire His Féet part of Iron and part of Clay Which Feet imply the Ten Toes which are parts of the Feet and therefore represent the Roman Empire divided into Ten Kingdoms Which Ten Kingdoms are also prefigured by the Ten Horns of the Fourth Beast Chap. 7. The division of which Roman Empire into Ten Kingdoms happening since the Empire became Christian we may better thence understand what is meant by the Feet being partly of Iron and partly of Clay namely That in that time of the Roman Empire it was become partly Ecclesiastical and partly Secular by the Iron as before understanding the Secular Power by the Clay the Ecclesiastical Which Clay or Earth here in Daniel seems to be alluded to Apoc. 12. 16. where the Earth is said to help the Woman namely an OEcumenical Council by opening its mouth and swallowing down the floud of Contention which the Arians especially had raised by their condemning that Heresie as if a Clayie ground should cleave with a wide scissure and swallow down a sudden Torrent or Land-floud 34. Thou sawest till a Stone was cut out without hanâ—â— that is Besides this Image and the Four distinct Metalline parts thereof thou sawest moreover a Stone cut out without hands no man with Axe or Gavelock dissevering it Which Stone is Christ and his true Church himself being born in a supernatural way by the over-shadowing of the Holy Ghost and his Church being raised and propagated in a supernatural way by the assistance also of the Holy Spirit by real Miracles by unfeigned Sanctity and by invincible Patience and Suffering for the Truth Wherefore the true Christian Church Head with the Members this is that Stone cut out without hand which smote the Image upon his Féet which were of Iron and Clay and brake them in pieces This true Apostolick Church which appeared with Christ and his Apostles and so on in the pure Primitive times will at last strike the Image upon his Feet namely under the Seventh Vial or at that War of the Rider on the White Horse Wherein the Beast and the False Prophet the remainder of the Iron and degenerate Clay are cast into a Lake of Fire burning with Brimstone Apoc. 19. 21. 35. Then was the Iron the Clay the Brass the Silver and the Gold broken to pieces together and became like the Chaff of the Summer threshing-â—â—oor and the Wind carried them away that no place was found for them This plainly answers to the casting the Beast and the False Prophet into the Lake of Fire burning with Brimstone Both places signifie the utter abolishing all the Idolatrous Tyranny remaining in the Roman Empire at that time whether in the Secular or Ecclesiastical Powers But that then the Clay Brass Silver and Gold are said to be broken to pieces together that is only an embellishing of the external Cortex of the Vision The succession of these Four Empires being exhibited at once they are made also to fall to dust at once together Besides that the succeeding Empire most-what occupying the Possession and Territories of the Antecedent that which vanquisheth the last may in some sense be thought to vanquish them all at a clap or to possess what any of them had Which will be immediately made good in the next words And the Stone that smote the Image 〈◊〉 a great â—…ountain and filled the whole Earth that is The true Apostolick Church purged from all Superstitious Idolatrous
Saints of the most High that is The Sentence was pronounced on their side God so generally convincing the World of the truth of their cause And the time came that the Saints possessed the Kingdom namely After the evidence of the truth of their Cause was so well known to the World 23. Thus he said The Fourth Beast shall be the Fourth Kingdom upon Earth namely the Roman State or Empire Which shall be divers from all Kingdoms as having a Political constitution different from them as has been noted above The vulgar Latin the Septuagint and Vatablus as also Gasper Sanctius read Which shall be greater than all Kingdoms namely than those Three before named Which therefore cannot be the Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae as Grotius would have it if that reading obtain And it has the start of the other for Antiquity And shall devour the whole Earth and shall tread it down and break it in pieces Which sutes best of all with the sense of Vatablus the vulgar Latin and the Septuagint For the greatest Kingdom was the most able to do this 24. And the Ten Horns out of this Kingdom are the Ten Kings that shall arise The Roman Empire Ver. 7. is described under one Interval of its period to have Ten Horns so that it is the same Ten-horned Beast that occurs in the Apocalypse And Ver. 8. it is said that there came up among them another little Horn which naturally implies that it came up much about the same time with them though in what here follows it is said And another shall arise after them Which is no contradiction to the former supposing in order he came up last so be it was not any considerable time after or be understood of his more sensible growth or palpable appearance though the Hebrew word implies no necessity of signifying any posteriority of time but that he might spring up with them and amongst them but in such an occult manner and so unawares as if he had stoln his growth behind them For so the Septuagint render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the word in the Original will bear that sense very well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying order of place as well as of time accordingly as the Septuagint have translated it But the time of the Ten-horned healed Beast being the time of the Apostasie of the Church and he being actually Ten-horned and healed at the same time For the crowned Ten Horns which shew their actual Reign appear only on the healed Beast's head as I have noted in my Exposition of the Apocalypse and the little Horn being said to arise among them or with them though the other Horns were not aware of him as having no Eyes though the little Horn have the Eyes of a man of a cunning perspicacious Politician it is manifest that the growth of the little Horn began with the Apostasie of the Church and so the little Horn may well be suspected of helping it on being most concerned in matters of Religion to manage them well or ill as being that Sacerdotal Polity or Hierarchy as is intimated in what follows And he shall be divers from the First namely from the other Ten Horns they being Laick or Civil this Ecclesiastick or Spiritual for such was the Papal Power And under pretence of this Ecclesiastick Power he shall subdue Thrée Kings The Three Kings which he is said to humble subdue or supplant are as I have hinted above those Three whose Dominions extended into Italy as that of the Greek Emperour Leo Isaurus whom he excommunicated and made his Subjects of Italy revolt from their Allegiance because he was against Image-worâ—…hip The other supplanting or subduing is of the Longobards whose Kingdom he caused by aid of the Franks to be wholly ruined thereby to get the Exarchate of Ravenna which since the revolt from the Greeks the Longobards were seized on for a Patrimony to S. Peter And the last of the Three which he humbled were the Emperours of Germany whom from the days of Henry the Fourth he excommunicated deposed and trampled under his Feet and never suffered to live in rest till he had made them quit their interest in election of Popes and Investitures of Bishops and what-ever remainder of Jurisdiction they had in Italy See Mr. Mede Epist. 24. Thus did this Horn with Eyes whose look was more stout than his Fellows 25. And he namely the little Horn shall speak great 〈◊〉 against the most High It is rightly translated great words because that Phrase touching the little Horn has been used so oft already Ver. 8. 11. 20. Where either great things or great words occur and there cannot be a more fit and authentick commentary on these passages than that in the Apocalypse Ch. 13. v. 5 6. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies where great things are expounded by blasphemies And in the following Verse he shews how these blasphemies are against God the most High many examples whereof I have given above upon Verse 8. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his Name his authority and titles and his tabernacle and them that dwell in Heaven The Ten-horned Beast is said here to reproach them by allowing authorizing and inforcing against the decrees and authority of God which is also a blaspheming of his Name those blasphemous decrees of the Two horned Beast which is the same with the little Horn they being both the Papal Polity or Hierarchy the Ecclesiastick Authority not the Laick or Secular for Image-worship for Saint-worship and worship of Angels and for Transubstantiation which is a reproach to the Tabernacle of God the body of Christ see the place in my Exposition of the Apocalypse It is sufficient here to note how well the deeds of the little Horn sute with those of the Ten-horned Healed Beast who is but the Abettor and Executioner of what the Two-horned Beast would have And therefore when it is said the little Horn here speaks great words against the most High it is all one as if it were said of the Ten-horned Beast in the Apocalypse nor is it any repugnancy to understand it of them both For this which is said of the Ten-horned Beast is to be lookt upon as the meer Echo of the Draconick voice of the Beast with Two Horns So agreeable in every point is Daniel with the Apocalypse And shall 〈◊〉 out the Saints of the most High By Imprisonments Confiscation of Goods by Burnings Croysades and Massacres upon which this little Horn will put the Ten Horns as his occasions require as is also noted Apoc. Ch. 13. v. 7. and in this Chapter of Daniel ver 21. And think to change times and lawâ—… To alter the Primitive simplicity of the Christian Religion into a Constitution that best serves the Interest of his Papal Kingdom and the increasing the Revenues and the Power of Holy Church as they
call it All Superstitions never so Idolatrous All Doctrines never so monstrous shall pass into a Law and Decree if they serve this end For the Papal Omnipotency has a power to make what Laws and Institutes he pleases all Edicts and Decrees lodge in the Cabinet of his own Breast Whence he may produce what he pleases if you will believe his Canonists And they shall be given into his hand for a time and times and the dividing of a time or half a time i.e. And they shall be established authorized and inforced by the Secular Power of the Ten hornâ—…d Beast as was observed above To whom Apoc. 13. 5. power was given to continue Forty and two months which is just the same time with Daniel's Time and Times and half a Time in the literal sense each of the Sums amounting to Three years and a half a piece or 1260 days But in the Prophetical style they signifie so many years And that they are Prophetical â—â—ys not vulgar I have invincibly proved in my 〈◊〉 Prophetica Book 2. Ch. 5. See also my Mystery of Godliness Book 5. Ch. 15. Wherefore it is highly rational to conceive the times of the little Horn to synchronize with all the middle Synchronals of the Apâ—…calypse So that we may know plainly where we are 26. But the â—…udgment shall sit namely To judge the little Horn or Papal Hierarchy which is the Two-horned Beast in the Apocalypse or the Whore of Babylon To this alludes that saying of the Angel Apoc. 17. And there came one of the Seven Angels which had the Seven Vials and talked with me saying unto me I will shew unto thee the Iudgment of the great Whâ—…re that sitteth upon many waters with whom the Kings of the Earth have committed fornication And part of this judgment is menaced against her in the Epistle to the Church in Thyatira Apoc. 2. 20. under the name of Iezebel who calleth her self a Prophetess but seduces Christ's Servants to commit Fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto Idols Which Prophetess so called by her self is the Papal Hierarchy who boast themselves infallible but judgment is menaced against them Ver. 22. Behold I will cast her into a Bed and them that commit Adultery with her into great tribulation if they do not repent of their deeds Which Judgment fell upon her in the happy Reformation when so many Kingdoms and Countries deserted the Pope And likewise in the Song of the risen Witnesses Ch. 15. v. 4. Who shall not fear thee O Lord and glorifie thy Name for thou only art Holy for all Nations shall come and worship before thee For thy Iudgments are made manifest And this is the former part of the execution of the Sentence against the little Horn or great Whore But the Execution goes on in the Seven Vials And they shall take away his Dominion to consume and destroy it unto the end that is By that time all the Vials be poured out upon the Two-horned Beast the little Horn with Eyes or the False Prophet his Dominion shall be quite destroyed and consumed which is the Second part of the Doom of the little Horn and will be compleated under the seventh Vial with which the Vision of that Divine Heros on the white Horse with a Sword coming out of his mouth doth contemporize Which Sword out of his mouth answers to the fiery stream out of the mouth of the Ancient of Days and both to that of S. Paul 2 Thess. 2. where he says that the Lord shall consume the Man of Sin by the Spirit of his mouth and destroy him with the brightness of his coming as I have noted above Now as the little Horn is doomed to destruction from whence the man of Sin is called the Son of perdition 2 Thess. 2. by this Divine Consistory which is one part of their Act in this Session so that ample and everlasting Kingdom that succeeds the destruction of the little Horn is adjudged to the truly Apostolick Catholick Church of whom Christ alone is Head Which is the other part of the Act of this Session and which alone is taken notice of Apoc. 20. 4. the other part having been taken notice of Ch. 17. and 18. 27. And the Kingdom and Dominion and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole Heaven shall be given to the people of the Saints of the most High This is that other part of the Sentence pronounced by that Divine Sanhedrim in the behalf of the true Church that had been afflicted and oppressed so long under the Tyranny of the little Horn. The true Church then consisting of Iew and Gentile will overspread all This is to be accomplished under the second and third Thunders And I think no body can doubt but that the people of the Saints of the most High are the truly Catholick and Apostolick Church if he consider the description of the New Ierusalem in the Apocalypse And the most High is Christ who there is termed King of Kings and Lord of Lords and the Messias will be acknowledged in those days to be such both by Iew and Gentile This answers to that of Apoc. 20. 4. And I saw Thrones and they sate upon them and Iudgment was given unto them and the result was They that had not worshipped the Beast neither his Image c. they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years acknowledging him the only universal Head of the Church This will be the truly Holy Catholick Church of Christ as they are here called the people of the Saints of the most High Whos 's Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom not to end upon Earth till the last Thunder or Conflagration according to the tenour of the Apocalypse And all Dominions shall serve and obey him All Nations and Kingdoms shall willingly submit themselves to and injoy themselves in this mightily extended and overspreading Kingdom of the Son of man which the Ancient of Days had assigned to him Which well may be called the Kingdom of the Son of man in counterdistinction to those other Four Kingdoms that are set out by â—…ruel ravening Beasts â—…earing and trampling all under their Feet and forcing men to blind obedience with salvage violence as was usual in the Kingdom of Antichrist or little Horn with Eyes that would let no body see but himself Whenas the true Church of Kingdom of the Son of man as the Four Beasts or rather Wights in the Apocalypse are all full of Eyes within and without And certainly the Kingdom of the Son of man will be a Kingdom of unaffected Prudence defecate Reason and holy Love For this is the true Man the rest in us is but common to us with the brutes And therefore of such shall consist the Kingdom of Christ the Son of man as he perpetually calls himself after the abolition of the Kingdom of Antichrist 28. Hitherto is the end of the matter namely the matter the Angel communicated to him by way of Interpretation
the Passion of Christ according to Funccius and others But our Country-man Thomas Lydiat has adjusted the Chronology of Times so that from this Epocha of the Twentieth of Artaxerxes the Passion will fall in the middle of the last Week which is exquisitely according to the prediction of the Prophecy as we shall hear anon Unto Messiah the Prince that is Unto the manifestation of that Person that is so well known and so much expected by the Iews under the name of their Messiah the word never being used absolutely but concerning him To the initiation therefore of him into his Ministry he being first baptized by Iohn and so shewing himself after in preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom and doing Miracles for the confirmation thereof in the sight of all the people To this manifestation of the Messiah Shall be seven Wéeks and threescore and two Wéeks that is Sixty nine Weeks there being no mystery in the paâ—…ting of these Numbers saving an Hebrew Idiom to be understood from Ezekiel Ch. 45. v. 12. and Gen. 5. often in that Chapter as also Ch. 8. v. 3. as Grotius comments upon the place In the last day of the Sixty ninth Week that is in the Four hundred eighty third year from the Twentieth of Artaxerxes Longimanus did Iesus the Messiah manifest himself according to Thomas Lydiat's Chronology whom I conceive to have hit the nail on the head in this business The stréet shall be built again and the wall This seems to be added on purpose to give light to Interpreters that the Decree here mentioned from whence the Weeks do commence is the Decree granted in the Twentieth year of Artaxerxes because that was expresly for the City and the Wall the other Three that preceeded for the Temple The sense is That not only the Area of Ierusalem shall again be replenished with Houses but the Wall shall also be built again Even in troublesome times As it appears out of Nehemiah Ch. 4. For the Builders were fain to have their Swords in readiness as well as their Trowels 26. And after thréescore and two Wéeks shall Messiah be cut off namely After the Sixty two Weeks which succeed immediately the Seven Weeks that is to say after Sixty nine Weeks shall Messiah be cut off viz. The above-named Messiah the Prince For that must needs be the natural meaning thereof and as I said before Messiah is never put thus absolutely but here whence doubtlesly the Iews gave him whom they expected for their Redeemer the name of Messiah And now for cut off if it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Original it might signifie transfixus or affixus as Funccius would have it but it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to cut off not only from life but as Mr. Mede says from reigning as a King And in respect of the Iews he was cut off in both these senses For he was the Messias their Prince whom his own people rejected and cut off from life and thereby from themselves that they should be no more his people nor he their King But not for himself The Hebrew is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and most easily and naturally is translated And they shall be none of his viz. They that cut him off or crucified him the People of the Iews shall no longer be his People This sense generally Interpreters run upon and it is most congruous and coherent The Messiah shall be cut off by the hands of the people of the Iews and that 〈…〉 none of his And the people of the 〈…〉 shall come i.e. But the people designed 〈…〉 people of Messiah the Prince hereafter For 〈…〉 â—…ede interprets the place excellently well in 〈…〉 rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Populus 〈…〉 understanding thereby the Romans in 〈◊〉 Empire Christ was chiefly to have his Church 〈◊〉 Kingdom And it is most natural that as Messiah before was the same with Messiah the Prince so the Prince here should be the same with the Messiah the sense not only fitting exceeding well but being more closely knit and compact Shall destroy the City and the Sanctuary For this hainous Parricidium of the Iews namely for their murthering of their Messiah the Prince shall the Romans destroy their City and their Sanctuary which was effected by Titus the Son of Vespasian And the end thereof shall be with a 〈◊〉 that is After the destruction of the City the Roman Army shall overflow Iudea And to the end of the war desolations are determined 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Grotius here interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for not to and renders it Pro fine belli erit definita desolatio Deus hunc exitum bello isti praefinivit terrae vastitatem God has determined that issue of the War the devastation of the Land 27. Aâ—…d he shall confirm the Covenant with many for one Wéek Mr. Mede renders it Nevertheless he shall For indeed the conjunction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has the force in a manner of any conjunction and may be rendred according as the sense directeth And the most genuine sense seems that which Mr. Mede has given That though Israel was cast off yet a Remnant according to the election of Grace should be won off to Christ by the preaching of the Gospel of his Kingdom which should be done before and after his Passion by himself and his Apostles This is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or New Covenant which adorns the very Title page of the New Testament And the Seventy turn it in this place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He shall confirm the Covenant that is The Covenant of the Gospel See Funccius on the place And that with many i.e. with several For so the word signifies frequently though it be true also that many of the Iews were converted and entred the Covenant within the space of this one Week which is the Seventieth or last Week some being converted before Christ's Passion others afterwards But the main Body of the Iews remained obstinate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and were none of his pleople And in the midâ—â— of the Wéek he shall cause the sâ—…crâ—…fice and oblation to cease This implies the death of the Mâ—…ssiah as well as that in the foregoing Verse And after Threescore and two Weeks the Messiah shall be cut off but the time there is less definitive So be it be but afâ—…er the Threescore and second Week or rather the Sixty ninth and before the Seventieth expire that part of the Prophecy as to time would be fulfilled if there were no more accurate determination intimated as there seems to be here and that he is to be cut off in the midst of the last Week suppose in the fourth year thereof Whis is the scope that Thomas Lydiat has aimed at and as I conceive hit the mark Which makes me now less adhering to that laxe sense of in the midst which I set down in my Mystery of Godliness on this Verse Wherefore about the fourth year
reason that this Angel that delivers to Daniel this Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth is the same with Palmoni whom Calvin with judgment concludes to be Christ. Whence therefore the Angel that delivers this book of the fate of the Church of God and of Kingdoms in reference thereto which is the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth must also be Christ. Which agrees admirably with that in the Apocalypse Ch. 5. That it was onely the Lion of the Tribe of Iudah that is Christ that had the priviledg of opening the Seven-sealed Book and of looking thereon Which privilege of so wonderfull comprehensive Prophecy he obtained upon the account of his foreseen obedience even to the death of the Cross and his actual undergoing thereof at the time appointed And again that this privilege may be solely reserved to him that Angel also Apoc. Ch. 10. in my Apocalypsis Apocalypseos I have plainly shewn to be Christ who delivers the Little book to Iohn to swallow down Which haply amongst other reasons may be called little in that comparing the Epocha thereof with this of the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth which begins with the Reign of Cambyses but that first in the Reign of Tiberius it will be found to take in less time than that by five or six hundred years But in this do they agree both the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth and the Prophecy of the Sealed Book and Opened Book that these latter Prophecies run through no other times than those of the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth though they run not through all of them they beginning later by betwixt five and six hundred years but they both reach to the end of all things or general Resurrection and declare the same things of the same times and are the Prophecies of the same great Prophet even of Jesus Christ the Son of God as I have made manifest to the taking away of all Cavils and derogation to our Blessed Saviour as if he put but in his sickle in messem alienam into another mans Harvest and had told by his Angel sent by him Apoc. Ch. 1. nothing but what another one Daniel of old had told before him saving that he was something more particular and more copious in declaring matters Which though it may be a pretty specious answer and stand in stead where there is no better to be found yet this I here intimate so absolutely stoppingmens mouths fromuttering any such derogatory stuff against the person of our Saviour I think is worthy of all due consideration viz. That it was as well Christ himself that delivered this Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth to Daniel the man greatly beloved as it was Christ himself that sent his Angel to Iohn whose name also signifies gracious or greatly beloved to communicate to him the Prophecies of the Sealed Book and the Opened Book and of the Seven Churches And that this might be understood by the careful and intelligent Reader of this Proemial Vision I conceive all those passages that set off the exceeding Grandeur and Majesty of this Angel and the repeated Consternations of mind and humble deportments of Daniel towards him are recorded as the Literal scope thereof Which does not at all exclude those Moral Insinuations I hinted in the Exposition of the Vision And thus much of this Vision Proemial to the Vision or Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth which Prooemium reaches to the very second verse of the eleventh Chapter as other Interpreters also have taken notice how ill the division is made The eleventh Chapter should have begun at And now will I shew thee the Truth and there will we begin our Exposition of the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth NOTES Upon VISION V. Ver. 1. Namely in the third year of the Persian Monarchy c. Gasper Sanctius here moves a doubt how well this of the first verse of this Chapter In the third year of Cyrus King of Persia agrees with vers 21. of Chap. 1. And Daniel continued even unto the first year of King Cyrus Whence some Interpreters collect that Daniel either lived no longer or at least prophesied no longer than to the first year of the Persian Monarchy But here Sanctius out of St. Ierome answers to his own scruple That Daniel is to be understood to have continued in the Babylonian Court no longer than to the first year of Cyrus King of Persia. But afterward though he returned not to Ierusalem with other Captives yet he was translated from Babylon to the Medes where he obtained an honourable prefecture And this is the account which Saint Ierome with others give of the place which sufficiently takes away the seeming repugnancy Vers. 8. But how an Angel can make himself seen of one c. Theodoret according to Gasper Sanctius is of opinion that those that saw not were struck with a kind of blindness which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Sodomites were that could not find the door and those also that were sent from the King of Syria to apprehend Elisha But Cornelius is point-blank against this opinion and says expresly that the cause why Daniel alone saw the Angel and not his companions was not that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherewith the Angel might strike them as that Angel that stroke the Sodomites Gen. 19. 11. But that Angels in assumed bodies as well as the Blessed in their glorified bodies have the species visâ—…biles of their bodies in their own power and can transmit them to one suppose Daniel and divert them from another Which opinion of A Lapide were yet more plausible if he understood that Angâ—…ls need not assume bodies but have bodies Aethereal bodies of their own whose raies therefore not Mechanically as in burning glasses which direct the beams of the Sun otherwise scarce sensible to the touch so vigorously to one point that they will set on fire matter combustible but vitally they may direct toward one party by the command of their will and phancy and slip by the other And though the difference of some seeing and others not seeing at the same time the apparition of an Angel may proceed from the Angel himself that directs the visibility of his body the visible raies I mean thereof to one party and not to another yet there may be a difference also in the parties themselves present whereby they may see some of them less distinctly or not at all others clearly and distinctly And this I conceive to proceed from the purity mildness and passivity of their Spirits The Spirits of whose eyes are far less thick and less fiercely agitated than others these are more capable of seeing distinctly the subtle vehicles of Angels than others are And therefore men of a more fierce strong robustious temper are more inept to see any such Spectra as it is observed of them And as for madmen whose Spirits are gross and hugely agitated I conceive they do not so much see
the true servants of God who will never suffer them to be tempted above what they can bear which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are Temporal but the things that are not seen are Eternal Even to the time of the end that is To the time of their ending For God had set his time wherein these afflictions of his Church should end as bounding all human affairs by his Power and Providence so that there may be a respiration to his people from these extremities of affliction And therefore there is put an end to this affliction of his Church because it was foreseen that another would begin as it is intimated to us by what follows according to the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because it is yet for a time appointed The vulgar Latin has it Quia adhuc aliud tempus erit Because there will be yet another time namely of persecution of the Church of God viz. under the Roman Empire Pagan and Pagano-Christian Wherefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an Elliptical speech as was observed above v. 27. Which verbatim is thus to be rendred Because yet-again at the time appointed subaudi There will be a persecution of my People or Church viz. under the Roman Empire whose succession begins in the next verse For hitherto is described from vers 21. the Reign and feats of Antiochus Epiphanes But that now the times of the Roman Empire succeed both the mention of A Time and Times and half a time Ch. 12. 7. and those other numbers there vers 11. that point to them and that vast gap that would be betwixt Antiochus his time and the Resurrection of the dead mentioned v. 2. may sufficiently assure us To which you may add that the Passage here from the Greek Empire to the Roman in the next verse is as distinct and plain as from the Persian to the Greek vers 3. and the like great success and Prosperity expressed in both in that of both Kings it is said And he shall do according to his will * Which therefore cannot be understood of Antiochus Whence they that would drag what follows of the Prophecy to that scope are fain to run back and apply the same things that were predicted before and so make the Prophecy to tautologize Besides many things are most wretchedly distorted and very weakly and faintly accommodated to the person of Antiochus Which Calvin being sensible of applies all to the Roman Empire from the times of the Roman Empire after Antiochus his death to the coming of Christ. In which besides that many things are dilute or forced he leaves a vast gap as well as those others viz. from the beginning of the Gospel to the Resurrection Which makes the Prophecy less worthy of that Pompous Preface to it viz. the Prefatory vision Ch. 10. as I noted above Wherefore there can be no doubt with them that consider the matter but that this Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth does not only here pass from the Greek Empire to the Roman upon the death of Antiochus and the vanquishing of Perseus the last King of Macedonia by Aemylius Paulus and turning his Kingdom into a Roman Province but that the Prophecy continuedly goes on though in general strokes through the whole series of times of the Roman Empire to the end of the world or general Resurrection And that as there has hitherto been predictions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Literally or Historically to be understood of the affairs of the Persian and Greek Kingdome and more particularly of those two parts thereof the Kingdoms of Syria and Aegypt where the real gests of Antiochus Epiphanes are foretold and are but onely as other Historical parts of Scripture drawn to a Typical sense so whatever follows touching the affairs of the Roman Empire has a plain Historical meaning and is so to be understood till its utter dissolution So that there will be no room left for such a Chimerical Antichrist as some of the Fathers have fancied and others have been either themselves such children or would have others to be such as to believe them Wherefore bidding adieu to Hugo Grotius and laying aside all the fancifull and Chimerical Crotchets of mistaken Antiquity I shall clear the sense of the remaining part of this Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth as follows 36. And the King shall do according to his will and shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every God This may be understood of the Roman Empire at large and the words be rendred thus Then shall a King do according to his will shall have all things go prosperously according to his desire by King understanding here as it is elsewhere in Daniel a State or Kingdome which is here the Roman upon the expiration of the Greek Empire Macedonia being conquered by the Romans of which Perseus was the last King contemporary to Antiochus whom Daniel foretels to reign Ch. 8. in the latter time of the Greek Kingdome And therefore the Roman is very fitly here supposed to succeed it after Antiochus Epiphanes the rest of his Successours being taken no notice of for the same reasons that all but one after Xerxes are past by in the Persian Empire And this Roman King or Kingdome is said to magnify himself above every God in that the Romans by sacred charms called out the Gods of those Cities they conquered and so as it were led them captive to Rome See my Synops. Prophet Book 2. Ch. 10. And shall speak marvelous things that is blasphemous against the God of Gods that is The officers of this Roman Power shall do so namely against Christ Jesus himself who was truly God as well as man and therefore the God of Gods and yet was he in word and deed most despightfully used by them and crucified And how the God of of Gods viz. the God of Israel was despised by the Romans a man may collect from that greatest Wit of the Roman Empire Marcus Cicero and one of the best men of them who yet speaks but contemptibly of the Religion of the Iews as unworthy of the greatness of the Roman name and Empire and insults over their Nation as less befriended by the Gods because they were vanquished and subjected to the Romans If a person of his quality went so far in reproach to the God of Israel what would others of less sagacity and morality blurt out See his oration pro Flacco And shall prosper till the Indignation be accâ—…mplished for that that is determined shall be done And yet they shall prosper notwithstanding this their villany towards Christ and bloudy persecution of his members wherein he was again reproached and blasphemed till the determined time of this rage ran out and that the Empire became Christian which was certainly determined to be
Pope yet he could not but allow them this character Whom notwithstanding says he if you ask them concerning their faith there is nothing more Christian if you consider their conversation there is nothing more irreprehensible and they make good their words by their deeds Who would know more of these excellent Christians let him read Paul Perrin And thus admirably is the Prophetick purpose of this first Number fulfilled in the publishing of that Book of the Waldenses A. D. 1120. and within the last Quindenarie of that Number And it is remarkable how in that Age yea less than twenty years before the publishing of that Book all the world was in expectation of Antichrist's being revealed insomuch that Pope Pasâ—…hal himself when he intended for Gallia Cisalpina stopt his journey at Florence being struck with the greatness of the rumour which was understood of such an Antichrist as the ancient Fathers fancied to themselves and the Romanists would seem to believe Which circumstance was not without a Providence that it might be more remarkably imprest upon the capable who it is that is indeed the true Antichrist to whom that Title so often used by the Fathers does of right belong But now for the other Number the fulfilling of its Prophetical Indication is also admirable For not precisely tying our selves to the year 1168. by taking the middle of the six years of the Transgression that maketh desolate for our Epocha betwixt the year 1160. and 1170 and if another Quindenarie were added to it it would break no squares provided that things happen within that Quindenarie upon this Revelation of Antichrist innumerable multitudes of men were awakened as with a Trumpet into the ancient Apostolick Faith whom they called Waldenses Albigenses and by other names but they called themselves Apostolici who stood so sâ—…outly to the Faith that no persecutions which presently ensued could change their minds or make them alter their Profession though about ten hundred thousand of them and that in France alone were put to death if Paulus Perrionius computes right in his History of them And these are that faithful Martyr Antipas who was slain in the lofty Pergamus where Satans seat is as Christ complains in his Epistle to the Church there And they having the priviledge of Martyrs who are faithful unto death it is said here in Daniel Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the 1335 days But this I have noted already in my Exposition I will only add one note more what a childish thing it is or worse to have recourse to the ancient Fathers for a certain and distinct knowledge of these Prophecies of Daniel and there is the same reason for those of the Apocalypse whenas it is thus expresly signified in Daniel that these mysteries touching Antichrist would be sealed up till the time of the end and particularly till the expiration of the 1290 years from the Profanation of the Temple by Antiochus i.e. till about 1100 and odd years after Christ. That the Times of Antichrist were prefigured and foretold by these and such like Prophecies so far the ancient Fathers were right and so far their Testimony stands for us but when those Times would be or who would prove that Antichrist that was left for the faithful to find out by the assâ—…stance of Gods Spirit when the Time of that Revelation by Gods appointment was come which was about the Time of the beginning of the Waldenses and Albigenses But to deny the People of God the assistance of his Spirit to keep up the credit of the Fathers and the Authority of the Church as if we could be assured of nothing unless they tell us it is so is the very dregs of Antichristianism and the very Pit of slime and spawn out of which Antichrist did arise and though men do not so easily observe it a bidding defiance to our very Baptism whereby we are Baptized in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Which is not to make a mere drie profession of the Triunity of the Godhead but to remind us what a lively faith we ought to have in the Son for his â—…ending the Spirit from his Father according to promise to sanctify us to strengthen us and illuminate us and to carry us on in the process of real Regeneration in which we shall attain to eyes as well as heart hands and feet whereby we shall be certainly able to discern Christ from Antichrist and true Prophets from Impostours And it is no small piece of Imposture in the little Horn that he will permit no other Horns to see besides himself or with no other eyes but his THE Threefold APPENDAGE To the Prophecies or Divine Uisions of DANIEL The First A Confutation of the opinion of Hugo Grotius who makes the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae the fourth Kingdome in Daniel The Second The Authours Apologie for his placing the seven Vials within the seventh Trumpet after the Riâ—…ing of the Witnesses contrary to the opinion of Mr. Mâ—…de as also for his making the three days and an half wherein the witnesses lye dead the same with Daniel's three Times and an half The Third His twenty Arguments whereby he does prove that the seven Epistles to the seven Churches are a Prâ—…phecy of the State of the Church cast into seven Interâ—â—ls from the beginning thereof to the last Iudgmeâ—â— A Confutation of the Opinion of Hugo Grotius who makes the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae the fourth Kingdome in Daniel taken out of Synops. Prophet Book 2. Chapter XIII 1. THAT Prophecy also in Daniel of the Little Horn that is said to change times and laws is an express Prediction of that Antichristian Opposition which is against the Regal Office of Christ. For that this Little Horn is the same with the Two-horned Beast or the Whore in the Apocalypse I think no man will scruple that considers that this Horn is part of the Roman Kingdome which is decyphered by Ten Horns and that it belongs to that time when the Kingdome is actually Ten-horned which is not in Succession but together as the Tenâ—…toes of the Statue which answer to these Ten Horns do not â—…ignify the Succession of Ten Kings but Ten Kings ranked in the same time as the Toes of the feet of the Image which have not properly a precedency but rather a co-ordination in Site 2. Now thaâ—… the Fourth Kingdome which is prefigured by the Ironâ—…legs feet and ten toes of the Image and by the Beast with iron Teeth and ten Horns is not that of the Lagidae and Seleucidae as Grotius would have it but the Kingdome of the Romans there are these weighty Reasons to convince us First It is the universal sense of all Ecclesiastick Writâ—…rs That the Fourth Beast is the Roman Empire as both Cornelius à Lapide and Gasper Sanctius both of them Jesuits yet do roundly assert The words of the latter are these Est ergò omnium sententiâ innominata
haec atque horribilis Bellua Romanum Imperium neque necesse est quenquam nomiâ—…are cùm nemo non dicat 3. Secondly that it cannot be the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae as Grotius would bear us in hand in which odd conceit of his he forsakes the judgment of the whole Church of Christ to follow Porphyrius his who was a sworn Enemy to the Christian Religion appears from what is said Daniel 7. 23. The Fourth Beast shall be the Fourth Kingdome upon Earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quâ—…d majus erit omnibus regniâ—… Which shall be greater than all Kingdomes so the Vulgar Latine and Vatablus The Seventy also render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it agrees best with what follows and shall devour the whole Earth which must be understood in such a sense as Earth was before and shall tread it down and break it in pieces Which it could not be said to do unless it were so great a Kingdome as is here intimated Now it is manifest that the Kingdome of the Seleucidae and Lagidae * was neither greater more excellent nor a more victorious Kingdome than any of the three preceeding namely the Babylonian Persian and that of Alexander the Great from whose Kingdome they would make this of the Lagidae and Seleucidae distinct Wherefore their Kingdome cannot be this Fourth This Inference is so plain to Gasper Sanctius that he does though but justly yet very severely chastise Porphyrius for this Errour which Grotius has so unluckily taken up For he breaks out into these words upon this Text Vide Porphyrii stuporem oscitantiam in cujus mentem venire potuit â—…ut existimaverit regnum eorum qui Alexandro successere omnium esse maximum quodque omnem terram sibi subjecerit conculcaveritque cùm reliquis regnis longè fuerit infirmius ab omnibus concisum out malè vexatum Nay the very Prophecy it self makes the Kingdom of the Successours of Alexander less than his in power and greatness Dan. 8. 22. where it is said that Four Kingdoms shall stand up but not in the power of Alexander Which is they shall be inâ—…eriour to him Which questionless is meant of them joyntly it being a needless intimation of them single 4. Thirdly The Kingdom of the Iron legs and toes and of the Ten horned Beast with Iron teeth are one and the same Kingdom according to Grotius his own acknowledgment which he makes that of the Seleucidoe and Lagidae Now it is said that a Stone cut out of a Mountain without hands should break in pieces these legs and toes nay the whole Image oâ—… Iron Brass Silver and Gold and so succeed this Kingdom of the Seleucidae according to his sense oâ—… the Vision And Ch. 7. One like the Son of man in the Clouds of Heaven comes to receive a Kingdom namely upon the destruction of Antiochus Epiphanâ—…s that little Horn amongst the ten in this fourth Kingdom of Grotius his framing of whom it is said at the 21 verse I beheld and the same Horn made war with the Saints and prevailed against them until the Antient of days came and judgment was given to the Saints of the most High Which is the same with the Son of Man his coming in the Clouds of Heaven to receive the Kingdom of the Antient of days vers 13. And both agree with the Stone cut out without hands to shew it is not the work of man but of the Antieâ—â— of days God himself and that this is indeed the very Kingdom of Christ as Interpreters ever have expounded it Which is a perfect contradiction to Grotius his Dream That the fourth Beast with Iron Teeth and the Iron legs of the Image denote the Kingdom of the Lagidoe and Seleucidae and tâ—…at Antiochus is this little Horn. * For Antiochus Epiphanes was dead almost two hundred years before Christ so much as preached the Doctrine of the Kingdome or had any Disciples to follow him and yet it is said Dan. 2. 44. And in tâ—…e days of these Kingdoms shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdom which shall never be destroyed From which passage I doubt not but that phrase The Kingdome of God as also from that above The Kingdom of Heaven does so often occur in the Gospel as also that Title which Christ so often gives himself of the Son of man And Grotius himself upon Matthew 8. 20. acknowledgeth that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Son of man mentioned Dan. 7. 13. is to be understood of the Messias Wherefore it is impossible that the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae should be the fourth Kingdom 5. But here Grotius contrary to his judgment when he wrote upon Matthew has found a device which is scarce to be uttered without horrour and astonishment So that I am infinitely amazed that a man otherwise so learned and laudable as he speaks of Porphyrius should be mis-led into so bad an adventure The Son of man coming in the Clouds of Heaven according to him is Populus Romanus nullum intra se habens Regem When our Saviour Christ intimated to the High Priest that he was that Son of man that should come in the Clouds of Heaven it seem'd so high an Arrogation that he rent his clothes and said he had spoken Blasphemy And truly I think that neither Jew nor Christian can well acquit Grotius of that crime who attributes that which is the peculiar character of the Messias to a Prophane and Pagan people and that forsooth because they had no King as if they were ever the better for that But they had Kings at first and both in the Infancy of their Empire and afterwards they had a Supreme Power so great and Imperial as may excuse them from the least shew of contempt They had always over them a Sovereignty so that they could not be deemed the Son of man for any such private condition For the Summa Potestas is the Summa Potestas under what name or form soever and of the same real grandeur Besides that they were a most glorious and victorious people before Antiochus his time So that it is a very dilute and sapless conceit of Grotius to apply the Phrase of the Son of man to them for any inconsiderableness in them or obscurity For they were not so in the times of Antiochus 6. Again The Kingdom of the Son of man and the Stone cut out without hands are all one both in truth and according to Grotius his own concession But this Stone is Christ and his Kingdome as being Heavenly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing erected not by human power but by the power and Spirit of God That this is the meaning of without hands is the general vote of Interpreters S. Ierom Irenaeus Iustin Epiphanius S. Augustin Theodoret and several others Where think you does Grotius take shelter now Why This Figure which is so appropriate to Christ and mentioned of him so often in the New Testament This Stone
I say and a self-favouring conceitedness they presently fancie it as well more excellent and more true as different Others out of a fondness towards themselves presume they have a more peculiar gift that way and by strong prepossession of their private conceits deeply impressed upon their melancholy Imagination render themselves incorrigible and uncapable of the most evident and most solid information from others And others given up to a Fanatick Spirit do not stick to presume themselves in an extraordinary manner inspired and upon that account heed not what others have writ before them and so comparing themselves onely with themselves prove themselves as the Apostle speaks unwise And lastly there are those who to serve an Interest have quite left the rode of other Expositours who had according to their measure of light expounded things bonâ fide and have most lamentably and shamefully perverted and distorted the genuine meaning of both Daniel and the Apocalypse the former in the most concerning parts thereof and the latter in a manner all over But I can appeal to God and my own conscience that I have framed no interpretations to serve any Interest but that of Truth and the Church or Kingdome of Christ. Nor have I out of any curiosity of prying into hard and obscure things medled with either the Apocalypse or Daniel but merely for more full satisfaction in the great Controversy betwixt us and the Papists who leave no stone unmoved to pervert Souls and to bring them over to their Idolatrous Church Wherefore for my own more full satisfaction and for the service of the true Church of Christ and for nothing else that I know of have I taken these pains to make a continued Exposition of all the Prophecies as well of Daniel as the Apocalypse Wherein if I have deviated from the footsteps of others amongst whom I account Mr. Ioseph Mede absolutely the chief and than whom I conceive no writer of that kind has deserved better of the Church of God yet I can aver it with all faithfulness that it is not out of a desire of seeming to have found out something better than his that I have dissented from him but because I am driven thereto by meer force of Reason Otherwise having no design but assisting the Truth I hold it absolutely my duty not to deviate or vary from such pious and able Interpreters where I find their interpretation sound Truth being thus the better recommended by the witness of two or many than if I stood single by my self And therefore I always covet if I can find them to have companions if they be companions in the Truth otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one man to me is as much as three Myriads and three Myriads not so much as one man But now that it is mere Reason not any vain humour in me such as I have specified above which makes me contrary to the sense of Mr. Mede place the Vials in the seventh Trumpet after the Rising of the Witnesses and interpret the three Days and an half wherein the Witnesses lie slain of three Times and an half I hope I shall make clear by the Account following First then we are to take notice of the Method or Genius if you will of both Daniel and the Apocalypse that after two Prophecies suppose of the same extent of time and of the same things which are of a more large and reaching compass there comes a Prophecy or Vision concerning onely part of that larger compass of time wherein some part onely of the foregoing Vision is more copiously enlarged upon As for example After the Vision of the Statue of four Metals and that other of the four Beasts both which Visions reach from the beginnnig of the Babylonian Empire to the ending of the Roman or speaking in the Apocalyptick phrase to the end of the last Vial there comes next the Vision of the Ram and He-Goat which takes in onely the time of the Persian and Greek Empire and enlarges on the affairs of the Greek Empire onely and especially on the times of Antiochus Epiphanes So likewise in the Apocalypse in the Opened Book-Prophecies after the two Visions or Prophecies of the same extent of time viz. from the beginning of the Church to the end of the seventh or last Vial the former of which two Prophecies is contained in the Eleventh Chapter the latter in the three following Chapters namely the twelfth thirteenth and fourteenth there follows then the Vision of the seven Vials which run over but part of that extent of time which each of the two foregoing Prophecies do comprise Now as there are three conspicuous Ioynts of a more universal consideration in the compages of the two abovesaid Prophecies in Daniel namely those in which are held the Ending of the Babylonian Monarchy and Beginning of the Pesiran the Ending of the Persian and the Beginning of the Grecian the Ending of the Grecian and the Beginning of the Roman so there are two manifest Ioynts likewise and of a more universal consideration in the two abovesaid Prophecies in the Apocalypse the one contained in the eleventh Chapter and the other in the twelfth thirteenth and fourteenth namely the time wherein as in a communis terminus the end of the Symmetral Ages of the Church and the beginning of the Asymmetral or of the Apostasy are held together and the Time wherein the Ending of the Entireness of the Apostasie and the Beginning of the Restitution or first Emergency out of it are held together The former Ioynt is the Time wherein the Ending of the Sixth Seal and Beginning of the First Trumpet are held together the latter Ioynt wherein the ending of the Sixth Trumpet and the beginning of the seventh Trumpet are held together where according to the Vision Ch. 11. is the Rising of the Witnesses But now the question is sith we see in Daniel the Vision of the Ram and He-Goat placed so as it begins with the first Ioynt of the two foregoing Prophecies and ends with the third Ioynt that is begins with the Persian Monarchy and ends with the Grecian the question I say is where the Vision of the Vials that is to what Ioynt of those two more comprehensive Visions Ch. 11. and Ch. 12 13 and 14. the beginning of the said partial Vision is to be affixed whether to the first or to the second Ioynt to the beginning of the first Trumpet or to the beginning of the seventh immediately after the Rising of the Witnesses with those Acclamations in Heaven and Doxology of the Elders Ch. 11. 15 16. Or which is the same Ioynt of Time to that joyfull Annunciation of the happy news of Babylons being faln whose Fall must needs be the Rising of the Witnesses told by the second Angel Ch. 14. 8. the question is to which of these two more universal or notable Ioynts for other Ioynts betwixt Trumpet and Trumpet they being so many are more inconsiderable the beginning of
be satisfied if not of the Truth of the thing yet at least that I have not rashly dissented from Mr. Mede therein We having thus solidly stated the sense of this Vision of the Death and Resurrection of the Witnesses which was the true sense thereof many hundred years ago and ever will be we may now the more seasonably enquire whether the Prophecy be yet fulfilled or no. Which if it be not and the Witnesses be not risen it is evident from what we have proved above viz. That the Vials follow the Rising of the Witnesses that there is not yet one Vial poured out But there is no Protestant Interpreter that I know but will allow that some of the Vials are already poured out Wherefore unless they will shamefully recoil they must of necessity acknowledg that the Witnesses are already risen But I shall use but one Argument for all to prove that this Vision or Prophecy of the Rising of the Witnesses is already fulfilled What a remarkable Providence as touching the Church of God and what a vast change of affairs there was in the Papacy at the late Reformation is notorious and what an innumerable company of people were delivered out of that worse than Aegyptian Bondage of the Pope and multitudes who because of their supposed Hereticalness lay dead useless and unactive to all Political Power whether in Church or State being excluded therefrom for their falsly suspected Heresy got into the most honourable employments at the Reformation both in Church and State Nay that the highest honours were in the hands of the Protestants in many intire Kingdomes and Principalities which had been under the Papacy before What a marvellous nay stupendious change this was no man can but be sensible of and therefore that it must be and that in no slight manner predicted in the Apocalypse Now it cannot be predicted in any of those Visions that in order of time follow the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses as the Vials do because this notable and stupendious mutation of things has happened already and as those of the adverse party would have it before the Rising of the Witnesses Wherefore I demand of them in what Vision which is antecedent to the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses is this so remarkable and marvellous a piece of Providence predicted or prefigured I am confident they cannot find any before this of the Rising of the Witnesses Wherefore it must be this Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses which prefigured this stupendious piece of Providence in the Reformation or else none at all Which were an absurdity intolerable and utterly incredible Wherefore it is even Mathe matically evident that the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses is a Prophecy of the late Reformation and that it is fulfilled therein And this it would be though it were less significative of that marvellous passage of Providence than it is But that it is most fitly and fully significative thereof as if made on purpose for it my Exposition of it in my Apocalypsis Apocalypseos and elsewhere will I hope abundantly make good which is needless here to repeat as also how naturally the Song of Moses the Servant of God and of the Lamb follows the Rising of the Witnesses which contains a deliverance of the Servants of God from that worse than Aegyptian Bondage of that Mystical Pharaoh the Pope and how the Sardian Interval of the Church which signifies a Song of Ioy commences at the same time Which things fall in with that Congruity and Harmony that he must be something more than ordinary stupid that is not enravished therewith But in the mean time having observed that neither the Messias who is called the Christ when he was come though predicted plainly enough by the Prophecies was taken notice of as such by them that were concerned to take notice of him nor yet Antichrist as fully nay more fully and repeatedly predicted and prefigured was taken notice of by them who were sufficiently concerned so to do I less wonder that the Prophecy of the Rising of the Witnesses so punctually predicted and manifestly fulfilled in the Reformation should be so little taken notice of as it is but that several men as the Iews expect a Messias to come and the Romanists an Antichrist so they a Rising of the Witnesses to come when the impletion of that Prophecy is so evidently already past Wherefore it was the duty of some or other to remind them of it The Authours twenty Arguments whereby he does prove that the seven Epistles to the seven Churches are a Prophecy of the state of the Church cast into seven Intervals from the beginning thereof to the last Iudgment out of his Exposition of the seven Churches Chapter X. 1. AS in Natural Hypotheses those are accounted truest that solve the Phaenomena of Nature the most naturally and easily and especially if such as are no otherwise solvible than upon the proposed Hypothesis so that meaning of Scripture I mean especially of any considerable portion thereof ought to be esteemed truest that can solve the most Difficulties that may be raised concerning the same or the Contexts precedent or subsequent thereto and if all still the more certain and if unsolvible otherwise there is still the more assurance of undeniable Demonstration Now how near this Mystical or Propheticall Exposition of these Epistles approaches to the clearness of this case I will leave to the Reader to judge after he has considered the Solutions of the questions easily raised out of the Epistles themselves or the precedent Chapter and not easily answered nor at all satisfactorily at least most of them but upon the Hypothesis we have gone 2. As first If a man enquire why the Spirit of Prophecy after he has so expresly given notice that this Book of the Apocalypse is to shew unto his servants things that are to come and called it plainly a Book of Prophecies should start so unexpectedly from the Title and intended Subject as to write no less than seven Epistles to certain Churches that have nothing considerable of Prophecy in them before he deliver any Prophecies properly so called but onely Promises and Comminations and that he should do this * with as great Pomp and as high a Preamble as he does when he begins so famous Prophecies as those of the seven Seals and the opened Book But according to our Hypothesis the Answer is easie viz. That though these seven Epistles to the seven Churches of Asia have a Literal sense yet they are also a Parable or Prophecy and of as high concern for both matter and extent of Time they reaching from the beginning of the Church to the end of the world as the Prophecy of the Seals and Opened Book and that they are ushered in with this great Pomp on purpose to give us notice thereof Secondly A man would be prone to enquire why the Spirit dictates Letters unto the Churches in Asia and not rather
to the Churches in Europe Asia and Africk For certainly the Church had disspred it self into all these Quarters of the world by that time As if the Spirit of Truth were a respecter of persons For these are not the Letters of Iohn but of the Holy Ghost But our Answer is ready at hand * That for the significancy of the word Asia to comport also with the significancy of the names of the seven Churches Asia alone was pitched upon But according to the Prophetical sense the true Catholick Church is writ unto under such distinct conditions as she was to vary into unto the end of the world So that there is no Partiality nor Acception of Persons in this Thirdly If a man demand touching the order or precedency of these Seven Churches that are writ unto What a plain and manifest account is there to him that compares the Epistles in their Prophetical sense with the Intervals of the Church Catholick lying in that order that these Churches are ranged This is a satisfactory reason and worthy the Spirit that wrote these Epistles But whether they are ranged in this order * because that a Letter-carrier going from Patmos his first journey will be to Ephesus and then to Smyrna and so in order till he come to Laodicea whether the holy Spirit of Prophecy regarded that in the dictating of his Letters though Alcazar the Jesuit be for it I cannot but suspend my judgment and that not without a smile But of this Ataxie more particularly anon 3. Fourthly If it be demanded why just Seven Churches in Asia are writ to neither more nor less especially that in Thyatira according to the acknowledgment of Epiphanius being then not founded but after the writing of these Epistles it is hard to give a satisfactory answer in the Literal sense For to say this Book of the Apocalypse affects the number Seven and that because it runs upon the number Seven altogether in the ensuing part of the Book which is Prophetical it therefore for Conformity sake chuses this number in writing to the Churches though Literally understood seems but a meagre mean and trifling account a design unworthy the Holy Spirit that dictated this Book But the using this number Seven all over is rather an intimation that the Book is Prophetical all over and that these Epistles are also a Prophecy accordingly as we have explained them And taking them so the Answer is plain and obvious viz. The number Seven is here chosen out as Symbolical it being the note of Vniversality whence the Pythagoreans as I elsewhere have noted call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore Seven and no more than Seven Churches are writ unto as standing for the seven Intervals of the Church from the beginning to the end of all Fifthly If it be demanded why these seven Churches rather than any others which in all likelihood may have the same Vertues and Vices that these are commended and taxed for The Reason of this is writ in the very Notation of their Names every Name being significative of the Condition of the Church Catholick in that successive Intervall of time that this or that Church so named standeth for and in such order as they are repeated Sixthly If one require a Reason why Christ is described by holding the seven Stars in his right hand in the Epistles to the Churches of Ephesus and Sardis why the same description in both or why in either In the Literal sense it will be hard to find any peculiar Reason but in the Prophetical sense already declared it is obvious For the seven Stars signify all the Pastours whether in present existence or succession And Ephesus is the begnning-state of the Church and therefore it is both very seasonable and methodical to represent the First Founder Sustainer and Continuer thereof by this Emblem Lo I am with you to the end of the World And that this again is hinted at in the Epistle to the Church of Sardis is with evident Proportion and Analogy to the Affairs of the Church there represented For the Church of Sardis is as it were the beginning again or the emerging of the true Church or Kingdome of Christ out of the Power and Kingdome of Antichrist 4. Seventhly Why the Church of Ephesus of all other Churches should be commended for their trying false Apostles Why might not other Churches be attacqued by them and also discover them as well as the Church of Ephesus The Solution of which Problem is easy in this Mystical sense of the Epistles * that places the Ephesine Interval within the Apostles times but the rest on this side of them Eighthly If any one demand why it is said to the Church of Smyrna more than to any other Church Be thou faithfull unto death and I will give thee the Crown of life and again He that overcometh shall not 〈◊〉 hurt by the second death In the Literal sense it will be very hard to find any peculiar Reason why this might not as well be said to the Church in Pergamus where there was killing for Religion it seems by the mention of the Martyr Antipas I but there was no obtaining the Crown of life there in any peculiar sense but the Crown of life that is the Imperial Crown was given to the sufferings of the Primitive Martyrs under the Ten Persecutions to whom also according to the opinion of the Antient Church the Promise of the first Resurrection belonged Which is here obliquely glanced at according to the mode of the Apocalyptik style that loves to hint things by Ellipses in that Promise He that overcometh shall not be hurt by the second death implying thereby that he shall be made partaker of the first Resurrection Ninthly If any one will again object more particularly against the Ataxie of the Churches that they are raâ—…ged neither according to the merit nor congeneracy of their Conditions pretending that it had been far better to have joyned the two irreprehensible together Smyrna and Philadelphia against whom there is no complaint at all and then Ephesus Sardis and Laodicea against whom there is no complaint of eating things offered unto Idols and afterwards Pergamus and Thyatira in which Churches alone there is If any one I say contend that this method had been more exact truly in the Literal sense it will be hard to frame an handsome and satisfactory answer especially if he urge that God is the Authour of Method as well as the God of Order But in this Mystical or Prophetical sense the Answer is solid and exquisite and much what the same that was given to the like difficulty more generally propounded before namely That the Churches of Asia are named in that order the Successive intervals of the Church Catholick were to proceed in of which these Asiatick Churches are but the Symbols or Hieroglyphicks And therefore those two Intervals of time which take in the Reign of the Beast and the False Prophet viz. the
So that not onely the Notation of the Name of Laodicea intimates that to be the Interval of the Church that reaches till the last Judgment but that Epithete also of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or combusta that it is the Interval next to the Conflagration of the Earth Sect. 4. That places the Ephesine Interval within the Apostles times c. For the Ephesine Interval terminates in the tenth year of Nero as I have shewn in my Exposition In which Interval all the Apostles were living Saint Iohn long after But another Character of this Interval is that the Nicolaitan Sect appeared not till presently after it Whence they are commended that they hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans that is such deeds as the Nicolaitans after were found guilty of And Spondanus places the Sect of the Nicolaitans some two or three years after the tenth of Nero. The Church hitherto had kept free from such wretched Debauchery as that Sect. 6. As if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was intended on purpose to answer to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though there be two other Paronomastical Allusions in the word Asia besides this yet I do not doubt but this is also intended and the rather from the repeating so perpetually 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know thy works and it is the most usefull and the most accommodate to vulgar capacity That Allusion to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mundus Asiathicus lies more deep and is less intelligible to the vulgar Sect. 8. He that hath an ear to hear let him hear c. namely what the Spirit saith unto the Churches This Additional put to that excitation to attention to what the Spirit saith unto the Churches shews that all these seeming private Epistles to particular Churches are indeed one Sett or Compages of Epistles which concern the succeeding Intervals of the Universal Church from the beginning to the end of the World Whence the Epiphonema of each Epistle to every Church is so framed as if it were directed to all the Churches that is to every Interval thereof The whole being a Representation of the State of the Church Universal according to several Intervals from the beginning to the end which they are bound to take notice of and consider and compare together for the better understanding of the whole Sect. 9. And the exact correspondency of the Names of the Churches to the Events c. And not onely of the Names of the Churches but of whatsoever Names of Persons are mentioned in any of the Epistles to the Churches there is a correspondency of these with the state or affairs of that Interval of the Church whereever they occur It may be that some strong Spirits as they are called or high and hard lofty Wits will overlook these Paronomastical Correspondencies or Allusions in words or names as Trifles But the great Hugo Grotius himself does not that makes the Names of every one of the Seven Churches to be significant Nor does Peganius that incomparably learned as well as singularly pious German who knowing nothing of my Exposition of the Seven Churches nor I of his gave about the same time muchwhat the same Prophetical Exposition with Allusions to the Words or Names that I have done Which shews the obviousness and naturalness of this way of opening the Prophetical sense of these Epistles to them whose Judgments are free And though I knew none when I set my self to the Prophetical Exposition of the Seven Churches that held it a Prophecy of the State of the Church distinguished into so many Intervals from the beginning to the end unless he that put me upon it might surmise some such thing yet after the publishing my Exposition I met with one who was something a curious enquirer after Expositours of the Prophecies of Scripture that named to me at least half a dozen that held the Seven Churches to be such a Prophecy reaching from the beginning of the Church to the end thereof and I have had some such like information since But none of these that were of this Opinion had attempted to make the thing out as I was informed from the same hands And very lately by chance looking again into Mr. Mede I find him also explicitly to declare his opinion that the Vision of the Seven Churches is a Prophecy touching the Church Universal à principâ—…o ad finem setting out the different states of the Church in several Intervals in that order that the Seven Churches are ranged in the Apocalypse which I have noted in my Preface to the Exposition And he gives two reasons for it The one that the Number Seven is a Number of entire Revolution of Time to which I would adde expresly that As the Seven Seals reach from the beginning to the end of the entire Apocalyptick Period whose Epocha is the beginning of the Christian Church and Exitus in the end of the World so doth also the Vision of the Seven Churches and that for that reason they are likewise exhibited under the Number of Seven His other reason is That if this Prophetick sense was not intended the Spirit of Prophecy would not have pitched upon these Seven Churches in Asia but the Letters would have been directed either to all the Churches or the most famous such as the Church at Antioch at Alexandria and Rome and many others and such as no doubt says he had need of instruction as well as those named in the Apocalypse These are his two Arguments which I have not missed in my twenty though I never met with them before that in Mr. Mede And these two Arguments were sufficient to perswade that Person of so excellent a wit and judgment of the truth of the thing in general Into how deep a sopor therefore or lethargy is their wit and judgment cast whom twenty Arguments of like nature will not awake But now for a further assurance upon a more particular account Which is briefly this I first considered the Integrum which was to be distributed into these seven parts Which is the true Apostolick Church not contaminated with either Pagan or Pagano Christian Idolatry though living in various circumstances from the beginning to the end Now there being a complaint of eating things sacrificed unto Idols under the third and fourth Intervals and none in the two first and three last made me conceive that those middle Intervals both put together did comprehend no less space than the times of the Apostasy of the Church before whole Kingdomes and Nations had emerged out of it as it happened at the blessed reformation This is the first fast hold I seemed to have of things viz. that the Pergamenian and Thyatirian Intervals included the times of the Apostasy of the Church till the Time of Reformation came The Time antecedent to this was all that Time before the Apostasy or at least which I look upon as the more probable before the Roman Empire became Christian by the Conversion of Constantine Now this antecedent
little better in foro Divino than rebellion and treachery against the Kingdome of Christ. Wherefore says Christ to the Church in Sardis Hold fast and be no revolters but renew and resume your ancient zeal for the Purity of Gods worship and the Power of Godliness your ancient Iealousy for the honour of God against Idols and Image-worship and other kinds of Idolatry and Heathen-like Superstitions your horrour and detestation of all Debauchery and Scandal of life lest he whose eyes are more pure than to behold Iniquity loath you and turn off from you on a suddain and leave you to be a prey to your insulting enemies So that here is Commination of misery enough to the Reformed Churches unless they repent without recourse to the slaying of the Witnesses the fulfilling of which Prophecy is already past But in the mean time it is apparent enough from this first consideration namely the usefulness of the Epistle to the Sardian Church for the representing the defects and corruptions of the Reformed Churches to their view that I had reason why I should be solicitous to make good that the Vision of the Seven Churches is a Prophecy of the state of so many Intervals of the Church from the beginning thereof to the end of the World And the other main reason is the description of the state of the succeeding Interval of the Church in Christs Epistle to the Church in Philadelphia Which glorious Character is exposed to the view of the Sardian Church as a Pharos to mariners on a dangerous Sea in a dark night that they may know towards what to make to and that the Reformed Churches may be assured that Christ intends such a state of his Church upon earth at the next turn as shall be without either spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it shall be holy and without blemish For for this very cause did he yield himself to the death of the cross as you may see Ephes. 5. 25. But of the Sardian Church it is said expresly that her works are not found perfect before God Apoc. 3. 2. And for this reason certainly most especially are they not found perfect because they are not done in charity according to that precept of the Apostle 1 Cor. 16. 14. Let all your things be done in charity which the Apostle elsewhere calls the bond of perfectness and is indeed perfectness itself without which nothing is right nor perfect nor can well hold together This is the thing that is especially wanting in the Reformed Churches and is the very Title and Inscription of the next Interval of the Church which is the Church of Philadelphia The Church of Holy Love or Charity For that Church will count every son of Adam their brother as the good Samaritan did every one his neighbour Wherefore this condition of the Church that is next is exhibited to our view as an high golden tower with crystal windows on the Sea side full of Lights by night and the burnisâ—…ed gold and crystal glistering in the sun by day to shew us whitherto we should stear our course that we may conform all our outward actions and inward motions as near as we can to this excellent principle of Charity The nature whereof St. Paul has so accurately described on purpose one would think that we might be guided by the light thereof And it is so Divine and transcendent a principle or deep and profound that a man may give all his goods to the poor and his body to be burnt and yet either not have reached it or else overlooked it and so be devoid of it when a man would think that so great a zeal and Liberality could not be without that Celestial flame of Holy Love But methinks I hear you say if these be not sure Symptomes of it what I beseech you are The Apostle will tell you For whenas the former things may be done out of Self-Interest the Apostles description is of a pure and holy unself-interessed Love that arises out of the Ruines Death or Annihilation of the Old Man in us and is that Rectitude of Spirit of which our Saviour Christ declares Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be satisfied As on the contrary they are in a sad condition that never felt this hunger and thirst in them and are thereby convicted to be mere Strangers and Aliens from the Life of God But out of the Annihilation and Mortification of our own impetuous selfish will or lust which is our true purification from the life of the Flesh does this Divine or Vnself-interessed Love arise the effects whereof Paul describes thus Charity suffereth long that is to say is slow to anger and no wonder Anger being properly a passion raised out of a sense of injury done to ones self Charity is kind as being the Image of that God who according to Saint John is love itself Charity envieth not Forasmuch as the good of the Vniverse and of every man in particular is the very life and pleasure of the regenerate soul whose real Regeneration is into this Divine Love Charity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does nothing scurvily rashly or tumultuarily forasmuch as this Grace arises out of the allaying or extinguishing all the Impetuosities of our own wills and lusts Is not puffed up this Spirit of Charity being not an huffy blast of crude Enthusiasm but the permanent and solid life of God in us into which our Souls are regenerated by the operation of the Holy Ghost Doth not behave it self unseemly no not to her Equals much less Superiours least of all to the publick Magistrates as being the ordinance of God but gives honour to whom honour and tribute to whom tribute is due For in the life of Charity all the quick Sentiments of Justice and Decorum are eminently contained Seeketh not her own And good reason she being not a Self-lover or lover of her own Sect or Faction but that unself-interessed Love whose glory and joy is in the good of all mankind and in reference thereto is mainly sensible and solicitous of the common Interest of the Kingdome of Christ which so much concerns the salvation of men and for this reason alone a sincere opposer of the Kingdome of Antichrist Is not easily provoked to wrath and invective speeches or severe designs as commonly Factions are affected one party against the other Thinketh no evil makes no misconstructions or perverse collections from the Opinions or Actions of men that are capable of better Interpretation out of an ill will towards them Rejoyceth not in iniquity though carried on with never so cunning Intrigues and never so good success in the behalf of any Party But rejoyceth in the truth that is In honest true and plain dealing not the preference of a Party but the common Interest of the true Church of Christ being the onely allowable spring of her Ioy. Charity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for that