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
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
to see a person of so considerable Parts and Learning to fall into such a delirancy But what we here adventure on is sober enough viz. the supposing that the Babylonian Empire even from its beginning is here represented by the First Beast there being the like liberty taken in the Apocalypse And this being supposed the Exposition will run smoothly and unexceptionably 1. In the first year of Belshazzar the Son of Evil-Merodac who was the Son of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon namely the last King of Babylon who was slain by the Medes and Persians the City Babylon being taken by Cyrus in the Eighteenth year of Belshazzar's Reign according to Thomas Lydiat Daniel had a Dream and Uision of his head upon his bed He had a Divine Vision communicated to him in his sleep For Prophetical Visions are communicated to the Prophets either way either sleeping or waking and they are either way truly Divine Then he wrote the Dream and told the sum of the matters that is to say He declared the sum of the matters in writing 2. Daniel Spake and said viz. he declared thus touching himself I saw says he in my Vision by night and behold the four â—…inds of the heaven strove upon the great Sea By the great-Sea in the Prophetick language is understood vast multitudes of People that overspread the face of the Earth as the Waters of the Sea doe By the Winds is understood that invisible Principle of motion from whence comes that â—…icissitude of mutations amongst the Nations of the Earth who are driven this way and that way according as the active part whatever it is that answers here to the Winds doth move them Whether they be Angelical Powers which superintend the affairs of Nations or what-ever else And it is said in the Psalms Who maketh his Angels Spirits his Ministers a flaming Fire On which Grotius learnedly and ingeniously glosses thus Psal. 104. 4. Sunt Angelorum alii Aerei alii Ignei and a little after Esse Angelis corpora sed subtilissima non Pythagorae tantùm Platonis Schola sensit sed Iudaei veteres veteres Christiani The activity therefore of the Aerial Genii or Angels may be understood by these Winds or the Commotions they bring in by Divine Providence in the Production of new Empires and demolition of the old From the subtility of their bodies but it may be chiefly from their activity in the Innovations and Commutations of the affairs of mankind in pulling down and building up Kingdoms and Empires these Angelical orders are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 venti And there is a quadripartition of them Zach. 6. a distribution of them into Four Chariots with various coloured Horses Where to the Prophet asking what are these my Lord it is answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isti sunt quatuor venti Coeli where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the very same word that is in Psal. 104. 4. These are the Four Winds of Heaven The Quaternio of the Angelical Ministers of Divine Providence Something like that Apoc. 7. where there is mention of the Four Angels at the Four Corners of the Earth holding the Four Winds of the Earth that they should not blow on the Earth nor on the Sea And that the great things in the vicissitude of Kingdoms and Empires are done by the Angels is an Hypothesis that both Daniel and the Apocalypse plainly supposes the latter indeed inculcates to awaken this dull Sadducean Age. This I don't doubt but is one sense of this passage in Daniel but if any one think it too sublime and remote from the vulgar capacity he may substitute for these Angelical Powers here denoted by the Winds the ambitious and unquiet minds of great Princes and Politicians and their Officers and those blusters they make in the World by their impetuous activity to begin or increase their Dominion and to inlarge it into a more absolute Empire But the more sober may take in both Senses according to the Genius of the Prophetick style that by the same Symbol exhibits frequently more things than one at once But that these Winds are said to be Four it may be partly in allusion to the Four Quarters of the World partly to the mystical meaning of the number Four in setting out the Angelical Kingdom or Ministry and partly to the Four Beasts that were to arise in succession one after another out of the Sea by the striving thereon not all together but one after another For expressing the thing so as if they all coâ—â—â—cted one with another at the same time is but for the embellishing the Cortex of the Vision of which no more is to be taken in than is agreeable to History and Reason But this in the mean time is very remarkable that being the very Priâ—…ordia here of them all is premised is necessarily follows that the Visâ—…ion reaches the very beginning of each Empire the Babylonian as well as the rest or because it reaches the very beginning of the first of these Empires that that Empire must be the Babylonian as we shall see in the procedure 3. And four great Beasts came up from the Sea Which as I said shews that the Vision reaches the very rise or first beginning of each of them But here we are again to Note that though all Four are here mentioned together yet the rising out of the Sea was one after another But their coming thus out of the Sea together strikes the phancy more strong which is the peculiar scope of the Cortex of the Prophecies both here and in the Apocalypse Diversone from another viz. in shape and condition But in the mean time they are all Beasts The Septuagint render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wild Beasts And Grotius upon the place Ideo Bestiae saith he quia Idololatrica erant Imperia ut not at hic Jacchiades Their Idolatry indeed shews their brutishness being accustomed to no higher a dispensation of Religion than adoration of visible Objects as the Elephant is said to worship the Moon But cruelty is another ingredient to make them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wild Beasts such salvage Cruelty and gross and stupid Idolatry being exquisitely opposite to the Kingdom of the Son of Man who came to erect the Empire of Love and Charity and of pure Religion the worshipping the Father in Spirit and in truth 4. The First was like a Lion a Beast of a fulvid or Golden colour as the Poets describe him and the head of all Beasts which is the Babylonian Empire signified also by the Golden head of the Image or Statue The Prophet Ieremy likewise describes Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon by this Animal Ch. 4. 7. The Lion is come up from his thicket and the Destroyer of the Nations is on his way And had 〈…〉 which betoken the quickness of his dispatch in his expeditions and conquests And accordingly the same Prophet speaking of Nebuchadnezzar his coming against the Iews Ch. 4. 13. Behold
most for the greatness power and riches of the Papal Hierarchy And all the gross and intolerable corruptions of their Church whether touching Faith or Practice are invented or upheld for this very end and upon this very advantage that the little Horn is thought only to have the eyes in matters of Faith and Religion but the other Ten Horns to be stark blind But lastly though this little Horn pretends to the only sight and infallibility in matters of Religion as if it were inspired so from God that it cannot erre yet the very character which the Prophecy gives it doth advertise us that this is but a bold boast among the rest and that these are really but the eyes of a man even of that man of Sin or Antichrist that exalts himself above all that is called God or worshipped For that by this little Horn Antichrist is Characterized is the common and current Opinion of the Ancient Fathers as the Romish Interpreters themselves cannot but confess though they were mistaken in the time of his coming And a Mouth speaking great things that is Uttering great boasts of his own Power and Infallibility For this Papal Hierarchy pretend him as to Superiority to be above all Kings and Emperours as to their miraculous Power that they can by certain words turn a piece of Bread into a man with Flesh and Bloud and all Essentials of humane nature nay into God after a manner and infallibly declare 't is no Idolatry to worship this thus transubstantiated Bread though it seem still Bread to all and is believed still to be so by all but by those that see only by the eyes of this little Horn and so trust his Eyes only and renounce in the mean time the use of their own Eyes and all their Senses nay of Reason and the plain Light of the Scripture Their pretence also of consecrating Images to the effectually keeping off Thunder and Lightning and incursion of the Enemies and the like may be reckoned amongst other their Boasts But this speaking great things may more especially respect the great vaunts of the Papal authoritative Power he being called by the Pontifician Polity Our Lord God Optimum Maximum Supremum Numen in Terris The Supreme Deity on Earth It being declared by them That his Tribunal and God's is all one That his Power is absolute That what he does he does as God and not as Man That he is all and above all That he has the disposing of Kingdoms can pull down one and set up another That he can do all that God can do That he can change the Nature of things make something of nothing make Injustice Justice and Wrong Right That all Laws are in his Breast That he can dispense with the Canons of the Apostles and with the New Testament itself That he is the Cause of Causes That it is Sacriledge to doubt of his Power That he has dominion over Angels Purgatory and Hell That he is the Monarch of the World and exceeds the Imperial Majesty as much as the Sun does the Moon And That he is to be adored by all the Potentates of the Earth This and more than this you may see made good by Bishop Downham in his Treatise De Antichristo for above Fifty Pages together And is not this a mouth speaking great things indeed And is not this part of the Prophecy also eximiously fulfilled understanding by the little Horn that Man of Sin or Antichrist that thus exalts himselâ—… above all that is called God or worshipped whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming Which thing is exhibited in the following part of the Vision 9. I beheld till the Chrones were cast down The word in the original might as well be rendred set down or erected which is the most natural Sense and most conherent with what follows And the Ancient of Days did sit * namely God the Father who though he is not before the other Two Hypostases of the Blessed Trinity in time yet he is in order of nature He sate in his Throne together with the chiefest of the Angelical Orders in their Thrones or Seats to make up the solemnity of the Judgment Whose â—…arment was white as snow and the hair of his Head like the pure wooll Whiteness here by Interpreters is look'd upon that of his Head as an Emblem of mature Counsel and Judgment with a sutableness to his Title of the Ancient of Days that of his Garment as a Symbol of pure unspotted Righteousness and Impartiality in Judgment And this appearance of this first Hypostasis in general in White may denote the proper Character of his Nature Which the Platonists call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which imply an ineffable Simplicity and Benignity and who would not have the world judged by such a Judge His Chrone was like the fiery Flame and his Whéels like the burning Fire viz. Such was the splendour of his Throne and of the Wheels thereof bright sparkling and shining like Fire and Light This is a Description of the Divine Shechinah not much unlike that in Ezekiel Ch. 1. and 10. This is a Chariot-like Throne as that a Throne-like Chariot and as the Wheels there as well as living Creatures are Angelical so there are Angels here innumerable in this great Session sitting with the Ancient of Days or assisting while he sits in his Imperial Throne drawn with Wheels Angelical Wheels by whose Ministry is the Revolution of all States and Kingdoms Though in the mean time there may be also an allusion in these Wheels to the Sellae Curules Chairs of State that ran upon Wheels in use in the days of old 10. A Fiery stream issued and came forth from before him Flumen igneum manabat ab ore ejus egrediens so Grotius says it is in Chaldaeo A Fiery stream issued out of his mouth The brightness of this appearance and the mention of this Fiery stream coming out of his mouth like that blast of Fire and flaming Breath 2 Esdr. 13. sutes excellently well with that passage 2 Thess. 2. Whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming Which shall be by the clear demonstration of the power of his Spirit so manifestly appearing in his true Church of whom Jesus Christ is and ever has been the living Head the same which is the Son of man which is anon exhibited in this Vision namely Christ together with his true and living Church But in the mean time I leave to the ingenious Readers consideration whether that Fiery stream and Flaming breath coming out of the mouth of the Ancient of Days God the Father may not emblematize the Procession of the Holy Ghost the third Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity as well as the Son of man plainly represents to us the Second For who can doubt but that
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
MENE TEKEL VPHARSIN Which verbatim sounds no more than thus He has numbred He has numbred He has weighed And the Persians Which broken writing without the guidance of God or the good Angel Gabriel he could hardly make sense of unless we may conceive that by reading the Prophets and being skilled in some principles of Prophetick Interpretation he might of himself spell out the meaning As for the first part MENE MENE He has numbred He has numbred This by reading of Jeremiah 25. 12. Ch. 7. 7. and Ch. 9. 10. where is expresly set down the Number of the duration of the Kingdome of Babylon viz. seventy years and till Nebuchadnezzars Sons Son which time was then near expiring he might I say well interpret He has numbred He has numbred of the certain â—…inishing of the Number of the duration of the Kingdome of Babylon to whose King the Hand-writing is directed and declare as he has in this Text Ch. 5. 26. MENE God hath numbred thy Kingdome and finished it But now for the Interpretation of TEKEL He has weighed it is not improbable but that in the reading of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there might be a Paronomastical Resonancy of words in his mind that would make out the whole sense thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tekal veatte Kal He has weighed and thou art light Which Daniel expresses more fully thus to the King Thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting that is found to want weight and therefore rejected as money illegitimate And the Prophetick Analyse of the last VPHARSIN And the Persians is manifestly Paronomastical Where he takes PERES by itself which signiâ—…ies a Persian and in a Paronomastical allusion to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 paras which signiâ—…ies discindere or divellere or dividere he makes out this full sense of VPHARSIN Thy Kingdome is divided or rent from thee and given to the Medes and Persians Which whenas he could not but know would be very bitter and distastfull news to Belshazzar and such as he would be more like to reward with a wreath of hemp than a chain of Gold I say although he attained to the sense of the Hand-writing on the wall by a kind of art and skill yet the full assurance of the truth thereof and his undaunted courage and fortitude of spirit one great requisite in a Prophet as Maimonides takes notice in his More Nevochim which imboldned him to declare the matter to the King plainly shews that his mind was actuated by a special assistance and divine impulse For according to all humane reasoning besides the loss of his scarlet and golden chain which he did not stand upon he would certainly incur the greatest displeasure of the King imaginable nor could escape without some such sharp and wrathfull rebuke as that of Agamemnon to Calchas in Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou messenger of mischief who to me Didst never yet tell ought that good might be In the mean time there are two main Observables and worth the noting in this Vision of Belshazzar the one against the incredulous of this age that are so slow to believe any Apparitions Whenas the Appearance of an Hand while it writ upon the wall was most certainly a real Appearance to Belshazzar and not a mere fancy of his own it having so violent an effect upon him that it loosened the ligaments of his loins compages renum as the Latin has it so that for very fear his urine came from him as Grotius comments upon the place The Agony that the Apparition put him into it seems was so great that it weakened his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 relaxated his retentive faculty and wet his knees as elsewhere it is expressed in the Prophets nay made both his knees knock one against another from the violence of his trembling and fear Besides that it was no fancy the Hand-writing upon the wall was an indubitable testimony it being permanent and visible to all The other Observable concerns those high conceited Witts that think so goodly and manly of themselves as if it were below them to be moved by any Prophetical Interpretation that is analyzed into Paronomastical Allusion Whenas Maimonides in the above named Treatise takes notice of that very way of understanding some passages in Prophecies And here which is above all exception Daniel himself that Prince of Prophets expounds the Hand-writing upon the wall according to this very principle of Prophetick Interpretation at least in the last part thereof What greater or more Authentick testimony for this way of interpreting can be desired This little excursion which I have made almost unawares touching these two Visions that are not properly the visions of Daniel but the one of Nebuchadnezzar the other of Belshazzar his grandchild will I hope satisfie the Reader if my preterition of them in my Exposition of Daniels Visions may seem any Defect and make some compensation for my omitting them I having thus cleared by the bye the most considerable things in them But to have undertaken the whole Book of Daniel it would have taken more time and swelled the volume into a greater bulk and price than would be ordinarily convenient and delayed the publishing of it and made it less effectual for the main design which is the most speedy and expedite succouring of the Reformed Religion which the Agents of Rome lay such strong battery against and by all means possible seek to undermine Wherefore I conceived that my Exposition would prove the more effectual for that end the less it had of any thing but what tended thereto And yet I would not be so sparing and precise as not to take in all the Prophecies of Daniel that concern the State of the Church of God whether Jewish or Christian even all those entire Visions in which these affairs are predicted though also the affairs of the Infidel Nations are involved in them but in order to the affairs of the people of God Wherefore the Prophetical parts of Daniel so far as I have attempted I thought it not improper to undertake forasmuch as in all likelyhood it might prove an easier Province to me than to another man and be more speedily and more successfully administred by me both because I have so throughly from the beginning to the end considered the Apocalypse which is a more full Commentary upon those parts of the Visions of Daniel which fall 〈◊〉 with the times of the Visions of the Apocalypse whence they will wonderfully illustrate and confirm one another and also because I had aforehand in other writings of mine viz. my Mystery of Godliness and Mystery of Iniquity explained some parts of the Prophecies of Daniel already as that of the Seventy Weeks and of the King of Pride and others One good use of which my Performance I hope will be that when men see so palpable a correspondency betwixt the Apocalypse and Daniel they will be steared off from
solicitude being not so much for the gratifying of their bodies as the safely bringing back their Souls out of this Region of Mortality and Corruption as a glorious spoil snatcht out of the hands of Satan and Antichrist to present to God his Father in those higher Regions of Immortality and Bliss And certainly so dear and tender as well as so potent a Patron as the Messias would never have permitted his best Clients to suffer such grievous things for his sake had there not been a certain reward in the other world for the Souls of them that so suffered and that been true which he told his Disciples after he was come in the flesh Joh. 14. In my fathers house there are many mansions I go to prepare a place for you Whence these things add a mighty weight to our faith and assurance of the Immortality of the Soul and of an unexpressible happiness to be enjoyed after we have left this body These considerations I think must bring abundance of pleasure to them that have an heart to believe them And yet I will add one thing more which I have observed that cannot but be taking with the judicious That as the miracles of our Saviour Christ here upon earth were never done out of any vanity or ostentation of his wonder-working faculty but as the principle of goodness and needfull beneficency directed him and limited him so likewise the same Christ has behaved himself in like manner in the communication of these Prophecies Wherein there is not the least shew of affectation of foretelling future things as future but merely as they are in subserviency to the most certain information of his Church whether Iewish or Christian concerning their own state and condition what it would be This is more largely insisted upon if the Prophecies be rightly understood but the Pagan Concerns more sparingly and in subordination onely to the affairs of the Church which is a thing methinks very gracefull and becoming the weightiness and authentickness of these Prophecies And this shall briefly serve to intimate what Pleasure the pious soul may reap from the reading and rightly understanding these Divine Visions of Daniel as well as what other fruit or profit he may have thereby The more particular usefulness of which it was less needfull for me to insist upon here they being muchwhat the same with those I have noted in my Preface to my Apocalypsis Apocalypseos to which the Reader may have recourse I shall onely give an account of my adding The Threefold Appendage to this my â—…xposition of the Visions of Daniel and then conclude And the reason of my adding the first part thereof viz. The Confutation of Grotius his opinion who makes the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae the fourth Kingdome in Daniel is this It being the constant tradition of the Church and opinion of the Primitive Fathers besides other Interpreters it would make too great a rattle or noise to rehearse the names of them you may see them in Cornelius à Lapide and Ribera that the times of the ten-horned Beast and two-horned Beast Apoc. 13. and also of the Beast that was is not and yet is Apoc. 17. are the times of Antichrist and Ribera expresly says of this last viz. the Beast that is said to ascend out of the bottomless pit that Antichrist ascends with him and that the other Beast Chap. 13. with ten Horns is Antichrist from the authority of the Fathers and the two-horned Beast his Armour-bearer or Squire of his body though more properly the two-horned Beast is to be called Antichrist and the ten-horned his Squire I wish he had had a better office and not been debased to so mean and unbecoming a ministry by the Imposture of the two-horned Beast I say it being according to the common stream of Antiquity and Interpreters that those times of the ten-horned Beast are the times of Antichrist and the same being founded mainly upon that which is unexceptionably sound viz. That the times of these Apocalyptick Beasts and of that in Daniel with ten Horns amongst which appears that little Horn with eyes which the ancient Tradition of the Church and all the Primitive Fathers with one consent declare to be the formidable Antichrist then to come that those times I say do synchronize or are the very same times and both necessarily conceived in the latter time of the Roman Empire Grotius discerning that unless Porphyrius his opinion may be admitted viz. That the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae not the Roman is the fourth Kingdome in Daniel and having so much wit and perspicacity of Iudgment as to perceive that the Papistical notion and declaration touching Antichrist is such a Romance so incredible and ridiculous you may have it pretty well at large in Cornelius à Lapide upon 2 Thess. 2. that it is more fit for old wives and children to listen to than any one that can pretend to have the understanding of a man he and as it seems to me partly out of the distaste he had taken against the Reformed Church of Holland for their usage of him and partly to glaver and curry favour with the Pontifician party that he might make all sure in the behalf of the Pope and his Hierarchy rejects the Primitive Orthodox opinion of the Church who ever made the fourth Kingdome in Daniel the Roman and strikes in with Porphyrius a mere Pagan who conceited the fourth Kingdome to be that of the Lagidae and Seleucidae By which device Grotius forsooth would excuse the Pope from being the little Horn with eyes and consequently Antichrist and cast it upon Antiochus Epiphanes the little Horn according to him not belonging to the times of the Roman Empire but to the times of the Kings of Syria and Aegypt Wherefore I thought it a business of no small importance to shew the shamefull groundlesness of Grotius his opinion and to restore truth to her due possession and place But in the mean time it is worth our observation that Grotius being ashamed of that Romish or rather Romantick fable which that Church entertains of Antichrist as that he shall be born of a Iewish Female of the â—…ribe of Dan and be begotten by an Incubus or at least that he shall be of the abovesaid 〈◊〉 and make himself the Messias of the Jews shall doe strange miracles to deceive them shall make mountains seem to remove out of their place shall raise himself or some other mortally wounded Prince from the dead shall bring fire from Heaven and like the story of Frier Bacons brazen Head his statue shall be made to speak He shall fly in the air the Devils in the appearance of Angels doing homage to him He shall rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem and there require to be honoured as the sole God of the Vniverse and in the mean time Enoch and Elias appearing again in the Flesh shall Prophesy against him whom he shall slay and their
calls the man of sin and from the little Horn with eyes Which false Seer or Pseudo-prophet as also that King of Pride is by St. John according to the vulgarly known name then in the Church called Antichrist Touching whom they which he wrote to in his Epistles being solicitous he acknowledges indeed that grand Antichrist to come that Daniel foretells of but in the mean time warns them of such Antichrists false Seers or Pseudo-prophets as were more near and under their noses as it were already and gives them characters of them to shun them as being very wretched and mischievous Antichrists in their time and place as well as that other to come So authentick a name is that name of Antichrist for that Party and Polity that should prove the little Horn with eyes the King of Pride or the two-horned Beast c. So that if the Pope with his Hierarchy be they and I have demonstrated them in my Synopsis Propherica and Apocalypsis Apocalypseos to be so it is evident that the Papal Polity or Hierarchy is as I said the very Antichrist properly so called which the Châ—â—ch in the times of the Apostles was so solicitous about they not knowing how near his coming might be nor having any distinct â—…otion of him what an one he would prove when he came though they were assured out of the Prophecies of Daniel that when he did come he would prove horribly bad as all the sincere Servants of Christ have found him his tyranny and salvage cruelty against them being unutterable as the monstrosity of his doctrines and gross enormities in practice a thing beyond all conceit of any of the Apostolick Age that one that professes himself the successour of St. Peter the Vicar of Christ the Bridegroom or Husband if you will of his Spouse the Church and the Holy Father of Christendome nay such an one as is styled Holiness in the very abstract should be such a man of Idolatry and bloud a Destroyer and Murderer of the most faithfull and loyall Servants of Christ whose Vicar notwithstanding he pretends to be But how well this name of Antichrist which St. John and the Primitive Church has bestowed upon him does suit with him that is with the Pope or Papal Hierarchy I have so fully set out in my Idea of Antichristianism that I may well forbear to say any thing more here but onely remind the Reader which is the thing in hand to what good purpose this first part of my Appendage is added it making for the fuller confirmation that the fourth Kingdome is the Roman which is the foundation of the ancient Fathers Interpreting those Visions which we know certainly to belong to the Papacy concerning the times of Antichrist and that consequently according as our Reformed Churches have ever declared the Pope is he For that is but a childish and foâ—…d subterfuge and fit for nothing but to fobb off fools to interpose the above described Romish prefiguration of Antichrist as if Antichrist must not be said to come till a bastard of the Tribe of Dan sit in the Temple of God at Jerusalem and declare himself the onely supreme God and that he himself alone is to be worshipped c. I say besides the ridiculous fabulosity of Enoch and Elias their coming again in the Flesh and their being slain by this Antichrist and their bodies lying dead three days and an half in the streets of Jerusalem and then raised to life and ascending into Heaven all the people of the City gazing upon them that very one thing of his declaring himself to be the onely true God that is to be worshipped is a figment impossible the Devil himself would not have that impudence nor any Devil incarnate so little wit as to declare so besides that it is perfectly repugnant to the description of Antichrist in Daniel Ch. 11. where he is said to worship the Mahuzzim together with a strange God Nor is Antichrists description 2 Thess. 2. such as implies that he declares himself to be the supreme God who-alone is to be worshipped For he is not said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew himself that he is the true and onely God but onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he behaves himself as if he were a God rather than a man an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one of the Popes boasted that the people took the Successours of St. Peter to be or Supremum numen in terris as his glozing Canonists call him and he abundantly exalts himself above God I trow that takes upon him to dispense with his Laws and enact things quite contrary to them But such pitiful shifts are they put to that wilfully maintain a wicked cause for worldly Interest that they must thus pervert the Idea's and notions of things to delude the ignorant and draw such an Image or representation of Antichrist though never so salse and fabulous so be it may but shelter the Pope from appearing to be him And to coin false notions of Idolatry such as Rubenus Essendiensis has defined it That it is the worship of Latria or truly Divine worship given to an accursed Devil and that directed in such a sense as it is directed to God whereby he would excuse the Church of Rome from Idolatry But we have insisted too long already on this first part of our Appendage we will onely add this That in making such gross shifts as these they do but betray their own guilt and insinuate to the sagacious that unless such a ridiculous and fabulous Image of Antichrist as they set forth be admitted the Pope must be Antichrist and unless such a false and illogical definition of Idolatry be allowed the Church of Rome must be Idolatrous that is in brief they confess their own guilt and acknowledge the Pope to be Antichrist and his Church Idolatrous But now for the second part of the Appendage which proves that the Vials are to follow the Rising of the Witnesses besides that it is a confirmation of our Exposition of the Prophecy of the Opened Book as the former part of the Appendage was of my Exposition of the Visions in Daniel and the third is of the Epistolar Prophecy in the Apocalypse it does also confirm Mr. Mede's Scheme of Synchronisms such as I have exhibited it in my Epilogue to my Apocalypsis Apocalypseos with such emendations and supplements as I have signified there Which cannot but be a gratification to men of a stable and judicious Spirit and who are delighted with a settled and orderly comprehension of things But sundry being not aware that the Vials all of them follow the Rising of the Witnesses and consequently that the Witnesses are risen already in the late Blessed Reformation busy themselves in the inventing new Epocha's of the Medial or Antemedial Synchronals to fit themselves for the foretelling out of an itch of Prophecying or prognosticating things future when that will come that is already past as
I have demonstrated the Rising of the Witnesses to be in this second part of my Appendage And they that have applied the late Blessed Reformation to the second Vial as Mr. Mede and after him Peganius has done it was from this errour that they took it for granted that most of the Vials preceeded the Rising of the Witnesses And such is the humour fansifulness and partiality of many that they can hardly believe of themselves that the Witnesses are risen till Kingdomes Nations and Principalities of their own party rise into Political power namely all Episcopal all Presbyterian all Calvinists all Arminians all Socinians and so of Anabaptists Quakers and Famulists But they erre knowing not the Scriptures or the true meaning of them nor rightly considering the Records of History where they may find what was the testimony of these Witnesses who are predicted to rise in the Reformation and to be warred against before by the Beast and cruelly persecuted As there was nothing to alledge against the Apostolicalness of their faith they professing the Triunity of the Godhead and Divinity of Christ and such like Articles of the Christian belief and living accordingly whereby they became idoneous Witnesses so their plain and simple testimony against the Church of Rome was this That the Pope was that Man of sin or Antichrist and their Church Idolatrous by reason of their adoration of the Host invocation of Saints and worshipping of Images and their Religion otherwise also grosly corrupt in seeking to propitiate God by their adhering to the multifarious vain and wicked inventions of men excogitated onely for the gain of the Priest and the keeping the people in blindness and ignorance This was the tenour of the Testimony of the Witnesses both in the Pergamenian and the Thyatirian Interval of the Church which they witnessed with great favouriness and assurance in virtue of the Spirit of life and holiness in them And persons innumerable that bore the same testimony and were of the same sentiments instead of being still mournfull Witnesses in sackcloth or lying dead in a Political sense in the streets of the Mystical Prophet-murdering Jerusalem the same with Babylon or Aegypt which signify the large jurisdiction of the Pope of Rome at the Reformation had a reviving into Political Power again and ascended in several Kingdomes to the highest Honours Dignities and Employments in Church and State Which therefore as I have proved in this part of my Appendage must needs be the Rising of the Witnesses they being of the same mind and profession with those that were so grievously persecuted and kept out of all power nay burnt at the stake murdered and massacred God knows how many hundred thousands of them And at this very day our own Church of England partly in her Homilies partly in her Articles and Liturgy gives the same testimony of the Church of Rome even that she is that old painted harlot of Babylon with her cup of fornication that is of Idolatry and that the Pope is Antichrist as I have shewn in my Synopsis Prophetica Book 2. Ch. 21. Which whenas our own Church which seems most moderate does so plainly attest we may be sure the rest of the chiefest writers of the Reformation do not mince the matter at all And if there be any persons in the Reformation any where that at all recoyl from this testimony it is because the Spirit of life and holiness is decayed in them and the gross Spirit of this world has blinded their eyes and darkened their understandings and hardened their hearts against the truth they preferring worldly power pomp and riches before the purity of Gods worship Wherefore I say this is one great usefulness of my demonstrating the Vials to follow the Rising of the Witnesses in that it is thence manifest that the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses was fulfilled in the late Blessed Reformation there being thus no other Vision to predict it but this Which conclusion contains a manifold usefulness in it For first that acclamation in Heaven upon the Rising of the Witnesses That the Kingdomes of the world were become the Kingdomes of the Lord and of his Christ namely after so many Principalities Provinces and Kingdomes had cast off the Pope in the late Blessed Reformation what does this imply but that they were before in the hands of Antichrist and that were the Pope has any Dominion it is ipso facto Antichrists Kingdome and on the contrary that all the Reformed parts of Christendome are the Kingdome of Christ and indeed the fifth Monarchy begun Which ought to stop the mouths and carrears of an ignorant and Fanatical sort of men that cannot see wood for trees and seek for a fifth Monarchy in a fifth Monarchy whenas so considerable a part of it is erected before their eyes already But as I noted above such is the folly and freakishness of ignorant and conceited men that they would not willingly acknowledge the Witnesses to be risen till those of the same crotchets with themselves whole Kingdomes and Nations of them have got into power But it is very true and extremely worth our nothing that as in the times of the old Roman Paganism all those that professed Christ according to the tenour of what we call the Apostles Creed though in the mean time they had several different conceits about things that appertained to the Christian Religion were notwithstanding lookt upon as the Kingdome of Christ in opposition to the Kingdome of the red Dragon the Pagan persecutive Roman Empire so all the Reformed Churches States and Kingdomes though some Lutherans others Calvinists some of one opinion others of another yet they keeping to the old Orthodox Faith of the Triunity of the Godhead and Divinity of Christ acknowledged by the Church in the Symmetral times thereof and renouncing the Communion of the Roman Church for her gross Idolatries and wretched and intolerable Superstitions and humane inventions whereby she has so notoriously adulterated the purity and simplicity of the Christian Faith and worship all these I say are justly deemed the Kingdome of Christ in opposition to the Dominion of the Pope or Kingdome of Antichrist Whence as I was a going to say a second special use of this our demonstration that the late Blessed Reformation was the fulfilling of the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses is the undeceiving of those they call the Fifth-monarchy men who would pretend to begin the fifth Monarchy and upon that account raise commotions and tumults whenas it is so stupendiously and surprisingly by the special providence of God begun already And let a third usefulness be to reprove them that out of rashness and conceitedness or any other worse principle vilify and contemn this great work of God the late happy Reformation whether it be those that think there is too much done already they having an hankering again after the Flesh-pots of Aegypt the worldly bigness and downbearing
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
Earth So it is said of him I Maccab. I. He made many Wars and won many strong holds and slew the Kings of the Earth and went through to the ends of the Earth And so Iustin Lib. 12. From the utmost Coasts of the Ocean were Embassies sent to him returning to Babylon both of the Carthaginians and other Cities of Africk yea of Spain Sicily France Sardinia And some also from Italy expected his return to Babyloâ—…ia Adeo universum tâ—…rrarum orbem nominis ejus terror invaserat ut cunctae gentes veluti destinato sibi Regi adularentur Which is enough to shew how well this prediction sutes with the event 40. And the fourth Kingdom shall be as strong as Iron That this fourth Kingdom is the Roman is manifest from hence that it succeeds the Greek Empire which it may seem most properly first to seise upon when Aemylius Paulus the Roman Consul had vanquished Perseus the last King of Macedonia But about an Age after the Kingdoms of the Lagidae and Seleucidae those Two eminent Parts or Thighs rather of the Macedonick or Greek Empire were subdued also by the Romans The last of the Seleucidae or Kings of Syria Tigranes â—… as vanquished by Pompey and Syria reduced into a Province as also Aegypt by Augustus when he had vanquished Antâ—…nius the Husband of Cleopatra Daughter of Ptolemaeus Auletes the last but one of the Lagidae or Kings of Aegypt Whence it is plain that the Roman succeeds the Greek Empire as the Greek the Medo Persian and that therefore this is the Fourth Kingdom prefigured by the Image of Four several Metals And the Genius of the Roman Empire the former days of it especially sutes well with this Metal they being not only full of courage and valour but also hardy rigid severe and indeed cruel They that are any thing versed in History will easily acknowledge this a fitting Character To which you may add what is intimated in the Text namely that as Iron can cut and form and subdue all those Three first Metals Gold Silver and Brass so the Roman Empire could vanquish and subdue all those Regions wherein the Babylonian Medo-Persian and Grecian Empire was spread Which feat not being done by the Kingdoms of the Lagidae and Seleucidae it is impossible they should be the Fourth Kingdom of Daniel And besides this we may be infallibly sure that the Fourth Kingdom is the Roman in that the Stone cut out without hands happened during the Roman Empire and it must happen in some of the Four Kingdoms according to the Vision and not during the Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae Forasmuch as Iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things and as Iron breaketh all these viz. all these Metals of Gold Silver and Brass shall it this Roman Kingdom or Empire break in pieces and bruise the Countries and People which the Babylonian Medo-Persian and Grecian Empires had ruled over 41. And whereas thou sawest the Féet and Coes. Here is mention made of Toes with the Feet which justifies our exposition above Ver. 33. But now we are come hither we must remember we are come unto that period of the Roman Empire when it was divided into Ten Kingdoms which are intimated by the Ten Toes of the Statue Which Ten Toes answer to the Ten Horns of the Beast actually crowned Which is the time that the Two horned Beast rises out of the Earth so it is said Apoc. 13. And why not out of a white Clayie clammy Earth such as Potters make use of as well as out of any other Earth beside And no man I think while he considers that the Iron here signified men a body Politick of them can stick to admit that this Clay does signifie so likewise But there being so palpable a difference betwixt Iron and Clay it is manifest that there must be as great a difference betwixt these Two bodies Politick the one signified by the Iron the other by the Clay the former suppose the Secular Power the latter the Ecclesiastical as it is said of the Papal Hierarchy which is the little Horn Chap. 7. 24. that that Horn or King shall be diverse from the rest which diversification here betwixt the Secular and Ecclesiastical Power signified by the Iron and the Clay need not be expressed in words the Symbols themselves being so apparently different Part of â—…otters Clay and part of Iron that is partly of such clammy white Clay as Potters make use of and partly of Iron which implies that by that time the Empire was divided into Ten Kingdoms the Summa Pâ—…tâ—…stas began to be neither in the Secular Power absolutely nor in the Hierarchical but they were so mingled together that it was not compleat or full without both concurrent the Ecclesiastick Power getting such a hank upon the Secular in ordine ad Spiritualia the effects whereof within no long time appeared with a witness The Kingdom â—â—all be 〈◊〉 that is The Power will be divided or shared betwixt the Papal or Sacerdotal Hierarchy and the Secular Orders of Emperours and Kings For the Iron and Clay cannot stand for the division of the Empire into Ten Kingdoms for that the Ten Toes prefigure but the sharing the Summa Potestas betwixt the Secular Magistrate and Papal or Sacerdotal Hierarchy But there shall be in it of the strength of the Iron forasmuch as thou sawest the Iron mixed with the miry Clay that is to say The Sword-men or Secular Power of the Ten Kings was so assured to the maintaining the Power and the Institutes of the Papal Hierarchy though never so foul or Idolatrous so they made for the Sacerdotal worldly Interest that the Papal Empire or the Empire framed according to that pattern and scope was as it were strengthned with Iron Which is that which is intimated Apoc. 17. 13. where the Ten Kings are said to give their Strength and Power to the Beast that was and is not and yet is Which is the Empire refashioned again into a Pagan-like Idolatrous Form for the worldly advantage of the Papal Hierarchy Thus was the Iron mixed with the miry Clay the Ten Kings cleaving so close to the interest of the Papal Idolatrous Clergy 42. And as the Toes of the Féet were part of Iron and part of Clay that is And as every one of those Ten Kingdoms consisted of Temporal power and Ecclesiastical the Papal Hierarchy being branched through all the Ten Kingdoms till the Reformation So the Kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken that is The Roman Empire divided into these Ten Kingdoms shall be partly strong and partly brittle the Papal Power weakening the absolute Power of each Kingdom and occasioning many breaches and jars in Christendom 43. And whereas thou sawest Iron mâ—…xt with miry Clay I shall tell thee the reason of it by what means it came to pass in that measure it did They shall mingle themselves with the seed of men so our English renders it With the
he shall come up saith he as Clouds and his Chariot shall be as a Whirlwind his Horses are swifter than Eagles Wo unto us for we are spoiled And again Ch. 40. Behold he shall fly as an Eagle and shall spread his Wings over Moab And many other places there are concerning Nebuchadnezzar to the same purpose I beheld till the Wings thereof were pluckt wherewith it was lifted up from the Earth For the Marginal wherewith in the English Bible is better than and in the Text. And Grotius says Verte per quas efferebatur supra terram And he adds thus Note further Saepe enim Chaldaeis ut Hebraeis Copula vim habet Relativi And besides the Copula â—… will signifie for as well as and and then the sense will be the same that Grotius drives at and the Septuagint ratifie it by translating 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies he was carried up on high not taken out of the way or destroyed as some would have it Now the Babylonian Monarch his being thus carried up on high on his Wings may signifie both the height of his prosperity and the haughtiness of his mind his ambition as it is set out by the Prophet Isaiah Ch. 14. v. 14. where he brings him in saying I will ascend above the heights of the Clouds I will be like the most High For this is to be understood of the King of Babylon and the whole succession is to be look'd on as one King as the Empire is look'd upon as one Beast Now therefore I beheld till the Wings thereof were pluckt is not to be understood as if this plucking of the Wings could not be but after the time of this Vision of Daniel because as I proved above the Vision reaches from the beginning of the Babylonian Empire the Scene whereof all along Daniel here beheld Where amongst other things he noted the plucking of the Wings of this Lion the Babylonian Monarch Which happened most notoriously in his being cast down from his loftily priding himself in his great Magnificence Ch. 4. 30. Is not this great Babylon that I have built by the might of my Power and for the honour of my Majesty Which was no sooner said by him but he heard a. voice from Heaven O King Nebuchadnezzar to thee it is spoken The Kingdom is departed from thee c. And so he was driven out to eat grass with the Beasts of the Field till Seven times passed over him And is not this a clipping of his Wings indeed who was soaring before above the Clouds Instead of being lifted up on high with his Wings from the Earth he was fain to graze on the ground with Oxen. And was made stand on the feet as a man and a man's heart was given to it Now after that Septennial humiliation of Nebuchadnezzar by being cast into so deep a melancholy and delirancy as if he were grown a very brute that goes on all Four these words describe his happy recovery out of that deep disease For Physicians take notice of such a melancholy as makes the party imagine himself to be and to imitate the manners and nature of this or that Beast as you may see in Sennertus and other Writers But here it seems he came to himself again by the good Providence of God and went constantly upon his Feet as other men do And a man's heart was given unto him that is his humane understanding was restored unto him For the Phrase of Scripture makes the heart the Seat of understanding Instead therefore of having the mind or heart of either a Brute or Luciferian Devil he had got a man's heart and was taught Ch. 4. v. 37. to honour and extoll the King of Heaven all whose works are Truth and his ways Iudgment and who is able to abase all those that walk in Pride What can be more significant of Nebuchadnezzar's Case than this Which therefore is a most certain character that the First Beast is the Babylonian Monarchy and this passage is most properly applied to him But withall I do not deny but it may be extended further to other Cases of the Empire or Monarchs of Babylon accordingly as Grotius expounds the plucking of the Wings of this Lion Tardati cursus ejus Imperii c. The affairs of that Empire were not carried on with that speed and success under Evil-Merodac and his Vice-roy as it were Naragalrazar in whose days Cyrus rebelling against Astyages whom Nebuchadnezzar had set over the Kingdom of Media insomuch that Media was under the Babylonian Empire in the Reign of Nebuchadnezzar and onward till this rebellion of Cyrus Media by this means in Evil-Merodac's days Son of Nebuchadnezzar was rent from the Babylonian Empire And this I think was a considerable clipping or plucking the Wings of the Lion besides what other particularities might be noted in History And moreover Belshazzar Ch. 5. as Daniel reproves him for his not regarding that fearfull punishment of his Grandfather For his pride had lifted him up also against the Lord of Heaven v. 23. and he had quaffed in the holy Vessels of God's Temple in that impious Feast he made Belshazzar I say was pretty well humbled by that hand-writing against him on the Wall but immediately after was laid in the dust of death But in his Successor Darius the Mede for I above noted that the succession is accounted as one continued Monarch as the Beast one continued Empire and what belongs to the Monarch or Empire is said of this First Beast the other part of the Prophecy is again fulfilled That he was made to stand upon his feet as a man not to soar in the Air with Eagles Wings and phancy himself above him that dwells in the Clouds And a man's heart was given to him namely to Darius the Mede * the last Monarch of the Babylonian Empire For all begin the Medo-Persian Empire from Cyrus And what a heart full of humanity towards Daniel nay indeed of Piety and Belief in Daniel's God the God of Israel was given unto him will plainly appear to any that reads the Sixth Chapter of Daniel ver 14 16 18 19 20 23 26 27. Thus fully well assured may we be that this First Beast is the Babylonian Empire and this being given we shall easily be induced to believe that the Three following will prove the Medo-Persian Greek and Roman as they were in the Image of the Four Metals for the same reasons there above specified 5. And behold another Beasâ—… a sâ—…econd like to a Bear This according to the succession of the Empires in History which is the most faithfull Interpreter of Prophecies must be the Medâ—…-Persian Empire So that there is less need to take notice what Interpreters have observed of congruity in the making a Bear the Symbol of the Medo-Persian Monarchy As that Persia is notorious for the breeding the fiercer sort as well as plenty of those Animals That what is most notorious in the Bear that
very bad sighted that does not plainly perceive the said Empire to be the Greek or Macedonick 7. After this I saw in the night Uisions In this Divine or supernatural Dream communicated to me from God And behold a Fourth Beast that is A Fourth Empire and particularly the Roman For what Empire should succeed the Greek or Macedonick Empire but the Roman that vanquished it as the Greek the Persian and the Persian the Babylonian That this Fourth Beast or Fourth Empire is the Roman Empire I have so fully and evidently demonstrated against Grotius in my Synopsis Prophetica Book 2. Ch. 13. that no rational man I think if he read considerately what I have written can ever for the future doubt thereof And how suitable the description is in the Vision all along we shall now see Dreadfull and terrible and strong excéedingly and it had great Iron téeth As this Fourth Kingdom is also represented in the Vision of the Image by the Iron Legs thereof to which you may also refer that it is said here to be strong exceedingly For so is that Metal And the courage cruelty and exceeding largeness of the Roman Empire must needs make it dreadfull and terrible Which some conceive it to have been in so great a measure as no one wild Beast could be a sufficient Symbol to set off the terrible cruelty thereof Amongst othâ—â— Specimens of which that bloudy and salvage Peâ—â—eution First of the Pagan Roman Empire againâ—â— the Primitive Christians and then of the Pagano-Christian against the Waldenses and Albigenses and innumerable others that professed and stuck to the pure Christian Faith is astonishing and ineffable and exceeding the Salvageness of any wild Beast whatsoever that we may not want a reason why this Fourth Beast is without Name It devoured and brake in pieces and stamped the residue with the Féâ—…t of it that is The Romans subdued and brought under many Kingdoms and Nations devoured their Wealth and incorporated them into their Empire and whom they could not so perfectly subdue yet they harassed their Countries and by inriching some of their Clients by giving others Lands or Revenues to them they trampled upon those whom they could not so perfectly devour and digest into the body of their Empire Illa igitur astuta liberalitas says Calvin vocatur conculcatio quòd Residuum quia scilicet non poterant vorare absumere suis dentibus pedibus suis calcarent See Calvin upon the place And it was diverse from all the Beasts that went before it Forasmuch as they being absolute Monarchies this Fourth Beast consisted of Two Consuls and a Senate Dictators also were sometimes chosen and in after times of a Mingle-mangle of Popes and Emperors c. And it had Ten Horns answering to the Ten Toes of the Iron Legs of the Image that is to say This Roman Empire was at last divided into Ten Kingdoms as the Greek Empire was into Four That these Ten Horns belong to the Roman Empire Grotius himself is fain to acknowledge in his Commentary on the Apocalypse though with might and main he endeavours to distort and obscure the sense of that Book to the utmost he can But by Virtue of the Apocalyptick Synchronisms and the clear and undeniable sense of the Seventeenth Chapter of that Book these Ten Horns must be the Roman Empire divided into Ten Kingdoms after the Empire became Christian and was beginning to Pagano-Christianize and grow Idolatrous again This therefore is the time and there the Ten Horns of the Beast 8. I considered the Horns Which is said by Daniel to excite us to a close consideration of these Horns to see what we can espy there And behold there came up among them another little Horn. And this more especially was the object of Daniel's and ought to be of our consideration what this little Horn that is said to be another Horn among them indeed but distinct from them may mean This little Horn therefore is an Additional to the Ten Horns here as the Two-horned Beast and the Whore are Additionals to the Ten-horned Beast Apoc. Ch. 13. and 7. Which most peculiarly is the Papal Polity or Hierarchy Now let us see how this suits with the Text. Before whom there were thrée of the First namely of the First Kind and First mentioned viz. Secular Horns pluckâ—… up by the roots Vatablus his Translation has it out of the Chaldee Tria autem ex cornibus prioribus evulsa sunt à facie ejus Whereby is signified only the removal from before his Face they stood in his light it seems Whereas they would have or had fixed themselves so near him to his prejudice he made shift to get them pull'd away But this you must conceive could not be till the Pope had ascended unto that rampancy of Power that he would excommunicate Emperours and depose them if need were or absolve their Subjects from Allegiance and seize their Lands In which time the Pope becoming the Monarch as it were of the Roman Empire the Emperours so called whether Greek or German may well take their places among the Ten Horns especially the Secular Empire of old Rome being dissolved which gave the Name or Title to the Roman Empire as Macedonia did to the Macedonick Empire This premised what Mr. Mede says on this Text is very agreeable That the Three Horns pulled away from before the little Horn is the power extending into Italy of the Greek Emperours of the Lombards and of the Franks continued in the Empire of Germany All these Three Powers or Horns he made shift to rid himself of that he might the more easily domineer in Italy without any Corrival as is sufficiently made out by History And behold in this Horn were eyes like the eyes of a man This is another main observable in this little Horn that it had eyes when none of the rest are said to have so Which is a notorious difference and hugely significant of a Power that will pretend to lead all the rest of the Horns as being themselves destitute of sight And the Papal Hierarchy how cunning and quick-sighted a Polity it has been all Histories ring of it and how far they pretend and how active Assistants they are even in Civil Affairs But I conceive this does not exhaust all the meaning of these eyes in the little Horn and of the other Horns having none Which may more peculiarly represent the difference betwixt this Hierarchical Power in the Empire and the Secular of the Ten Kings who in matters of Faith and Religion are to have no eyes of their own but to profess and believe as this Horn who pretends to have the only eyes tells them and to be led in a blind implicit Faith and Profession of whatsoever this seeing Horn declares to be Articles of the Christian Religion and requisite to salvation And this little Horn having this hank upon them you may be sure will require them to believe such things as tend
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 exceeding numerous Army of Darius was put to flight from whence the City by Alexander was after called Nicopolis But he cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him For all Darius brought out a far more numerous Army against him this last time than before yet Alexander quite vanquished him and the whole strength of his Kingdom at Arbela a City of Assyria And there was none that could deliver the Ram out of his hands Nay the terrour of Alexander was such that it caused Darius his own nearest friends to betray him And so Alexander was made Master of the whole Medo-Persian Empire 8. Therefore the He-goat waxed very great that is The Kingdom of the Greeks was exceedingly inlarged by this accession of the Medo-Persian Empire added thereunto by Alexander the Great deservedly so called for thus inlarging his Empire And when he was strong as having all this power of the Medes and Persians added to his own The great Horn was broken This Alexander the Great for all his greatness died and that an immature and violent death in the very Flower of his Age at about the Thirty second or Thirty third year thereof and that by Poyson as Historians record And after this great Horn of the Goat was broken for it came up four notable ones Not in comparison of the first great one that was broken but in comparison of the rest of Alexander's Captains amongst whom the Empire was divided after his death But in that there is not the least mention or intimation of any more than one Goat it is gross delirancy for any one to imagine the Horns here mentioned to belong to any other but to him Whence it is as clear as Noon-day that all the Horns here mentioned signifying particular Sovereignties there being in the mean time but one Beast mentioned which necessarily implies but one Empire State or Kingdom that all these particular Sovereignties must be the Sovereignties of one and the same State or Empire which the Goat signified which is the Greek Empire The Four notable Horns whereof here aimed at I conceive are * Ptolemaeus the Son of Lagus Sovereign of Aegypt Lysimachus of Thracia Antigonus of Asia and Cassander the Son of Antipater Sovereign of Macedonia Toward the Four Winds of Heaven that is East West North and South Aegypt lying in the South Thracia in the North Macedonia in the West and Asia in the East if we compare the situation of these Four Principalities one with another 9. And out of one of them came forth a little Horn which waxed excéeding great This cannot be understood restrainedly of the particular Person of Antiochus Epiphanes * but of the Kingdom of the Seleucidae commencing from Seleucus Satrapa or Prefect of Babylon who was none of the Four notable Horns but himself being less notable grew up by the favour of one especially of the most notable ones namely King Ptolemy to whom he made his address when Antigonus would have turned him out of his Prefecture as you may see in Diodorus Siculus But this little Horn the Kingdom of the Seleucidae which rose from such small beginnings later than the rest grew afterwards very great First Antigonus King of Asia being vanquished and slain Seleucus and Ptolemy divided the greatest part of the spoils betwixt them And Seleucus afterwards Demetrius Poliorcetes the Son of Antigonus being taken by him he got to himself the Empire of Syria and Asia So exceeding great did this little Horn grow in Seleucus his time but nothing comparable to this in Antiochus Epiphanes his Toward the South and toward the East This little Horn so called from its small beginnings as the little Horn Chap. 7. is is to be understood of the whole continuation of the Kingdom of the Seleucidae or the succession of the Kings of Syria or Assyria as Helvicus styles them and so the Vision is to be applied to such parts of the succession as it fits with And therefore this part may point more particularly to Antiochus Epiphanes who toward the East overcame Artaxias King of Armenia and had over-run Aegypt also in the South but that at his Siege of Alexandria the Roman Legat Popilius interceded in the name of the Senate and circumscribed him so that he durst proceed no further but retroceded from his enterprise on Aegypt as you may see in Iustin. And toward the pleasant Land The Hebrew word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies what is beautifull fair and pleasant All Interpreters understand it of the Land of Iudea this being the character of that Land in Holy Scripture as Psal. 38. The City of Ierusalem is said to be beautifull for situation and the joy of the whole Earth and Ezec. 20. 6. the Land of Iudea is described as a Land flowing with Milk and Honey and as the glory of all Lands Not but that Iudea belonged to the Kingdom of Syria or of the Seleucidae before but that there is here a peculiar occasion of mentioning it because Antiochus Epiphanes being disappointed of his purpose on Aegypt and Alexandria made presently after towards Iudea to vent his choler upon them Nor do I deny though the little Horn in its more general sense takes in the whole succession of the Kings of Syria but that yet it may more peculiarly aim at Antiochus Epiphanes * Which is the Genius of the Prophetick Style to give as it were Two strokes at once and under one figure to represent both the general state of the thing and also some more special part thereof alone And here that may luckily come in of Grotius who understands the Horn out of which the little Horn comes to be Antiochus Magnus the Father of Epiphanes and Epiphanes to be called little because he was modicae primùm fortunae privatus Romae obses of a mean fortune at first in a private condition and an hostage at Rome 10. And it waxed great even to the Host of Heaven that is So far that it fought against the People of God the Israel of God whose God is called the Lord of Hosts of which his own people are peculiarly a part and may be said to have kept garrison as it were in Ierusalem the Temple being as it were the main fortress thereof And Grotius understands it peculiarly of the Levites there watching And it cast down some of the Host that is Antiochus perverted some of the Priests and Levites and of the Iews in general to forsake the Law and to observe the Customs of the Heathens as you may see in the Books of Maccabees at large And of the Stars to the ground Even some of those that were or should have been great Lights to the people by reason of their Learnedness in the Law were perverted and precipitated into a compliance with the Heathenish Rites and Customes And stamped upon them trode them into the very dirt and mire at last of abominable prophanations 11. Yea he magnified himself even to the Prince of the
should continue upon God's People it is plain the time is to be reduced into years And so by the answer may be signified there would be Six years or there-about which may comprehend the first coming of Antiochus into Iudea when the Priesthood was prophaned as also his second his Interdicting the Iudaick Rites the placing the Idol in the Temple and the whole time of the Intermission of the daily sacrifice so Grotius expresly upon the place But from the time of that gross prophanation of the Temple when Antiochus his Soldiers set an Heathenish Altar in the Sanctuary and sacrificed Swine's Flesh on it till Antiochus Eupator granted the Iews the free use of their Religion and Temple Thomas Lydiat reckons about Three years and a half Which may give a glance being Prophetically understood at the Time of the true Antichrist Chap. 7. as to the duration of the entireness of his Kingdom Then shall the Sanctuary be cleansed At least by that time it shall be cleansed 15. And it came to pass when I even I Daniel had seen the Uision and sought for the meaning he praying in his heart that he might understand it Then behold there stood before me as the appearance of a Man An Angel externally visible to him in humane Shape For this is not a Dream or Night-Vision but a Day-Vision as I observed out of Grotius in the beginning 16. And I heard a Man's voice betwéen the banks of Ulai The River Vlaeus that runs by Susa betwixt the Banks of this River he heard the voice of Palmoni or Christ Who since he could walk on the Waters when he was in the Flesh might well appear betwixt the Banks of Vlai in the Air or upon the Water and there speak in a Man's voice before he was incarnate Which called and said Gabriel make this man understand the Uision The giving this command to Gabriel shews that this Palmoni is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any ordinary Angel but this and what was above-said may well assure us that it was the Prince of Angels yea Christ himself if we add what will occur in the Tenth Chapter 17. So he came near where I stood and when he came I was afraid And might have been more astonish'd if Palmoni himself had come so near him when he could not bear the presence of one of his Ministers And fell on my face Through very astonishment my Spirits failed in me But he said unto me Understand O Son of man that is be attentive and diligent to conceive what I say For at the time of the end shall be the Uision Though it be long even about 400 years till this of the little Horn be fulfilled in Antiochus Epiphanes yet at the end for a certain the Vision will be accomplished To say nothing how its Antitype at another Time of the End even during the Time and Times and half a Time will have its completion too 18. Now as he was speaking with me namely At the hearing of his voice I was as much stounded thereat as before at his sight and so sinking down fell upon my face my Spirits retiring as in those that are in a deep sopor as if they were half dead And therefore our English Translation is not so exact that renders the following words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I was in a déep sléep on my face toward the ground Vatablus has it Sopore correptus cecidi in faciem 〈◊〉 in terram and Calvin Sopitus corrui c. And the vulgar Latin Collapsus sum pronus in terram Which therefore signifies a sounding fit that took him at the hearing the voice of the Angel Hence Daniel is concluded to have fallen twice to the ground the first time at the sight the second at the voice of the Angel says Maldonat Which naturally implies that saving in these sounding fits Daniel was perfectly awake and that this Vision was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly so called a Day-Vision not a Night-Vision or Divine Dream But he touched me and set me upright The Hebrew is He made me stand upon my standing that is By his touch he enabled me to stand upon my Feet again so great vertue was there in it And no wonder that the Aethereal and vivifical Body or vehicle of an Angel which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the marvellous energy thereof actuated also by so holy an Inhabitant should raise Daniel faln into a sound unto life again when holy Souls even in their terrestrial Tenements have done such marvellous cures and by the application of their own bodies have raised them to life that have been taken to be dead as Elisha did in the Widow's Child and Paul in Eutychus And here we see the Angel Gabriel Christ appearing in humane shape by way of prelude to his Incarnation to have a preludious mission as of an Apostle to preach to Daniel and to instruct him and to do Miracles also as the Apostles did For this is a priviledge of the Ministers of Christ's Kingdom the Malcuth of the God of Israel which is the Tenth Sephirah with the Cabbalists as Geburah the Fifth the Topick of the Powers belonging to that Kingdom of which doing Miracles is one And Gabriel here the Angel his name signifies the Power of God or the Strength of God 19. And he said Behold I will make thée know what shall be in the last end of the Indignation For this prediction of the wrath of God in the time of Antiochus against his People and the raging tyranny of Antiochus over them is the main drift of this Vision and here the Angel promises to tell what shall come at the end thereof which he does Ver. 25. That he shall be broken without hand For at the time appointed the end shall be All times and affairs are in the hands of God and he can determine as he pleases and at his appointed time the Heat of those Persecutions and Oppressions of the Iews under Antiochus shall have an end they being not to last passing 2300 days as was declared above by Palmoni that Prince of Angels and Men and of Israel especially 20. The Ram which thou sawest having Two Horns are the Kings of Media and Persia that is The whole race of those Kings from Cyrus to Darius Codomannus as is to be understood from Ver. 4. where the Ram is said to push West-ward and North-ward and South-ward which was not performed by any one King but by the succession For that Typical Ram says Gasper Sanctius rusht out of Persis an Oriental Quarter and turning himself to the South assaulted Aegypt Aethiopia and Libya to the North Pontus Scythia and Cappadocia and turning himself to the West he made himself Master of the Babylonians Assyrians I suppose he means Syrians and the Isles of the Mediterranean These things were not performed by one King but by the succession And Grotius particularizes for the main For upon towards the West
the Persians says he under Darius the Son of Hystaspis and Xerxes made war upon Greece towards the North the said Darius made war against the Scythians toward the South Cambyses invaded Aegypt and Aethiopia as I noted above So evident is it that the whole succession is understood of the Kings of Media and Persia by the Ram together with their Kingdom Whence it is reasonable that by the Goat the whole succession of the Kings of the Greek Empire should be understood in like manner 21. And the rough Goat is the King of Grecia Hic Rex pro regno ponitur Hebraicâ locutione quae talia permiscet says Grotius And I say the rough Goat is the Kings of Graecia together with their Kingdom or Empire that is The whole succession of their Kings with their Kingdom or Empire But now for the rough Goat as he is here called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that hirsute or long-haired Goat and consequently long-bearded which above was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Interpreters make to be a young Goat and refer it to the youngness of Alexander when he undertook this expedition against Darius to win the Eastern Monarchy I do not see but this long-bearded Goat as he is here described may have reference to Alexander's Army it consisting of old Soldiers as Iustin describes them the Leaders especially Ordines quoque nemo nisi sexagenarius duxit ut si principia castrorum cerneres Senatum te alicujus priscae reipublicae videre diceres None says Iustin led the Files unless he was Threescore years old so that if you viewed the Fore-part of the Army you would take them to be the Senate of some ancient Common-wealth These long-bearded Sexagenarii appeared in the Fore part of the Army as the Goat's Beard goes before the rest of his Body But at least the condition of Alexander's Army consisting so much of old Soldiers may very well be prefigured by this long-haired or long-bearded Goat And the great Horn that is betwéen his Eyes is the first King This first King is most manifestly Alexander the Great a thing that no man ever denied and he is the first Horn of the Goat or first King of the Greek Empire From whence it necessarily follows that there must be other Horns and other Kings to succeed in this Body of the Goat or Greek Empire This is so plain that Grotius himself does allow it upon Ver. 8. that the Four Horns of the Leopard as he calls them he had better said Heads belong to the Greek Empire that is to the third Empire and consequently the Four Horns of the Goat Thus much Grotius whether he will or no is forced to allow though upon Chap. 2. he seems to endeavour to avoid it 22. Now that being broken whereas Four stood up for it Four Kingdoms shall stand up out of the Nation namely out of the Greek Nation These Four Kingdoms into which Alexander's Empire was divided Grotius is forced to confess as to the first Kings of them or Heads of them that they belong to the Leopard or Goat the third Monarchy Now what a miserable and unnatural divulsion is there that the Successours of Antigonus suppose of Ptolemaeus Lagi of Cassander and Lysimachus should be torn off as it were from their Predecessors in their Four Kingdoms respective to make a distinct Empire from the Greek which is as mad and extravagant as to cut off the Leopards and Goats Heads with their Horns to make Two Goats and Two Leopards of them And yet this valiant exploit Grotius aims at that he might excuse the Roman Empire from being the Fourth Beast and the Papal Power the little Horn amongst the other Ten. What Aegyptian darkness and blindness will Prejudice and Interest cast men into that can entertain such impossible conceits as these Here is but one Goat and one great Horn and Four lesser Horns which lesser Horns imply so many successions of the Four first Kings be they longer or shorter Which therefore according to the Prophetick style and common sense can make no more than one Greek Empire first entire under one King and then divided under Four with their Successours But not in his power that is they were neither so valiant as he in their own Persons nor was their Kingdom so strong by reason of the Wars among themselves they squabling one with another about the prey 23. And in the later time of their Kingdom when transgressions are come to the full that is When the Sins of the Iews shall be very much increased A King of fierce countenance understanding dark Sentences shall stand up This no man doubts but is understood of Antiochus Epiphanes but withall most of the Ancient and Modern look upon Epiphanes as a lively Type or Image of Antichrist But in that it is said in the later time of their Kingdom in the singular number that fairly offers to us this truth that in Prophetical account the four Kingdoms named before are looked upon as one Kingdom though they be divided into Four parts and have Four Kings some of longer and some of shorter succession But in that it is said in the later time of their Kingdom viz. of the Four Kings as they were at first this does so manifestly tye the first Four Kings to their succession even to Antiochus Epiphanes his times as many of them as reached so far that it is a plain demonstration that the Kingdom of the Four Horns doth extend it self into the times of Antiochus Epiphanes and that therefore the third Monarchy which is the Greek reaches at least so far Whereby Grotius his fond conceit of making the Kingdom of the Lagidae and Seleucidae the fourth Empire and the fourth Beast is quite blown away And it is hence evident that the fourth Beast or Empire is the Roman Now that Epiphanes is said to be a King of a fierce countenance the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may as well signifie vultu duro obfirmato of an hard bold and shameless countenance The vulgar Latin renders it Rex impudens facie and Gasper Sanctius records one Specimen of his impudence out of S. Ierom Luxuriosus says he fuisse dicitur in tantum dedecus per stupra corruptelas venisse Regiae dignitatis ut Mimis quoque Scortis publicè jungeretur libidinem suam populo praesente compleret Which publick Fornication and Adultery of his whether it be a sign of greater shamelesness than the spiritual Fornication I mean the Idolatry of Antichrist his Antitype not only practised by himself in publick but also injoyned by him for others so to practise I leave the unprejudiced to consider and whether Antiochus his setting the Idol of Iupiter Olympius in the Temple be a greater piece of boldness than Aâ—…tichrist's setting himself in the Temple of God upon the Holy Altar which is the throne of Christ or God to receive publick adoration from men there shewing himself as if he were God
more expedite and compendious expression you may call Geniconaea the latter Idiconaea which signifie the general and more particular meaning of such a part of the Prophecy As in this present Instancâ—â— Geniconaea the whole succession of the Kingdom of the Seleucidae may be understood but by an Idiconaea such passages as are understood of others in the succession at large may be again particularly applied to Antiochus Epiphanes for whose sake chiefly the affairs of the Seleucidae are predicted And to give instances of these Figures in other Propehcies Apoc. 17. By a Geniconaea the whole succession of the Heads of the Beast that was is not and yet is namely of the Roman Empire become Pagano-Christian whether Emperours of Popes are understood by the seventh Head of that Beast but by an Idiconaea the Popes particularly as Antiochus Epiphanes particularly in the succession of the Seleucidae So Apoc. 13. The Beast healed of its deadly wound healed I say by the diligence of the Two-horned Beast and recovered again into a kind of Paganism by a Genicoâ—…aea may be understood of the whole Laick Roman Empire so debauched by the Sacerdotal Polity but by an Idiconaea the making of the Image of the Beast may be referred particularly to the German Empire as the Object or Opus and to the Pope as the particular Artifex thereof And lastly in Daniel Chap. 11. ver 36. the King that does according to his will and shall exalt himself c. by a Geniconaea may be understood of the Roman Power at least from the first Epocha of Christianity to the expiration of the said Power which will expire with the Pope but by an Idiconaea it is particularly understood of the Papal Polity or Hierarchy Which Four examples I hope are sufficient to illustrate these Prophetical Figures which are worth the notice of the judicious and considerate and will serve to reconcile serious Interpreters of the Prophecies some hitting upon the Idiconaea of the Prophecy others upon the Geniconaea Which is no clashing one with another if they understand themselves But that sense which the Geniconaea exhibits is necessary sometimes and demonstrably true by Virtue of the Synchronisms Ver. 14. Which is the sense that Calvin himself seems to aim at c. And Theodoret and Isidore are of the same opinion as they are cited by Gasper Sanctius Neque desunt says he qui Christum esse dicunt illum qui in flumine apparuit quique Gabrieli jussit ut Prophetae obscurm illud aenigma manifestaret quasi jam praeluderet ad sumendam posteà humanam naturam in qua suas deinde inter homines delicias haberet ita Theodoretus Isidorus So Gasper Sanctius upon the place VISION IV. The Vision or Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks communicated to Daniel by the Angel Gabriel Chap. 9. 1. IN the first year of Darius the Son of Ahasuerus that is the Son of Cyaxares King of Media as the Greeks call him And Ctesias in Diodorus Siculus Biblioth Histor. lib. 2. p. 85. seems to call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * which is very near to Assâ—…baras and consequently to Asuerus Which Cyaxares the Mede gave his daughter Nicrotis to Nebuchadnezzar the Son of Nabopolassar to Wife who therefore was the Sister of Darius the Mede as well as Mandane who was the Mother of Cyrus the Persian Of the séed of the Medes For he was Son to Cyaxares King of Media whom being an Infant in a manner his Father committed to the tutelage of Nebuchadnezzar his son in Law when he died together with his Kingdom over which Nebuchadnezzar set Astyages of near a kin to Nicrotis his Wife haply her Uncle but upon Nebuchadnezzar's death Cyrus rebell'd against Astyages by some intimation from his Uncle Darius and overcame him after he had reigned some Thirty five years in the Kingdom of Media and Persia and Darius had been kept out of it the time But Astyages being vanquished the Kingdom of Media was restored to Darius and Cyrus had the Kingdom of Persia for his pains See Tho. Lydiat his Emendatio Temporum Which was made King over the Realm of the Chaldeans succeeding immediately Belshazzar after Cyrus Nephew to Darius had taken Babylon and Belshazzar was slain Wherefore Darius was invested in the Kingdom of Babylon Cyrus his Nephew delivering it to him being then about Sixty two years of Age. And forasmuch as he lived from his infancy in Nebuchadnezzar's Court and Nicrotis Nebuchadnezzar's Wife was his Sister and was brought up as Nebuchadnezzar's Son and so haply called out of Courtship the Babylonian Empire seems still to have been continued in his Reign and he fitly to be called the King of the Chaldeans as Daniel the Prophet here styles him And yet notwithstanding Daniel comparing the Babylonish Captivity and the extirpation of Nebuchadnezzar's race by the Medes and Persians and that Cyrus being Commander in the war by name so predicted by the Prophet Isaiah he comparing these things I say with the commencement and duration of the Empire of Nebuchadnezzar and his Sons predefined by Ieremy the Prophet and with the time himself was first made captive which was in the Fourth year of Iehojakim King of Iudah and the first of Nebuchadnezzar when he was sent by his Father Nabopolassar with Regal power against Aegypt it came then into his mind that the expiration of the Seventy years Captivity of the Iews in Babylon was near at hand as it appears in the following Verse 2. In the first year of his Reign I Daniel understood by the Books For there was in the hands of the Iews then the Books of Moses and the Prophets that they might know their transgression punishment and time of appointed mercy The number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Ieremiah the Prophet Ierâ—…m 25. 11. 12. And this whole Land shall be a desolation and astonishment and it shall come to pass when Seventy years are accomplished I will punish the King of Babylon c. And the whole race of his Sons was exstinct in Belshazzar killed at the taking of Babylon by Cyrus And Ch. 27. ver 7. And all Nations says he shall serve him and his Son and his Son's Son until the very time of his land come And there was but Three successions Nebuchadnezzar himself Evil-Merodac his Son and Belshazzar his Son's Son according to the words of the Prophet slain at Cyrus his taking of Babylon Of whom Isaiah foretold by name what a Friend he would be to the Iews Isa. 44. 28. That saith of Cyrus He is my Shepherd c. That also of Jeremy Ch. 29. v. 10. is very express Thus saith the Lord of Hosts That after Seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you and perform my good word toward you in causing you to return to this place Wherefore Daniel seeing so plainly from these places of the Prophet sent to the Iews by God That he would accomplish Seventy years in the desolations
12. Then said he unto me Fear not Daniel This was to encourage him and abate his trembling For from the first day namely of the three Weeks of Days that thou didst set thine heart to understand and to chasten thy self before thy God by fasting mourning and Prayer Thy words were heard Thy petition was granted And I am come for thy words that is by reason of thy earnest and zealous prayer I am come unto thee Behold the admirable Efficacy of earnest and sincere devotion that attracts to it not only the Ministry of Angels but brings down into converse the Son of God himself 13. But the Prince of the Kingdom of Persia withstood me One and twenty Days This is spoke by way of preventing an objection for if his Petition was heard the very first day of the Three Weeks of humiliation Daniel might think strange that he heard no news of it before now But to solve that difficulty the Angel tells him that the Presidentiary Angel of the Kingdom of Persia with whom he contested detained him that time And it is admirable to take notice of the concurrence of Daniel's prayers and devotions and the Activity of the Invisible powers for that which he prayed for At the very same time while he prayed they acted for the effecting the thing he prayed for But lo Michael one of the chief Princes came to help me This bringing in of Michael one of the chief Princes as assisting against the Prince of the Kingdom of Persia shews plainly that the Prince of the Kingdom of Persia is an Angel as well as Michael and therefore as Michael is the Presidentiary Angel of the Ieâ—…wish Nation so must the Prince of the Kingdom of Persia be the Presidentiary Angel of the said Kingdom of Persia. From whence it is plain that there are Presidentiary Angels of all Kingdoms and Nations To which purpose the ancient Fathers alledge that of Deuter. Chap. 32. 8. according to the Septuagints translation as Cornelius à Lapide takes notice When the most High divided to the Nations their Inheritance when he separated the Sons of Adam he set the bounds of the People 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the number of the Sons of God not of the Children of Israel they reading as it sems not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understanding by the Sons of God the Angels And with this agrees excellently well what follows in the Latine translation Pars autem Domini Populus ejus but the Lord's portion is the Iews Iacob is the Lot of his Inheritance This runs far more coherently than any sense I can find Expositors make of it who reade 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which Text therefore implies that whereas other Nations have but Presidentiary Angels over them the Lord himself i.e. Iehova Filius Palmoni is the Governour or King of Ieshurun or Israel and Michael the General of his Armies under him But now for the Presidentiary Angels of other Nations * whether they be good Angels as the general Authority of the Fathers seems to confirm or bad as Gasper Sanctius industriously endeavours to demonstrate is a point too nice to be insisted on in so brief an Exposition and therefore I will let it pass And I remained there with the Kings of Persia. For I was left alone so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will signify as being the remainder of those that were with me i.e. Michael and I were not both there together for a good while I having sent him elsewhere but at last he came again to assist or relieve me whom leaving behind me in my place 14. Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people for whom thou didst so earnestly intercede in thy devotions In the latter days For yet the Uision is for many days As it is said verse 1. The thing was true but the time appointed was long as if he should say Thy great zeal and earnestness is concerning the deliverance of the Iews out of this present Captivity and to know what their condition is like to be in reference to it But I am for the good of my people come to make thee understand what will befall the Iews or people of God at large through the series of many ages even to the end of all what they shall suffer under the Greek Empire what under the Roman and what an happy restoring there will be of them towards the end 15. And when he had spoken such words unto me I set my face towards the ground and became dumb that is I lookt downwards towards the earth with all reverence and modesty not being able to bear the glorious presence of this mighty Angel And my astonishment from having beheld him was so great and also from hearing his voice that I was not yet able to speak For that Fear and the surprize of Admiration will stop the voice is a thing vulgarly known and noted both in Poets and Historians as an effect of those passions 16. And behold one like the similitude of the sons of men not in a terrestrial body yet though in humane shape It is the same Angel says A Lapide which he had seen and which had talked with him all this time and he will allow him to be a Type of Christ and Calvin mentions some that understand this person in the similitude of the Sons of men to be Christ. Touched my lips as he touched the Tongue of the deaf and dumb man Mark 7. and crying Ephphata loosed his tongue that he could speak as Daniel after the Angel had touched his Lips says Then I opened my mouth and spake and said unto him that stood before me O my Lord by the Uisions my sorrows are turned upon me and I have retained no strength So overcoming was the glorious Presence of the Messiah before he came in the flesh These consternations of mind in Daniel thus often repeated set off the inexpressible eminency of the person he conversed with and the huge weightiness of the matter that he was to conveigh unto Daniel 17. For how can the servant of this my Lord The Hebrew may be rendred How can this Servant of my Lord For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Zeh here may be referred to Servant as well as Lord and then the sense is How can so vile a servant so wretched poor and despicable a creature as I am For here Zeh signifies as Iste in Latine a diminishing indication Taâ—…k with this my Lord that is with such an one as this my Lord is For here Zeh signifies eminency of Worth and Excellency or height of Glory and Majesty Which expressions of Daniel put Calvin to the trouble of making an excuse for him and to shew that this does nihil detrahere Dei Monarchiae But understanding here by this Angel that Christ is meant by it as I have proved he is meant thereby this appellation of him by the name 〈◊〉
Seleucus brought away with him fourty thousand Talents of silver and two thousand five hundred Images of their Gods amongst which were those that Cambyses when he took Aegypt carried away with him into Persia. For which feat of bringing back again their Images that were violently taken from them so many years agoe the Aegyptians being a very superstitious people he obtained the name of Euergetes amongst them as if he had been so great a benefactour to them in recovering their Images Thus St. Ierome out of writers which he had the use of but since have perished And he shall continue more years than the King of the North. Ptolemaeus Euergetes his Reign was six years longer than the Reign of Seleucus Callinicus the Son of Antiochus Theos by Leodice his Reign was almost by one third part longer than his And the Kingdom of Syria was made a Province by the Romans betwixt thirty and fourty years before Aegypt was if that may be also insinuated But the former is more material it implying that Callinicus durst not bouge against Aegypt all the days of his life Ptolemaeus Euergetes who got so full a victory over him which would naturally daunt his spirits being still living 9. So the King of the South Ptolemaeus Euergets shall come into his Kingdom and shall return into his own land Which intimates his power and success to have been so great and with so little loss to his Armie and with that ease as if he had been Lord of Syria and had free ingress and egress at his pleasure 10. But his Sons shall be stirred up Though that shamefull overthrow he had received cowed the Spirit of Seleucus Callinicus yet his two sons Seleucus Ceraunus and Antiochus Magnus after his death and indeed after the death of Ptolemaeus Euergetes which was a further incouragement to them bestirred themselves to recover what their father had lost and to that end gathered a great Armie as it follows And shall assemble a multitude of great Forces See Polyb. lib. 2. and lib. 5. And they were the more encouraged thereto Ptolemaeus Euergetes not onely being dead but a person little beloved a killer of his father mother and brother and therefore in derision called Philopator succeeding him And he shall certainly come and overflow and pass through Though he began with the two sons yet he changes the number plural here into the singular because Seleucus Ceraunus died in the beginning of the enterprise reigning scarce three years Wherefore Antiochus Magnus is here meant by him that shall certainly come and overflow c. For he did overflow Iudea and Coele Syria by the treachery of Theodotus Ptolemaeus Philopator his Governour of that Province Then shall he return and be stirred up even to his fortress And after this no peace being concluded he shall again renew the war and taking many Towns he shall at last come to Raphia an exceeding well fortified Town in the confines of Aegypt See Polybius lib. 5. 11. And the King of the South shall be moved with choler and shall come forth and fight with him even with the King of the North viz. Philopator with Antiochus Magnus For though Philopator was but a sluggish voluptuous person and given to his ease and pleasure yet when his proper Kingdom was in such imminent danger he was inraged and thought it was time to bestir himself for fear he should not only lose Syria but Aegypt too And he shall set forth a great multitude Seventy thousand Foot and five thousand Horse and seventy three Elephants And a multitude shall be given into his hand that is He shall take many prisoners of the Armie of Antiochus Magnus Which is the thing that the Author of the third Book of Maccabees expresly sets down and that the success was from the passionate importunity of Arsinoe Philopators sister who ran up and down from one part of the Armie to the other with her hair disheveled and hanging about her shoulders and by promises and earnest intreatings driving the soldiery to fight with more than ordinary resolution and courage whereby they won the day and took many Prisoners Grotius out of Polybius names four thousand and the rest were killed or routed and put to flight 12. And when he hath taken away the multitude that is When he hath partly taken captive partly killed and so taken them out of the way and partly put to flight and scattered the multitude of Antiochus his Armie and thereby driven them away from his Territories His heart shall be listed up His heart that was oppressed and depressed with fear and anxiety before will be now more lightsome and exalted and give it self the swing to satisfie its own lusts in this security by his unclean conversation with Agathoclea the singing wench and Agathocles her brother and will rudely and prophanely at Iudea not onely come into the Temple but rush into the Holy of Holies against the advice and persuasion of all either pious or prudent By-standers See the third Book of Maccabees Ch. 1. And he shall cast down many ten thousands but he shall not be strengthned by it The sense is for of this latitude is the signification of the particle â—… And though he shall cast down many thousands for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signify an indefinite great number and not exactly Myriads as all Interpreters agree Yet shall he not be strengthened by it Though that great Armie of Antiochus Magnus was quite vanquished by him yet Antiochus himself escaping he will appear again in the field and undoe all that hath been done after he has espied an opportunity for his purpose The Idleness Luxury and Sottishness of Philopator made this great advantage he had got against Antiochus to signify nothing 13. For the King of the North shall return and shall set forth a multitude greater than the former He shall again gather an Army and that greater than the former And shall certainly come after certain years that is These things were a brewing for a certain time while he observed the luxury and dissoluteness of Philopator and his mindlesness of his affairs which encouraged him to meditate this other War against Egypt made him sure to come and gave him hope of Success With a great Army and much riches With a great Army and well appointed Which Armies sometimes are not by reason of the want of money or whatever necessaries are requisite for the good appointment of an Army For the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies any Acquist from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 acquisivit whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Post-horse or Mule has its name wherefore by this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I conceive is meant all the plentifull supply of necessaries and fit accommodations for an Army such as Beasts of burthen Wagons and Draught-horses with the things they carry c. Which the Latins call Impedimenta in English they are called the Carriage of the Army Bag and Baggage
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
done under the sixth Seal 37. Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers that is The Roman Empire becoming Christian will cast off the Gods of their Ancestours and cashier the old Pagan Religion Nor the desire of women that is Marriage will not be in that high esteem then as it was with the Ancient Romans as those Laws testify which were called Iulia and Papia which Constantine abrogated This I say may be one sense of the foregoing verse and of this part of this and so take in all the time of the Roman Empire from the beginning of the Gospel at least to the times of the Apostasy of the Church or of the Empire become the Beast that was and is not and yet is By a Geniconoea as I may so speak this may be the sense of the foregoing verse and this part of this But by an Idiconoea I conceive with the Ancients that the chiefest sense is that which concerns that Antichrist which undoubtedly Paul aims at 2 Thess. 2. And therefore emboldened by his authority I shall paraphrase the foregoing verse and this hitherto thus Then shall a King c. i.e. After the Reign of Antiochus Epiphanes that Type of Antichrist and notorious enemy of the people of God in the Greek Empire shall there arise a Rex Sacrorum or Royal Pontifex if you will who with his formed body Politick or Ecclesiastical Power shall prove the very Antichrist indeed answering in the Roman Empire to that wicked Antiochus in the Greek and both of them placed in the latter times of each Empire Which Ecclesiastical Prince or Pontifex finding the stream of Affairs and good fortune to carry him along shall at last exalt himself above every God i.e. every Supreme Magistrate the Emperour himself not excepted nay shall speak strange blasphemous words against the Sovereignty of God himself as if he had power to abrogate and dispense with the laws of God and Christ and were himself Supremum Numen in terris Which impieties he will prosperously carry on for such a time as Divine Providence shall permit that is for a Time and Times and half a Time at the expiration of which his Kingdome shall begin to be broken But notwithstanding all this wickedness he shall not be a pure Roman Pagan nor shall he regard the Gods of his Ancestours or Predecessours that is of the Supreme Magistrates of Rome who Reigned there a long time before him such Deities I say as Neptune Mars Iupiter Capitolinus and the like But this shall be notable in him that he shall be outwardly a strict professour of a single life and it shall be against his Pontifical office to marry and likewise his Clergy shall be tyed to the same laws that he may thereby the better promote the designs of his Rampant and Insatiable Ambition Which spirit of pride and worldliness shall grow so rank in him that he shall in time cast off the real sense of all Religion as it follows in the Text. Nor regard any God for he shall magnify himself above all And therefore he will subordinate all Religion to his own worldly advantage and Interest Whence it will be that he will amongst other things make no conscience of Idolatry as it follows 38. But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces The Hebrew runs thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. For together with God or besides God for so will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signify namely together as Dan. 11. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Calvin renders cum exercitu he will honour the Mahuzzim that is the Daemons which St. Paul Prophesies of whose worship would be brought in in the latter times that is in the Time and Times and half a Time which is the Reign of Antichrist and in the fourth Empire by unconscionable liars and men that are against marriage and place their Râ—â—igion in abstaining from meats that is by Monks especially This Paul says 1 Tim. 4. That the Spirit has foretold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expresly not obscurely nor Aenigmatically as being in this Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth that is in this plain and express Prophecy and not at all obscure or Aenigmatical These Daemons therefore of St. Paul and Daniel's Mahuzzim are the Souls of departed Saints which this Antichrist King of Rome or Roman Hierarchy will worship together with God or Christ. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in his estate but place namely in the places or Temples of God or Christ in Churches which have their name from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Lord Christ. Or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signify as much as upon his bottom or foundation which is the very pretence of the Pontificians that they worship the Saints upon account of honouring Christ. And it is to be noted also that Mahuzzim signifies as much as Towers Fortresses Walls Bulwarks Guards and Protectours which are the very Titles the Idolatrous Saint-worshippers give the Saints and their Reliques reposed in their Churches Of so fit significancy is this name of Daemons viz. Mahuzzim which 〈◊〉 expresses them by and the worshipping of whom St. Paul says is so expresly foretold would be And where is it foretold especially expresly if not here And a God whom his Fathers knew not Read according to the Hebrew Even together with a God which his Fathers that is his Ancestors the ancient Romans knew not which God is Christ. Shall he honour them with gold and silver and with precious stones and pleasant things Which is abundantly fulfilled in the rich offerings to and clothings of the Images and Altars of the Saints in the Romish Church which are very costly and sumptuous 39. Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange God This is very obscure sense The Hebrew runs thus and is easy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. And he shall make the Holds of the Mahuzzim jointly to the foreign God As if we should say the Holds of the Mahuzzim with the foreign God i.e. the Holds jointly made to them both or jointly appertaining to them both Which are Churches and Monasteries dedicated to Christ for he is this foreign God partly as being a Iew by birth not a Gentile much less a Roman and partly as being really God-man which is such a strange and foreign Deity as the Romans nor any Nation else were ever acquainted with before together with this or that Saint and elegantly here are these Churches and Monasteries called Holds in reference to Mahuzzim which has a warlike sense in it and signifies * military Protectours and Champions whose Houses therefore may well be called strong Holds And the Reliques of the Saints lying there are accounted strong Castles and Towers of defence by the superstitious followers of Antichrist Whom he shall acknowledg and increase with glory that is Antichrist shall make an outward Profession of Christ and accumulate external shews and pomps in honour to him And he shall cause them the Mahuzzim to
a spurious reading understanding the Prophecy literally And it may be it was a Comment crept into the Text. For as all are agreed that by the red Apple is meant some Imperial City so the Red Hats of the Cardinals and the Scarlet cloathing of the Papal Hierarchy might easily invite the Commentatour to interpret this Red Apple of the City of Rome and if any Iew was the Interpreter as there are many amongst the Turks they understanding by Edom in the Scripture which signifies Red the City of Rome or the Roman Power it was hard for him to miss of that Interpretation And Cornelius à Lapide notes that the Iews by the Idumaeans understand the Romans in his Commentary upon Isai. 21. 11. The Burden of Dumah that is of Idumaea in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which is very nigh in writing to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Martinius in his Technologia observes out of St. Ierome Sic saith he Hieronymus ait 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 literas parvo apice distingui cùm interpretatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 paululùm literae apice commutato pro 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 legi posse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sonare Romam But there was no need of this nicety the Interpretation of this Turkish Prophecy is discovered enough already I will onely referr the Reader to Mr. Mede Book 5. Ch. 8. where by many examples he shows that the Iews by Edom understand Rome and how R. D. Kimchi turns 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I think Interpreters are much mistaken when they interpret the seven and twelve years not Symbolically but Arithmetically For if there be any thing in the Prophecy I suspect this to be the meaning thereof That the Turk may take the City of Rome suppose within the space of the seventh Vial being so hugely guilty of Idolatry and bloud if she prevent it not by timely Repentance And if the Christian sword advance not against him during the Septenary a Symbol of the reign of Idolatry for such was the seventh Head yet upon the commencing of the Duodenary which is the Symbol of the times of the pure Apostolick Restitution and of the new Ierusalem Christianity shall furmount Turcisme Nor shall the Christians any where be any longer slaves â—…nto him But I brought this Prophecy of the Turks taking the City of Rome set down by that zealous Romanist Bartholomaeus Georgivitz onely to shew that the forewarning the Church of Rome of the danger is no argument of the least ill will towards them Shall be slain with the Sword of him that sits on the white Horse And this is the Christian sword that in the beginning of the Duodenary when the truely pure and Apostolick Church shall appear will put the Turk to flight that is quite vanquish the Turkish Religion and Power and turn them all Christians And these are those times which Cardan in an Astrological Fit of Divination more than ordinarily assisted it may be as the Star-gazers of the East were by a Supernatural Star describes in his language briefly thus Martem Lunam debellant Sol Iupiter Authoritate Dignitate Veritate Ob hoc Christiani erigite capita qui potest capere capiat The language is fantastical as being Astrological but the prediction insinuated by some better kind of Genius as the Turkish Prophet haply might be inspired by some secret Emissary from Palmoni who has a right to all Kingdomes though not possession yet of all is sober and true as appears by the Holy Oracles of Scripture VISION VI. Continued From the times of the sixth and seventh Vial to the second Resurrection as also the Duration of the Entireness of the Kingdome of Antichrist defined And the time of his more palpable Discovery indigitated by two Numbers directing thereto Chap. 12. 1. AND at that time shall Michael stand up the great Prince which standeth for the Children of thy people As it is said Ch. 10. 21. And there is none that holdeth with me in these things but Michael your Prince This passage therefore denotes the time when the affairs of the Iews become very hopefull and prosperous which is about the sixth and the seventh Vials to speak in the language of the Apocalypse And there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a Nation even to that same time As it is said Apoc. 16. 18. under the seventh Vial And there was a great Earthquake such as was not since men were upon earth so mighty an earthquake and so great The comparing which two places together plainly shews to what times they belong And at that time thy people shall be delivered The Seventy have it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy people shall be saved as also the vulgar Latin has it Salvabitur populus tuus namely from that bondage and abject condition they had lived in among the Nations as also from the rude and beggerly elements of Moses and by their conversion to Christianity they will be made partakers of eternal salvation Chery one that shall be found written in the Book Yea not the Iews onely but every one as well Gentiles as Iews that are found written in the Book of Life mentioned Apoc. 20. 12. shall be saved So that as it is usual with the Prophets there is a running out from the Temporal deliverance of the Iews to the Spiritual deliverance and from their particular deliverance from the lake of fire or second death to the General Salvation of all whose names are writ in the Book of Life As the sense is very coherent with what follows in the next verse which contains though something involutely and contractedly both the first and second Resurrection according as the words are capable of a double Exposition 2. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake Where Many in counterdistinction to All does plainly intimate the first Resurrection which is not the General Resurrection but the Resurrection of the Martyrs onely such as did actually lose their lives for witnessing to the Truth or did without all reserve expose them for the same as Daniel did who was cast into the Lions den and the three Children into the fiery furnace though they were miraculously delivered Some to everlasting life The Hebrew has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those to everlasting life viz. Those that awake out of the dust of the earth at this time Those that are revivificated into their glorious bodies at this first Resurrection these awake to eternal life and enjoy a blessed immortality in their Heavenly bodies This is the first Resurrection of which it is said Apoc. 20. Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first Resurrection on such the second death hath â—…o power And some to shame and everlasting contempt In the Hebrew it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which you may render But those others another sort of people which the Prophecy
points at whose condition begins at this first Resurrection or about the commencing of the Blessed Millennium or New Ierusalem-state these shall be in perpetual shame and contempt all along the time of the Blessed Millennium or New Ierusalem and indeed even to the end of the world For these are that wretched Crew who are the foul spirits or unclean birds that haunt the Ruins of Babylon those Dogs Sorcerers Whoremongers Murderers Idolaters and Liars that are excluded the Holy City Which is a very shameful and contemptible condition indeed And according to this sense of the words of this verse it is plain the first Resurrection mentioned in the Apocalypse is pointed at But now if by Many we do not understand a certain number in counterdistinction to All but a vast multitude as there will be certainly at the general Resurrection and the Critical Interpreters of the Bible do not stick to affirm that Many sometimes signifies All so be they be but a great multitude then the Text will run naturally enough for the last and General Resurrection when both good and bad shall arise And those words Some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt will be a fit distribution of those Many or All that are then said to arise out of the dust of the Earth the one part of them being to be adjudged to a Blessed Immortality in glorified bodies the other to that shamefull squalid forlorn and accursed condition of the Apostate Spirits those horrid Hell-hounds with whom they are to be sentencâ—…d to everlasting fire or the Lake of fire and brimstone which is the second death 3. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament that is They that be docible and understand the ways of God and walk therein accordingly shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament as the bright azure Skie And they that turn many to righteousness as the Stars for ever and ever that is They that are not onely wise and holy themselves but are instrumental in the promoting true wisdome and holiness in others shall shine as the Stars shall have a greater and more peculiar and eminent glory than others Which if it respect the first sense of the foregoing verse it denotes the splendour and prosperity of the blessed Millennium in what honour and repute the Citizens of the new Ierusalem especially the good Ministers Pastors or Teachers and godly Magistrates in what high esteem and veneration they will live in counterdistinction to that wretched rabble that are excluded the holy City But if it respect the second sense it intimates the different degrees of the glorified bodies of the Saints in the Resurrection which the Apostle sets off by comparing one Star with another For one Star differeth from another Star in glory But Daniel by comparing the brightness of the Firmament with that more vigorous lustre in the stars themselves makes a great difference betwixt that share of glory and happiness which successfull Teachers and Instructers of the people in the ways of holiness and faithfull Magistrates shall have and that which shall fall to their lot whose activity hath reached no farther than the concern of their own Souls And thus we see this Prophecy of Daniel to reach to the very end of the World the general Resurrection when the good shall be rewarded with that immarcescible Crown of eternal Glory and the wicked sentenced to everlasting Fire What follows concerns the obscurity and Intelligibleness of these predictions in this last Vision and others that tend to the same scope when and by whom they are likely to be understood and by whom not understood 4. But thou O Daniel shut up the words and seal the Book even to the time of the end This command to Daniel to seal the Book is a kind of prediction that the Book will not be unsealed as to the aforesaid Visions till the Time of the End that is till the last times or the time of the Roman Monarchy for that is the fourth and last Monarchy But then in that time Many shall run to and fro that is be inquisitive and hunt after Truth And knowledge shall be increased that is They shall not altogether hunt in vain but many shall find the Truth and understand the coming of Christ by the help of the Prophecies of this Book when he shall appear as also in the latter part of these last Times the coming likewise of Antichrist Which is chiefly here aimed at when knowledge shall most of all abound as it has very much this last age or two 5. Then I Daniel looked and behold there stood other two Angels suppose in the shape of men The one on this side of the bank of the River viz. of Hiddekel or Tigris ch 10. 4. And the â—…ther on that side of the bank of the River These two Angels signify two Presidentiary Angels of two Kingdoms or Empires and St. Ierome makes them the Presidentiary Angels of Greece and Persia Alcazar of Syria and Aegypt But this is out of Inadvertency to what times this part of the Prophecy reaches which is to the times 〈◊〉 the Roman Empire and Maâ—â—metan Whence we may reasonably collect that as there has been mention made of the Presidentiary Angels of Persia and Grecia ch 10. and also of Iudaea so these two Angels are brought in as the Presidentiary Angels of those Kingdoms or Empires that this part of the Prophecy reaches to namely the Presidentiary Angels of the Roman and Mahometan Empire 6. And one said to the man clothed in linen which was upon the waters of the River viz. to the man described ch 10. 5. namely to Palmoni or Christ himself How long shall it be to the end of these wonders that is How long shall these wonderfull things that have been here foretold continue 7. And I heard the man clothed in linen viz. him that is described ch 10. 5. and whose description is somewhat like that of Christ Apoc. 1. V. 13 14 c. and that in ch 10. 1. Which was upon the waters of the River but Apoc. 10. 2. is said to set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the earth When he held up his right hand and his left hand unto Heaven As the Angel Apoc. 10. 5. is said to lift up his hand to Heaven which is the posture of them that swear And sware by him that liveth for ever That it shall be for a Time and Times and half a Time namely Those more marvellous things especially foretold of that King of Pride ch 11. v. 36 37 38. that they should continue so long about three Prophetical years and an half or forty two Prophetical months as the Apocalypse expresseth it which is the time also of the little Horn with eyes Dan. 7. 25. who is the same with this King of Pride And when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people that is After the
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
must be cast away as if it were neither precious nor a Corner-stone and be bestowed again on a Pagan people the Romans For so Grotius does not stick to profess Idem Lapis Filius hominis and he made the Son of man before the people of Rome But can a man believe that the Original or success of that people was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing brought to pass by the special power and Spirit of God and not more humano according to the usual course of the World and that not of the best kind their beginnings being helped on by a rabble of Ruffians and Robbers 7. No but that is not Grotius his gloss you will â—…ay Let us therefore hear what it is Lapis abscissus de Monte sine maâ—…ibus according to him is Exercitus populi qui suae esset spontis nullique Regi pareret cujâ—…s populi origo à Monte nempe Palatino In which there is nothing sound nor solid For was this Roman Army any thing more suae spontis in that they had not a Kingly Government at Rome That supreme Power of Consuls and Senatours was as directive and coactive as if it had been Regal So that the motion of this Army was never the more spontaneous for this Again The Stone cut from the Mountain without hands implies that it was then spontaneously divided from the Mountain when it is said to be cut thence But when the Romans first issued from Mount Palatine yea so soon as they were Populus Romanus Regal Government was amongst them it being the first Government of this â—…eople and therefore they were not then Populus suae spontis according to Grotius his own conceit so that he cannot bring both ends together And lastly To interpret Mountain here in a litteral sense is unskilfully done and not according to the analogy of the Prophetick Style nor the very intimation of the present Text which says the little Stone became a great Mountain it self and filled the whole Earth Wherefore this Mountain signifying not litterally but politically there is no question but the other does so too and that the Stone is in some sense homogeneal to this rocky Mountain Whence the sense is plainly this That out of the great Mountain that is the Roman Empire there should be a people raised not by human power or policy but by the Spirit of God and the preaching of the Gospel by Iesus Christ and his Apostles which should be a peculiar people to him and becomâ—… the Subjects of his Kingdome that is to say That the Church of Christ should be cut out of the Roman Empire without human help This is a most easy and undistorted sense and against which there cannot be made the least exception 8. Fourthly which I have already intimated above The Ten Horns of the Fourth Beast with Iron Teeth and the Ten Toes of the Iron Legs of the Statue signify the same thing Wherefore it is plain sith the Ten Toes imply a Coexistence of the Ten Horns by reason of the coordination of their Site that there must be Ten Kings together in the Fourth Kingdome But in the Kingdome of the Seleucidae and Lagidae there were not Ten Kings together all at once Therefore that Kingdome is not the Fourth 9. Fifthly Antiochus Epiphanes part of this Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae is said to riâ—…e up in the latter time of the Kingdome of the successours of Alexander Dan. 8. 22 23. Wherefore this Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae has expired near two thousand years ago But the Kingdome of the Fourth Beast reaches even to the day of Judgment Dan. 7. 9 10. And I beheld till the Thrones were cast down and the Antient of days did sit His Throne was like the fiery flame and his wheels as burniâ—…g fire A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him thousand thousands ministred unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him * the Iudgment was set and the Books were opened c. That this is the description of the day of Judgment is the general opinion of both Christians and Jews and answers exactly to the lake of Fire and the opening of the Books Apoc. 20. which Grotius himself does interpret of the last day Whence we may safely conclude that the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae is not the Fourth Kingdome as having ceased so long before that time though we understood the day of Judgment in the sense of the Rabbins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 According to which the meaning of I beheld till the Thrones were set and the Books were opened is this that the Prophet Daniel had a prospect even to the utmost end of that great day But he begins more particularly at the beginning of that day in the eleventh verse But this I have onely noted by the by 10. Sixthly and lastly Alexander's Kingdome and that of his Successours is all one Kingdome But that of Alexander's is the third according to Grotius his own concession Now that that of his Successours of which Line are the Lagidae and Seleucidae is one Kingdome with that of Alexander's is evident out of Daniel Ch. 8. 21. The rough Goat is the King of Graecia and the great Horn that is betâ—…ixt his eyes is the first King Now that being broken whereas Four stood up for it Four Kingdomes shall stand up out of the Nation but not in his Power This is one plain proof that the Kingdome of Alexander and his Successours is all one Kingdome For he calls Alexander the first King which necessarily implies that his Successours are the second and that therefore they all belong to one and the same Kingdome Nay he says plainly that these Four Horns stand up for that great one that is in his stead What is this but to succeed in place of him as the Heads of one and the same Empire For no new Beast is said to succeed this Beast but the Horns the Horn. And then the comparing of them and saying But not in his power farther intimates a cognation and succession of one Line and that he does noâ—… speak of the Heads of two different Kingdomes Which appears farther from vers 8. Therefore the Goat waxed very great and when he was strong the great Horn was broken and foâ—… it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of Heaven But where should these come up but on that Head that had lost this great Horn which is compensated with four lesser ones * though in their kind notable For it is very incongruous and extravagant to fansy them to come up in any other And surely if they had belonged to any other Beast that Beast would not fail to have been named Wherefore they must either grow out of this Goat's Head or no where unless out of the ground which is ridiculous And therefore it is plain that Alexanders Kingdome and that of his Successors is but one Kingdome For that Goat is but one
and the same Goat under the Succession of this variety of Horns 11. And yet there is still greater evidence of this truth from Ch. 7. 6. After which I beheld and lo another like a Leopard which had upon the back of it four Wings of a fowl the beast had also four Heads and Dominiâ—…n was given unto it That the four Heads of this Beast are the four Successours of Alexander * namely Perdicca Seleucus Ptolemaeus Meleager Grotius himself does frankly confess The Wings therefore denote the four Kingdomes Alexander's Empire was divided into after his decease which is still lookt upon as one Beast notwithstanding as the Roman is with its division into ten Kingdomes noted by ten Horns or into Oriental and Occidental figured by the two Wings of an Eagle Here Grotius if he would speak out would make Alexander the Beast as he has Domitian and others in the Apocalypse against all the Laws of Prophetick Interpretation nay indeed against all rhyme and reason For he glosses thus Pardus variâ—…m Animal â—…ic Alexander moribus variis But how grosly incongruous it is let any one consider For then would Alexander be inferiour to his four chief Officers and they would be the Head of him which is a Political Absurdity nay the Head of him when he ceased to be which is an Absurdity Metaphysical Wherefore Alexaâ—…der is the first Head or great Horn of this Beast not the Body of it that he may be superiour to his four grand Officers and not be the Beast to bear these â—…our Horns or Heads when he had quite ceased to be on this stage of things For these were not Heads nor Horns before he wâ—…s dead Alexander therefore is the first of the Succession of the Heads or Horns of this Beast not the Beast it self But to come up closer to our business I say it is very manifest from thesâ—…â—…our Heads and four Wings that this Leopard is said to have that the Third Kingdome takes into it the four first Successours of Alexander Nothing can be more plain than this from the very Text. For the Leopard is described in the third place and immediately after him the Fourth Beast is mentioned and called the Fourth v. 7. Wherefore this four-headed Leopard is plainly the Third Beast But now that the Succession of these four Heads even to Antiochus Epiphanes is the Succession of one and the same Kingdome is plain from Ch. 8. 22. Now that being broken namely the great Horn whereas Four stood up for it Four Kingdomes shall stand up out of the Nation but not in his power And in the latter time of their Kingdome the Original has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Seventy render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the very same with our English and there is no doubt of the Translation a King of fierce countenance shall stand up Which Grotius and every one acknowledges to be Antiochus Epiphanes Whence it is evident that the whole Succession of Alexander's Captains from the first four inclusively even to Antiochus his time is one Succession and one Kingdome For he calls the times of Antiochus the last times of their Kingdome Wherefore it is plain seeing that the Kingdome of Alexander is one and the same with the Kingdome of the four Captains for that is the Third Kingdome and the Kingdome of the four Captains the same with their Succession even to Antiochus his time that the whole Succession from Alexander to Antiochus is one Succession and one Kingdome If this be not demonstratively true there is no demonstration in Mathematicks But if this be true the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae are not the Fourth Kingdome but the Kingdome of the Râ—…mans according as all sober men have hitherto held 12. Which we being so firmly assured of we shall easily know where to seek for this little Horn that is said to change times and laws For where can we find it but amongst those many Horns in the Roman Kingdome or Empire not in the Greek to which Antiochus Epiphanes appertains And we have already plainly shewn * that the Apocalyptick Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns is this Roman Kingdome and that this Beast once healed or in such a condition that it may be said of him that he is the Beast that was and is not and yet is which is when he is become Pagano Christian is this Empire actually divided into ten Kingdomes and that together with this Division the Empire began to relapse gradually into Idolatry by the Agency and Guidance of the Two-horned Beast or the Whore whom I havâ—… also shewed to be Synchronal to the healed Beast or the Beast that was and is not and yet is 13. But the Beast restored or healed his duration is 42 months which is 1260 days or a Time and Times and half a Time For the abode of the Woman in the Wilderness is indifferently expressed by either of these latter and the first and the second are joyned together in the Vision of the Outward Court and the Two Witnesses Wherefore 42 months and a Time and Times and half a Time being the same with 1260 days they are the same one with another But this little Horn in Daniel we speak of his Reign is also set out by a Time and Times and half a Time Therefore it is of the same duration with the Whore or Two-horned Beast which is Synchronal to the Beast restored whose continuance is 42. months Wherefore it is a strong suspicion that there is a Coincidence at least of time if not of affairs or complication of natures if not Identity of some betwixt this little Horn in Daniel and those three Synchronals the restored Beast the Whore and the Two-horned Beast For that expression Dan. 7. 24. And another shall rise after them does not at all hinder since the Seventy translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 behind them * it signifying order of situation as well as of time And this being placed behind is the most convenient posture for such an exploit as is attributed to this Horn which is said to throw down or humble three Kings which is more by treachery and craft than open force 14. Now from this equality of time it will also follow * that the duration of this little Horn is 1260 years by the last Confectary of our joynt Exposition Which again shews how impossible it is this Horn should be Antiochus Epiphanes To which you may add that it is said to be different from the rest of the Horns in the explication of them * And the ten Horns out of this Kingdome that is the Roman Kingdome as has been demonstrated are ten Kings that shall arise and another shall rise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 behind them and he shall be diverse from the rest and he shall subdue three Kings Now I demand what one of the ten Kings or Kingdomes is so different from all the rest unless it be an Ecclesiastical Kingdome Wherefore
Christ was born and at least fifty years before the Gospel of the Kingdome was so much as preached So plainly impossible is it that the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae should be the fourth Kingdome Sect. 9. The Iudgment was set and the Books were opened c. This toucheth both upon the final judgment of the little Horn the onely Horn with eyes or seeing Horn or if you will the Seer the ancient name of a Prophet for in old time the Prophets were called Seers this toucheth I say both upon the final judgment of this falsly pretended Seer or Pseudo-Prophet as he is called in the Apocalypse and on the general Judgment at the last day when also in the Apocalypse the Books are said to be opened But the nearer of these two points and it must signify either one or both are far enough removed from the times of the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae whenas the fourth Kingdome necessarily is understood Dan. 7. 9 10. to reach at least to the first point of that time of Judgment Whence it is impossible for the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae to be the fourth Kingdome This is in short the undeniable force of the argument Sect. 10. Though in their kind notable I have observed in my Exposition That the four notable Horns that came up are called notable in comparison of several other Horns viz. Commanders that succeeded Alexander in several lesser Principalities or Satrapies But those notable ones who they are we shall have occasion to note in the next Section Sect. 11. Namely Perdicca Seleucus Ptolemaeus Meleager c. Quorum Perdicca saith Grotius Equitatui Macedonico externo Seleucus Meleager Satellitio Regio Ptolemaeus Peditatui praerant Quatuor haec capita saith he succreverant loco unius Where why he should say succreverant and not succreverunt I know not unless he would insinuate that they had grown upon him so as to overrule him in his life time Which yet is grosly false and inconsistent with the magnanimity of Alexanders nature as well as with History It makes me suspect he would insinuate some such thing because no Historian reckons Meleager as one of those notable four Horns or Heads that succeeded the great Horn after its fall he living himself not many days after Alexander and no notice being taken of his Succession But those four notable Successours of Alexander Historians take notice of as I have related in my Exposition And that these four Horns must be understood to arise after the fall of the first great one Alexander himself is plain from the Text. But the four Heads and the four Horns are all one according to Grotius his own acknowledgment and the four Heads are the Heads of the Leopard the third Beast or Greek Empire and what can possibly hinder then but that their Successours also viz. the Successours of Ptolemaeus Lagi and of Seleucus be Heads likewise of the Greek Empire But what a blinding thing is prejudice that Grotius could not see so clear a consequence But these things I have pursued sufficiently in my Confutation it self Sect. 12. That the Apocalyptick Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns is this Roman Kingdome c. See Synops. Prophet Book 1. Ch. 11. Sect. 13. It Signifying order of situation as well as of time c. But if the little Horn be supposed to rise after the other in order of time it will be good sense that way also by an Idiconaea which may restrain the sense of that part of the Prophecy to the Papal Power when it emerged to that height that the Pope might be more truly said to be the Head of the Beast that was and is not and yet is than the Emperour Sect. 14. That the duration of this little Horn is 1260 years by the last Consectary of our Ioint-Exposition The Consectary is That all Visions that are Synchronal to that of the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns which is said to continue fourty two months have necessarily the extent of 1260 years See Synops. Prophet Book 2. Ch. 5. Sect. 16. But styled God and declared worthy of Divine worship The Reader for his fuller satisfaction in this point let him consult Bishop Downham De Antichristo Lib. 4. Cap. 10. Where he proves that in the Gloss of the Canon Law the Pope is called Dominus Deus noster and that there is no shuffling it off by saying it was an Erratum of the Press which is incredible that by mistake they should intersert that word Deus but that rather the omission of it in whatsoever Impression it was left out was an Erratum Typographicum For whereas most Editions had it saith he and some few had left it out the most accurate Edition of all caused by Pope Gregory the thirteenth who appointed certain skilfull men to revise the Gloss of the Canon Law had Dominus Deus noster Papa in it And this Appellation of God and his receiving adoration sitting on the Altar which is the proper Throne of the body of Christ to say nothing how it is also the place where they set their Images to be worshipped suits well together and are an Indication that a kind of Divine honour or Religious worship call it which you will is given to the Pope See Bishop Downham in the place above cited These few Notes are more than enough upon this my Confutation of Grotius his Opinion That the fourth Kingdome in Daniel is the Kingdome of the Lagidae and Seleucidae The Authours Apology for his placing the seven Vials within the seventh Trumpeâ—… after the Rising of the Witnesses contrary to the Opinion of Mr. Mede c. I Am I confess abundantly convinced in my own Judgment that persons of learning and parts and sobriety of life that have piously applied themselves to the understanding and interpreting the Holy Scripture especially the Prophetical parts thereof and particularly of Daniel and the Apocalypse have a right as to be read and duely considered by those that come after and put themselves upon the same Province so also not to be contradicted or deviated from but upon plain and palpable reason Nor indeed do I think it safe for any one or lawfull out of mere curiosity of knowing hard and obscure things as they may seem to many to adventure upon such a Province but simply either the better to inform himself of his own duty or to serve the Publick and having this design with fear and reverence as in the sight of God to enter upon his charge and accordingly to quit himself therein Whenas yet notwithstanding such is the vanity and frailty of human nature that upon mere Curiosity many times men rush upon such things neither considering the sacredness and difficulty of the matter nor duly weighing what God has imparted to others before them but out of levity of mind if they have excogitated or hit upon any specious thing different from other Interpreters out of levity of mind
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
Harris M. D. lately Fellow of the same Colledg A True and lively Representation of Popery shewing that Popery is onely new-modelled Paganism Quarto The Reasons for Nonconformity Examined and Refuted Quarto Mr. Lamb's Stop to the Course of Separation Octavo Fresh Suit against Independency Octavo Allen's Works Octavo 2 Vol. R. Kidder ' s Christian Sufferer supported Or A Discourse of Christian Fortitude Octavo The extent of the Authours Exposition of the Prophecies of Daniel The change of Nebuchadnezzar by the decree of the Watchchers and Holy Ones into the condition of an Oxe how to be understood * Dan. 4. 33. Of the Hand seen writing on the wall by Belshazzar and of the Chaldeans Soothsayers c. being not able to read it The Interpretation of the said Writing by Daniel * Part. â—… Cap. 38. Two things most to be noted in the 〈…〉 shazzar and Daniels Interpretation * Ezech. 7. 17. Ch. 21. 7. * Part. 2. Cap. 43. Why the Authour did not undertake the whole Exposition of Daniel Why he undertook the Prophetical parts What the manner and nature of his performance therein And how grosly Calvin is mistaken in interpreting Daniel in those parts of the Visions that fall in with the Apocalypse That yet Grotius is far more intolerable and in what regard Whythe Authour has preferred 〈…〉 Epochâ—… of the seventy Weeks before Ioseph Mede's Why he so often names the writers he makes use of contrary to the professed purpose of Grotius who suppresses their Names Of the usefulness of faithfull Expositions of the Divine Prophecies and the Requisiâ—…eness of the reading the same * Chap. 39. The feigned and Hypocritical Modesty of such as pretend inability of studying Daniel and the Apocalypse What is at the bottom of this Hypocritical modesty or shieness Clear proofs that the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse are intelligible and what a touchstone they are to try a true Christian. Dan. Ch. 12. ver 10. The enravishing pleasure in reading and rightly understanding the Visions of Daniel The vast comprehensiveness of Christs care over his Church discovered in them Why Christ did not prevent rather than predict the persecution of his Saints The manner of Christs working Miracles and his communicating Prophecies compared one with another The reason of the Authour his adding the first part of his threefold Appendage The Popish fabulous notion of Antichrist and how it drove Grotius to embrace Porphyriuâ—… his opinion touching the fourth Kingdome in Daniel in favour of the Pope and why he rejected the conceit of Mahomet's being Antichrist The great importance of proving the fourth Kingdome in Daniel to be the Roman for making good the opinion of the ancient Fathers that the times of the little Horn with eyes are the times of Antichrist c. and consequently the Times of Antichrist the Times of the Papacy How manifest it is out of the 〈◊〉 that the Pope is the very 〈◊〉 That thâ—◠〈…〉 Representation Antichrist and false Notion of Idolatry to shelter their Church from seeming Idolatrous and the Pope from appearing to be Antichrist is indeed an acknowledging the Pope to be Antichrist and their Church guilty of Idolatry The second part of the Appendage the usefulness thereof in setling the Table of Synchronisms and discovering the vain conceits of men about the â—…ising of the Witnesses The main Testimony of the persecuted Witnesses what it was and that there was a Resurrection of these Witnesses in the Reformation A sevenfold usefulness of proving the late Reformation from the Vials following the Rising of the Witnesses to be the Rising of the same The first usefulness viz. The discovery of the Popedome to be the Kingdom of Antichrist and Reformed Christendom the Kingdom of Christ. The second Usefulness against the Fifth-monarchy men The third usefulness against the Contemners and Despisers of the Reformation or unjust censurers of it 〈◊〉 5. 22. Galat. 5. 19. The fourth usefulness The Conciliation of due Reverence and Obedience to all the Magistrates as well Spiritual as Temporal in Reformed Christendome The fifth usefulness For the justifying the Reformation from all imputation of injury or Heâ—… resie in casting off the Pope The sixth usefulness to show the â—…wrodâ—… of either publick or private persons Revolts from the Reformed Religion to Popery The last usefulness for the freeing mens minds from the vain fear of the Witnesses being to be slain and as idle hopes when they are slain that they will rise within three years and an half * Galat. 5. 15. Reasons why he added the third part of his Appendage as first from the Sardian Church its being so plain a Representation of the Reformed Churches as Balthasar Willius and Ludovicus Crocius had noted before him The sâ—…ules of the Reformed Churches laid before them with Comminations from Christ in his Epistle to the Church in Sardis Apoc. 3. 2. Ephes. 5. 14. The second reason why he added the third part of his Appendage viz. For the Description sake of the Philadelphian Interval which is to succeed the Sardian St. Paul's description of Charity with a brief explication thereof and consequently of the state of the Philadelphian Church Matt. 5. 6. 1 Cor. 13. 4. That the Sardian Church the nearer she makes towards the Pattern of the Philadelphian the greater will be her safety but that her slackness there may hazard all The third and last reason of his adding the third part of his Appendage The Authour's Justification of his Zeal for the truth of the Reformed Religion from the seasonableness thereof left men dishonour God and the profession of true Religion by their foul Apostasie That there is no Immoderateness nor Extravagancy in his zeal for the Reformed Religion Gal. 4. 18. * Book 2. Chap. 19. With what great sincerity and assurance the Authour has writ his Expositions of Daniel and the Apocalypse especially in those parts that concern the grand points betwixt us and the Church of Rome A brief Reply to the Contemners of his well-grounded Confidence What effect his Expositions are like to have with the more sober minded Protestants particularly in reference to loyalty to their Prince and seemly behaviour to other Magistrates Dialog 5. Sect. 29. How the Reformed Churches are boâ—…nd with all attentiveness to read Christ's Epistle to the Church in Sardis And of the sound and â—…avoury Doctrine in the Book of Homilies of the Church of England Several weighty Reasons why no Protestant should change his Religion upon the solicitation of the Emissaries of Rome 2 Cor. 11. 2. Apoc. 20. * Apoc. 19. 〈…〉 Chap. 11. â—… * 2 Macc. 6. 1. * Isai. 8. 20. â—… Sam. 9. 9. Apoc. 1. 1 3. Apoc. 2. 10 11. Apoc. 20. 6. Apoc. 2. 12. Apoc. 2. 18.
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