Leowardia at seven a Clock 12 minutes past Midnight but at Jerusalem at nine a Clock 48 minutes à media nocte that is within a very little of ten a Clock in the Morning and therefore not possible to be seen by the Inhabitants of Jerusalem but rather by their Antipodes In the Year 4713. Cornelius Lentulus and Calphurnius Piso being Consuls there is indeed an Eclipse Jan. 10. that for bigness may compare with that under Nerva and Metellus but not for seasonableness For it is neither the immediately preceding Plenilunium to the Paschal and being so in the Winter it ill suits with Herod's being advised by his Physicians to make use of the Waters of Callirrhoe beyond Jordan and the beginning of it is not till after twelve a Clock at Night when people are gone to bed And in the same year on the sixth of July there is a considerable Eclipse but it falling out near Noon-time at Jerusalem it is plain it is little to the purpose The Eclipses of these four years of the Julian Period I have considered because the ancient Fathers relate that Herod lived four years after the Birth of Christ and we see that in all the Eclipses that happened after the Birth of Christ fixt in the Year 4709. P. J. where they must fix it that make the Epocha of Daniel's Weeks the seventh of Artaxerxes till the Year 4713. which is the fourth after the Birth of Christ so fixed that there is none that can stand in competition with that Eclipse that happened Anno P. J. 4720. Nerva and Metellus being Consuls The most plausible is that of Jan. 10. Cornelius Lentulus and Calphurnius Piso being Consuls But besides other incongruities in it which I noted before though it be removed enough to be the fourth year after Christ's Nativity according to the Opinion of the ancient Fathers yet it is removed too much from the end of Herod's Reign from his being constituted King by the Favour of M. Antony and the Senate For his thirty seven years of reigning expire in the 4710. year P. J. and this makes him live three years after Which nulls the Authority of Josephus on which they build and thwarts the Current of History Wherefore it is an invincible Argument from the Eclipse in the Consulate of Nerva and Metellus that Herod died that year and that Christ according to the Opinion of the ancient Fathers was born four years before in the Consulate of L. Aelius Lamia and M. Servilius Geminus which was the thing to be proved CHAP. XI Josephus his inconsisteney with himself in matters of Chronologie The first Objection taken out of passages in him against Herod 's dying Metellus and Nerva being Consuls that plainly imply that he reigned but thirty seven years in all and that from his first being made King by the favour of M. Antony The second Objection from Antipater 's sending his Children to the King of Arabia when he began his War with Aristobulus which was in the first year of the 178. Olympiad Whence Herod is concluded twenty five years old when he was made Prefect of Galilee In order to an Answer two assured parcels of Josephus his Materia Historica are premised The first that Herod was but fifteen years old when he was made Prefect of Galilee several other passages in Josephus complying therewith The second that he was about seventy years of Age and had reigned but thirty seven when he dyed No occasion for Josephus to mistake in the former parcel but a very obvious one in the latter That none of the five Children mentioned in the second Objection were those sent to the King of Arabia That it is a contradiction to what Josephus elsewhere says of Phasaelus and Herod If Josephus meant those five that it is upon his having committed a Parepochism to which his second Historical Parcel lay obnoxious Whence his Testimony to his first parcel preponderates that to the second and its repugnancy with the time of Christ's Baptism and true Epocha of Daniel 's Weeks demonstrates him to have missed the right Epocha of Herod 's Reign which with ease reconciles all these clashings AND thus we have seen with what firmness and steadiness this Demonstration has been carried on for the fixing of Christ's Nativity in the Consulate of Lamia and Geminus if Historians themselves were so firm and fixt or rather so consistent in their Assertions as not to speak repugnantly to themselves This I speak in reference to Josephus who makes Herod but fifteen years old when Antipater made him Prefect of Galilee And he makes him reign but thirty seven years from his being made King by M. Antony and the Roman Senate and yet to have reached to be about seventy years of Age. This therefore is one of the two great Objections which is brought against Herod's dying in the year of Metellus and Nerva and that notable Eclipse above taken notice of viz. That Josephus Antiq. Jud. lib. 17. cap. 8. expresly declares that Herod in that desperate sickness of which he died was upon seventy years of Age which he repeats again lib. 1. cap. 21. De Bello Judaico And yet Antiq. Jud. lib. 17. cap. 10. five days after he had setled his Will and put to death his Son Antipater Herod says he dyes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the very same thing he repeats again lib. 1. cap. 21. De Bello Judaico but more perfectly as to that of his being made King by the Roman Senate For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which was left out before is put in here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From which places it is collected that though Herod was about seventy years of Age when he died yet he reigned but thirty seven years from the time that he was declared King of Judaea by the Romans upon the procurement of M. Antony and not from that time that the Roman Senate and Augustus made him King upon the Forfeiture of his Kingdom because it is said in both places that it was thirty four years from the death of Antigonus as well as thirty seven from his being made King by the Favour of the Roman Senate for that is understood by Romans in these places and there is three years distance betwixt Antigonus his death and that Whence say they it is manifest that Herod did not die in the Year 4720. P. J. Metellus and Nerva being Consuls but in the Year 4710. in the Consulship of Sabinus and Rufus and that Herod was not fifteen years of Age when he was made Prefect of Galilee by his Father Antipater but twenty five The second Objection or rather the Confirmation of this former is taken out of Josephus Antiq. Jud. lib. 14. cap. 12. where describing the Family of Antipater he says that of his Wife Cypris he had four Sons and a Daughter Phasaelus and Herod who was afterward King Josephus and Pheroras and lastly Salome a Daughter And whereas he did affect the acquaintance and friendship of
Tetrarchs of Judaea is further confirmed from Josephus his telling the same story Bell. Jud. lib. 1. cap. 10. where this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is omitted and instead thereof Antonius is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hospes eorum paternus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 friendly and benignly received by their Father Antipater which might be properly said though the two Sons were yet unborn and yet they were both in being at that time when Gabinius was Prefect of Syria But in the mean time it is past all doubt with me that Herod was not more than betwixt fifteen and sixteen years old when his Father made him Prefect of Galilee He was suppose in the sixteenth year of his Age. From whence it follows that he was not passing twenty two when he was made King of Judaea by M. Antony and the Senate which was in the fourth year of the 184. Olympiad And the consequence of this is that he was not passing fifty nine years when he died his Reign both according to Josephus himself and the ancient Fathers above-named being only thirty seven years So that he died in the first year of the 194. Olympiad and according to the Tradition of those Fathers that say Christ was born before Herod's death Christ must be born in the first year of the 193. Olympiad that is eight years sooner than the Dionysian Account has it Wherefore that Josephus may not contradict himself who expresly says in more places than one that Herod lived about seventy years of Age nor those Fathers speak so extravagantly touching the Nativity of Christ were it not desirable that there were two Epocha's of Herod's Reign to see if that will not unty this difficult knot And most certainly there is another notorious Epocha when Herod having forfeited his Crown and Kingdom by taking part with M. Antony against Augustus he was created King anew by the favour of Augustus and the Senate presently after the Victoria Actiaca viz. in the second year of the 187. Olympiad and in the thirty second year of Herod's Age according to the above-framed Compute out of Josephus Reckon from this Epocha which is the 4683. of the Julian Period to the Consulate of Nerva and Metellus and in that year Herod's sixty nine years of Age and thirty seven years of his Reign will end together And the ancient Fathers Credit which make Christ born four years before Herod's Death will thus be salved and Josephus made to speak consistently to himself that gives about seventy years of Age to Herod but only 37 years to his Reign though he makes him but betwixt fifteen and sixteen years old when his Father Antipater appointed him Prefect of Galilee Now this happy Hit and handsom Congruity and well According of such clashing Chronological Assertions may well alone be an Argument that this year of the Victoria Actiaca wherein Augustus did as it were of anew create Herod King of Judaea were the Epocha of his Reign ever after used in his Publick Acts and Records Which therefore will be another strong proof that Herod died in the Consulship of Metellus and Nerva and consequently that Christ was born four years before in the Consulship of Lamia and Geminus according to the Doctrine of the above-cited Fathers Certainly if there was ever good occasion for two several Epocha's of one King's Reign it was here For Herod having forfeited his Crown and Life too to Augustus by his siding with M. Antony against him and there being a new Creation as it were of Herod and restoring of him to the Crown what greater occasion can there be given than this he beginning as it were the World again upon a new account for a new Epocha of his Reign This was a more surprizing Change than Sosius his taking Jerusalem and Antonius his slaying of Antigonus that the Kingdom might be made more sure to Herod who was made King by the Roman Senate four years before and yet Josephus himself Antiq. Jud. lib. 15. cap. 7. makes his getting possession of Jerusalem and slaughter of Antigonus which Herod procured one Epocha of his Reign expresly there affirming that the Fight at Actium betwixt Caesar and Antonius was in the seventh year of Herod which is down-right false unless you number from that later Epocha Well therefore may this restitution of Herod to his Crown after he had forfeited all become the more solemn Epocha of the years of his Reign and well may he be thought to affect that Epocha the more to ingratiate himself with his great Patron Augustus signifying thereby that only now at length he was rightfully King since he received his Kingdom from Augustus the sole legitimate Prince of the Roman Empire Whenas on the other side if he had continued to reckon his Reign from the time he was made King by the favour of M. Antony Augustus his Enemy he might still seem to favour the Cause of Antonius and insinuate Augustus his War against him to have been unjust and soil the Glory of the Actiacal Victory That also he might please himself in and applaud his Politick modesty that he would not have his Reign to commence higher than the Monarchy of Augustus which began with the Actiacal Victory And certainly he would think it a piece of impudence in himself if he should have suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus speaks a day of Inauguration into his Kingdom which was annually solemnized by him to be done in Honour to M. Antony and not solely to Augustus Whence it will naturally follow that it was in reference to the time that he was made King by him and so this became a most celebrated Epocha This is highly credible if not necessary and certain if we consider how Herod did all things with all the studiousness imaginable to get and keep the favour of Augustus adventuring rather to intrench upon the Sacred customs of his Religion than to omit any thing whereby to curry favour with that Emperour that gave him after the Forfeiture both his Life and Crown at once And lastly others may add to all this Hyrcanus who had an hereditary Right to the Crown being at the same time taken out of the way this Epocha upon that account also is most perfect and most proper And now as this is most reasonable in it self so Authors are found to begin the Reign of Herod from this Epocha as well as from his being made King by M. Antony and the Senate or from the Death of Antigonus As Writers also make use of those various Epocha's of Augustus his Reign sometimes reckoning it from the Consulship of Hirtius and Pansa Anno Juliano 13. sometimes from that of Pulcher and Flaccus An. Jul. 8. and other sometimes from Victoria Actiaca An. Jul. 15. and lastly sometimes from the time he accepted of the Sacrosanct Supreme Tribunitial Power An. Jul. 23. or in Calphurnius Piso's and his own eleventh Consulship Eusebius more than once makes Herod's being constituted King
what sense the Author says they were risen above thirty years ago Daniel 's Semi-times how illustrated by the Apocalypse What the forty two months Reign of the Beast The Extension of Time in the Witnesses Rising not to be eluded by the comparing it to the felling of a Tree at the last stroke In what sense the Author makes the Days of the Witnesses expire Anno 1652. What is the fullest and largest sense of the Witnesses Political Death THAT the forty two months Reign of the Beast does not commence with the Apostasie but fifty or sixty years after these three Arguments are produced to prove the same 1. That the forty two months of the Beast cannot begin till Supremacy and Idolatry be joined in one Soveraignty or seventh Head which was not till the Empire was divided into ten Kingdoms which is fifty or sixty years after the Apostasie appeared in the Empire 2. As the Empire was not accounted the Kingdom of Christ till the supreme Head the Caesars were turned Christian So the Christian Empire cannot be deemed the Beast till the supreme Head thereof become Pagano-Christian and this was not till it was actually ten-horned 3. The Beast did not come into being until the ten Kings rose in the Empire and it became divided into ten Kingdoms forasmuch as the Beast is represented with ten Crowns in the Vision upon his Horns Which implies the actual Division of the Empire into ten Kingdoms Which yet was not till about sixty years after the Apostasie Before I answer to these three Arguments I think it not amiss to profess that I agree with him that produces them in the Conclusion they are produced for viz. That it is not rational to begin the account of the Beasts forty two months Reign sooner than the Empire became Idolatrous in the Supreme or Sovereign Power of it For this Beast is under the seventh Head though eighth King and therefore under a Pagano-Christian Head But I cannot but here take notice of that passage of the Prophecy that indicates this eighth King Chap. 7. v. 11. And the Beast that was and is not he is the eighth Where he names the Beast it self instead of the Head thereof not surely as if he had no Head but to intimate the difficulty to find whom to make this seventh Head or eighth King whether the Secular Caesars or that Rex Sacrorum the two-horned Beast which from the beginning had in a manner all the sway in matters of Religion and is the same with the Woman on the Beast which from the beginning of the Apostasie she rid and guided and what is that but to be his Sovereign or Head As the man is said to be the Head of the woman because he has the Rule over her so in this sense may the woman be said to be the Head of the Beast And indeed from the time of the Apostasie to the Reformation the Roman Empire seems to have been Sacerdotal or Hierarchical as if the Clay not the Iron were the Kingdom as Daniel seems to intimate Chap. 2.41 where he says The Kingdom shall be divided but there shall be in it of the strength of the Iron as if indeed the Clay were the Kingdom but it should be strengthened with the Iron So that by this rate the whole Paganc-christianizing Hierarchy as well Eastern as Western or the two horned Beast which signifies the same may prove the eighth King or seventh Head of the Beast Whether this Hierarchical Pagano-Christian Head or whether the Pagano-christianizing Caesars or Emperours till the Pope over-top't them even in Secular Power be the seventh Head the Prophecy seems shy in determining leaving every one to his own judgment And truly I have been always very prone to think that the Pagano-christianizing Caesars or Emperours till the Pope usurped Jus utriusque gladii were the seventh Head of the Beast For they giving their Power to the two-horned Beast and countenancing or conniving at or not opposing his Pagano-Christian Institutes Qui non vetat peccare cùm possit jubet they themselves become guilty of Pagano-Christianism Besides that it is no question but they practised with the Church those Idolatrous Superstitions that refer to the Mahuzzim c. But if any one will make the Pagano-Christian Hierarchy the seventh Head there is so much to be said for it that I will not greatly quarrel with him And I am inclined to think that this is the very Mystery of that passage in the Prophecy Chap. 17.11 of naming the Beast himself instead of his Head to leave it thus in medio whether you will have it Hierarchical or Caesarean And having premised thus much I shall now briefly answer to the Arguments 1. To the first then I say That so soon as the Apostasie came in which includes in it Pagano-Christian Superstitions and some degrees at least of Idolatry there was a seventh Head of that very hue whether you will deem it the Hierarchical Head who were the Introducers of this Apostasie or the Caesarean who by countenancing complying with or not opposing this Apostasie became guilty of the same and chargeable therewith in the Prophecy But if you will not have the Christian Caesars after the Apostasie chargeable with Idolatry till they make Decrees for it and incorporate it into the Law of the Empire as Justinian did the Orthodox Faith out of the Oecumenical Councils the Reign of the Beast will not begin till six or seven hundred years after Christ And then the Rising of the Witnesses which is the final issue of the forty two months War and therefore must be at least in the last month viz. the forty second will happen in the thirty first or twenty seventh month so that all will break a pieces 2. As to the second I answer That the supreme Head of the Beast became Pagano-Christian before the Empire was divided into ten Kingdoms even at the beginning of the Apostasie as was answered to the first 3. To the third I say The Beast was in being before the ten Kings rose in the Empire For it was not the ten Horns that made it a Beast that is its being divided into ten Kingdoms but its Pagano-christianizing its reintroducing old Pagan Rites and Superstitious and Idolatrous usages into Christianity and so making the Empire the Beast That was is not and yet is This was a doing and in some sort done at the sounding of the first Trumpet which begins with the Epocha of this Apostasie and brings in those Commanders of the Northern Nations whose very Invasion of the Empire is the beginning of their catching at Crowns and Principalities though it was about half an hundred years till they all ten were served or sped the Church advancing still more and more in her Apostasie as the time went on And the Division of the Empire into ten Kingdoms signified by the ten Horns is a sure Note of the beginning of the Apostasie it beginning at a time of their catching
belonging also to the Emperours though they mainly intrusted the Hierarchy with it and they giving no check by any Edict or Rescript from Theodosius M. his time to Leo Isaurus as I noted above this not forbidding is plainly encouraging commanding or assuring them in this erroneous way as he that rides an Horse and has the reins in his hands is supposed to approve of the way the Horse goes if he checks him not with the bridle and so direct him into the right way So that the Apostasie thus begun under the Emperours it is manifest they stand guilty thereof and so became Apostatical or Pagano-Christian Heads of the Beast so soon as the Apostasie began Which is the thing that was to be demonstrated 6. And that the forty two months War of the Beast commenced as early as the Apostasie may be easily understood by any body that understands the Genius of the Apocalyptick Stile which is highly figurative and of a lofty vigorous sense-striking strain using the fullest and strongest Metaphors and therefore it is no wonder that all the Contest and Tug betwixt the Apostatizing Empire and the Witnesses from the beginning to the end of the Contest is set out by that one high-sounding Word or Phrase of War though at first it was only a Dispute and Contest in words as in the Case of S. Jerome and Vigilantius And the Metaphor is so easie and natural though so grandisonant that our Theological Controversies and Disputes are ordinarily called Polemical Divinity that is in plain English Warring or Warlike Divinity And this War is not said to be betwixt the Head of the Beast and the Witnesses as if the War could not begin till the Head of the Beast positively opposed the Witnesses but betwixt the Beast and the Witnesses so that even while there was no Edict of the Emperours against the Witnesses yet the War might be begun and continued betwixt the Beast and the Witnesses unless a man will be so humoursom as in the Fight of an Horse with a Bear because the Horse bites not with his head but only kicks with his heels to deny he fights with the Bear And yet how positively the Emperours did concur with the Apostatizing part of the Empire has been declared above 7. That the Beast was in being before the ten Kings rose in the Empire is demonstrated from your own Concession viz. That the Apostasie of the Empire was before the ten Kings rose in the Empire For the Apostasie into Pagano-Christianism is that very Form or Essence that turned the Empire into that state which the Prophetick Stile calls The Beast that was is not and yet is And its being divided into ten Kingdoms confers no more to its being a Beast than quartering a slain Mutton into four quarters by a Butcher contributes to its being a slain Mutton which it was as fully before So that this Division in neither case is a Causa sine qua non of the thing being so Nor does it follow because the Apostatized Empire is represented by the Beast with ten Horns crowned that therefore it was not a Beast before those ten-crowned Horns no more than it follows that the Apostatized Hierarchy represented by the Whore Chap. 17. so drunk with the blood of the Saints and so gorgeously apparelled was not a Whore till she was grown so extremely sumptuous in her Ornaments and barbarously cruel in her Persecutions The use of the ten Horns crowned in the Representation of the Beast Chap. 13. is not to signifie it was not a Beast till those actually crowned Horns but to distinguish him from the Dragon with ten Horns uncrowned Chap. 12. and so to intimate that this Beast Chap. 13. is a Representation of the Empire after it had degenerated into a Pagano-Christian State For the Division of the Empire into ten Kingdoms was not till after it had become Christian 8. And lastly As for your Postscript I do not ground my distinction of the Beast's forty two months prosperous Reign from his Reign at large upon the different Readings of Rev. 13.5 but prove that their Reading that read v. 5. That power was given him to make forty two months War with the Saints or that he was to proceed prosperously or do prosperously forty two months and not to continue at large is the best and truest sense As is proved in the Preface to the Answer to the Remarks I say that Reading or sense I contend for is not supposed but proved forasmuch as the issue even the final issue of that War is but a partial Fall of the City and correspondent Rising of the Witnesses I pray consider the sixth seventh and eighth Queries and the Notes on them and I think it will be impossible for you not to be convinced CHAP. XXIX Hints of an Answer to a fourth Letter That the Rising of the Witnesses Rev. 11. denotes a partial Regaining only of the Kingdom of Antichrist into the hands of Christ A further Enforcement of the same Truth The Event of the forty two months War of the Beast in what sense partial in what final The whole Event of the Rising of the Witnesses the Object of the Prediction The Times and Half reach not beyond the sixth Trumpet The Object and Subject of the three Wo-Trumpets not the same The continued Conflict betwixt the Antichristian and Evangelical Party with the Effects thereof to what Visions referrable Passages in Daniel Chap. 7. amply explained That even from our Antagonists Epocha the Reckoning not by Years but Semi-times in the Medial Visions is necessary No hopes of foretelling from the Medial Numbers to a year or thereabout when the Church's Affliction shall cease proved by many Arguments The danger of forcing out pleasing Interpretations of the Prophetical Visions when they will not afford them 1. TO your first Paragraph I say That which falls out after the War of forty two months equal and Synchronal to the three days and an half to the three Times and an Half and to the rest that synchronize with these and is the issue of this forty two months War is the final issue thereof But the Rising of the Witnesses falls out as the issue of that War betwixt the Beast and them after the three days and an half equal and Synchronal to the forty two months according to the express intimation of the Text Chap. 11.11 Wherefore the Rising of the Witnesses commensurate to the partial Fall of Babylon or of the great City is the final issue of the forty two months War of the Beast against the Saints and Witnesses according to the express indication of the Vision This is the final issue of the forty two months War which closes with the Exit of the sixth Trumpet which the Vials follow and are intended for a further Ruine of the Beast afterwards So that this so plain a Truth is not inconsistent with the regaining of larger shares nay the whole Kingdom of Antichrist into Christ's own hands again
mentioned even in the fifth Vial. And when so horrible a War was raised against the Evangelical Party here in England in Eighty eight and that by the great Providence of God they were so defeated this is referrible to the third Vial. And if in the midst of the sedulous Attacks of the Antichristian Party some mighty Potentate in Christendom should by God's Providence be raised up in their behalf the hearts of Kings being in the hand of God this were referrible to the fourth Vial. But according to the Apocalyptick Stile this is to be accounted neither any part of the forty two months War nor of the Rising of the Witnesses It is something tedious to insist on things so plain 6. In your sixth Paragraph you lay great stress upon that Passage Apoc. 17.17 touching the ten Kings that God has put into their hearts to fulfil his Will and to agree and give their Kingdom to the Beast until the words of God shall be fulfilled which words of God you understand of Daniel's Prophecy of the little Horn having the Saints given into his hands until a Time and Times and dividing of a Time And of those other words of Daniel where he says I beheld and the same Horn made War with the Saints and prevailed against them until the Ancient of days came and Judgment was given to the Saints of the most High and the time came that the Saints possessed the Kingdom Dan. 7.21 22. and then you skip from v. 22. to v. 27. adding And what Kingdom that is he tells in the following words but they follow a great way off The Kingdom and Dominion and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole Heaven And you say you suppose I will not say this Kingdom is so given and possessed yet and if not how can you say the little Horns making War with the Saints and prevailing against them for a time and times and half a time is expired I pray you Sir think seriously on this Answ Well I have thought seriously on it and find what you lay such great stress on has no strength in it at all I easily admit those words of Apoc. 17.17 may allude to these passages of Daniel But there is nothing here that infers that the forty two months War of the Beast with the Saints extends any further than the partial Fall of the great City and the then commensurate Rising of the Witnesses Which Time I call the prosperous Reign and War of the Beast which are the Time and Times and half a Time here mentioned in Daniel and in which Fall the last Semi-time current he made War and prevailed against the Saints as Daniel also has foretold And this was till the Ancient of Days came and Judgment was given to the Saints of the most High v. 22. which is further explained v. 26. which you wisely skipped over But the Judgment shall sit and they shall take away his viz. the little Horn's Dominion not all of it at once as it was not at the Fall of the tenth part of the City and commensurate Rising of the Witnesses but leisurely by degrees Which Apocalyptick Vision therefore is an excellent Commentary on this Text of Daniel God has adjudged the Cause to the Evangelical Party by this partial Fall of Babylon and the then Rising of the Witnesses This taking away part of the little Horn's Dominion is a Pledge of the having it consumed and destroyed even to the end But this destruction and consumption is not the issue of the forty two months War wherein the Beast prevailed for such a time against the Saints but at last he was partially vanquished but it is the result of the Effusion of the Vials so that things that lay so close wrapt up in Daniel are thus distinctly and explicitely set out in the Apocalypse and the Explication found to be the easie and natural sense of Daniel Do not wink wilfully against Truth and you will easily discern it See my Exposition of Daniel's second Vision on this place v. 26. And though this is so easily answered yet you are earnest with me again at the close of your Letter to observe that the Time Times and half a Time reach as far as till the Ancient of Days shall come and till the Judgment shall be given to the Saints c. Which thing I grant you viz. That the Time and Times and half a Time of the Horns prevailing War against the Saints did reach so far till the Ancient of Days gave him so notorious a check and counterbuff in the partial Fall of the City and the then Rising of the Witnesses This was the final issue of the forty two months once prosperous War of the little Horn or Beast against the Saints Which Time and Times and half a Time is no where mentioned in the Vision of Daniel Chap. 7. but in v. 25. then comes that in the 26. verse which is evidently to be expounded as I have above expounded it That upon the Judgment being set his Dominion in part was taken away in the partial Fall of the great City to which the Time and Times and half a Time do reach and comprize in the last Semi-time This is the issue of the three days and an half 's War or seven Semi-times War of the little Horn or the Beast with the Saints But the consuming and destroying his Dominion to the end that is the work of the seven Vials which being done then it follows v. 27. And the Kingdom and Dominion and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole Heaven shall be given to the Saints of the most High For then is the descent of the New Jerusalem in opposition to the great City of Babylon now quite abolished and after comes in the blessed Millennial Reign of Christ upon Earth which is the greatness of his Kingdom under the whole Heaven All which glorious Providences you would crumple up within the three Times and an half whenas it is demonstrated in Mr. Mede that the three Times and an half reach but to the Exit of the sixth Trumpet which you acknowledge the seven Vials to follow Consider seriously these things But to proceed to the seventh Paragraph 7. Here I only briefly advertise you that the first appearance of the Rising of the Witnesses falling some eighteen years short of the last Semi-time according to your Epocha or not reaching it by eighteen years that this is a greater Argument against the truth of your Epocha than against my Hypothesis that a Semi-time is the only Authentick Vnite in the Eventual Computation of the Medial Visions For according to your Epocha the Rising of the Witnesses will not begin after the seventh Semi-time current but before it which is expresly against the Text After three days and an half which absurdity cannot be salved but by making the entire Resurrection of the Witnesses the adequate Object of the Prediction and so it will reach about seventy years at least
of that Community though the whole be the Woman which whole takes in all yet those particular persons belonging to that Community are her Seed or Children according to the Prophetick Stile But to come yet nearer to the matter This Notion is plainly ratified by that passage in Daniel Chap. 8. v. 5 21. where the Kingdom of Greece is set out by an He-goat with a great Horn betwixt his eyes and it is said v. 8. that when that great Horn was broken four other Horns rose after it Here is plainly a Beast the He-goat with its Head for there is mention of its Eyes and of a Horn on its Head betwixt these two Eyes and of other Horns rising successively on this Head we may be sure not on his Back and yet that great Horn is said to be the first King And if so then the other four Horns must be four Kings after him and yet there is an Head distinct from the Horns plainly in the Vision Wherefore what can that Head be but the Idolatrous Sovereignty in this Beast the Goat in the general abstractive comprehension and succession thereof And therefore the Kings that in concreto are the real Heads of the Greek Empire are in this abstractive Generality called the Horns thereof And hence it is plain that the Idolatrous Sovereignty in the general abstractive comprehension and succession thereof is the Head according to the Prophetick Stile of which the succeeding Kings may be said to be the Horns 2. The next thing which we will premise by way of Postulate is this That the revived Beast set out Apoc. 13 and 17. was not revived without an Head there being nothing more absurd than to imagine a Beast to recover out of the state of Death or Non-existence and leave its Head behind it And it being acknowledged on both sides that its Recovery is not till under the seventh Head we premise also that the abovesaid Beast did not recover till the seventh Head and that there were no more Heads than seven 3. Thirdly therefore We are to inquire what in truth this seventh Head of the Beast in the full sense thereof is and in what it differs from the other six forasmuch as all seven are acknowledged on both sides to be Idolatrous The seven Idolatrous Sovereignties or Heads of the Roman Beast are these The Regal the Consular the Tribuno-Consular the Decemviral the Dictatorial Imperatorial and Hieratico-Political or Ecclesiastico-Secular Sovereignties or Heads of the Beast Which last is most palpably differenced and specifically from any of the six former so that this is the very seventh Head Which will appear if we seriously contemplate the Vision of the Beast and the Whore riding him Apoc. Chap. 17. Here we see the Beast and the Whore By the Beast undoubtedly is understood the Civil part of the Empire which must also have a Civil Head for his Civil Horns to be grassed upon which is nothing else but Secular Idolatrous Sovereignty in the general abstractive comprehension and succession thereof as was noted above It is also agreed on both sides that the Whore is the Sacerdotal or Hieratical part of the Empire But in that this Whore rides this Beast it is apparent that she rules him and guides him and governs him as an Heros on a Pharos or goodly Steed is the very Symbol of an Emperour Wherefore here is plainly in the Vision two Sovereignties Hieratical or Sacerdotal and Political or Civil distinctly described and both supposed Idolatrous But now for their Coalescency into one seventh Sovereignty that is as apparent as the other in the Vision For the Whore having the guidance of the Secular Head of the Beast has the guidance of the Beast and his Horns as they come up come they up as fast or slowly as they will Wherefore the Head and Horns being at the guidance or governance of the Whore and both aiming at the same end the advancing or maintaining the Idolatrous State of the Empire for that is that which the Vision drives at not Secular affairs they do evidently constitute this complex Sovereignty to which there is nothing like in all the six foregoing Sovereignties which I call Hieratico-Political or Ecclesiastico-Secular the Ecclesiastick and Secular Sovereignty complying together to make the Empire a Beast again that is bloody and Idolatrous So that whereas in my former Answers I was at a loss in a manner to define whether the Hieratical Sovereignty or Secular was the Head of the Beast here I have fairly and solidly I hope compounded the matter by making them both but one Hieratico-Political Head of the Roman revived Beast or Apostatized Empire With which as I have noted in my former Answers that passage in Daniel excellently well agrees that seems to make the Roman Empire in the time of the ten Toes of the Metalline Image rather Sacerdotal than Secular Chap. 2. v. 41. The Kingdom shall be divided but there shall be in it of the strength of Iron forasmuch as thou sawest the Iron mixed with the miry Claâ— There shall be of the strength of the Iron in this Kingdom as if that was but accessory to it but the Kingdom it self Clay i. e. Sacerdotal And so the Iron is said to be mixt with the miry Clay as if the Clay which is the Sacerdotal Sovereignty or Empire were the Principal again the Iron accessory As when the greater share is of water in the Cup we say there is Wine mingled with the Water but if the greater share be Wine we say Water is mingled with the Wine And out of this Sacerdotal Empire how naturally does the Pope rise at last quite to over-top all and how easily is the Papal Hierarchy conceived to be the little Horn arising properly out of the Hieratical part of this Complex Sovereignty of the Empire 4. Fourthly and lastly We will take notice of the genuine meaning of those words Apoc. 17.12 That the ten Kings receive power as Kings one hour with the Beast whose natural and unforced sense is this That at what time the Empire began to be a Beast and to Apostatize into gross Superstitions and Idolatry the ten Kings would be catching at and obtaining Kingdoms some here some there some sooner some later till about the four hundred and fifty sixth year after Christ they had all sped For that this one hour does signifie a pretty latitude of time all Interpreters consent and History witnesses that it was at least forty years till there appeared ten Kingdoms in the divided Empire And therefore if the Beast be not till the tenth King appear they cannot be said to receive Kingdoms with the Beast but before him Which is plainly to contradict the Text of the Prophecy These things being premised we answer To the first Argument 1. That what is here presumed is not proved nor will prove true if examined viz. That the Emperours had no more Sovereignty over the other Kings than what was merely Titular or Honorary For
New Jerusalem with Answers thereto THE first Objection upon Apocalypsis Apocalypseos pag. 4. To be Kings and Priests unto God signifies as much as a Sacerdotal Kingdom as Exod. 9.6 a Kingdom because of the reigning Estate Sacerdotal because of their Priestly Employ and in some places as Apoc. 20.6 because of the unstainedness of their condition as to Externals Now it is acknowledged that there is a Kingdom designed here on Earth for Christ and Christianity and there are a great many places that seem to promise all his faithful Adherents at least his faithful suffering Adherents of all times a share in the glory and felicity of that Kingdom-Estate as if the Martyrs of the Primitive Times and of all Times should have a Recompence for their Sufferings in the New Jerusalem-state of things as Apoc. Chap. 2. v. 26. where you acknowledge that the Ruling the Nations and the Morning-Star are matters Political If these be confined to the successive Intervals of the Church the Sardian and Philadelphian Times suppose what will they signifie in the literal Interpretation And pag. 23. of Apoc. Apocalypseos it is said the bright Morning-Star belongs to the Philadelphian Interval which is at a great distance from the Thyatirian how shall the Martyrs and Confessors in the Thyatirian Interval have any share in the happy Philadelphian state of things Or what will such a promised felicity signifie to their encouragement wherein not they but their Successors only of following times are to have an interest It is needless to mention many other places that appertain to this matter But I could never untye this knot of difficulties in the Apocalypse that is I could never conceive it possible that Christian Sufferers of all Times and Ages should partake of the Jerusalem-state of things nor how the Apocalypse can be interpreted so as not to assert it Which is the more probable because the Kingdom-state which is designed for Christ is a kind of Heavenly Kingdom-state upon Earth Answ The New Jerusalem-state is nothing else but the Triumph of the truly Apostolick Church emerging into Universal Power above their Enemies into undisturbed Peace and an Heavenly Holiness of Conversation here upon Earth Which at last she will obtain and it is an encouragement to the present suffering Martyrs that the cause they suffer for will at last appear so glorious and triumphant here on Earth while they in the mean time are better rewarded in Heaven and it were a bidding them to their loss to have them exchange their Heavenly felicity for this Earthly though gloriously flourishing condition And lastly look but on the Apostolick Church according as the Prophetick Stile represents it as one continued Body from the beginning to the end and all these promises to the Pergamenian and Thyatirian Sufferers are made good to them as being still the same Body of the Church in their Successors Nor is this Heaventy Kingdom of Christ upon Earth otherwise to be understood Heavenly than that the Spirit and Conversation of Christians in the New Jerusalem-state will be truly Holy and Heavenly So that I see no difficulty at all in this Point if we rightly conceive the matter And it will further ease the Reader 's mind if he consider what I have writ Chap. 20. That though the New Jerusalem be a Prophecy of an excellent State of the Church on Earth yet the description of that State is an intended Type also of the State of the Church Triumphant in Heaven Object 2. Upon pag. 22 23. To have power over the Nations seems to signifie That he shall be of Power over Nations or of Regal Dignity in that Kingdom-estate upon Earth which is designed for Christ by his Father Chap. 2.27 And the promise of the Morning-Star confirms such an Interpretation For it is the Star of Empire and the white Raiment promised Chap. 3.5 is an Ensign of Regal Dignity Answ The ingenious Objector seems to mistake in the propriety of the Prophetick Stile which as in the Symbol of a Woman a Man or Beast does not intimate one single Individual but a Body of men and their succession so by the single person He is not meant this or that single Man but the whole successive Body of men that are Overcomers which according to the Prophetick Stile are signified by this single person He Those that stand out through Faith and Patience to the last in those Countries where the Pagano-Christians domineered over them these with their Princes and Rulers will have the Dominion over the Pagano-Christians and will become the beginning or commencement of the great Empire of Christ So far as the Father of our Lord Christ has enlarged his Kingdom in the Sardian Succession so far these Overcomers partake thereof with him And this Sardian State of the Kingdom of Christ is the promised Morning-Star but the Jerusalem state the bright Morning-Star And lastly Though white Raiment may be a Regal Ensign yet it is most safely interpreted of prosperous Success and may answer to that in the next Epistle v. 8. Behold I have set before thee an opened door c. Object 3. Upon pag. 31 c. It is observable touching the Church of Philadelphia that there are many passages that represent her in a state of Tryal She is said to have a little strength and to have kept the word of Christ's Patience she is exhorted to hold fast that which she hath that she lose not the Crown for which she was conflicting she is exhorted to overcome and encouraged to behave her self heroically Now Sir how will this agree with the New Jerusalem-state of the Church Besides it is promised to the Philadelphians as a thing to come Chap. 3.12 But it is more observable that it is promised to the Philadelphians that their Christian Champions shall be Citizens of the New Jerusalem and that Christ will write upon them his new Name which I believe you rightly interpret King of Kings c. This therefore seems to countenance what I said before That all Christ's suffering Adherents shall have a share of the New Jerusalem-felicity here on Earth and have preferments in that Kingdom-Estate Which may seem to be further countenanced from the promise to Laodicea Chap. 3.21 That they shall sit with Christ on his Throne Answ This Objection is grounded on a mistake as if the Philadelphian Interval and New Jerusalem-state did synchronize Whenas the Philadelphian Interval begins sooner and ends sooner than the New Jerusalem-state Wherefore those Exhortations belong to that part of the Philadelphian Interval that goes before the Jerusalem-state Whence their emerging at last into that state is promised to them as a thing to come Now as for their Christian Champions c. as if it were understood of some select Persons this difficulty is grounded upon the old mistake viz. That He signifies a particular person whenas in the Prophetick sense and stile it here signifies the whole Body of the faithful Philadelphians predicting that that
the just and honourable Revenues of it to shrink into the poor arbitrarious Pittances of either the appointment of the State or uncertain benevolence of the fickle People That Scene of things I say cannot but harden their hearts against listening to never so just a Reformation for the further enlargement of Christ's Kingdom and hazard the very Being of the Reformed Churches Whenas this way I wish may obtain would silence Atheism and Fanaticism at once and be the readiest means of bringing on those happy Times of the Church which God has promised and predicted by the mouth of his holy Prophets But this is the gross iniquity and madness of the Sectaries that they think so goodly and choicely every one of their own Party that they think it worth the while to hazard the safety of Reformed Christendom to support any how and keep up for the present the small freaks and conceits of their own self-chosen Way and Sect. Than which nothing can be conceived more enormous and outragious amongst the dealings of the Sons of men to bring into imminent danger so solemn and sacrosanct a Constitution as the Reformation for the Dreams and Opinions of private Spirits which no sober Christian would hazard for small indifferent dispensable things though they had the stamp of publick allowance upon them which it is and ought to be in the hand of the Sovereign Power to alter for the common good And verily this Fanatical distemper is so heinous and abominable that they that are on the right side ought to take heed how in the least shew they imitate it For a man may be factiously affected in a right Cause and bear an over-proportionated zeal for things of smaller concern out of an over-heightned Animosity against the present Sects to the hazarding the quiet settlement of the whole And if any one be so affected I appeal to the sober if he may not justly be reputed to play the Sectarian himself though it be against the Sectaries No such Cure for our Breaches and Wounds as the most profound Humility in all Parties and unfeigned mutual Love and Charity Of which Vertues or Graces whosoever is found destitute let him call himself of whatever denomination Christian as loud as he please be has really in him not one spark of saving Christianity This or to this sense at least and most what in the very same words I wrote and published about two or three years ago to fence Peoples minds from Popery and reclaim them from Schism and perswade them to adhere to the ancient Primitive Church according to which our English Church is reformed and whose Principles she professes and hath ever practised as to the point of the Primitive Christians their not resisting the Sovereign Power though with undaunted Courage they professed the Truth of Christianity against the Vanities and Idolatries of Paganism and now for its present seasonableness and usefulness I have here transcribed it if the sincere vehemence wherewith I writ it may but have a suitable effect for the perswading the Sectaries to leave off their Schism and reconcile themselves to the Church of England Whereby besides the Purity and Decency of Divine Worship and soundness in the Faith Loyalty and Monarchy may be secured and they become good Christians and good Subjects at once Thus much I thought fit to write by way of Preface to intimate the more particular Usefulness of this present Treatise Other things are taken notice of in the Introduction in which then I was not aware that I should have so much to do with those affected Rationalists who pretend that Prophecies especially those of Daniel and the Apocalypse are utterly unintelligible In which conceit though they may applaud themselves as more special Admirers of dry Reason yet I cannot see how their Opinion can well comport with serious Piety and a sound Mind For in their thus oddly adhering to their imagined Reason in this thing they point-blank contradict the Scripture which declares Dan. 12. That the wicked indeed shall not understand but the wise shall understand And that is but a sorry Triumph of Reason that is pretended to be over true Wisdom And then for the Apocalypse let us but consider what Pomp and Applause the Communication of the Visions of the Book-Prophecy to our Saviour from his Father is set out by Apoc. Chap. V. and then judge of the unreasonableness of this Imputation of Unintelligibleness And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the Throne a Book written within and on the back-side sealed with seven Seals And I saw a strong Angel proclaiming with a loud voice Who is worthy to open the Book and to loose the Seals thereof And no man in Heaven nor in Earth nor under the Earth was able to open the Book neither to look thereon And I wept much because no man was found worthy to open and to read the Book neither to look thereon But at last the slain Lamb v. 7. came and took the Book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the Throne and thereupon the four Beasts and four and twenty Elders fall down before the Lamb and to their Harps chant out this new Song v. 9. Thou art worthy to take the Book and open the Seals thereof for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God c. And immediately upon this v. 11. there is heard the voice of many Angels about the Throne even of ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice Worthy is the Lamb that was slain c. Let us therefore in the fear of God consider not only how ridiculous but how blasphemous a thing it is to think that this pompous Introduction than which nothing can be contrived more highly solemn and pompous should be to a Book of Prophecies that are utterly unintelligible As if the incarnate Wisdom did not only sport with the Children of men but delude and mock them What can be conceived more horrid and impious Wherefore without doubt the Visions of the Book-Prophecy are clearly intelligible And for the Epistolar Prophecy the Epistles to the seven Churches that they are also clearly intelligible may appear from the Introductory Vision there also For Christ in his Pontifical Habit there dictates them And therefore they are as so many Oracles given out from the Urim and Thummim of our High-Priest Christ Jesus which the Seventy interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is clear declaration and certain Truth in counterdistinction to the obscure and ambiguous Answers of the Heathen Oracles and the Uncertainty of their Event And this is an Argument for the Intelligibleness and Truth of the whole Book of the Apocalypse it being all the Revelation of Jesus Christ the true High-Priest with his Urim and Thummim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 clear Declaration to them that understand the Prophetick Stile Synchronism and History and such as will be accompanied with Truth and certainty of Event
years with his Father proposed An Examination of this Hypothesis The infirmness of the ground thereof out of Herodotus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not signifying as Petavius would have it And if it did this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would be either in the fifth year of Xerxes or three or four years after the twelfth and therefore uncompliable with Petavius his design How incredible it is that Ezra 's and Nehemiah 's Decree should not be reckoned from the same Epocha of Artaxerxes his Reign What a glorious atchievement it is to discover a twentieth of Artaxerxes 's reigning alone from whence computing by Solar years the Passion of Christ will fall into the midst of the last week IT is necessary then to relinquish this old Conceit of Julius Africanus of computing Daniel's Weeks by Lunar years though it is not without some Wit and Ingenie while from that expression of the LXX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Septuaginta Hebdomades abbreviatae sunt super populum tuum he argues that the Weeks must be computed by Lunar years they being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shorter years than the Solar by eleven days in a year But this shortness of the years makes their number exceed the seventy Weeks and places the Passion of Christ in the second year after their expiration as I have noted already And therefore there is a necessity of betaking our selves to that usual and unexceptionable way of reckoning by Solar years and as great a necessity still to stick to that indubitable Epocha of the Weeks the twentieth year of Artaxerxes Longimanus though here we shall be cast into great straits if we stick to the ordinary Opinion of Chronologers who fix the beginning of the Reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus in the first year of the 79. Olympiad and the 289. V.C. which Seth Calvisius Helvicus and Funccius with others agree in Whence it will follow that the twentieth year of Artaxerxes will fall in with the fourth year of the 83. Olympiad and the 308. V.C. But now if the seventy Weeks commence in 308. V.C. or in the fourth year of the 83. Olympiad it will likewise follow that they end in the 797. year V.C. and the first of 206. Olympiad which is the fifth year of Claudius Whence it would be concludible that Christ was crucified in the second year of Claudius that year being the midst of the last week Whenas every School boy knows that Imperante Augusto natus est Christus imperante Tiberio est crucifixus This therefore is so gross an absurdity that there is a necessity of placing the beginning of the Reign of Artaxerxes in some sense or other higher in Chronology than it is usually pitched Petavius therefore has espoused this quaint Conceit That the Reign of Artaxerxes has two Epocha's the one the same that Calvisius Helvicus and Funccius agree in the other ten years sooner namely the twelfth year of Xerxes or the third year of the 76. Olympiad when he was assumed into the participation of the Empire by his Father Xerxes at his going upon an Expedition out of Persia which he grounds upon that passage in Herodotus lib. 7. That there was a great strife amongst Darius Hystaspis his Sons who should be King if he died in the War 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that he ought to appoint who should be King according to the Law of the Persians and so go upon his Expedition From this passage Petavius would infer that Artaxerxes reigned some years with his Father he assuming him into a participation of the Empire sometime when he went to War out of the Empire of Persia And for the greater colour to this Conceit he adds This is the only way to salve the Credit of famous Historians some whereof say That Themistocles's flight from the Athenians was in Xerxes his time as Ephorus Dinon Clitarchus Heraclides and Diodorus others that it was in his Son's time Artaxerxes as Thucydides Charon Cornelius Nepos and Plutarch Wherefore they both reigning together the Credit of both Parties of the Historians is salved they both saying true And that he sets the Epocha of Artaxerxes's Reign with his Father ten years before his Reign alone after his Father's death is because taking the Epocha of the Weeks from the twentieth of his Reign when he reigned alone there will be ten years wanting to make our Saviour's Passion fall in the midst of the week as it is to fall according to the Prophecy of the seventy Weeks it being granted that he suffered in the fourth year towards the ending of the 202. Olympiad This is a trim Hypothesis if it were as solid as trim For First the main Basis thereof methinks is very precarious viz. That the Kings of Persia when they went to War against foreign Kingdoms in Person actually constituted one of their Sons King The very words of Herodotus may import no more than this viz. to declare who was to be King or succeed in the Crown if it should so happen that the present King were slain in the War This is all that we can be assured is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here to point out him that he intends to be his Successour in his Kingdom Secondly If it were granted that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here is to make one actually King then this making must be upon Xerxes's entring upon that Expedition of his against Greece the fifth year of his Reign betwixt which and the twelfth of Xerxes his Reign there is seven years difference which makes this Conceit utterly unserviceable to the end it was invented for And that he made any Expedition himself besides that in Person is incredible the general Current of Historians declaring as Pezelius observes that the Greeks carried the War into Asia not the Persians into Greece nor that War which was managed by the Persians was carried on by Xerxes in Person but only by his Commanders Diodorus names Tithraustes a bastard Son of Xerxes and Pheredates Xerxes his Nephew Justin indeed writes thus Igitur Xerxes cùm proditionis dolum namely Pausanias his who would have betrayed Greece to Xerxes publicatum videret ex integro bellum instituit Graeci quoque ducem constituunt Cimonem qui Xerxem terrestri navalÃque bello superatum trepidum recipere se in regnum coegit Whereby is noted that notable Fight and Victory by Sea and Land that Cimon the Athenian had against the Persians at the River Eurymedon This Victory he got the third year of the 77. Olympiad which Fight Diodorus fully and particularly describing and making no mention of Xerxes himself makes me prone to imagine that Justin speaks figuratively or else is hugely mistaken Or if he be not Xerxes his Expedition being the third year of the 77. Olympiad he must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 declare Artaxerxes King either this year or the year before which again will spoil this fine Conceit and make it useless for the end it was intended For
the Tradition was nor did any within the first 500 years as T. L. alledges define what year of Herod Christ was born but these See the first Chapter of his Recensio Wherefore the main business is now to inquire when Herod died And according to the Testimony of the above-cited Fathers if Christ was born Aelius Lamia and Servilius Geminus being Consuls Herod must die in the Consulship of Metellus and Nerva for that is four years after the Consulship of Lamia and Geminus And that he died then first is manifestly proved out of Josephus that tells us more than once that Herod when he died was about seventy years old And the same Author says expresly that when he was made Prefect of Galilee by Antipater his Father Antiq. Jud. lib. 14. cap. 17. this Charge was conferred upon him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he was extremely young he having arrived only to fifteen years of Age. Now this Prefecture was bestow'd upon him in the year of the Consulship of Calenus and Vatinius in which Julius Caesar having dispatch'd the Alexandrian War in Egypt made Antipater for his good Service done Prefect of Judaea Wherefore reckon now in Helvicus all the Consulates from Calenus and Vatinius to Metellus and Nerva inclusively and you will find them to be fifty four And whereas Josephus saith that Herod was arrived to no more years than fifteen let us but suppose him betwixt fifteen and sixteen which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being the Preterpluperfect tense does plainly imply when he was made Prefect of Galilee by his Father and add these years to the fifty four and we shall come I trow very near to seventy years And Josephus himself does not say absolutely that he lived to the seventieth year of his Age but in one place that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Antiq Jud. lib. 17. cap. 8. And Bell. Jud. lib. 1. cap. 21. that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 about the seventieth year and near seventy years And so he is I think that has arrived to the sixty ninth year of his Age. We see therefore how well this passage of Josephus suits with the placing of the Nativity of our Saviour in the Consulship of Lamia and Geminus Nor is there any evasion out of this clear proof that is worth the taking notice of For in vain do they pretend that it is a lapse of the Scribe and that it should have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 twenty five not fifteen Whenas Photius in his Bibliotheca not in figures but in words declares expresly that his Age was fifteen years 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And let any one judge how the perusing of the business in Josephus can suit with such a fond conceit when he says that Herod was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excessively young as if he were a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Chick newly come out of the shell as the Saying is and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 again argues the paucity of his years that they were but betwixt fifteen and sixteen For how absurdly would it run if it were twenty five He was excessively young being twenty five years of Age but his youngness saith Josephus was no hindrance to him because he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a manly mind or courage and quickly took occasion to give a Specimen of his Valour in apprehending that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Arch-Thief or Robber Ezechias that infested the Borders of Syria but Herod being but a Stripling of twenty five years old accompanied with part of the Militia of Galilee took the Knave and slew him with others of his thieving Companions Is not this an Exploit indeed to argue one of twenty five years old to have parts and courage beyond the pitch of his Age Whenas Augustus when he was but nineteen years of Age or thereabout applied himself to Civil and Military Affairs so speaks the Monumentum Ancyranum for him Annos undeviginti natus exercitum privato consilio privatâque impensâ comparavi was one of the Triumviri Reipublicae constituendae with M. Antony and Lepidus and had made himself Master of Spain by that time he was twenty five years old And Alexander the Great besides what he did in his Father Philip's time for when he was but sixteen years old he overthrew certain Thracians bordering on Macedonia which had revolted while his Father was absent in his War against the Byzantines took their City expelled the Barbarians and let it to others and called it Alexandropolis after his own Name And when he was eighteen years old in a Battel with his Father against the Greeks at Chaeronea he quit himself as well as Philip himself or any Commander in the Army besides these Exploits I say when he succeeded his Father being then but twenty years old and entring upon a very disturbed Kingdom yet he did not only compose all at home amongst the Greeks but in the second year of his Reign undertook his Expedition into Asia vanquished Darius and made himself Master of the Persian Empire by that time he was twenty five years old So ridiculous is it to phansie that Josephus set down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that the oscitancy of the Scribe had changed the Kappa into an Iota For it was no strange thing to Josephus that Herod should be fit for such a Province at fifteen years of Age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he speaks of him Bell. Jud. lib. 1. cap. 8. being of a mighty active Genius which property is suitable enough with such an Age when he was conscious to himself that he had that ripeness of Wit and Parts that when he was but fourteen years old the Chief Priests and Elders of the City would come and consult him touching the sense of their Law as he tells us in his Life writ by himself This Point therefore is very clear that Herod was but betwixt fifteen and sixteen years old when his Father Antipater made him Prefect of Galilee Nor is that little surmise of any validity which is drawn from that passage in Josephus Antiq. lib. 14. cap. 23. where M. Antony is said to constitute Antipater's two Sons Phasaelus and Herod Tetrarchs of Judaea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will signifie no more than having a peculiar kindness for them which was upon the score of their Father whose house Antonius and Gabinius had been at and were freely received there when Gabinius was Prefect of Syria This passage does not so much as imply Herod born then much less that Antonius had contracted any friendship or familiarity with Herod at that time whereby they would conclude him of a greater Age than fifteen when his Father made him Prefect of Galilee And that it was not upon the account of any acquaintance with them but his friendship and familiarity with Antipater their Father which made him the more willing to make them
of Judaea by Augustus and the Roman Senate the Epocha of his Reign For lib. 8. Demonstrationis Evangelicae Demonst 1. There he says Herod first of any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being an Alien from the Jewish race was by Augustus and the Roman Senate made King of the Jews Where therefore he plainly pitches the Epocha or the beginning of his Reign on that time that Augustus his Monarchy began which was upon the vanquishing of M. Antony in the Fight at Actium And again Demonstrat 2. he joins Herod's Reign and the Monarchy of Augustus together as commencing at the same time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But most express in the same Demonstration some pages after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After whom viz. after Hyrcanus Herod the Son of Antipater having slain Hyrcanus obtained the Kingdom of the Jews from the Senate of Rome Wherefore it is plain that Eusebius makes use of this third Epocha of the Reign of Herod letting that from Antigonus his death and his first being made King by the favour of Antony alone Epiphanius also plainly points at this Epocha in his 51. Heresie which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Num. 22. where he says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was the thirteenth year from Augustus his Reign viz. from Hirtius and Pansa till the perfect conjunction of Judaea with the Romans But he says afterward that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Coalition was perfected 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when the Princes of Juda failed who ended with the death of Hyrcanus and Herod of the stock of the Gentiles was constituted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prince or King of the Jews Which being done in the thirteenth year of Augustus his Reign from the Consulate of Hirtius and Pansa it is plain that Epiphanius places the beginning or Epocha of Herod's Reign in the year that Augustus re-established him in his forfeited Kingdom by his own Authority and the Suffrage of the Roman Senate And thirdly and lastly The ancient Graeci Fasti as T. L. has taken notice do simply and absolutely refer the beginning of Herod's Reign together with the slaying of Hyrcanus to the year of Crassus and Octavius Augustus his being the fourth time Consul a matter of four months after the Victoria Actiaca and to the eighth year of the Reign of Augustus himself viz. reckoned from the Consulship of Claudius Pulcher and Norbanus Flaccus and says he they thence compute the Reign of Herod to have been thirty seven years What can be more plain and express And what better assurance can a man desire to place the Epocha of Herod's Reign in his immediate succeeding Hyrcanus or restitution by Augustus when all things are so fitly adjusted by it as we noted before Thus we see that by computing as we ought the thirty seven years Reign of Herod from his Restitution by Augustus the end of his Reign will fall into the year of Metellus and Nerva And the Birth of Christ consequently into the year of Lamia and Geminus which is the thing was aimed at And the same thing will be brought to pass which will also further confirm the use of this Epocha in this case by proving that Herod died in the Consulship of Nerva and Metellus CHAP. X. That Herod dyed in the Consulship of Nerva and Metellus proved from the time of Archelaus his Marriage of Glaphyra From Dion Cassius his placing Herod 's Sons impleading one another before Augustus in the Consulship of Lepidus and Aruntius From Quirinius his confiscating Archelaus his Goods Statilius Taurus and Scribonius Libo being Consuls A gross Parepochism committed by Josephus From Philip the Tetrarchs dying Proculus and Nigrinus being Consuls From Eusebius and Sulpicius 's allotting twenty four years to Herod the Tetrarch after the Relegation of Archelaus and those twenty four years ending with the fourth of Caius Caligula From that famous Eclipse of the Moon preceding Herod 's death A Narrative of Herod 's Affairs corresponding with that Eclipse That there was such an huge Eclipse about a month before Herod 's Death in the Consulship of Nerva and Metellus T. L. makes good by Astronomical Calculation The same Eclipse calculated over again by the Ptolemaick Alphonsine and Copernican Tables in N. Mulerius and found rather bigger than what T. L. declares it The gross absurdity of making the seventh of Artaxerxes the Epocha of Daniel 's Weeks it implying that Christ was baptized by John before the Baptist enired on his Ministry Lydiat 's Eclipse compared with Petavius 's as also with the Eclipses of the 4711 4712 and 4713 years of the I. P. And more particularly with that last and the ineptness thereof discovered And therefore Herod dying in the year of Lydiat 's Eclipse Christ must be born Lamia and Geminus being Consuls THAT Herod died in the Consulship of Metellus and Nerva which is the 52. Julian year or the 4720. of the Julian Period is proved thus Archelaus enjoyed his Ethnarchy of Judaea after his Father Herod's death nine years and better as is manifest out of Josephus Eusebius Epiphanius and Sulpicius Severus But the said Archelaus a little before his Relegation married Glaphyra the Widow of Juba King of Mauritania as Josephus twice testifies Whence till Juba's death the Exile of Archelaus could not be But Tho. Lydiat makes it good out of Strabo that Juba was alive in the first suppose or the second year of Tiberius or if you will in the Consulate of Statilius Taurus and Scribonius Libo Before that time Archelaus was not banished Wherefore he not reigning above nine years and a little more if we reckon to the ninth Consulate from this backward we shall fall into that of M. Furius Camillus and Sext. Non. Quintilianus into which the first year of Archelaus his Reign reaches and which immediately the Consulate of Metellus and Nerva precedes And in which therefore Herod died See T. L. his Recensio cap. 5. Secondly Dion Cassius in his Roman History in the year of Aemylius Lepidus and Lucius Aruntius Consuls writes thus Herodes Palaestinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being accused by his Brethren was banished beyond the Alpes and part of his Dition laid to the Publick Dion indeed here either for brevity sake or out of ignorance joyns the Banishment of these Brethren close to their impleading one another before Augustus presently upon their Father Herod's death but in that he makes this impleading which is at large described in Josephus Antiq. Jud. lib. 17. cap. 11. in the year of Aemylius Lepidus and Lucius Aruntius this joyns it very near to the time of Herod's death which we contend for For the Consulate of Lepidus and Aruntius immediately precedes that of Metellus and Nerva So that from this otherwise confused passage there is some glimmerings of this great Truth Thirdly Josephus tells us Antiq. Jud. lib. 18. cap. 3. that Quirinius in execution of the Tax that was concluded on in the 37. year after Augustus his Victory over M. Antony
vinces annis auspiciisque patris Wherefore though he be a false Prophet yet he is a pleasant Poet and true Witness of the Age of Caius Which if he be the Expedition will naturally fall into the Consulate of Lentulus and Piso as is above noted Then was he on his Expedition with his Rector or Governour M. Lollius Whence we see plainly that Augustus sent not Caius into the East before his thirteenth Consulate but that T. L. his Chronology which I have proposed by Consulships and Julian years is true Now as we are assured of the time when Caius was upon his Parthian Expedition by the expiration of Tiberius his quinquennial Tribunitian Power Anno Jul. 45. Lentulus and Piso being Consuls so we are by the same assured that it was the next year that Caius concluded the Peace with the Parthians at what time M. Lollius died and so fairly gave occasion for a new Tutour to Caius which within a competent time Augustus would appoint him The next year therefore when Caius had taken possession of Armenia Publius Quirinius is appointed his Rector or Tutor as Tacitus plainly tells us Annal. lib. 3. where speaking of the Honours conferred upon him he says Consulatum sub Divo Augusto viz. Anno Jul. 34. mox expugnatis per Ciliciam of which Province he had the Prefecture not of Syria then else you may be sure Tacitus would not have omitted so great an Honour Homonadensium castellis insignia Triumphi adeptus datusque Rector Caio Caesari Armeniam obtinenti What can be more pat Cilicia being near Armenia nor Quirinius made Caius his Rectour till his Recuperation of Armenia But Caius a little time after his ingress into Armenia being so unhappily wounded and grown unfit for the Administration of Affairs the whole Government of Syria naturally fell into the hands of Quirinius or Cyrenius this Anno Jul. 47. when Vinicius and Alfinius were Consuls and is the year of Augustus his renewing his Censorian Power in quartum Decennium so great congruity there is of things Here therefore commences the first Presidentship of Cyrenius over Syria and here is the beginning of this first Tax in the first time of his being Governour thereof and is consequently that very Oecumenical Tax of Augustus that the Evangelist mentions and the middle of the three recorded by Suetonius and the Monumentum Ancyranum and the Tax wherein Christ was born which lasting three Consulships together for as it began in the Consulship of Vinicius and Alfinius so it ended in the Consulship of Aelius Catus and Sentius Saturninus as was above proved out of Dion and as the fore-part of it was carried on by Cyrenius so the latter part of it by Sentius Saturninus the Consuls Father and Cyrenius his Successour in the Government of Syria as appears out of Tertullian It is natural therefore and obvious to place the Birth of Christ in the middle Consulship viz. that of Aelius Lamia and Servilius Geminus nothing clashing therewith in History and it so fitly complying with the true Epocha of Daniel's Weeks the thirtieth Consulate from thence being the thirtieth year of Christ's Age when he was baptized by John the first year of the last week and the Prophecy says expresly that there were seven weeks and sixty two weeks that is sixty nine weeks from the Decree to build Jerusalem to the Messiah Wherefore his Manifestation which was made at his Baptism was to be expected in the first year of the last week as it did indeed fall out according to this Compute Wherefore this Note of Christ's Birth from the carrying on the Tax by Cyrenius Governour of Syria mentioned in S. Luke I take to be a firm Argument to prove that Christ was born Anno Jul. 48. Aelius Lamia and Servilius Geminus being Consuls We will add but one Argument more and then conclude The last Argument T. L. uses is taken from a passage of Paulus Orosius lib. 6. Histor adversus Paganos towards the end Wherein briefly these two things are noted That Christ was born when there was an universal Peace over the Roman Empire and the Gates of Janus were the third time shut by Augustus and in the year when Augustus refused to be called Dominus Lord. Orosius his mistakes in that long Paragraph it is besides my Scope to take notice of But as for those two notable Characters of the time of our Saviour's Nativity we have noted before that Anno Jul. 46. C. Julius Caesar and L. Aemilius Paulus being Consuls Caius Caesar concluded a Peace with Phraates King of the Parthians and that the Temple of Janus was the third time shut by Augustus that year as it was before twice the first time in his fifth Consulship Sextus Apuleius being Consul with him and then in his ninth Junius Silanus being Consul in the same year during which Oecumenical calm over the Empire Christ was born And if in the year when Augustus refused the stile of Lord then it must be in the Consulship of Lamia and Geminus because Dion just in the same place where he says that Augustus refused to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord he says there presently that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that his third Decennium being fully out he accepted of a fourth Now that the fourth Decennium of his Censorian Power began in the Consulate of Aelius Lamia and Servilius Geminus I have proved above in the twelfth Chapter But we had produced Arguments enough before this to demonstrate That the Nativity of Christ was indeed Anno Jul. 48. or Anno P. J. 47.16 L. Aelius Lamia and M. Servilius Geminus being Consuls CHAP. XIV Two Objections out of Josephus that would prove that Caius took not his Expedition into the East till after Herod was dead 1. Because Josephus mentions no Civilities done by Herod to Caius as he passed Judaea 2. Josephus expresly says that Caius was at that Council that was called at Rome touching the disposing of Herod 's Kingdom upon his decease The Defectuousness Remisness and Carelesness of Josephus in several things noted by Tho. Lydiat and others His gross mistake in the time of the Commission granted to Nehemiah noted by the Author That he cannot be excused from the distance of Time or remoteness of Country An Answer to the first Objection Whether it was ignorance or dissimulation in Josephus that he writes nothing of Caius his Expedition into the East Herod 's Policy in forecasting his journey to Rome while Caius went into the East An Answer to the second Objection that supposing there was any Son of Augustus at the above-mentioned Council Josephus has committed a Misnomer and set down Caius for Agrippa Posthumus Several Allegations out of Historians that it could not be Agrippa that Augustus so honoured in that Council Passages out of Tacitus and Dion that imply that it might be he That if Josephus did really mean Caius he must do it on a ground wherein
tenus as Plutarch in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who puts Fulvius for Fabius above-named in which story it is most manifest how cleaving Augustus his affection was to his Grandchild Agrippa to the very last to commit I say only an Antonomastick errour T. L. ingeniously supposes that Augustus had not so little favour for Agrippa Posthumus but that to see how this might work upon him he caused him to be present at the Pleading of the Cause of Herod's Children who should succeed Tiberius being then absent and employed in the German or Illyrick Wars Which unexpected eruption of Favour toward Agrippa might so nettle Livia and her Relations that thereupon she might the more forcibly urge Augustus to discard Agrippa toward the latter end of that year and banish him into the Island Planasia This is the only way I know to save Josephus his credit But if it be stood upon that Josephus did really mean Caius not Agrippa Posthumus upon his own supposition or declaration that Herod reigned not above thirty seven years or thereabout and that the beginning of his Reign is from his first being made King of the Jews by the Roman Senate and Favour of M. Antony from whence it follows that the abovesaid Council held touching the Succession into Herod's Kingdom fell out seasonably in the year before Caius took his Expedition into the East and so was yet present at Rome the Controversie will then come to this Whether Josephus when he affirms thus or whether when he affirms what is plainly repugnant thereto That Herod was but about fifteen years of Age when his Father Antipater made him Prefect of Galilee which implies that Herod died about ten years later is to be believed But this Controversie is sufficiently determined to our hands already in our eleventh Chapter Which the Reader may peruse again if he find it needful It is not needful for me to repeat it again here CHAP. XV. That Christ was baptized the nineteenth of Tiberius proved from the Prophecy of Daniel from the year of Christ's Nativity and his Age when baptized Nothing in S. Luke repugnant to Christ's being baptized in the fourth year of the Baptist 's Ministry with the childishness of their phancy that pretend to the contrary The genuine sense of that expression of S. Paul As John had fulfilled his course Four Arguments couched together for the proving Christ was baptized the nineteenth of Tiberius Historical passages which comport with the Baptist 's four years Ministry As that of the Jews saying to Christ Forty six years was this Temple in building c. John not beheaded till Vitellius was Prefect of Syria which was in the twenty first of Tiberius about two years after he had baptized Christ That the slaughter of the Galileans or Samaritans by Pilate was in the last year of his own Prefecture and Tiberius his Reign while Christ was alive WE have cleared the time of the Nativity of Christ and showed how consonant it is to manifold Testimonies of Authentick History We proceed now to Christ's Manifestation or Baptism which according to the indigitation of the true Epocha of Daniel's Weeks and History of Scripture is the year 4745. P. J. and the nineteenth year of the Reign of Tiberius the time of the Manifestation of the Messias according to the Prophecy of Daniel being 69 weeks or 483 years complete and Christ according to the Testimony of S. Luke being about thirty years of Age when he was baptized by John the Baptist which was the time of his Manifestation the Holy Ghost then descending upon him in the shape of a Dove and a Voice from Heaven witnessing of him that he was the Messias the Son of God If you reckon inclusively from the Consulship of Lamia and Geminus which was in the 4716. year P. J. you will find it just thirty years Which alone the time of the Nativity of Christ being so fully cleared might assure us that the Baptism of Christ was in the nineteenth year of Tiberius Nor is there any thing in S. Luke's Gospel that contradicts this Chronology of Christ's Baptism pointed at by the true Epocha of Daniel's Weeks I mean the Lydiatean Epocha which counts the time from the twentieth of Artaxerxes Longimanus whenas the Funccian counts from the seventh Whence the Lydiatean Epocha has a vast advantage of the Funccian the Funccian casting the Baptism of Christ on the thirteenth year of Tiberius two years before John began to baptize which therefore is a plain contradiction to the Testimony of Scripture But the Lydiatean places it after the fifteenth year of Tiberius according to the Testimony of S. Luke and though about four years later than others have placed it yet consistently enough with the Testimony of S. Luke he declaring only that it was after the fifteenth year of Tiberius not how many years after the same But because there is no distinct mention of years betwixt John's beginning to preach and baptize and the time he baptized Christ they have clapt Christ's Baptism close to the first year as Children and Idiots phansie the Sky and Moon or Sun at the Horizon to touch the Earth because they see nothing betwixt But as wise men correct their phancy by Reason and in virtue thereof while the Sky or Moon seems to touch the Earth assure themselves it is as distant therefrom as when it is nearer their Zenith so considerate persons that ponder with themselves that weighty Province that lay on John the Baptist's shoulders as the Angel Gabriel predescribes it to Zachary his Father Luke 1.17 And many of the Children of Israel says he shall he turn to the Lord their God and he shall go before him in the Power and Spirit of Elias to turn the heart of the Fathers to the Children and disobedient to the wisdom of the Just to make ready a people prepared for the Lord that is for the Lord Christ they I say that rightly consider this must needs conclude that it must be a work of some years to effect it especially John working no Miracles and yet having gained the esteem of the people so far by his long and diligent Converse with them and repeated Instructions to them whereby he converted many to a pious sense of their duties that they began to conceive that he might be the promised Messias Wherefore Paul being aware of the nature of the Baptist's Province that he was to go before the face of the Lord Jesus to prepare the way for his being acknowledged the promised Messias calls the performance thereof the finishing his course 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 13.25 And as John fulfilled his course c. Whenas others out of heedlesness or ignorance have phansied that John went but a stride or two before our Saviour in the Inchoation of their Ministry like some Mace-bearer before a Chief Magistrate But this savours of too much Idioticalness and Puerility We have couched therefore together at least three if not four
does not signifie there Individually as I may so speak taken for some one solitary set time of their Rising but generally or at large that when the just rise and receive their reward this charitable man shall receive his amongst them whether at the beginning of the Millennium or after the ending it matters not so curiously to define and so it seems to make neither pro nor con as to either Opinion The other place 2 Tim. 4.8 seems to pinch more sorely I have fought a good fight Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but unto all them also that love his appearing This seems to imply that Paul shall not have his Crown a blessed Immortality in an Heavenly glorified body till all the rest of good Christians that love the appearing of Christ shall have it But in Answer to this I say we are to consider what is meant by this Day of Christ's appearing And there is nothing more obvious to observe in Scripture than that a day signifies as large as time let it be of what years you will So that this Day of the appearing of Christ may be the whole Millennium or more nay reach from the beginning of the Millennium to the end of the World or Conflagration For so long continues Christ's Kingdom on Earth when once it is begun in that eximious sense after his Victory over the Dragon Beast and false Prophet Read the 19. Chapter of the Apocalypse Now this appearing of Christ and his glorious Reign in the Kingdom of his Saints is all one as appears from the first verse of this very Chapter I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom The appearing mentioned v. 8. is the same with this and this with his Kingdom The words in the Original are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which may signifie in the time of his appearing and Kingdom and may be an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and be rendred in the time of the appearing of his Kingdom that Kingdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I noted before touching which are those Voices Rev. 19. And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude and as the voice of many waters and as the voice of mighty thunderings saying Alleluia For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth In this Reign Christ will most gloriously and triumphantly administer Justice and most righteously order all affairs whether concerning the living or the dead And then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Martyrs that suffered for Christ they shall be raised first and be invested in their glorified bodies This affair will be dispatch'd at the beginning of Christ's Reign but at the end all shall be raised both good and bad and receive according to their works both these things will be done in one and the same day in the day of his Reign which will be filled with glorious appearances of his Power all along And thus Paul might well say and say truly Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not unto me only but unto all them also that loved his appearing that is the appearing of his Kingdom in the power thereof and daily prayed for it Thy Kingdom come as every good Christian ought to do Paul was to receive his Crown of righteousness in the Morning of that long Day others at the Evening or Close thereof but thus both receive it at that day as receiving it both in the same day Wherefore the difficulty of these two Texts being removed I hope that part of my Exposition which takes the first Resurrection in a literal sense will seem now as easie natural and agreeable as any of the other passages Those Interpreters that balk this obvious and natural sense and such as the Primitive Christians conceived of it as you may see in Mr Mede keep a fearful pudder and so flunder and confound all that it is tedious to read them much more would it be to write of them or meddle with their Conceits Rectum est Index sui obliqui And therefore I will give neither you nor my self any unnecessary trouble CHAP. XVIII The second part of the Letter touching the Calling of the Jews Whether they be not to be converted by some Miraculous way suppose by a Voice or Vision from Heaven Whether that of Zachary Chap. 12. v. 10. import so much That the words of our Saviour Matt. 23. v. 39. seem to imply some such thing As also that of S. Paul 1 Tim. 1.16 The probability of the way of the Jews Conversion from these three places of Scripture AS for that other Point in your Letter which you rightly deem a less needful Curiosity viz. whether the Jews be not to be converted by some miraculous way suppose by Voice and Vision from Heaven Mr. Mede though not fully satisfied himself therein is likely to give you the best satisfaction of any that I know There are three places of Scripture that he takes notice of not impertinently The first is Zach. Chap. 12. v. 10. They shall see him whom they have pierced Which Sentence though considered alone may seem to have little force in it yet if you read it with the Context which seems to predict and describe the very Conversion of the Jews and excellent state of the Christian Church at that time it will appear not a little to the purpose Nor do I know how its force can easily be avoided unless they interpret this seeing of him whom they have pierced of the sight of Faith Which others haply will look upon but as a frigid evasion The second place is Matt. 23. v. 39. Ye shall not see me henceforth till you say Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord. This our Saviour spoke some few days before his Passion and looking upon himself now as a dead man and gone into the other World he told the Chief Priests and Scribes especially who Matt. 21. rebuked the people for their Acclamations they made to him viz. in those words Hosanna to the Son of David Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord. Which Grotius glosseth thus Foelix sit Rex à Deo nobis datus that they should see him no more till the time when they should say Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord i.e. shall say Foelix sit Rex à Deo nobis datus and so acknowledge him their King and promised Messias That this must be understood of seeing him again after his being gone into the other World is plain because it had not been true if he had understood it of seeing him again before his death For certainly they saw him at his Arraignment and Crucifixion Wherefore the
the Epistle to the Church of Laodicea seems to be one instance The beginning of the Creation of God the Alpha but his main intent is to intimate thereby that he is the Omega the Ender or Finisher of what he has begun And so in the Epistle to the Church of Smyrna where he says He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death This is no Priviledge of the Smyrnean Martyrs the same being common to all Christians that are saved but its Antitheton insinuated by it is viz. the first Resurrection opposed to the second Death There is yet a third comes into my mind from what I noted above most pertinent of all Apoc. 20.15 And if that any one was not found in the Book of Life he was cast into the Lake of fire This is at the general Resurrection plainly where there is no mention made of the opposite party the righteous and their Reward but the Antitheton is to be fetched out of Daniel Chap. 12. Every one that shall be found written in the Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be saved So that Daniel and S. John as touching such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do as it were keep Tallies in several which joined together adjust the true sense and make the account clear and complete Wherefore this Prophetick Ellipsis by which one Antitheton being named we are to gather the other shows how naturally in the Apocalypse those that had not worshipped the Beast nor his image reigned c. are set in opposition to those that are doomed to shame and everlasting contempt they being mere Underlings in the Millennial Reign of Christ and so each of them understood in a Political sense And so we see from hence that there is not any just ground for making a Political sense of those that awake into eternal life though those that are doomed to everlasting contempt is to be understood Politically because it respects another Antitheton in the Apocalypse and not that which is immediately opposite in eodem genere Let but Daniel and S. John join Tallies and the account will be clear And now this it may be you will say were more easie to admit if those that awake into everlasting life had something also in eodem genere that were an Antitheton to it But I have already proved that have it or have it not it is necessarily to be understood of a Physical Resurrection not Political But for your greater ease what if I should allow that about that time that these Martyrs in the first Resurrection are awakened into everlasting life in their Heavenly bodies and so ascend into Heaven that the Ghosts of the cruel and barbarous Persecutors whether Pagan or Pagano-Christian of the Saints of God together with their chief Inspirers and Instigators thereto those Devils that were most active upon them for that work shall be thrust down into the nethermost Hell into that Dungeon of the Rephaim which the Annotator upon Lux Orientalis describes in his Annotations if you have seen the Book It 's but interpreting the casting the old Dragon and his Accomplices the Ghosts of that cruel murderous Crew of Persecutors whether Pagano-Christian or Pagan into the bottomless Pit or rather Abyss in a Physical sense and the business is done I have in my Exposition interpreted it in a Political sense which therefore may answer to those which are doomed to shame and everlasting contempt Add but this Physical sense And most Interpreters take it in such a literal sense but being ignorant or mindless of a Prophetick Henopoeia therein interpret it of one single great Devil and not in Conjunction with those of his Kingdom of Darkness But by a Prophetick Henopoeia not only the Prince of the Devils but all those Devils and evil Spirits that were active in the Pagan and Pagano-Christian Persecutions may be here understood and then their Physical detrusion into the Abyss at this time is no mean Argument that those whom they persecuted were at the same time exalted into Heaven that the other were thrust down into the nethermost Hell not able to get out thence till the Claviger of the Abyss with his Ministers brings them out again after the thousand years to exercise the sleepy Laodicean Church but to be triumphed over in the Conclusion as Pharaoh was who when he thought to have reduced the Israelites under his Bondage again was overwhelmed with a Sea of Water as Satan with all his numerous Forces Gog and Magog will be overthrown in a Lake or Sea of Fire Add I say but this Physical sense to answer in opposition to the Martyrs ascending into Heaven in their glorified bodies while those Wretches are thrust down into the nethermost Hell into the Abyss of which they are so much afraid Luke 8.31 and all is complete And this imprisoning of these disturbers of the World is very suitable and fitly falls in with the peaceful and righteous Reign of Christ upon Earth Thus much we have gained by considering the Text of Daniel now let us cast our eyes upon its parallel place in the Apocalypse Chap. 20. v. 4. And I saw the Souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus c. Certainly this denotes them dead in a Physical or natural sense not Political and in what sense they are dead they must be said to be revived viz. in a Physical unless we do manifest violence to the Text. Which same violence would be offered if we did not interpret that which follows but the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished in a Physical sense too From whence it follows likewise that This is the first Resurrection must have a Physical sense also not a Political nor yet a Moral and so will answer directly to those some awakened into everlasting life in Daniel And thus the parallel places support the true sense of each other And then that which follows in the Apocalypse Blessed and holy is he that is to say Blessed in having a peculiar and separate Priviledge above others in partaking of the first Resurrection he being already secure from the second Death which is the Lake of Fire from which none are actually secured till they obtain their Heavenly bodies will have a natural and easie coherence with what preceded as also a very fit reference to that passage of the Epistle to the Church in Smyrna that interval of the Church wherein the Pagan Persecution did so rage and there were so many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beheaded or otherwise martyred for the witness of Jesus He that overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death which implies by that usual Antithesis I spoke of above that he shall be made partaker of the first Resurrection and enjoy that peculiar Priviledge for his Sufferings according to the Doctrine of the Primitive Fathers This hinders me from allowing that The rest of the dead lived not again till
like Introductory Vision and more ample of the glory of the God of Israel enthroned above the Cherubims is prefixed before Ezekiel's Book of Prophecies but is no Prophecy it self but a sign of Ezekiel his Call and Inspiration from God to prophesie He upon the Throne speaking to him Chap. 2.3 and saying Son of man I send thee to the Children of Israel c. there 's his Mission and then reaching him a roll of a Book to eat whereby as John Apoc. 10. doing the like he was inabled to prophesie I will add a third Example out of Daniel of that Vision of an Angel habited like Aaron the High-Priest Chap. 10.5 prefixed before the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth who communicated to Daniel the said Prophecy But now as no man is so sensless as to take those Introductory Visions in Isaiah Ezekiel and Daniel to be proper Prophecies but only or chiefly significations of the Divine Inspiration of those Prophets that they were inabled thus to prophesie by the Spirit of the Lord So it is a wonder to me that any one of wit and parts and learning should be so heedless and grosly mistaken as to make any of these Introductory Visions to the Epistolar Prophecy the Sealed Book-Prophecy and the Opened Book-Prophecy to be Prophecies properly so called and not Introductory Visions such as those in Daniel Ezekiel and Isaiah whose proper scope is to intimate the Divine Inspiration of John in writing those Prophecies which were communicated to him by Angelical Ministry upon the appointment of Christ whose Merit obtained this Revelation from the Eternal Godhead That this is the genuine meaning of those three Introductory Visions I shall now endeavour to make good in order as they lye And it is exceeding manifest in the first that the Appearance to John of one in the Pontifical Habit like that of Aaron is hugely like that Appearance to Daniel Chap. 10.5 Wherefore why should this be more a Prophecy than that But both these Appearances being in the High Priests Habit who was a Type of Christ it is a plain Argument that it is Christ himself that appeared or was represented in both places And this very Appearance dictating the Epistles sent to the seven Churches unto John as if he were his Amanuensis or Secretary and these Epistles being the Epistolar Prophecy it self it is plain that it is the first part of the Revelation of Jesus Christ signified to his Servant John And that God is here in Conjunction with Christ is manifest from his Pontifical Habit which is a Symbol of the visible World as Philo takes notice though he knew not the right System thereof But what an excellent Hieroglyphick those Aaronical Habiliments are of the true Pythagorick System thereof I have abundantly made out in the Appendix to the Defence of my Philosophick Cabbala Chap. 5. Sect. 3 4. See also the Latine Scholia thereon Wherefore the Assistance of the Eternal Divinity to the Soul of the Messias or Humanity of Christ is hence easily conceived And the like may be observed in that Vision prefixed before the Sealed Book-Prophecy contained in Chap. 4 and 5. It is no more a Prophecy than the Vision prefixed before Ezekiel's Book of Prophecies and the less likely it being in a manner the same Vision with it And therefore why should it be a Prophecy more here than there Nay if it be a Prophecy of any King or Queen sitting on their Throne in Christendom it is a very ancient Prophecy of them indeed For that Vision in Ezekiel is the very same which Moses and the Elders saw on Mount Sinai Some intimation thereof is from the mention of the Sapphir stone on which he is said to stand in the one and to sit in the other but there is that which is yet more pressing For as Ezekiel says of his Vision that it was the Appearance of the glory of the Lord Chap. 1.28 and the glory of the God of Israel Chap. 10.19 so it is said Exod. 24. that the glory of the Lord abode on Mount Sinai Which therefore what it was is amply indicated in the Vision of Ezekiel which I doubt not but is a Symbol of the spiritual and invisible Kingdom of the God of Israel where he sits enthroned amidst his bright Angelical Squadrons and the Psalmist briefly notes The Chariots of God are twenty thousands even many thousands of Angels the Lord is among them as in Sinai where there was the Representation of his Glory and Majesty in his Angelical Kingdom and 't is likely on a Sapphir Throne whose very Scabellum was also Sapphir and so his feet which is all from the Hip to the Toes rested on Sapphir For to phansie him standing does not so well agree with the Representation of Majesty But the strongest Argument is yet behind viz. That the Cherubims and the order of the Camp of Israel answer so exquisitely to this Vision of Ezekiel Whence it must be plain to him that will see Moses being to order all things according to the Pattern in the Mount that the order of the Camp of Israel and the Tabernacle c. was according to the Representation of the Glory of the God of Israel on the Mount in his Spiritual Kingdom To the perfection whereof it being not the Lot of the Church of the Jews to reach they bore notwithstanding the external and Ritual figure thereof in the order of their Camp Tabernacle c. Wherefore that Vision in the Mount again seen by Ezekiel and lastly here by S. John with some few alterations only and prefixed before his Prophecy of the Sealed Book as it is before Ezekiel's Book of Prophecies how awkward a thing is it to conceit this a proper and formal Prophecy it self of the same nature that the three main Apocalyptick Prophecies are whenas it is of no other nature than the Vision prefixt before the Epistolar Prophecy some parts of which Vision are made use of in the Epistolar Prophecy it self as there is of this in the Sealed Book-Prophecy And as that Vision being a Representation of Christ in Conjunction with his Church may have some general and less distinct significancies of her condition so this Vision prefixt before the Sealed Book-Prophecy it being really a Symbol of the Spiritual Kingdom of the God of Israel may be so framed as to have some glances on those times when this Spiritual Kingdom of the God of Israel in Heaven which is the chief aim of all shall descend thence from God and be found on Earth in the New Jerusalem state of his Church This being the great scope of all contained in both the Sealed and Opened Book-Prophecies it is not irrational to conceive this ancient Vision seen by Moses and Ezekiel to be so attempered in this seen by S. John as to have some glances at those most excellent times of which the Spiritual Kingdom of the God of Israel is the Archetypon and it being so it is prefigurative of
at Kingdoms which began with the sound of the first Trumpet and with the forty two months War or prosperous Reign of the Beast which ended with the Rising of the Witnesses and last blast of the sixth Trumpet So exact is the Synchronism of the forty two months and the six first Trumpets rightly understood Nor is the Beast represented in the Vision with its ten Horns crowned to signifie the Empire was not a Beast till it was thus actually divided into ten Kingdoms but that it was a Bestianizing while the ten Horns were catching at and actually obtaining one after another their respective Kingdoms So that the Beast began to be at least with the catching at and obtaining a Kingdom by the first of the ten Horns But all the ten Horns are exhibited as crowned in Counter-distinction to the Representation of the Roman Empire Pagan where there are seven Heads and ten Horns but the Horns without Crowns that we may be sure the Vision belongs to the Empire after it had become Christian And thus the forty two months of the Beast and the sound of the first Trumpet beginning with the time of the Apostasie it is evident the twelve hundred and sixty days of the mournful Prophecy of the Witnesses and the rest of the synchronizing Medial Visions commence from the same Epocha and consequently that the twelve hundred and sixty days expired about thirty years ago The rest of the most material things in your Letter I will answer very briefly What you alledge therefore out of my self that I allow of a double Rising of the Witnesses Synops Prophet lib. 2. cap. 7. sect 7 11. one quoad speciem the other quoad gradus you are to take notice that that distinction is mentioned by me only to this end that no man should expect at the Expiration of the forty two months an universal Rising of the Witnesses or total Fall of Babylon but only speciminal But that after this speciminal Rising I allow the following Victories of Christ against Antichrist to be called the further Rising of the Witnesses This though by some Analogy it may be called and is so by me called a further gradual Rising of the Witnesses yet I must confess I think it now more proper and safe to call nothing the Rising of the Witnesses but what is included within the Time of the forty two months and intimated by the partial Fall of the City Whatever other Accessions are made to the Kingdom of Christ under the Vials must take their denomination from the Vial they happen under And looking upon the thing it self those that bore Testimony in those Times that the Cause of Truth seemed so obscure in that none would owne it but those Witnesses these I say have a more special Right to that Title But the Cause is now plainly decided by the manifest Judgment of God in giving Victory to the Witnesses and fulfilling exquisitely the Prophecy recorded Apoc. 11.11 in the blessed Reformation So that further witnessing in a decided Cause seems superfluous men now that stick to the Truth decided are rather honest conscientious Professors of the Truth than Witnesses to it and they that suffer for it may rather be said to be murdered than martyred for the Truth though the Merit of their Suffering is much-what alike to the other And now in this proper sense of the Rising of the Witnesses when I say they are risen above thirty years ago this is no contradiction out of forgetfulness to my own sentiments who make the Rising of the Witnesses to begin about the middle of the second month of the last Hexamenon or Semi-time and end about the middle of the fifth from mine own Epocha Anno 393. or 400. as if hereby I finished their Rising later than about the midst of the fifth month of the last Hexamenon and so differ about fifty years from my self For where I say above thirty years ago I speak in the Language of them that by the twelve hundred and sixty years will have so many years Extent signified My meaning therefore is that even according to them granting that Extent to them yet the Witnesses are risen above thirty years ago counting from the right Epocha so that there is no further fulfilling of that Prophecy But though there is no more counting on any further Accessions to the Kingdom of Christ under the Notion of the twelve hundred and sixty days unexpired or Rising of the Witnesses yet there is from the Effects of the Vials as I have hinted already but we go on Daniel's Semi-times are illustrated by the Apocalypse 1 In that they are by changing them into twelve hundred and sixty days or forty two months declared to be but three times and an half And 2 it is declared by placing three days and an half at the close of the Vision of the Witnesses that they are the measure that the Events of the Medial Visions are to be computed by that is that a Semi-time is the Vnite not a Month or Day And withal we must remember that the Artifice of Concealment is as well intended in the Apocalypse as the Certainty of Revealment Furthermore Remember that the forty two months Reign of the Beast is not understood of his Reign at large but of his prosperous belligerant Reign against the Saints and Witnesses till their Rising and the partial Fall of the City so that these necessarily synchronize Your Comparison of the last stroke at the Tree felling the Tree is witty but not so well fitted to this case The Rising of the Witnesses or falling of the City is rather like the mowing of a Meadow which is not said to be mowed just at the last cut as the Tree to be felled at the last stroke of the Ax but it is mowed and a mowing all the time till the last Sithe-full such is the nature of the Rising of the Witnesses Their Rising was in succession not at one joint Jump as the falling of the grass is in succession not all at one stroke of the Sithe In Arithm. Apocalypt pag. 382. I make the twelve hundred and sixty days of the Witnesses expire Anno 1652. speaking according to their Hypothesis that understand the full Extent of so many years by them yet say I they expired in the year 1652. from the true Epocha though they were so to be extended and though we did not measure the time of the Medial Visions by Semi-times But this is but one true Tale to say they expired An. 1652. from the true Epocha according to that Hypothesis of some but that the Witnesses Rising was past in a different year from the said Epocha consulting History and measuring by Semi-times or making a Semi-time the Unite It 's much you did not understand my meaning before And whereas you conceive the Witnesses could not be politically dead from the very beginning of the Apostasie that word Political was the best word I could hit on to oppose to Natural death But
it is to be understood in a larger meaning than to be grosly put out of Office This Death I mean is gradual and the first degree thereof is when those that stood up for the Truth against the introducing the Pagano-Christian Rites c. were found so weak that they could not stop the Tide of Ecclesiastical Corruptions flowing in but their attempts were ineffectual so that as to any efficiency to stop the incroaching Pagano-Christianism they were as mere Cyphers or dead men that can do nothing This is included in Political Death in that large sense I take it in I mean this Inefficiency or Inability to carry on things that appertain to the Order or Polity of the Church or of the State in Matters respecting Religion against the Authors and Countenancers of the growing Corruptions And the Apostasie being the very Wilderness of the Church the Woman was in it as soon as it was These are Hints of an Answer to your former Letter I shall offer the like to your latter CHAP. XXVII Hints of an Answer to a second Letter from the same Hand A Semi-time the Unite in computing the Events of the Medial Visions proved by the Author Not four hundred thirty two but three hundred ninety three the Author 's Epocha for the Medial Visions The odd Semi-time in Daniel added to good purpose The prevailing of the little Horn Dan. 7. how to be understood The meaning of After three days and an half His Friend's mistake touching the second Query His use of a Prophetick Henopoeia in Answer to the sixth Query but no avoiding thereby but that Luther 's Reformation will be the final Issue of the forty two months War and a Semi-time the Unite for computing the Medial Visions YOU understand aright what I mean by making a Semi-time which I call also in one word an Hexamenon an Vnite in computing the time of Events in the Medial Visions But I am amazed that you say I only suppose or assert this whenas I have evidently demonstrated it in the brief Method of the nine Queries and Notes thereon if you patiently and closely attend thereto And I have noted above that from my Epocha the Witnesses began to rise about the midst of the second month and were rising till about at least the midst of the fifth in the last Semi-time And therefore it is no wonder that so large an Vnite as an Hexamenon or Hecatouogdoconthemeron that is an hundred and eighty Prophetick days should be the Vnite by which so large an Event should be computed Nor is there any other eventual measure of Time signified by the forty two months or twelve hundred and sixty days than Daniel's seven Semi-times as I shall remind you again in the Conclusion And it is not this partial Victory signified by the Rising of the Witnesses but that total Victory of the Rider of the white Horse under the seventh Vial that secures the Saints for ever falling again under the power of the Beast Now to your Paragraphs To 1 In Synopsis Prophetica lib. 2. cap. 5. sect 4. there I say only that the Epocha of the Beast's forty two months is at least so early as four hundred thirty two years but the Epocha I stick to is three hundred ninety three And according to that Epocha the Rising of the Witnesses will begin about the middle of the second month and reach into at least the middle of the fifth month of the last Hexamenon or Semi-time And I say that all the Variations of the time of the continuance of the Medial Visions signifie no more than that they shall continue for seven Semi-times which are the seven Vnites in this Compute And therefore if the Continuance reach into the seventh Vnite especially the Event aimed at filling that Unite so competently well as it does viz. the Rising of the Witnesses and partial Fall of the great City the fulfilling of the Prophecy is plain and exact To 2 What you say here is neat supposing your Epocha of four hundred fifty six years when the Beast became ten-horned were true For then Luther's beginning the Reformation would fall short of the seventh Semi-time But I stand to that one Epocha of three hundred ninety three years according to which the Rising of the Witnesses will begin about the middle of the second month of the last Hexamenon or Half-time and reach into the midst of the fifth month at least So that the Half-Time is added to the three Times to very good purpose in Daniel To 3 The little Horn prevailed against the Saints for a time and times and half a time but in the last Half-time he was not so prevalent or prosperous in his War but that part of his Kingdom was given to the Saints in the Rising of the Witnesses as it is said Dan. Chap. 7. v. 26. And they shall take away his Kingdom which was in part done in the Rising of the Witnesses and Fall of the tenth part of the City viz. in the Reformation but the consuming and destroying it to the end is left to the Vials that succeed the Rising of the Witnesses and will be completed under the seventh at that great Battel under the Conduct of the Heros on the white Horse with a Sword issuing out of his mouth And the Vials succeed the sixth Trumpet and consequently the Time and Times and Half a Time Which Vials would have no Kingdom of the Beast left to be poured upon if the fulfilling of the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses and Fall of the City were more than partial What can be more plain To 4 After three days and an half or after three times and an half doubtless is to be understood of the Three and Half current not expired But this Expression After does plainly assure us that this is the final issue of that forty two months War of the Beast with the Witnesses and that the final issue of that War is but a partial Fall of the City and no more Rising of the Witnesses than was commensurate thereto I pray you think seriously on that The regaining of the tenth part of the Kingdom of Antichrist into the hands of Christ and the Rising of the Witnesses in that tenth part is plainly the final Result of the forty two months that is of the Time and Times and half a Time War of the Beast with the Witnesses The Vision says so expresly As for your Answer to my second Query It is not my Query you answer to For my Query is Whether the forty two months prosperous War of the Beast does not synchronize with the first six Trumpets and you give your Answer touching the Reign or War of the Beast at large which indeed reigns still and wars still but not with like continued success as in the forty two months continued War noted in the Vision In Answer to my sixth Query it 's a pretty ingenious use you make of the Prophetick Henopoeia and I acknowledge there is
And these first Acquists are as it were the Primitiae and Pledges thereof So plain is it every way that this Vision Chap. 11. touching the Witnesses drives only at a partial regaining of the Kingdom of Antichrist into the hands of Christ The Judgment indeed is here begun of the little Horn they begin to take away his Dominion but consuming and destroying it even unto the end that is the work of the Vials 2. To your second Bring by a Prophetick Henopoeia as many Risings of the Witnesses and as distant in time and place as you will and phansie them as strongly as you will to be made within the last Semi-time or before the forty two months according to your Epocha be expired yet the Vision does expresly declare that all this can amount to no more than the Fall of the tenth part of the City Babylon and a commensurate Rising of the Witnesses Upon which consideration one would think it were impossible but you should find your self in a wrong Box and that my way is the genuine Interpretation of the Prophecy But that your Epocha is also false is abundantly made out from what we have said to your third Letter viz. That the Beast and his War with the Witnesses commenced as early as the Apostasie which your self acknowledges to begin about four hundred years after Christ which is above fifty years earlier than your Epocha This if you thoroughly consider it is a full Answer to whatever you offer in your second Paragraph And it is tedious to me to multiply words 3. To the third This invincible Reasoning of mine touching this Vision you seem to be aware of in this next Paragraph and yet you are not sufficiently pierced by it but would shuffle it off by saying If the Event of this forty two months War be but partial how can it be final as if there were an inconsistency therein because the one signifies there is more of the same kind to follow whereas final signifies the contrary Answ But this is a mere piece of Sophistry The pretended inconsistency not observing the Laws of real Opposition which must respect the same thing But final here respects the Extension of the forty two months War but partial the Extension of the Kingdom the Witnesses or Saints warred against the vanquishing of part whereof may well be the final result of the forty two months War or of the Time and Times and half a Times War though there may be more of the same Kingdom still behind to be conquered and subdued This is so open a Fallacy that it needs no illustration to set off the inconsequence thereof But you proceed 4. To your next I answer briefly That After three days and an half or three times and an half I understand to signifie as much as After the last Vnite of the Eventual Computation current which is a Semi-time as I have demonstrated in my Arithmetica Apocalyptica and more concisely in my Nine Queries and Notes And a Semi-time being the Vnite in Eventual Compute and so adapted to the nature of the Event predicted too big for either a Prophetical Day or Month and not the beginning of the Event but the whole Event it self being the Object of the Prediction and the whole Event reaching from about the midst of the second month of the last Hexamenon or Semi-time into the fifth if not sixth thereof the Accomplishment of the Prediction is as exquisite and complete as if the Vnite in Compute had been a Year and the Event had fallen out after the last year current of suppose twelve hundred and sixty years This if you consider it is a plain and full Answer to what you alledge in this Paragraph 5. In the next many things are said but nothing that in the least infringes that grand Truth viz. That the final issue of the forty two months War betwixt the Beast and the Witnesses is only the Fall of the tenth part of the City and the Rising of the Witnesses proportionate thereto You readily grant that the Vials succeed the sixth Trumpet but you say that the Vials succeed the three Times and an half does not thence follow unless I had first proved that the Three times and an Half reached no further than to the end of the sixth Trumpet which you say you never yet saw proved This I wonder at because Mr. Mede has sufficiently demonstrated that the Woman to be nourished for a Time and Times and half a Time in the Wilderness synchronizeth with the first six Trumpets Consult his Table of Synchronisms and you will see it and peruse his little Treatise of Synchronisms and there you will find it proved Besides that till after the three days and an Half the second Wo or sixth Trumpet is not past Rev. 11. And this is a plain demonstration that the final issue of the forty two months War is but a partial Fall of Babylon or partial Ruine of the Kingdom of the Beast and not a total because there would be no Beast left to be ruined by the Vials after the Expiration of the sixth Trumpet and last Semi-time Think seriously on this You say the three Woes have the same subject and the same object which is a mistake For the first two Woes are the Invasion of the Saracens and Turks upon the Idolatrous Empire at large the Ten-horned Beast and belong to the Sealed Book Prophecy but the third Wo more peculiarly respects the two horned Beast or Idolatrous Hierarchy and belongs to the Opened Book-Prophecy But all three agree in this that they are Woes and so the transition is from one Wo to another But that proves not that they have one adequate Subject and Object no more than that they belong to one and the same Prophecy whenas it is manifest the last Wo belongs to the Opened Book-Prophecy the other two to the Sealed Nor is the last Wo-Trumpet divided adequately into seven Vials but into seven Thunders and the first Thunder into the seven Vials which is needless here to insist on and you may find satisfaction elsewhere See the Answer to the Remarks on the place and also Appendicula Apocalyptica So that there is not the least pretence of continuing the forty two months War betwixt the Beast and the Witnesses beyond the partial Fall of the great City and the Rising of the Witnesses proportionate thereunto That there is still a struggle betwixt the Antichristian and Evangelical Party and that the Evangelical Party may sometimes receive damage is true yet this is not to be reckoned to the forty two months War but to take denomination from other Visions or Prophecies from the Menaces to the Church of Sardis and from the Vials especially And their attacks to do the Evangelical Party mischief is to be referred to their noisom and grievous sore as an effect thereof inflicted on them under the first Vial and sticking to them or at least irritable in them all along as this sore is
look on those labours as ill bestowed which tend to obscure those Prophecies I suppose you mean of the Medial Visions and that of the prevailing War of the little Horn against the Saints for a Time and Times and half a Time as if we could not by them take any measure of the Time of the Churches sufferings and her deliverance out of them To this I answer That pains may be faithfully and judiciously bestowed by them that remonstrate to the World that the Numbers of the Medial Visions indicate only a partial deliverance a thing which I have invincibly demonstrated And I have shown even now that though there be no Prediction unless we recur to the two thousand three hundred Evening-Mornings whose full Exitus is at least four hundred years hence how long and no longer to a year or thereabout till the deliverance of the Church will be fully consummated and perfected yet the Order of the Vials which reach to a full Victory of the Church and complete deliverance gives us some measures to collect the nearer approaches to that happy Time So that in this case to complain is to be unthankful especially if we consider that we are at least as well provided for as the Primitive Christians were in their most grievous Persecutions under the red Dragon Wherefore those that would squeez out of the abovesaid Medial Prophecies whether of the Apocalypse or Daniel such a precise determinate time of the Churches full deliverance when the nature of those Medial Numbers and Prophecies will not afford it what shall we say of their labour Is it not in vain if not worse For without good ground to set a precise time of the general deliverance of the Church from a pretended true Interpretation of the Holy Prophecies when there is really no such thing predicted by them is to make our selves more wise and benign than the Divine Spirit the Author of these Prophecies as if he had omitted what was so requisite for his Church and is to delude and mock the expectation of God's people and to slur the Holy Prophecies themselves and discountenance all pretence of rightly interpreting them Which has been the Fate of many curious Interpreters who from the Numbers of the Medial Visions have presumed to calculate the final Ruine of Antichrist to a very year And therefore those that have made it their business to demonstrate the groundlesness of this Pretence I hope their labours will prove well bestowed nor be found vain in the Lord being earnestly pursued for him and the Honour of his Word who is the Amen the faithful and true Witness and predicts nothing but what will come to pass and therefore we must not make him predict any thing that will not either as to time or the thing it self CHAP. XXX Two Arguments out of a fifth Letter from the same hand to prove That the Roman Beast under the seventh Head was not in being till the ten Kings signified by the ten Horns were risen up in the Empire Certain things premised in order to an Answer to the said Arguments Amongst which is the true Notion of the Head of a Beast in the Prophetick Stile in counterdistinction to his Horns An Enumeration of the Heads of the Beast and what the fullest sense of the seventh Head An Answer to the first Argument An Answer to the second Argument Two Arguments of the Author 's to prove that the Roman Beast under the seventh Head was in being before the ten Kings signified by the ten Horns were risen up in the Empire That the placing the Epocha of the forty two months War of the Beast in the beginning of the Apostasie is unexceptionably right with the gross absurdities of the other Opinion THE first Argument If the Roman Beast under the seventh Head did rise before the ten Kings in the Empire then these then Kings will make an eighth Head of themselves or at least conjoined with the Emperour as one of their number when the other nine had possessed so great a part of his Empire and were as absolute in their Kingdoms as he in that share was left to him he having no preeminence above them but what was merely Titular or Honorary Wherefore these together and not the Emperours separately ever made the seventh Head of the Beast For the seven sorts of successive Governours in Chief of the Roman Empire as Idolatrous they as such made the seven Heads of the Beast and these ten Kings taking in the Greek Emperour made one Head of the Beast as being such For they ruled as Chief in the Empire and their Government was Idolatrous Wherefore or they are the seventh Head nor was the Beast revived before its Head or else the Emperours separately before was the seventh Head which cannot be For then the revived Beast would have an eighth Head whenas there are but seven Heads of Blasphemy according to the Visions Therefore the Roman Beast under the seventh Head was not in being till the ten Kings signified by the ten Horns were risen up in the Empire The second Argument There being seven sorts of Government but all agreeing in this that they are Idolatrous the Sovereignty of the ten Kings ruling the whole Empire every one in his share ought to be deemed the seventh Head it being a seventh sort of Idolatrous Government whenas the Pagano-Christian Caesars though Idolatrous indeed as the six preceding sorts of Government were accounted the first six Heads of the Beast's would not be properly the seventh Head of the Beast but the sixth Head again brought into being as being again Idolatrous Caesars or Emperours Wherefore since the Beast cannot be conceived to be in being without an Head nor is supposed to be again in being according to the Visions before the seventh Head and the Pagano-Christian Caesars separately being only the sixth Head revived not a seventh it follows that the abovesaid ten Kings are the seventh Head and that the Beast under the seventh Head was not in being till they were risen in the Empire These two Arguments are pretty press and close to the purpose and therefore before I go about to answer them I will premise some few things and settle some Terms or Notions that occur in the Question and the Prophecies 1. First therefore We are to consider what in the Prophetick Stile is such an Head of a Beast as may be said to have Horns on it so that there may be some distinction betwixt the Head and the Horn or Horns thereof and that they may not seem to denote the very same thing Such an Head therefore of a Beast as here we are searching for I conceive to be this according to the Prophetick Stile viz. Idolatrous Sovereignty in the general abstractive comprehension and succession thereof Something like that in the Apocalypse touching the Woman the Church our Mother which comprehends the whole Community of the Church in a general Notion and yet if you speak of any particular persons
it is well known that those Kings submitted to the Laws of the Roman Emperours which Justinian caused to be collected not for the use of his share only of the Empire but for the use of the Roman Empire at large insomuch that some phansie that to be the reviving of the Roman Beast again or making his Image 2. History calling them Roman Emperours that is the Emperours of the Roman Empire and Prophecy being but Anticipatory History and the Emperours of an Empire being the Heads thereof it is wonderfully easie and natural to imagine the Pagano-Christian Caesars to be the seventh Head of the Beast till the Pope play'd the Caesar himself and perked up above them 3. The secular Head of the Beast upon which the Horns grow is of a more general and abstracted nature than to be confined either to the Idolatrous or Pagano-Christian Emperours separately or to the ten Kings taking the Emperour in for one It is only a Pagano-Christian or Idolatrous Secular Sovereignty in the general abstractive comprehension and succession thereof which is the seventh Head of this revived Beast as the He-goats head in Daniel which takes in the great Horn but one and the four Horns after with their successions and this all but one Goats Head and therefore the Idolatrous or Pagano-Christian Emperours separately and after taken in as one of the ten Kings all this makes but one seventh secular Idolatrous Sovereignty or seventh secular Head of the Beast as may appear out of the first and third Premisses 4. And lastly therefore The Emperours separately first and then in Conjunction with the Kings to make them ten being but one continued Idolatrous or Pagano Christian Sovereignty which is all the Vision aims at and so but one Head of the Beast it is manifest that an eighth Head is shut out of doors and the force of the first Argument plainly enervated And that therefore for all this the Beast was in being before the Kings were risen and commences as high as the Re-paganizing Caesars and Apostasie of the Empire Which is also confirmed from the fourth or last Premiss To the second Argument we answer 1. That the Pagano-Christian Caesars or Emperours though they be Idolatrous and Emperours yet it does not follow that they are only the sixth Head which was Idolatrous Emperours re-introduced on the Stage not a seventh For these Pagano-Christian Emperours though they be Idolatrous yet they are considerably Christian in their way they professing the true Fundamentals of Christianity and therefore are rightly deemed a distinct Head of the Empire as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other not yet come is accounted a distinct King or Head of the Empire for being purely Christian He is according to the Declaration of the Angel the seventh King or Head of the Empire though not of the Beast the Empire then ceasing to be a Beast in his Reign Wherefore if Christianity did constitute the purely Christian Caesars or Emperours a seventh Head of the Empire distinct from the sixth Head the Idolatrous Emperours Pagan during the Time the Empire ceased to be a Beast surely Pagano-Christianity or Idolatry mixt with Christianity in the Caesars and Empire will make the Pagano-Christian Caesars or Emperours the Christianity in them a Head distinct from the sixth Head the Pagan Idolatrous Caesars and the Idolatry in them will make them not the Head of the Empire ceasing to be a Beast as it did under the Reign of the purely Christian Caesars but the Head of the Empire grown a Beast again by its Apostatized condition into Idolatry And thus the Pagano-Christian Caesars will prove plainly the next Successours to the sixth Head of the Roman Beast though not of the Roman Empire and therefore will consequently be part at least of the successive Sovereignty that is the seventh Head of the Beast 2. But in the second place I answer That the real full and complete seventh Head of the Beast is that Hieratico-Political Sovereignty described in the third Premiss nor do I doubt but that it is the most full and perfect Notion of the seventh Head of the Beast And this Hieratico-Political Sovereignty commenced as early as the Apostasie of the Empire as may be made out from my Answers which declare the early complying of the Emperours with the Apostasie of the Empire into Paganick Superstitions and Idolatries c. Whence it plainly follows that to restrain the seventh Head to the time of the ten Kings risen in the Empire upon pretence that there was no seventh Head distinct from the sixth till then is to conclude a thing upon no sufficient grounds For at the very first sight this Hieratico-Political Head is manifestly a sort or Species of Head distinct not only from the sixth Head of the Beast but also from all the five foregoing Heads in the very Constitution thereof The thing is so plain of it self that there wants no insisting upon it Consider but the third Premiss and the thing will be abundantly clear Thus are these two Arguments for the proving that the Roman Beast under the seventh Head was not in being till the ten Kings signified by the ten Horns were risen up in the Empire utterly defeated I shall hint only now two brief Arguments against the Conclusion the other two would infer to prove the contradictory thereto and so conclude that is to say to prove That the Roman Beast under the seventh Head was in being before the ten Kings signified by the ten Horns were risen up in the Empire 1. My first Argument shall be grounded on the fourth or last Premiss which is the genuine sense of Apoc. 17.12 The ten Kings receive power as Kings one hour with the Beast Of which the easie and natural sense is That at what time the Empire grows into that state of Apostasie viz. into Paganish Superstition and Idolatry that according to the Prophetick Stile it may be called a Beast at that very time will the barbarous Commanders that invade the Roman Empire be catching at and obtaining Kingdoms some here some there some sooner some later for a matter of forty or fifty years together at least till all ten appear upon the Stage Wherefore if the Beast be not under the seventh Head till then the ten Kings at least nine of them will not receive their Kingdoms with the Beast but before the Beast is which is point-blank against the words of the Prophecy Wherefore this alone may demonstrate That the Beast was in being under the seventh Head unless you will make an headless Beast of him which shall be my second Argument before the ten Horns i. e. the ten Kings rose up in the Empire 2. The other Argument is taken from the second Premiss So soon as the Empire apostatized into Paganish Superstition and Idolatry the Empire became a Beast according to the Prophetick Stile and as soon as it was a Beast again it had an head and that very seventh Head exhibited in the
having suffered like a Lamb was to be again advanced to the Throne of God Some such sense quoth he as this we shall be obliged to put upon it forasmuch as it exceeds all belief to think that when the Book aforesaid shall be to be opened God himself in Person shall appear amongst us sitting on a Throne with a Book in his right hand and that after Proclamation made for one to open it in the Ears of all the World his Son Jesus shall appear coming to his Father and take it out of his hand c. Or which is equally absurd the four Beasts and twenty four Elders shall be taken up into Heaven to see the same things acted there Whence it is concluded That the sealed Book is not to be opened by the Lamb himself in person but by some mortal man or other whom he shall imploy in this service Answ This is argued handsomly enough were it not upon a double false Foundation The first is That opening the Seals is explaining the Prophecies which I have already shown to be a mistake The other is That this Vision is an absolute Vision not an Introductory Vision to the Book-Prophecy which point I have cleared Chap. 21. nor need I here repeat things And in the third and last place The individual Person of Christ is so exquisitely described that no other but himself can be meant For besides that he is said to be slain and to have redeemed us with his Blood and to have made us Kings and Priests he is stiled the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and the Root of David How is it possible that any one but Christ himself can be meant by this description This is no description of a mystical Christ but of the very Person of Christ himself I am thus brief in answering this last Question because there will be an abundant supplement made in the answering the Confutatory part of his Papers where he endeavours to entangle my Hypothesis with as many difficulties as he can Wherefore I will in the next Chapter give a summary Account of my sense of this Vision and then answer to his Allegations against it CHAP. XXXIV A summary Account of the fore-mentioned Vision and the sense of several Particulars acknowledged by the Expositor Ten Objections to entangle the abovesaid Account and the sense of the Particulars Distinct Answers to the said ten Objections COncerning this Introductory Vision comprized in the fourth and fifth Chapter of the Apocalypse I have spoke so fully in the twenty first Chapter of this Treatise that I may well be allowed to content my self only with a summary Account of that Vision here which is this This Vision impressed on the raptured Imagination of S. John is a Theatrick Representation of the Glory of the God of Israel in his Angelical or spiritual Kingdom in Heaven which besides that common use of all the Introductory Visions which is to signifie that the succeeding Prophecy as this Book-Prophecy in counterdistinction to the Epistolar Prophecy is the Revelation of Jesus Christ obtained of God and communicated to his Servant John it is framed in such a Dramatical way as both to be prefigurative of several things appertaining to the glorious and joyful state of the blessed Millennium and also significative what a dear regard God has to his Son Christ even according to his humane Nature and what an inestimable value is to be put upon this Book-Prophecy in which is comprehended both the sealed Book-Prophecy and the opened Book-Prophecy This is a brief summary Account of this Vision In which we admit that the four Beasts and twenty four-Elders though they represent the spiritual or Angelical Kingdom in Heaven are also prefigurative of Believers some time to be on Earth We likewise further assert That he that sits on the Throne is God Almighty himself and no other That the slain Lamb is no other than Christ in his own Person That the seven-sealed Book is a Symbol of the secret Counsel and Foreknowledge of God touching the affairs or state of his Church and of the World as much as concerns his Church from the beginning thereof to the last Judgment And God his giving this Book to Christ signifies his communicating these his Secrets to him And the Lamb or Christ his opening the Seals in the sight of John denotes his imparting this Scene of future things to his Servant John though no man yet understood the meaning of those Typical Prefigurations All this for my part I owne whatever other Interpreters do And now let us see what the ingenious Objector can say to entangle so solid an Hypothesis 1. I demand only says he these few things First Where was ever any such loud Proclamation made at God's delivering this Book to his Son as is spoken of Rev. 5.2 2. Secondly How unlikely a thing is it that the things therein contained being only in the Mind of God as is supposed there should be any such Proclamation made at all to find out one that was worthy to know them For it may seem to be too much trifling in a weighty matter 3. Thirdly But if any such Proclamation were ever made who-ever heard it For it must needs be supposed that the Proclamation was made in the ears of a great many 4. Fourthly And where was Christ when this Proclamation was made that it is said No man in Heaven in Earth or under the Earth was found able to open the Book or look on it 5. Fifthly But if the meaning be that none but Christ was found able how comes S. John to weep for that Who could he expect or desire should do it besides 6. Sixthly How comes an Elder to know of Christ's taking the Book out of his Father's hand sooner than S. John himself 7. Seventhly What Elder was that that gave the first notice to S. John that Christ had prevailed to do it 8. Eighthly Who are they all that are set so near the Throne of God and of Christ as these Beasts and Elders are said to have been when God communicated the knowledge of these things to his Son and who are said upon that occasion to have sung a new Song with Harps c. to this effect Thou art worthy to take the Book and to open the seven Seals thereof for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God c. and hast made us Kings and Priests unto God and we shall reign upon the Earth And there is the like reason of the Angelical Address that follows c. 9. Ninthly Interpreters interpreting this Angelical Address of Angels literally so called as they also interpret the strong Angel v. 2. contradict themselves and all Interpreters in other places who expound Angels to be meant of men 10. Tenthly and lastly But the greatest and most manifest Omission of all saith he is that whereas in the next place it is said That every Creature in Heaven in Earth and under the Earth c. I John heard
saying Blessing and Honour and Glory and Power be unto him that sitteth on the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever no Interpreter shews this to have been done after Christ's taking of the Book more than before From whence it is plain to me saith he that they go upon a wrong Hypothesis For if there had been any such things done on Earth no doubt some footsteps of it would have been found in History These few things as he calls them being thought by him pressing and weighty I am concerned to answer that the truth of my Exposition may not seem to be obscured thereby 1. To the first then I answer That this Proclamation was made only in this Dramatical Vision and is no more than a visionary Proclamation and brought in in this Dramatical manner to signifie the singular Prerogative of Christ given to him by his Father that he should have the ability of predicting and effecting such things as no Creature besides in the World had the like general Proclamation being made to find them out if there were any such And the Angel is said to be strong and his Voice loud that it might pierce as it were through the Universe to summon any one that would pretend to such a Prerogative as has been described 2. To the second I say There is neither any unlikeliness nor trifling in this Proclamation because it sets off the peculiarness of Christ's Prerogative in that it was given to him to open the sealed Book And it being not yet opened but being known in general to be a Book of Secrets as yet only in the Mind of God what unlikeliness or Indecorum is it that Proclamation be made who he is that shall be vouchsafed this power of opening the Book and distinctly knowing those Secrets which were only in the Mind of God before 3. To the third I answer as to the first That the Proclamation is only visionary and of what it is significative I have already said nor need again repeat 4. To the fourth I say it seems a kind of capricious Query as if it implied from that account of the Proclamation made that no man in Heaven on Earth or under the Earth was found able to open the Book that Christ was no where then else he would have been found able But as S. Paul says 1 Cor. 15.27 But when he saith all things are put under him it is manifest he is excepted which did put all things under him so say I whenas this Proclamation was made to remonstrate to the World that no man in Heaven nor Earth nor under the Earth was found able saving Christ himself to open the Book it is manifest he is to be excepted out of that Negative Catalogue as being the only Creature that was able 5. To the fifth Incogitancy I think suggested this Query to the Objector For it implies S. John wept after he understood that Christ had obtained the power of opening the sealed Book whenas his weeping was before He says so plainly himself v. 4. And I wept much because no man was found worthy to open and read the Book neither to look thereon Which is also a Dramatical passage on this Theatre intended to signifie nothing else but the great Needfulness and Desirableness of such a Book of Prophecies for the use of God's Church and their guidance in all the Tossings Changes and Revolutions in this transitory World Such a Book was so necessary and requisite that it would grieve any good Christian at the very heart who is solicitous for the Church to want such a Load-star or Cynosura 6. To the sixth I answer That these crowned Elders though they be prefigurative also of the Millennial Kings or Monarchs they are here some principal Angels of the spiritual Kingdom of the God of Israel in Heaven And why may not such an Angel be thought to be wiser than John and able to instruct him There is nothing incongruous or indecorous in this Dramatical passage and John was called up into Heaven to be instructed by his Betters This celestial Actor may well be conceived to know how the Scene would go though John in the mean time was as yet ignorant thereof 7. To the seventh Truly this is a very curious Question if it imply that one should declare who this crowned Elder was by Name It is sufficient to say it was one of the Elders that was next him and so most conveniently placed to instruct John and comfort him upon his weeping and so take that kue to carry on this Divine Scene from v. 4. to v. 8. till the slain Lamb had taken the Book out of the hand of him that sate on the Throne and had obtained power to open it By which no Event is prefigured that was to come to pass some Ages after John's receiving the Apocalypse but it is only signified in this pompous Dramatical way That this Book-Prophecy is the Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him and which he imparted to his Servant John So that the curiosity of naming the Party whom this Elder may prefigure vanisheth 8. To the eighth I say Those that are set so near the Throne of God are Members of his spiritual or Angelical Kingdom in Heaven but prefigurative withal of his Millennial Kingdom on Earth which is the main scope of his Providence over his Church that it shall at last come to pass that the Heavenly Jerusalem in Image and Resemblance shall descend from God on this Earth and his Tabernacle be with men And therefore the glory of the God of Israel is here so represented that it may also prefigure the State of the Church under the New Jerusalem as the other Introductory Visions have some glances or more general strokes at Prophetick Events in some passages And now for the new Song sung by the four Beasts and twenty four Elders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dignus es qui acciperes Thou wert worthy to receive the Book for so the Original is interpretable and to open the Seals thereof for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God and made us Kings and Priests to reign upon Earth This new Song is prefigurative of the Joy and Happiness of that State of the Church of which it is said Apoc. 21.5 Behold I make all things new which is the New Jerusalem state In which there will be such triumphant Praises sung unto the Lamb when it will be so evident he has carried his Church safe for whom he gave his Life and Blood through all the predicted conditions thereof and at last has placed them in that happy and glorious Millennial State by his faithful Conduct Wisdom and Power Which are included in the Faculty granted him by his Father of opening the Seals of the Book as I have noted elsewhere And whenas presently afterwards the whole Universe is made to ring with a loud Doxology from numerous Quires of Angels and of all Creatures in Heaven and Earth and under
according to the richness of the expression sometimes of the Scripture it would illustrate one thing by two Metaphors at once and so the Two-horned Beast would seem to do the office of both a Chirurgeon and Conjurer at once of a Chirurgeon in healing the deadly wound of the Sword of a Magician or Conjurer in making the dead Dragon appear alive in a breathing and speaking Image Arg. 6. Lastly Mr. Mede argues very well That of the self-same is the Image of the Beast said to be of whom is the Name and the Number Chap. 15.2 But I say the Name and the Number is of the Ten-horned Beast Chap. 13.18 See the Context and the following Note 2. And his Number is 666. The chief meaning must of necessity be Six in opposition to Twelve the Apostolical Number because of the six Idolatrous Heads of which the sixth bears the Whore which I prove thus The Empire was not totally destroy'd by the Ostrogoths but only wounded Who can doubt but the Monarchical Government of England is the same now that it was before Cromwell Or thus 3. The Head that was cured bears the Whore this none will deny but the Head that was wounded is the same with that which was cured For it is unreasonable to give one man a Cut upon the Head and lay a plaster on another mans head Therefore the Head that was wounded that is the sixth Head or that of Emperours bears the Whore 4. Note That 144000 is not a square but a multiplication of 12 and so is 666 of six And see Dan. 3.1 where Nebuchadnezzar's Image which was undoubtedly a Type of this was sixty Cubits high and six broad And it falls out handsomly that the Apostatical Number should be half of the Apostolical because the Apostates had about the half of the Apostolical Truth viz. they spoke half Canaan and half Ashdod c. Answ To the first I say That the Context shows the Number to be the Number of the two-horned Beast For it is the Image of the Beast that causes all to receive by his coercive power the mark of the two-horned Beast For of the two-horned Beast and the Image he made does all the second part of the Chapter run And therefore the Beast must be understood of the Two-horned Beast not of the Ten-horned Beast and the Number to be his and the Image his as the Artificer thereof 2. To the second that I see no necessity of Six in opposition to Twelve it had been rather Seven viz. 777. there being just seven Idolatrous Heads of the Beast Chap. 13.1 or seven Idolatrous Kings Chap. 17.10 and the Apostolical and Apostatical opposition also appearing under the seventh Head the Whore riding the Beast under that same Head not under the sixth Nor is the deadly Wound on the Head of the Beast by the Ostrogoths but by Michael in his fight with the red Dragon He that does not see that must be stark blind in Apocalyptick Notions To bring in the Ostrogoths here is as if one stuffing a Pillow with feathers should so forget himself as to stodge in pieces of Brick or Clay 3. To the third I say It is a mere inelegant Quibble Inelegant in that it makes the Whore a Pail of Milk as it were born upon the Head of the Beast A Quibble in that he would have it as if one mans Head were cut and another mans Head had the plaster applied to it whenas it is not one Beast's Head wounded and another Beast's Head healed but the Head of one and the same Beast is both wounded and healed For it being one and the same individual Beast in succession so it is one and the same Head or supreme Power though under a sevenfold Modification and they are called seven Heads only in that respect But one and the same Beast has still one and the same Head that is his own Head not the Head of another Beast as this Quibble phansies two Heads of two several men one wounded but the other plaistered But the Beast Chap. 13. being represented with his Head healed which ipso facto is the seventh Modification of the Head and that under which the Beast bears the Whore which expression implies it to be for substance the same Head agrees well with that of Chap. 17. where the Beast is called the Beast that was is not and yet is which imports that he is the same Beast as the Head the same but healed from its wound with the Scar of Christianity upon it though so grosly grown into Pagan-like Idolatries Whence it is plain the Number 666 has no reference to the Ten-horned Beast restored else it should have been 777. Besides what wisdom would there be in counting this Number c. 4. To the fourth I grant that 144000 is made by 12 into 12000 and 666 by 6 into 111 but in the mean time it is undeniable but that 144 Chiliarchies or Regiments which have the nature of Vnits in this case and that 666 propounded alone is to be numbred by extracting the square Root thereof neither 6 nor 111 being given to divide it by nor both to produce it And that one should say that the Image that Nebuchadnezzar set up was undoubtedly a Type of this seems a piece of such Levity as hugely misbecomes any serious Interpreter of the Apocalypse Nor is there any handsomness in six the Apostatick Number being half of twelve the Apostolick Number For the Apostatick Church if you compare the Apostolick Doctrines of it with themselves it has all of them but if with Apostatick or corrupt Doctrines the Apostolick is not the tenth part of the Apostatick But besides the weakness of all these Arguments it is impossible the Pope should be the Image of the Ten-horned Beast restored the Popes being single Persons but the Ten-horned Beast a Body Politick CHAP. XLII Nine Arguments out of Socinians and other Sectaries whereby they would prove the first Imperial Council Anno Dom. 326. to be the Epocha of the time of the Witnesses till their Rising With Answers to each Argument IN Arithmetica Apocalyptica upon the third Query I have fixt and setled the Epocha of the Apostasie with all care and circumspection I could and there I hope upon very good grounds concluded That the true and precise Epocha of the Apostasie of the mournful Witnesses and indeed of all the Medial Visions is to be pitched in the year of our Lord 393. Wherefore we are concerned to answer these nine Arguments that would infer it to be in the year 326. which are as follows Arg. 1. The first Imperial Council made the Empire a National Church and so most fit to be called a Beast Answ The Jewish Church under their Kings was a National Church and yet no Beast Idolatry and Cruelty make the Beast not one publick National Confession of Faith It is against the very Light and Law of Nature that the Supreme Power in any Kingdom should not look after
Religion and make Laws and Orders concerning it so far as consists with the just Liberties of truly conscientious men nor are repugnant to the written Law of God whether in Scripture or in Humane Souls This is so consistent with Christianity that I do not doubt but the Holy City in the Millennium will be built by a Council truly Holy and truly Oecumenical Arg. 2. This Imperial Council confessedly added to the Creed Answ What the Council of Nice concluded concerning the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the Godhead was no addition to the Creed or Canonical Scripture but only an Explication made for the quieting of the Church and burying that Floud of Contention wherewith the Dragon would have overwhelmed the Church And therefore no Pride Fraud nor Covetousness being underneath but a sincere study of preserving the Church in Peace and of exhibiting such a Form of Faith as was least obnoxious to the Cavils of the Heathen as if the Christians worshipped more Gods than one or any thing that was not God we have no reason to question but Christ assisted and directed that Council in their determinations according to his promise Arg. 3. That this Council has been of greatest Authority and most dangerous to be opposed Answ I do not see how this derogates any thing from the worthiness of the Council so that it should be made the Epocha of the time of the mournful Witnesses till their Rising Certainly it is as dangerous to oppose the Apostles Creed and yet I think no man will deem it a fit Epocha for the time of the mournful Witnesses Arg. 4. The Council of Nice set the first Horn on the Ecclesiastick Beast the other not by full Authority till Anno 380. or rather 451. A Beast may be a Beast without one Horn or with none but he cannot have an Horn and be no Beast Answ The Patriarchate of Rome and that other of Constantinople that they be the two Horns of the two-horned Beast Apoc. 13. I easily admit But so soon as they were two Summities or Preeminences Ecclesiastical that they were necessarily ipso facto two Horns in that worse sense that I deny For neither embodying into a Polity or having Superiorities and Preeminences make Beasts and Horns but only Idolatry and Cruelty But the degeneracy of the Church into Idolatry was a pretty while after the Nicene Council It commenced with the Beast that was is not and yet is And he commenced with the breaking of the Empire into several Kingdoms which was after the Nicene Council and the first Constantinopolitan also Arg. 5. The Dragon stood before the Woman that was ready to be delivered to devour the Child as soon as it was born Chap. 12.4 The Child was born in the Conversion of Constantine Therefore the Re-paganizing of the Church must be presently after and so was the flight of the Woman into the Wilderness Answ The Dragon stood ready to devour the Child so soon as it was born but no Text says he did devour it so soon as it was born but quite contrary that it was caught up to the Throne of God and possessed the Imperial Crown and the Woman also escaped by her flight into the Wilderness An Attempt does not at all infer an effect I understand no force at all in this Argument Arg. 6. This gives a good account of the universal Woe Chap. 12.12 which seems to come in strangely after those words of Triumph preceding For the Devils Pagan Worship must quickly have come to an end by the Conversion of Constantine if he could not in that short time have turned off Constantine from the Faith or Re-paganized the Christians And the greatness of his wrath shows he was likely to make quick dispatch Answ I answer 1 That that Wo is not universal Earth and Sea not comprehending all the parts of a Political World There are Heavens besides that are bid to rejoice at this defeat by the Conversion of Constantine The vulgar people are Earth and Sea and amongst them the Devil was resolved to bestir himself 2 The short time he had to turn himself in is in reference to the keeping up his old Draconick Religion He must either do it before the Woman go into the Wilderness or else never And therefore that floud of Contention was to turn off the Populacy from Christianity and make them adhere to the old Pagan Religion But for Re-paganizing the Empire become Christian his time was not short for that he carrying on and perfecting that project for many hundred years 3 And lastly The greatness of his wrath only shows the greatness of his straits not the quickness of his success in those designs of either upholding the old Paganism or introducing a new one In the former whereof he is quite defeated and in perfecting the latter his progress was but slow when once begun nor begun till about four hundred years after Christ when the Empire begun to be broken into many Kingdoms Arg. 7. In this way we need not go to the uncertain Conjectures of proportion betwixt the inner and outer Court from Villalpandus or arbitrarily fix on such an Epocha as will best suit with our own Opinions For the state and times of the Church before and after Constantine are signally distinguished of themselves with reference to the Altar Chap. 11.1 as the Symbol of Martyrdom Answ I say 1 That the proportion of the inner and outer Court of the Temple namely the Area's of them in Villalpandus are not uncertain And it is the Area's of them by a Metonymia Adjuncti that are conceived to be measured The square Area of the whole Temple in the largest sense is conceived to be cast into nine square Areolae of equal bigness Two of which are the Area's of the inner Court the rest of the outer Whence the inner to the outer is as two to seven And it is Ezekiel's Temple questionless that the Apocalypse alludes to and none else As the description of the Trees and the River Apoc. 22. is from thence And the thing is so phrased according to the Artifice of the Apocalyptick Stile that both the proportion of the Time of the Non-Apostasie and Apostasie and also the Non-Apostate and Apostate Condition of the Church is insinuated For his being bid to measure the inner Court shows the Symmetricalness of that State of the Church but the rejecting the outer Court from being measured intimateth its Incommensurableness or Asymmetry to the Measure But the naming the forty two months it was to be trodden down gives a third Term whereby we may gather the time the Church was not yet trodden down by the Gentiles For as the outer Court is to the inner so is forty two months time to the Time sought for which is twelve months Thus As 7 to 2 so 42 to 12. The time therefore of the Non-Apostate Church is one entire Time or two Semi-times 2 And this plainly hinders us from seeking such an
Epocha as will best suit with our own Opinions this fixing the time to near about four hundred years after Christ And Chemnitius who knew nothing of this does place the Apostasie of the Church about that time which is a thing very considerable And besides no man that understands himself in Apocalyptick Notions can fix the Apostatick Epocha where he pleases the Apocalypse it self having fixt it to the beginning of the healed Beast and of the Beast that was is not and yet is Which begins with the breaking of the Empire into many Kingdoms which breaking begun about the time abovesaid And then 3 and lastly Though there was indeed at Constantine's Conversion a signal Change of Affairs in the Church yet that was not the healing of the Beast but the mortiferously wounding the Dragon of which the Witnesses did not complain but of his healing again And the mentioning the Altar does not imply that the Times of Martyrdom were the only Symmetral Times of the Church but that the Symmetral Times of the Church did comprehend those Times also And though it was no long time yet there was a time for the seventh King the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to reign before the Beast that was is not and yet is was to come upon the Stage Therefore these are two signal differences of Time noted in the Apocalypse the Non-Apostasie and Apostasie of the Church from the entrance of the latter of which the middle Synchronals are to commence and not from the ceasing of the Persecutions by the Pagan Dragon Arg. 8. The Atrium or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Court without doth elegantly express the place of the Imperial Throne as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Temple was the place of God's Throne in his Church which is his Temple Answ I see no Elegancy in making the outer Court the Imperial Throne forasmuch as the Atrium of the Temple was not the place of the Throne of the Kings of Israel but a Porch which Solomon built in his own House of the Forest of Lebanon for the Throne of Judgment 1 Kings 7.7 And besides the Church was not less 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Throne of God less in it for Constantine's being converted to Christianity or for his calling a general Council for the Peace of the Church Nor was he inferiour to any of the Bishops for prudence and moderation that the Church should be in a worse condition for his being the Head thereof Arg. 9. The last Argument is the Completion of the Prophecy so exactly not only by Semi-times but likewise by Months Calvin's improvement of the Reformation falling out in the two last months or rather last month and a greater light of improvement in the last Decade or last of the twelve hundred and sixty days which end in the Year 1586. when the Poland Reformers were in their prime in that last Act opposing the first Act of the Ecclesiastick Beast Answ That the Completion should be to a month or a day is but a precarious Supposition Besides that we have demonstrated to the contrary in Chap. 25. That not a Prophetical Day nor a Month but a Semi-time is the Vnite for computing the Time of the Event in the Medial Visions And being the Rising of the Witnesses began with Luther Anno 1517. and according to this Epocha is finished Anno 1586. this yet is a demonstration against the Opposer himself that a month cannot be the Vnite of measuring this Event the difference betwixt 1517. and 1586. being more than two Prophetical Months And therefore much less can a Decade be the Vnite the difference containing even almost seven Decads And now for that which pretends to be the Cream of this ninth Argument as if the Event of the Rising of the Witnesses were crowned and completed exactly in the Poland Reformers viz. the Socinians in the last single year of the 1260 viz. Anno 1586. to me it seems a strong Argument against this Epocha of 326 when the Nicene Council sate it being not likely that Providence would countenance so gross an Heresie with so accurate an Hit in the Event An Heresie that runs counter not only to the Vniversal Profession of the Church but to plain Scripture it self For as for the Divinity of the Logos it is manifestly set down in the beginning of S. John's Gospel In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God Nor can it be evaded by saying the Word is God by Vnion with God For it is as sensless as if one should conclude the Body a Spirit because it is united with the Soul that is a Spirit And then for the Trinity it is plainly declared by our Saviour himself in his commanding them to preach to all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost And the first part of the Doxology Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost was in use in the Church before the Nicene Council as you may see in Seth Calvisius But this is not a place to insist on these things The Socinian is a very strait-laced Gentleman of a narrow Sphere and unphilosophical Genius of a maimed or depraved perception and inept to conceive any substance that is immaterial and their Ring-leader Socinus so unfit for Theosophy or Theology that contrary to express Scripture he denied God to be knowable by the Light of Nature a fit Generation of men to consummate the Reformation touching the deep Mysteries of the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the Godhead and to have their Authority opposed to that of the Nicene Council But 2 besides this the Council of Nice was not held Anno 326. but Anno 325. in the twentieth year of Constantine Paulinus and Julianus being Consuls So that this accuracy to a single year vanishes 3 Socinus his setting foot in Poland was some years before 1586. and the prevailing of the Socinians so as to be in their Acme or Prime there a lubricous thing to determine to a year 4 But Christianus Elector of Saxony reforms his Country just in the year 1586. and in the Orthodox way of Melancthon c. which shows further the weakness of this last Argument 5 If the 326. year after Christ were the Epocha of the Rising of the Witnesses it making the twelve hundred and sixty days Prophetical reach but to the year 1586. it will fall short of some Specimina of their Rising as that in Bohemia where Mattathias grants liberty of Religion in the year 1608. And lastly Whereas Apoc. 2.28 there is promised to him that overcomes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which respects the Sardian Church and Rising of the Witnesses into Rule and Honour for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prematurity and a surprizing or unexpected timeliness of the Event this Epocha casts the beginning of the Event after almost two thirds of the last Semi-time or Hexamenon were
a reference thereto of the Camp of Israel So that the four Wights are as well Israelitish as the twenty four Elders And the twenty four Elders wearing Crowns and the four Wights not so plainly indicates that the one are the Rulers of the other and therefore are but one congenerous Polity And the Reasons which he produces to the contrary are but slight For the four Beasts or Wights are no more employ'd in the services of the New Testament time than the twenty four Elders For whatever any of them are said to do respects the New Testament time And for their being made to say Come and see at the opening the four first Seals we are to consider that the three latter of those Seals respect rather the Empire than the Church And it is not as an Israelitish Elder that he informs John of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah's prevailing to open the Seals but as a crowned Prince it becoming such a Personage to instruct John touching the Almighty's deriving Power to Christ both to foretel and so to administer the Affairs in the World as to cause his own Predictions to be true But now for the Doxology of the twenty four Elders alone Chap. 11.16 without any of the four Beasts it is not intended to signifie the Christian Church not to be universally pure but confinedly to these Elders But it marvellously ratifies my sense of things that these crowned Elders signifie Kings or Monarchs and that therefore the Doxology of the Elders is here mentioned and that of the Beasts left out to denote the gladsom sense of those Kings and Princes that had cast off the Tyranny of Antichrist or Papal yoke in the Reformation at the Rising of the Witnesses The People was to be yet subject to their Kings or Princes but these Kings themselves to be no longer subject to the Pope but to be absolute Sovereigns in their own Dominions And this is the occasion of their peculiar Doxology which if the Beasts had not been left out would not have been discerned And that one of the four Beasts within the same Confines of Time delivers the Vials that is rather an Argument that the Beasts are pure as well as the Elders and that Purity is not confined to them And 't is much if the Beasts were not pure that they should give the Vials to Angels in pure and white Linen pag. 69. And as for the Inversion of this Doxological service Apoc. 4.9 and Chap. 5.8 where the Beasts begin first compared with Apoc. 19.4 where the four and twenty Elders are named first these things further confirm my Notion of the four and twenty crowned Elders that they are Kings or Monarchs For the usual custom being that the Doxology from the Beasts as the Praecentors should begin the Clergie being part of the People in Counterdistinction to their King or Monarch though otherwise highly venerable in their Archbishops Bishops c. this Doxology Chap. 19.4 which succeeds that copious description of the utter destruction of Babylon that Papal Polity that so Tyrannized over Kings how naturally does the four and twenty Elders being placed first in this Doxology though together with the Beast or People denote both that those four and twenty Elders are the Monarchs of those Times and that they have a more peculiar gratification in this destruction of Babylon though the people also are greatly gratified thereby and therefore both join in a Doxological Thanksgiving for her destruction But in the first place the four and twenty crowned Elders In pag. 45. he places the beginning of the Interval of the Church of Smyrna in the beginning of the ten years Persecution by Diocletian Because it is said to her that she should have the Tribulation of ten days that is of ten Prophetical Days or years Which I will allow to be alluded to also though that Persecution was not full ten years But Day not signifying only a Prophetical Day or Year but also any particular Season or Time those ten Days signifie chiefly all the ten Persecutions so famous in History of which this of Diocletian is but one But there were other swingeing ones before though that the greatest And Spondanus does justly call that first of Nero's raising a most direful Persecution and therefore the fittest Epocha for the Church of Smyrna that Interval having its Name from the Bitterness of Persecutions And as elsewhere so especially in this Prophecy of the Churches Allusion to Names as the Author himself somewhere freely confesses is of no small moment in Prophetical Interpretations In pag. 47. the last Seal he makes the space reserved for the rallying of Heathenism and its Forces that it may be finally destroy'd by Theodosius the Great in the overthrow of Eugenius and Argobastes and of the Paganish Forces under them But this which he would have the last or seventh Seal no doubt is part of the sixth which describes a Victory over all the Pagan Forces brought forth in defence of their Idols that none of them could withstand the wrath of the Lamb and this was the Fate of Eugenius and Argobastes as well as of others who were both subdued by Theodosius the Great An. Dom. 393. or thereabout even upon the Epocha of the seven Trumpets So that as the whole space of the Church from the beginning to the end of all is comprehended under the seven Seals so the space from the beginning of the seventh Seal to the end of all may be comprehended under the seven Trumpets This is the natural disposure of the Apocalyptick Time as Mr. Mede has solidly made it out And the half-hours silence at the time of Incense is no delay to the Prophetick Time of the sounding of the seven Trumpets which brings on the Vengeance on the blood-guilty Empire but is only a Type of the Efficacy of the Prayers of the Church unto God to do them right that had suffered and to execute Justice on his own Enemies which the Thunderings Lightnings and Earthquake Chap. 8. there mentioned signifie In pag. 49. he makes as if at the very same time that the Woman had got into the Wilderness the Dragon cast the floud of the Paganish Barbarians as it were out of his mouth to have swallowed up the True Church but that the Earthly Church drunk up the floud by proselyting those Barbarians to its Pseudochristianity when the Ten Kings gave their strength and Power and Kingdom to the Beast But first a floud of Contention and Dissension according to Scripture-phrase is more suitably conceived to come out of the mouth of the Dragon than vast Armies of men Secondly The floud is spued out to carry her away in her flight toward the Wilderness before she could get thither and by that means to re-establish pure Paganism again in the Empire as it seems to me from Chap. 12.15 Which design of his was frustrated by Daniel's Earth or Clay by the Oecumenical Council of Ecclesiasticks at Nice c. as
Opened Book-Prophecy as commencing as high as the seven Churches or Seals there is he out again For that Vision in the eleventh Chapter does not reach to the end of Apocalyptick Time but to the seventh Vial only inclusively So that the Descent of the New Jerusalem the Millennial Reign of Christ and the Laodicean Interval are still behind But the Apocalyptick Time upon the seventh Thunder above-mentioned was quite ended and so a fit Regress made to a new set of Prophecies Which the ingenious Calendarist cannot deny but that it ought to begin as high as the seven Churches and the Seals And then of necessity the Time of the inner Court will not be synchronous but antecedent to the Time of the outer Which is a very plain Truth and equally useful He makes my second Argument for the forty two months beginning before 400 That the Invocation of Saints had entred somewhat before it In Answer to which he recurs again pag. 84. to the device of the Balance But my Reply to his Answer to the fifth Objection will serve here So that I will add nothing further but remind the Reader that not only the Invocation of Saints but the reposing Confidence in the Mahuzzim was then and this exceedingly spread as has been proved Chap. 28. The sixth Objection and the Answer being less material to my purpose I omit We therefore pass to the seventh and last which is this The Witnesses are risen and out of their Sack-cloth and that some years ago and therefore the 1260 years are also so long ago expired which utterly subverts the Calendar pag. 85. This says he being the great Objection requires the most distinct Answer I shall therefore briefly explain my full sense c. In pursuance of this I confess he is witty operose and copious but the substantial summ of the matter so far as I can gather is this That as the Time of the Medial Visions is distinguished into parts A Time and Times and Half a Time and three Days and an Half so there are several Degrees of the Completion of the Vision To this sense is that which occurs pag. 78. By all which it appears saith he Time at large has a less full presence of the Event and admits a contrary intimate Time hath the full presence of the Event and admits no contrary And pag. 88. Some says he speaking of the Witnesses are called up into places of Dignity as into Heaven but not as they shall be at the end of the 1260 days For each first and last part of all the Characters of Time must have degrees of the Event else they could not have a foundation to be so distinguished Even our Lord's first Night was a beginning to dye in his Agony being betray'd c. And till the Evening of the first day of the week he appeared not to a Number as not publickly risen till the end of the third day And then giving several instances of the scantness of the Reformation and of great Objects still remaining of the Witnesses sorrow to conclude then says he pag. 89. till after the full Expiration of the Time of the Apostasie being in Power as a Throne or Kingdom in all its coextensive Characters the Witnesses are not in full Apocalyptick sense Risen as the golden Key of the Time the three days and an half also assure us For till the Emphatical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or After three days and an half are fully past they rise not viz. conspicuously as our Lord did not And that that is not yet beside the credit of our Calendar is apparent in that since the Reformation there have been no effects like those that are to signalize the end of the 1260 days c. This is the main of his Answer to which I briefly reply that it reaches not the case For the utmost fulfilling of the Vision of the Rising of the Witnesses is not that there shall be a Rising of them throughout the Kingdom of the Beast but that it shall be only in part of his Kingdom For it is expresly said in the Text that at the very hour of their Rising 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the tenth part of the City fell not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betwixt which there is as much difference as betwixt ten and one For as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the third part which is a Symbol of the Roman Empire does not signifie the whole Habitable or then inhabited Earth but the third part of the Earth only so the tenth part of the City cannot signifie all the ten parts of the City or the whole City but the tenth part only Besides that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not here relate to the ten-horned Beast or Secular Empire but to the Hieratical Polity the City of Babylon the tenth of that only fell but the Secular Empire where this fall was stood rather more strong than ever was more complete than ever being rid of the Papal Tyranny at the Reformation so far forth as it was reformed And now for the Emphatical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After the three days and an half Forasmuch as it is said after these three days and an half the Witnesses rose and the tenth part of the City fell it is as clear as Noon-day that no more than a partial Fall of the City and a proportionated Rising of the Witnesses is the full completion of this Vision or Prophecy But whatever other Accessions there are to be made to the Kingdom of Christ or Ruine of Antichrist they must be the completion of some other Visions but not of this And as for the Credit of his Calendar I have again and again shown how frail it is And for any Effects to signalize the end of the 1260 days I have demonstrated elsewhere that not Days but Semi-times are the measuring Vnite of the Event of this Vision And that there was no signalizing Effect at the expiration of the 1260 days from the right Epocha it is a further confirmation that not a Day but a Semi-time is the Eventual Measure and the last Semi-time was signalized with the blessed Reformation But yet as if his Answer to this seventh Objection had been in it self solid and valid and that as he has explained things the Witnesses were not Risen in a full Apocalyptick sense he proposes three Objections out of what he has read of mine The first Objection is this The latitude of months for the fulfilling Events in some parts of them may so disagree with the narrower lines of day too narrow for the months pag. 90. that the Prophecy may be made to contradict it self and so speak true and not true as to point of Time and Events together True in the months not in the days But his Answer is this As the heighth of Events is by the Prophecy determined to the intimate part of the three days and the three times and an half so the duration of the Event at large is by the Prophecy
〈◊〉 has no such mystical meaning of it self is readily acknowledged For it signifies a finite determinate time v. 2. of this Chapter in which Satan is bound and let loose afterwards which time is there called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and presently after v. 3. the said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there having the force of a Pronoun demonstrative as if one should say Till those thousand years were fulfilled And so those thousand years are all along referred to by this demonstrative Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As in the close of v. 4. They lived and reigned with Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those thousand years when Satan was bound And v. 5. But the rest lived not again till 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those thousand years were finished Thus constantly you have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 relating to the years Satan was bound till you come to v. 6. that describes the condition of them that partake of the first Resurrection on whom the second Death hath no power and there it is said that they shall reign with Christ not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those thousand years Satan was bound but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thousand years Symbolically understood which is a fit Symbol of steady and immutable Eternity For to what end is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 omitted in this place if it did not intimate some such Mystery of which it both is very significant and the Reign of these with Christ being not confined to those thousand years but stretching out to Eternity the thing it self requires that signification But then immediately after the case being altered v. 7. and returning to the thousand years numerically taken not Symbolically there he has it again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that it is the circumstances that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is placed in v. 6. that assures us that it has such a Symbolical meaning This therefore is no trifling Observation But he must be very dull and sleepy or thick-sighted that does not clearly discern the difference Query 8. Whether All Nations shall come and worship before thee Rev. 15.4 be to be understood of Nations to be converted to the Christian Faith or of foreign Nations unconverted doing Homage to the New Jerusalem answering to their coming up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles Zach. 14. Answ This Song of Moses and the Lamb being sung upon the Rising of the Witnesses or Christ's partial or speciminal taking again possession of his Kingdom out of the hands of Antichrist it is most natural to conceive that All Nations shall come and worship before thee relates to that more full and universal enlargement of Christ's Kingdom which will be effected by the effusion of the Vials before which this Song is prefixed And under the seventh when all the Kings of the Earth are gathered together under the Dragon Beast and false Prophet to fight against the Lord and against his Anointed and are all routed and vanquished what can this import less than what is here predicted in this Song All Nations shall come and worship before thee that is be obedient Subjects of the Kingdom of Christ And as for the celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles who can be thought to do that but the Jews or Gentiles proselyted to their Religion and therefore who can they be but the converted Nations that shall do Homage to Christ in his New Jerusalem Kingdom Query 9. Whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Comedendo comedes Gen. 2.16 be an Injunction or full Commission to Adam to eat or such an Invitation to eat of every Tree of the Garden that if he will eat he may and if he will not he may chuse forasmuch as it is said Thou mayst freely eat which implies a liberty Answ The Text no question but has a mystical as well as a literal sense In the literal sense Comedendo comedes intimates a full Commission to eat of every Tree of the Garden saving the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And whereas our English Translation has it Thou mayst eat freely nothing else is meant thereby but this full Commission to eat freely and plentifully of all the Trees of the Garden saving that one excepted But now in the Moral sense Comedendo comedes seems to be a Command as the Text has it And God commanded the Man saying Eating thou shalt eat viz. of every Tree saving that one that is that he should nourish his Soul with all sorts of Vertues none excepted for Virtutes sunt connexae which make up the fulness of the Paradise of God Query 10. Whether Tyre Isa 23.15 typifie Rome the former state of Tyre not answering to the former state of Rome nor the middle to the middle but the former state of Tyre is made to answer to all the three states of Rome Answ This is a gross mistake in the Objector For in that Prophecy of Isaiah there are three distinct Times supposed the first of her Harlotry the second of her being forgotten for the space of one King and so the ceasing of her Harlotry with the Kings of the Earth and then of her Harlotry again and of committing Fornication with all the Kingdoms of the World upon the face of the Earth And now in perfect Analogy to this as is answered to the Remarker Rome was Idolatrous before it was Christian and turned Idolatrous again when it became Pagano-Christian and Whoredom is the true Symbol of Idolatry known to all Wherefore the Harlot though she was silent a while in the time of the pure Christian Caesars which were the seventh King as Tyre's silence is for seventy years yet when that time expired she might sing again like an Harlot Nor does this at all hinder but that this Vision is Typical of Rome Antichristian this stroke touching the return of Pagan Harlotry setting out more exquisitely the Pagano-Christianity of their Idolatry that they Paganize again and again play the Harlot by a new mode of Idolatry which yet is the living Image of the Idolatry of old Paganism What Analogy can be more exquisite and complete Query 11. Whether there can be any assurance that the Vision of Tyre Ezek. 28. is Typical of Rome forasmuch as if the expressions be such that they are incompetent to Tyre and the Prince thereof from whence yet it is inferred they must respect Rome the Vision cannot belong to Tyre and consequently Tyre can be no Type of Rome but if the expressions be competible to Tyre there is no ground to stretch them any further than so Answ The Horns of this Dilemma are very weak both of them For the first supposeth what is apparently false that a Prophecy of double completion may not have such strokes in it that may more properly relate to the second completion than the first As in thâ—â— of a Virgin bearing a Son And though some expressions may be elevated above the condition of the Prince of Tyre and less properly be spoke
then the Passion of Christ will fall out not in the middle of the last week but at the beginning thereof And Thirdly and lastly It is a thing beyond all credibility That whenas Ezra computes the Decree granted to him by Artaxerxes Longimanus from the seventh year of his real Reign or his reigning alone For if Xerxes had been alive he had been named and not Artaxerxes that Nehemiah telling us he had his Commission granted the twentieth of Artaxerxes should count from another Epocha ten years different from the former and so puzzle and confound the Chronology of the Sacred History and of so concerning a Prophecy These few things are enough to show the vanity of this surmise But if any one would be more fully satisfied let him read Daniel Huetius his Demonstratio Evangelica Prop. 9. pag. 370. As for the salving the Credit of these differing Historians by this quaint device it will be more seasonable to speak to that hereafter In the mean time there being a necessity to keep to the Epocha of the twentieth year of Artaxerxes's Reign and not only to number by Solar years but from the twentieth year as we are now convinced of his Reign from his Father Xerxes his death he that can make out the true Epocha of Artaxerxes his Reign in this sense so that from the twentieth year thereof if we count Daniel's Weeks the Crucifixion of our Saviour will be found in the midst of the last of these Weeks this man must merit immortal praise for this excellent piece of service he has done the Church of Christ and Christianity CHAP. III. A just Encomium of Thomas Lydiat His fixing the beginning of the real Reign of Artaxerxes in the second year of the 77. Olympiad with the consequences thereof The proof of the above-mentioned Epocha from the time of Themistocles flight into Asia which was in that year That he got to the Persian Court in a very short time proved out of Plutarch Of the confounding of the Names of Xerxes and Artaxerxes And that Themistocles came to the Persian Court about the time of the Exitus of the one and Succession of the other AND this is that which I am well assured in my self that that excellent Person Thomas Lydiat a man of a free and stout Spirit of a quick Sagacity clear and firm Judgment great reading and industry and singular Piety and as it were a Martyr in the late times as you may see in that elegant Preface prefixt to his Posthumous Works for his Loyalty to the King and Faithfulness to the Church of England of which he was a worthy Minister and eximious Ornament has solidly and irrefutably performed He has I say laying aside all fine conceits and groundless surmises with a down-right stroke fixt the beginning of Artaxerxes his Reign properly so called namely the succeeding his Father after his death in the second year of the 77. Olympiad Whence it will follow that the true twentieth year of his Reign will be the first year of the 82. Olympiad or the 4262. year of the Julian Period And which will be the consequent upon this the 70 Weeks of Daniel will expire in the 4751. year of the Julian Period or the second year of the Reign of Caius Caligula according to Helvicus Funccius and Seth Calvisius and the Crucifixion of Christ fall out in the 22d year of Tiberius his Reign which is the middle of the last week according to the mind of Thomas Lydiat In which summ of years betwixt the twentieth of Artaxerxes and second of Caligula he and other Chronologers are agreed How particular parcels of time in the Reign of some Kings will be adjusted will be discerned in the procedure of the business In the mean time we are to note That this fixing of the beginning of the Reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus in the second year of the 77. Olympiad which is at least six years higher than other Chronologers place it is no fictitious or arbitrarious thing but a thing necessary and firmly made out by most Authentick History For first the flight of Themistocles into Asia to get to the King of Persia Tho. Lydiat has made out with undeniable clearness out of Diodorus Siculus that it was the second year of the 77. Olympiad and Petavius himself acknowledges the truth thereof Now when he was upon his journey that he made no delay but got thither in a short time that very year appears from what Plutarch writes in his Life That when he had arrived to Cuma a Town near the Sea he made no stay there for fear of the Overseers of Sea-affairs especially Ergoteles and Pythodorus but betook himself presently to Aegae a Town in the same Country of Aeolia where he was entertained by his Friend to whom alone he was there known one Nicogenes a Person of great Quality and much Riches and befriended much by the Nobles of the Persian Court with whom having stayed but a few days after Supper upon a certain Sacrifice Nicogenes Childrens Schoolmaster Olbius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being in a Divine rapture cried out in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which words as it seems implied Night would prove Oracular to Themistocles and suggest such counsel to him as would prove very successful After this therefore Themistocles falling asleep dreamed he saw a Dragon winding about his belly and creeping up to his neck but assoon as it touched his face that it was changed into an Eagle which spreading his wings took him up and carried him a long way and set him firmly upon a Caduceum or Heralds staff made of Gold freeing him thus from immense fear and consternation of mind Wherefore upon this Nicogenes presently sent him away to the Persian Court in such a close Coach as their Women use to be carried in And the less stay then in his journey certainly it was the better It is plain therefore that this very year Themistocles came to the Persian Court. But whether to Xerxes or Artaxerxes his Son is a Question amongst Chronologers from the different Reports of Historians And some also make a Question Whether Xerxes and Artaxerxes be not Names or Titles promiscuously used for a King of Persia Artaxerxes signifying no more than great Xerxes as if one should say one while the Mogul another while the great Mogul Cornelius à Lapide is expresly for this conceit upon the Weeks of Daniel Historici saith he subinde confundunt nomina haec Xerxes Artaxerxes Xerxes enim Persicè significat Bellatorem Artaxerxes magnum Bellatorem But I think it is already without Controversie That Themistocles came to the Persian Court the very same year he set out in and as shall be made out that Xerxes died and Artaxerxes began to reign in and in all likelihood very near the time not many months distance from the exitus of the one and succession of the other For the Right of the Kingdom devolved immediately upon Artaxerxes so soon as
he was next Heir to the Crown Wherefore Themistocles coming to the Persian Court in such a nick of time I mean so near to the contermination of the Exitus of Xerxes and the succeeding of Artaxerxes it is the less to be wondred at that some Historians say he came to Xerxes others to Artaxerxes CHAP. IV. That Themistocles in the second year of the 77. Olympiad came to Artaxerxes newly beginning to reign proved out of Thucydides As also from the Testimony of Charon Lampsacenus And the Suffrage of Plutarch As likewise of Cornelius Nepos To which is added the Judgment of that modern Historian Johannes Sleidanus Why Plutarch preferred the Testimonies of Charon and Thucydides before those of Ephorus Dinon Cleitarchus Heraclides and others The Characters of them A probable way of salving all their Credits and that they do not clash with the Testimony of Charon and Thucydides at least in any thing considerable BUT Thomas Lydiat produces the irrefragable Authority of that unexceptionable Historian Thucydides that Themistocles came to the Son of Xerxes viz. Artaxerxes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 newly coming to the Throne Whence it is undeniably true that Artaxerxes Longimanus began his Reign the second year of the 77. Olympiad which was the thing to be demonstrated Charon Lampsacenus also a Person of Quality and a famous Historian he likewise declares that Themistocles's flight and address was to the Son not to his Father Xerxes his Father as he writes being dead And who I pray should be a more idoneous Witness than he who lived and flourished in that time and whose native Town was Lampsacum which Artaxerxes gave to Themistocles to yield him Wines as he did Magnesia to yield him Bread-corn and Myus the delicacy of Victuals that Town having 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Diodorus speaks Plutarch also is of opinion that Themistocles his address was to the Son of Xerxes not to Xerxes himself who was dead and readily subscribes to the Testimony of Thucydides and of Charon Lampsacenus in this as more consentaneous to the truth of Chronology And Cornelius Nepos prefers the Authority of Thucydides before all those that write the contrary Quòd aetate proximus erat qui illorum temporum historiam reliquerunt ejusdem Civitatis fuit namely an Athenian as Themistocles was of which Thomas Lydiat makes excellent use as you may see in his Emendatio Temporum An. Mund. 3534. And for that passage of Nepos Qui illorum temporum historiam reliquerunt what can it more fitly relate to than the History of Charon Lampsacenus who was contemporary to Themistocles Xerxes and Artaxerxes and was born at that very Town Lampsacum and reckoned by Strabo amongst the Illustres Lampsaceni which Artaxerxes bestow'd with the other two upon Themistocles Whose Testimony can be so much credited as such an one as he But Thucydides's Testimony alone is of that value that Pezelius conceives that from thence that excellent and judicious Historian Johannes Sleidanus declares thus Xerxi successit filius Artaxerxes Longimanus ad hunc Themistocles exul profugit c. Wherefore here is most ample and authentick Testimony Charon Lampsacenus Thucydides Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos that it was Artaxerxes Longimanus not Xerxes to whom Themistocles in his Exile made his applications But methinks I hear you say Plutarch in the same place where he subscribes to Thucydides and Charon tells us that Ephorus and Dinon and Clitarchus and Heraclides with several other Historians say that Themistocles's address was made to Xerxes It may be so But from thence it is then more clear what a great value he had for the Truth and Authority of those two Writers when he preferred their two Testimonies before the Testimony of so many For the voices of many are not so considerable in such cases the mistake of one famous Historian such suppose as Herodotus making all that succeed him follow him as when one Sheep on a Bridge leaps off the Bridge into the water it endangers all the rest that follow to leap after him But Charon Lampsacenus was out of this danger he being much seniour to Herodotus and flourishing in the very times of Xerxes and Artaxerxes whenas Herodotus was born but four years before Xerxes his Expedition into Greece And we may be sure that Thucydides who was so extreme careful of writing nothing but what was true consulted Charon Lampsacenus who lived and flourished in the times of Xerxes and Artaxerxes and wrote the Persian History of his Times to which his own were so near or rather coincident For which very cause Cornelius Nepos prefers his Testimony before any other that contradict it Now for Ephorus he is a good while after Thucydides and it is Seneca's Character of him Ephorus non religiosissimae fidei saepe decipitur saepe decipit Dinon though much later than he Nepos seems to have a good opinion of but Pliny laughs at him for his Indian Sirens who he says by their sweet singing lull men asleep and in their sleep seize on them and devour them And for Clitarchus that followed Alexander the Great in his Expedition into Asia Quintiliaeus's Elogium of him is Clitarchi probatur ingenium fides infamatur Now for Heraclides there were many of that Name and those Historians too but it 's likely this was Heraclides Cumanus who wrote five Books De rebus Persicis junior to Clitarchus he seeming to be ranged with those that lived in Ptolemaeus Philometor's time by Gerardus Vossius in his Treatise De Historicis Graecis but for his Character I find none cited by Vossius either good or bad out of any Author And it may be it was not altogether necessary to mention those of the other there being another way of answering and more consistent with their Credits For being it is merely known of them that they relate Themistocles his address when he fled into Asia to have been made to Xerxes according to Cornelius à Lapide's Opinion there being no more difference betwixt Xerxes and Artaxerxes than betwixt the Mogul and the great Mogul for Artaxerxes signifies no more than the great Xerxes those that say he came to Xerxes may be judged to say the same thing that they who-relate he came to Artaxerxes And this is the very way that A Lapide salves the credit of these seemingly clashing Historians To which I will further add That Themistocles's flight into Asia being so near the contermination of the Death of Xerxes and the Succession of his Son Artaxerxes who was Heir to the Crown assoon as his Brother Darius was slain which was immediately upon the death of Xerxes killed by Artabanus the Credit of these clashing Historians is sufficiently salved in that the errour in time is so very little whether they say Themistocles came to the Persian Court while Xerxes was alive or in the Reign of his Son Artaxerxes CHAP. V. What is to be answered to the Testimony of Diodorus Siculus that makes Xerxes live five