would be but the taking of the word Latinos after the Ancient way of the Latins The False Prophet's punishment of those who had not the mark or name of the Beast is just the same with z The effect of the Papal Excommunications for this purpose does appear from the Bull of Pope Martin the 5th in confirmation of the Council of Constance and to be found at the end of it Which commands all Emperours Princes Lords and all Civil Magistrates as well as Ecclesiastical to expell all Hereticks out of their Territories not to suffer them to make Contracts or to exercise any kind of Merchandize amongst them the Papal-Excommunications For the hindering them from the Market or from buying and selling was one of the effects of the Excommunications of the Jews CHAP. VI. Rev. XIII Vnder the name of the Beast is comprehended all his under-Agents in the same design How the ten Kings give their Kingdoms to the Beast How the Character of speaking like the Dragon can agree with a Christian Bishop It cannot be any thing else THE particular instances explained in the former Chapter do clearly show that the exercise of the Power of the false Prophet does in all the parts of it regard the Beast as the principal concern of his design The Worship that he promotes is the Worship of the Beast The Image that he causes to be made is an Image made in honour of the Beast it self And the Worship that is given to it is because of its being the Image of that Beast that was deadly wounded and was healed again And the mark name and number of the name is the name of the Beast by which all Men were to own themselves the peculiar slaves of the Beast And this is no more than what the Character of that Power which the false Prophet did exercise in all these ways does plainly intimate to us for it is said to be the Power of the Beast it self exercised hefore him And therefore must the exercise of it be only upon his account and those that were employed in it were therefore but his Ministers and Instruments in it All which does signifie to us That the Supremacy of the Pope the Infallibility of the Church of Rome the blind Submission and Veneration that is paid to it the taking the name of a Roman Catholick the confining of all the publick Offices of Religion and Devotion to God and of the lively Oracles of God to the old Roman Language That all these things are done in honour of the Universal Imperial Power of the Romans or of the Empire of the City of Rome and that in the time of the Imperial Authority over Rome restored by Justinian And therefore are all these things signified to be the Worship of the Beast under the last Ruling Head because it is not a Civil honour that is given to this Empire and the Head of it But the giving them the Prerogative of Almighty God the Power of setting up a Spiritual Authority which shall give Law to the Consciences of Men according to their own will and pleasure and shall have the Spirit of God confined to their Arbitrary proceedings and the Curses of God to dispose of at their will against all that dissent from them The Beast therefore is the final Object of all the Worship N. B. and Honour that is given and therefore does generally comprehend in it all the under-Actors and Instruments in this Design where he is mentioned alone Thus ln the 17th Chapter of the Revelations there is no mention of the false Prophet or of the Image but only of the Beast and of the magnificent appearance of his Empire under the name of Babylon And therefore by the Beast must there be understood all his Ministers and Instruments joyned with him according to the nature of the several Characters that he is joyned with As in the time of the Mayres of the Palace in France by the name of the King must many times be understood the will of those Mayres to the prejudice of the Royal Authority because it was the King's Power that was exercised by them And all the Honour and Obedience that they had was upon the account of their being authorized by him So also do the Actions and Honour of the false Prophet and the Image go under the name of the Beast in that Chapter tho in reality they have been much to the diminution of the Imperial Authority It is enough to qualifie them to be comprehended under the name of the Beast that they concur with the Beast in his great design of making all the World to submit to an Ecclesiastical Authority of his own Creating as the acknowledgment of the Honour of his Empire For all the Worship that is hereby promoted is The Honour shown to the Imperial Power of the Romans which is submitted to as the only ground for any hopes of Salvation And that not upon the account of its being the Catholick Church of Christ but for that which is at present a contradiction to it viz. for being the Roman-Catholick Church Wherefore when the ten Kings are said to give their Power Rev. 17. 13. and Strength and Kingdoms to the Beast it is to be understood of their concurrence to advance the Roman Religion as the Imperial Religion of the Romans which was first set up and promoted by the Imperial Authority and so still continues to be defended and protected by it and therein does the Worship of the Beast more eminently appear because of the submission of crowned Heads to it who have no Superior upon Earth but God alone For it is very difficult to understand how ten Kings can be supposed to be of one mind and to agree to give their Kingdoms to the Worship of any Power upon Earth but only in this way of an Uniformity in a common Religion which is set up by the Will and to the Honour of another And here it is to be observed how exactly the Prophecy and the Event do agree with one another in respect of the Order which is observed in the Text. The Beast is described as beginning the Scene first and setting the design on foot And the false prophet and the Image come in afterwards to perfect and accomplish it which was very punctually verified by the beginning of the Universal Monarchy of the Church of Rome under the Imperial Authority and the advancement of it into a perfect Tyranny by the Roman Hierarchy So that after a while the False-prophet seems to take the power of the Beast out of his hands and to exercise it before his face and then the Beast had little to do himself in the management of it and seemed only to give Authority to what was done by others which is also now manifest from the common course of the Roman Church in their proceedings against Hereticks They judge condemn and pronounce sentence against them and then deliver them over to the Secular
former A Carved Image is indeed but the dead likeness of some single Person But an Image of a Publick State that is alive as this is must be some Ruling Power in the same State that has a very lively resemblance to it for it is in being at the same time with it the Beast and his Image are ordinarily described to be together And the Image is made in honour of the Beast and so must like the Images of the Emperors be within the bounds of the Authority of the Beast And besides is made by a False Prophet in the exercise of the Power of the Beast This living Image then must necessarily be an Universal Rule of the World like to that of the Imperial Roman State And accordingly we find it speaking and commanding all the World to worship it chap. 13. 15. forcing all men to receive the mark of it and to take the name of it v. 16. which shows the extent of its Power to be as large as that of the Imperial Power its Original It had also power of life and death in it v. 15. which is the peculiar Prerogative of Supream Power Now this was all for nothing else but the enforcing of False Worship which it was inspired with life by a false Prophet to effect And one of the Punishments was Excommunication v. 14. v. 17. That men might not buy or sell which was an usual punishment d Selden de Synod l. 1. cap. 7. De effectibus Excommunicationis He that was excommunicated with either greater or lesser Excommunication was said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the effects of them were Separation from Converse from the Synagogue from the publick Assemblies from all the People and Commonwealth of the Jews And he that was accursed with Cherem was not to have any Commerce with any but just so much as to get Victuals of the Elders of the Synagogues amongst the Jews All which denotes it to be an Ecclesiastical Power equal to the Secular Power for the universality of its Jurisdiction Indeed what kind of Power within the same Bounds and Territories can it possibly be but Ecclesiastical that can be a living Image of the Secular Exercising Supream Authority at the same time with it and in the same places as this is described This Image therefore must be a Church-Rule equal to that of the State And since the Jurisdiction of it is Universal or Catholick and also Roman can it be any thing else but the Roman-Catholick-Church And since all the life that it has is inspired into it by the False Prophet who is already known to be the Papal Power Corol. 3. Prop. 25. what plainer description could we have had of the Roman-Catholick-Church under the Pope Or what can there be that is a e Leo Sermo 1. de Natali Apos Rome has a larger Jurisdiction in its Spiritual Reign than it had formerly in its Worldly Empire Bellarm. l. 5. de Pontif. c. 6. From whence it appears That the Pope is greater than the Emperour c. Stenelius Eugubinus lib. 1. de Donat. Constant By the Exaltation of the Papacy Rome has recovered a Greatness very little different from that of the Ancient Empires since all Nations from the East to the West reverence the Pope of Rome in the same manner as they formerly did the Emperours See the expressions of Pope Gregory VII of his own Authority Greg. 7. Epist 37. The Roman Ceremonial l. 1. c. 2. shews this to be the manner of investing the Pope with his Authority I invest Thee with the Authority of Pope that Thou maist Rule over the City and the World Urbi Orbi more exact living Image of the Roman State under the Imperial Power For the Head of it has a Jurisdiction equal to the Head of the State Both Pope and Emperor have long since had the Title of The Lords of the World They have both a Triple Crown tho for different Jurisdictions They are both called King of Kings The body of the Image is just the same with that of the Beast The Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions are parted out exactly according to the divisions of the Civil Government of the Empire The Patriarchs Archbishops and Bishops had their Ranks and Places every-where according to the Divisions of the Provinces of the State and the name of the Ecclesiastical Diocesses did arise from the distinction of the several Civil Diocesses of the Empire by Constantine And it is established by the Canons of f Concil 6º in Trullo Can. 37. The Canon which was made by the Fathers we do also observe which says thus If any City be or shall be new raised by the Royal Power the Ecclesiastical Dignity shall follow the Publick and Civil state of it two Synods That if any City were newly raised by the Emperor the Ecclesiastical Dignities there should be conformed to it So that the Church and State did run parallel to one another through the whole Body of the Roman Empire just like the Arteries and Veins in the Body of Man and observed the same proportion every-where to one another a MAlvenda de Antichristo pag. 234. de 10 Cornibus The number Ten is very often in Scripture used indefinitely for a great many CHAP. III. Rev. XIII Wherein the Worship of the Beast and of his Image doth consist BY the process of the former Chapter we have all the Confederates in the design of the Beast discovered to us There is the Imperial Roman State for the Beast with his last Head The Image and false Prophet for the Roman Catholick Church and the Pope The ten Kings giving their Kingdoms to the Beast for those Roman Catholick Kings who force their Subjects to submit to the Roman Religion enjoyned by the Papal Power or Imperial Authority And now it is to be examined what is meant by Worshiping the Beast and his Image It is certain in the first place That the words here used to express the Worship of the Beast and his Image are the same with those which were in use at the time of the Vision to signifie the Adoration given to the Emperors and their Images publickly set up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and adorare were the terms in common use amongst the Greeks and Latines of those times to express that profound Reverence which was paid to the Emperor and his Image And then there seems to be nothing more required to make Application of this Phrase but only to show what obedience was given to the Secular and Ecclesiastical Authority of Rome by all the World from the time of Justinian But because we find that the a GRotius in Decal Nor did the first Christians think it contrary to their Religion to fall down before the Emperours Images But when they afterwards joined the Images of false Gods with their own they chose to endure any thing rather than to worship them first Christians did pay that Reverence before-mentioned to the
A DEMONSTRATION OF THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF THE Protestant Applications OF THE APOCALYPSE Together with the Consent of the Ancients Concerning the Fourth Beast in the 7th of Daniel and The Beast in the Revelations By DRUE CRESSENER D. D. LONDON Printed for Thomas Cockerill at the Three Legs in the Poultrey over-against Stocks-Market M DC XC TO THE QUEEN MADAM THE Intent of these Papers is to make a more certain Discovery of the Sense of some Divine Oracles which have foretold the Successive Revolutions of all the Great Empires in which the Church of God was to sojourn till it should come to triumph over the Kingdoms of this World If they prove to be satisfactorily clear Religion and Empire being the Subject-matter of them They seem to be the most proper Object of the Meditation of Christian Princes We are now in the concluding part of the Last of these Empires And Your Majesty's Late Wonderful Successes have so promising an Aspect on that part of the Predictions That they seem to appropriate all Addresses of this kind to Your Royal Court. I have therefore thought it a duty to offer that which I have already published on this Subject to the Hands of His Majesty And Your Majesty's peculiar Share in the Throne does seem to demand This of me as the Remainder of a Debt from one that has once approached it This Part is indeed the whole Strength and Foundation of the former and for that reason ought to attend it to the same Place to confirm the Hopes of a Glorious Success of both Your Majesties Endeavours for the Revival of the Oppressed Reformation Madam We have already seen a very surprizing beginning of this Recovery in the late Providential manner of the Return of the Protestants of Savoy through the midst of their most Inveterate and most Powerful Opposers The first date of that General Suppression of the Protestant Profession in Roman States which in the Prophecy is called The Death of the Witnesses in Sackcloth is supposed to commence from the Last Considerable Abjurations of the new Converts abroad some while after the Revocation of the Edict of Nants And then That which in the Prophecy is called Their Resurrection three days and an half after their Death must fall just about the time that the Vaudois did Revive and Resettle the Publick Profession of their Religion after their return to their Ancient Habitations The Vaudois and their Neighbours have been so much the Main Body of the Witnesses for many Ages before the Reformation That since the first Revival is agreed from the Prophecy to be in one particular place only they may safely be allowed to be the first promising beginning at least of that Revolution The Proper Kingdom of France did indeed seem from the present Posture of Affairs to be the most likely to be the first Scene of this Revival The other Treatise pag. 139 140. But it has been shewn that there is nothing in the Prophecy that does fix the first beginning of it there And that the Persecution in France and Savoy being executed by the same Instruments may very well pass for one and the same thing This Madam is the first encouraging Earnest of that Great Deliverance which the Oppressed Church does groan for and look up to Heaven and to Your Protection to accomplish But whatever may become of these remote Conclusions relating to present Affairs it will be no prejudice to what I here offer which is the only necessary and Great Concern of the Protestant Interpretations and the sole foundation of them It will here appear to remain still firm and unshaken That the Church of Rome is the main Object of the Judgments of this Prophecy The Foundation of a Building may be setled upon a Rock though some parts of the Superstructure should fall for want of an immediate and close coherence with it And if this first Foundation be but once agreed on and well regarded by all Parties of Protestants it is easie to see how influential it must needs be for the strengthening of the Common Interest of the Reformation The dreadful Characters that are here set upon the Common Enemy and the Divine Intimations of the joint concern of all the Reformed Churches in the League against them as the Witnesses and People of God And the Present Crying Miseries of their Enslaved Brethren are more than sufficient to make them silence all their little Unnecessary Heats and Animosities against one another and to make them unite with zeal to strengthen the Hands of Your Majesties against the most refined Barbarities of the Great Oppressor that were ever yet heard of There are indeed but small Grounds to hope That Protestants will of a sudden agree upon this Foundation whatever Evidence there may be for it The Enquiry into these matters is so out of fashion and lies under so general a prejudice that I found the Press every-where affrighted from undertaking the Charge of this Publication And I am bound to acknowledge That nothing less could persuade them to it than the warm Recommendations of a Person whom Your Majesty's Favour has eminently rewarded for his Long continued Labours in all the ways by which the Church can be either piously edified or learnedly defended It is indeed owing to My Lord Bishop of Chichester if any thing here does prove to be of Publick Use Madam This General Unconcern seems chiefly to be the effect of the Popish Marriages in the Three Last Reigns Nothing was more the Doctrine of our Church to the end of the Reign of King James the First than the Charge of Babylon and Antichrist upon the Roman Church but it seemed something too rude a Charge both to Church and Court when the Queen came to be concerned in it and none but some very few of the most Sincere and Disinterested amongst the Learned would appear in it I have therefore apprehended it to be the most effectual way for the making this the Currant Study of the Age again to procure the Royal Stamp upon it by Your Majesty's favourable regard of this Performance I am encouraged to hope That it may not displease the Impartial Examiners of it And Your Majesty's Pious Zeal to promote True Religion and Vertue has already began to make all good Designs for the Protestant Interest the Fashionable Study of all about You. That we may long have the Powerful and Charming Influence of this Great Example for the improvement of all Useful Knowledge is the Zealous Prayer of MADAM Your MAJESTY'S Most Obedient Subject DRUE CRESSENER THE PREFACE Concerning the Strength and Usefulness of the Work and the Confirmation of it by the Event and the Defects of the Synchronisms MOST Writers are so happy as to be able to think themselves sure of Readers enow and all their care is to make them Courteous and gentle by a Preface But there are so few that can have the patience to hear of any thing about the Revelations that
to uphold it that all have thought that the General Peace on that side must have been precipitated And yet we have seen it deserred to this time And the Order of the Prophecy for the end of the Second Woe after the Resurrection Rev. 11. 14. of the Witnesses thereby observed and fulfilled against all human appearance 3. From my proof of the time of the full death of the Witnesses I did determine That there would be no suppression P. 92 106. Letter to H. P. of the Protestant Profession either in England or in the Palatinate which how miraculously it has been verified amongst us we are all the joyful Witnesses of Nor does it appear That the French in all their Devastations of the Palatinate ever carried on the Dragoon work of Abjuration amongst them And yet how contrary to all outward appearance of things here was this Conjecture when it was declared and some-while after it The Project of getting a Complying Parliament to put the strength of the Nation into Popish Hands by nulling the Laws against it was then in a fair likelihood of taking But upon the continual change of Corporations soon after it seemed to be out of all question And the fury with which the Bishops Constancy was entertained and the Severities of the Ecclesiastical Commission were sufficient Testimonies of the Resolution that was then taken to bring the Ruling Religion to that state of Toleration which might qualify them to be the Witnesses in Sackcloth And who could ever have thought that the most Refined Politicians in the Church of Rome should have been so unaccountably infatuated as to chuse such Methods as tended the most apparently to the ruine of all the fair hopes that their Cause was then in Or that the French would be so unready to oppose His Present Majesty's Expedition here when they foresaw it and long before had publickly threatned by their Ambassador to revenge all Attempts of that nature And then for the Palatinate There was no reason to imagine that the French Zeal for their new way of Conversions should not have been as hot as the Flames that they put the whole Country into 4. It was necessary for me in my way of applying the Vials to make the mortifications of the Imperial and truly Papal Party by the Reign of the present French King to P. 207. 241. be the Plague of the Fourth Vial upon the Beast and the time of every Vial being found by those that are past to be about the space of Forty years I have judged from thence that the present King there would not be longer a Plague of any moment to that Party His Reign having continued for P. 244. more than Forty years since the end of the Suedish-War And what considerable Plague has he been of late but to the Protestant Palatinate And he has already begun to be a spectator only of the Imperial and Papal Triumphs over him And yet how contrary to all appearance of things was it That the French King should not think of taking his advantage sooner against the Spanish Imperial and Papal Dominions OR That he should be willing to stand at gaze only for a whole Campagne while his new Conquests were forced from him 5. I have only this further to add That it is a most surprizing instance of Divine Providence to croud so many strange and unusual Revolutions together into one point of the time of a Prophecy of near 2000 years concern and to fulfil the Predictions of them by such new and unexpected means By the number of years assigned to the continuance of Judgments of God chap. 8 9. Rev. 11. 9. Ibid. p. 253 260. the second Woe And by the Three days and an half of the death of the Witnesses and by the time of the beginning of the fifth Vial Here are all these great Changes confined to the compass of less than Ten years viz. The perfect silencing of all the Reformed Churches in All Popish Territories The Revival of them The Advancement of one of them into a Popish Throne The Revolt of the whole Kingdom there from the Roman Church The last end of all Turkish Wars The General Mortification of the Roman Interest in all its own Territories And these we have seen begun to be accomplished by as strange means such as the forcing a whole Nation to that which they really account Idolatry by unheard of Artifices The Change of the Supream Power of a Kingdom the greatest Confederacy of Protestant and Popish Princes that was ever known The Pope's Excommunications of the fiercest Zealot of his Church that ever appeared The breaking of an handful of Men through the opposition of a prepared and powerful Enemy The sudden Conquest of several Eastern Countries and a new Revolution in their Government This wonderful Accomplishment of Predictions that were particularly foretold and confined to so short a time after and that also contrary to the appearing disposition of affairs may be a very reasonable presumption for the truth of the Principles upon which they rely But I have every where taken care upon the mention of these things to forewarn N. B. all That whatever becomes of these conjectures yet it will not affect the proof that I here offer for the Principles of the Protestant Applications For loose things may be built upon a very strong foundation But I hope these will be found not to have been rashly applied And then they will be a confirmation of the Demonstration à priori here attempted As Effects are usually instanced in to demonstrate the true Causes Indeed the chief end of publishing the other part first was to engage the curiosity of the World to enquire after this which was always the chief aim of my Studies about this Subject For as I was extreamly surprized and pleased with Mr. Mede's Method in the Demonstrative way so could I not think his precess altogether close enough for it as it has before been observed by others And tho the Learned Dr. More has very sufficiently shown that notwithstanding the strongest of the Objections against them they may nevertheless be most of them true yet I do not see that he has proved some of them upon which the main stress of the whole Application does lye to be necessary to be so which is the whole design of the Synchronism e. g. The Synchronisms suppose for their foundation that the Beast in the 13th Chap. and that in the Eleventh are the same particular state of the Seven Headed Beast which yet Grotius supposes to be quite different things and by that undermines the force of the Demonstration Dr. More endeavours to strengthen it by finding a likeness betwixt the Beasts in one Character of each which is far from a Cogent necessity Dr. More himself allows not the proof of the Synchronism betwixt the Beast and the Two Witnesses in the Eleventh Chapter from the end of the Kingdom of the Beast and of the Sackcloth
found to signify the City of Rome in its Antichristian Domination by Prop. 1. 3. And the desolation of Babylon in the Prophets for which the same Expressions with these here are used does signify the last end of that Monarchy or Ruling Power 4. And besides It is the general usage of the Prophetical Writings to set out the last Ruine of a Ruling People by the desolation of the chief City of that Nation at the same time Thus is the Ruine of the Kingdom of Israel Judah Egypt and of the Babylonians represented by the Desolations of Samaria Jerusalem Noph and Babylon 5. But more particularly is it set forth in this Prophecy that the desolation of Babylon is not after the end of that Monarchy which it here represents For The Beast whose Heads do represent this City and is himself called the King of it is not dethroned till after the desolation of Babylon in the 18th Chapter as appears Chapters 19 20. And Chap. 16. 14 19. The Judgment upon Babylon is betwixt the meeting of the Strength of that Monarchy in Harmageddon and the last end of it in the 19th Chapter From hence it appears That Babylon in none of the mentions of it in the Revelations can be Rome Corollar Pagan This may safely be concluded from the name of The Whore here given to Babylon For when a Nation or City is said in Scripture to commit Fornication or to be an Harlot It signifies that Nation or City to have apostatized from the True Religion to Idolatry see the three first Chapters of Hosea And therefore must Babylon here signify Rome Christian turned Idolatrous which was not till after the time of Rome Pagan The name of Harlot is indeed given to Nineveh Nahum 3. 4. But that Prophecy was after that of Jonah in whose time the people of Niniveh are said to have believed in God and to have repented Jonah 3. 5 10. And so the Idolatry of Nineveh after that time was her Apostacy from the true Faith But it is much more confirmed from the preceding Propositions For Babylon is in all the mentions of it the same Antichristian state of the Reign of Rome by Prop. 2. And in that state of it it is desolated by Fire by Propos praeced But this was never known to have been done in the time of the Reign of Rome-Heathen There was nothing that had the least appearance of the desolation of Rome or of the dissolution of the Roman Government at Constantine's Triumphs over Paganism much less was there any thing like the least part of the description of the desolation of Babylon by fire as it is here most remarkably signified But Grotius and Dr. Hammond to uphold their applications of these things to Rome-Heathen will have Rome to be Babylon two hundred years after it was come under the Christian Emperors because there were a part of the Senate and now and then a Consul that were Pagans for that space of time after Constantine's Triumph over Paganism and therefore that the last desolation of Babylon by fire was at the burning of Rome by Totila An. 546. where the storm of the Enemies fury lay almost wholly upon the Pagan Party and the Christians were most saved by flying to the Churches In the first place it may here by the way be observed what becomes of the ground of Dr. Hammond's confidence That the things in the Revelations were all to be fulfilled in the Times next to the Age in which they were seen from what is said Chap. 1. 1. Things that must shortly come to pass For here are near five hundred years time allowed by the Doctor for the fulfilling them And then he makes the Turks also to be foretold in them besides by Gog and Magog which requires some hundreds Chap. 20. 8. of years more and yet the Doctor speaks with a great confidence and assurance of the fulfilling of all soon after the time that the Prophecy was given But without further concern about that let us now observe the strange absurdities of this Explication 1. According to this Rome must be Babylon or Rome for 200 years after that the Baylonish Throne in it had been pulled down and when its conquering Enemy the Christian Church had been for all that time triumphing in its room in the Imperial Throne in the publick Laws in all parts of the Government and in the publick places of Divine Worship 2. And then Rome Christian whilst it was the possession of a Rev. 18. 20. Christian Prince must be supposed to be burnt to bear the vengeance of Rome Heathen for shedding the Blood of Christian Saints and Martyrs so many years after that Heathenism had been there publickly triumph'd over 3. The Christians also who did then defend their City against Rev. 18. 4. another Christian Prince must be supposed to be called upon from Heaven to come out of it and so to give up their Masters Right to the Enemy lest they should be made to partake of the punishment of Rome for its Heathenism 200 years before to which they were the greatest Enemies for none was more zealous against Paganism than Justinian who was at that time Lord of Rome as appears by the severity of his Laws against it 4. Of the same extravagant nature must it be to make the Rev. 18. 20. Heavens the Apostles and Prophets and all the faithful Christians in the City at that time to triumph with joy at the burning of the Houses and Goods of most Christians and a few Pagans together and at the taking of a City by the Christian Goths from the Christian Romans 5. And the burning not a third part of Rome as Grotius confesses of this Exploit of Totila's and the slaughter of a few Pagans in it must be made to be the giving Rome-Pagan double revenge for the Blood of the Prophets and Saints and of all that were slain upon the Earth by the Pagan Power of Rome Rev. 8. 6. all over the Empire It must be the giving Rome-Pagan the Cup of the Wine of the fierceness of the Wrath of God Chap. 16. 19 6. The Pagan Kings also of the Roman Empire which had committed Fornication with Rome-Pagan some hundreds of years before that is had complied with the Roman Idolatry must in this way be supposed to be alive to lament the sad condition Rev. 18. 9. of a Christian City at the taking it by a Christian Prince or at best the Heathen Kings then in the World no body knows when within many hundred miles of that City must grievously lament for the slaughter of some Pagan Romans with whom they had been used to comply in the Pagan Way Nothing indeed does make Grotius more to be suspected of intending only to play with this Prophecy or only to vex some hot Apocalyptical Men amongst his Adversaries than the seemingly-wilful Application of the Kings of the Earth that had committed Fornication with Babylon in the 18th Chapter
People into Civil and Ecclesiastical Persons the King and the High-Priest especially where the Church of God is which is the present Case As this does go along with all well-ordered Societies so it is exemplified in two of the Instances here referred to out of the Old Testament Or 2. The Church may here be represented by Two upon the account of the known peculiar Character of the Christian Church in distinction to that of the Jews all over the New Testament where it is every-where represented as one Church made up of Jews and Gentiles one Common Society with those two great constituent Parts in it upon the account of which it was originally called the Catholick Church Thus do we find †St. Paul almost continually insisting upon this Two-fold distinction in the Church and the chief ground of Rom. 3. 30. 4. 16. 9. 24. 10. 12. 11. 17. 15. 8 9. 1 Cor. 1. 24. 7. 18 19. Gal. 27. 8. 4. 22 24. 6. 15 16. Ephes 3. 6 9. all his earnest Motives to Unity and Mutual Communion for the making the Christian Church but one thing is that all the World both Jews and Gentiles are but one Church of Christ As Ephes 2. 14 15 16 17 18. and Chap. 3. 6. and Chap. 4. 1 2 3 4 5 6. And this is every-where represented by him as the great Mystery of God in the bringing the Gentiles to be one Church with the Jews Ephes 1. 9. 3. 3 9. Colos 1. 26 27. This Book of the Apocalypse does also generally run upon that distinction As Chap. 5. 5. The number of the Jewish Elders gathered out of all Nations And Chap. 7. 4 9. The 144000 out of the Jewish Tribes but figuratively taken and the Great Multitude of all Nations So also Chap. 14. 1 6. The 144000 and all Nations and Kindreds and Tongues and People And Chap. 19. 4 6. The 24 Elders represent the Jewish part and the Voice of the Great Multitude the Gentiles though both figuratively And the Church is every-where set forth as the Jewish Temple or Synagogue set open to all people This also we find every-where foretold in the Old Testament as the peculiar distinction of the Church of the Messiah from that of the Jews That it should be the Church of both Jews and Gentiles And this does our Saviour also make the distinguishing Badge of his Church For this reason did he make choice of Baptism to be the Initial Rite of all Nations into his Church which by the Jews had always before been made the distinguishing Rite Matth. 8. 11. 21. 43. 22. 9. 24. 14. John 11. 52. betwixt themselves and the Gentile Proselites He also upon the same account ordered the Memorial of his own Death to be the Communion-Feast or the common Union of Jews and Gentiles in his Church or the Communion of Saints of all kinds instead of the Paschal Lamb which was the distinguishing Ceremony of the Religion of the Jews from all the rest of the World besides And thus also does he himself signify his Church to be One Fold made up of two sorts of Sheep John 10. 16. But this does most eminently appear in the History of the Actions of the Apostles after Jesus had committed the sole management of his Church to them The chief Subject of the Book of their Acts is to set forth this new appearance of the Christian Church with these Two different kinds of Members in it Indeed this twofold distinction of the Members of the Christian Church had its foundation in the known division of the whole World into those two general Parts of it Jews and Gentiles both always before and at the time of the writing this Prophecy And this distinction was always preserved in memory by the frame of the Jewish Temple and its distinction of the two Courts of the Jews and Gentiles and so seems to be the most likely to be here referred to because the most obvious and commonly known division of the Church of God into Two But what strength soever this Account of their being called Two may seem to have yet the demonstration of their real nature in general before given does not at all depend upon it This is intended only for a probable illustration of that Character And since by the discovery of their Nature they must represent the whole Christian Church for many Ages there must be some reference in this Character of it to some twofold division of the Christian Church which must distinguish it from the Jewish and none was better known for such than that which has been here pitched upon not that of the Old and New Testament nor that of the Churches of the Waldenses and Albigenses which some would have that number to refer to a THUS does Ribera interpret the three days and an half in Chap. 11. v. 9. that they signify that the Tyranny of Anti-christ shall not be continued above three years and an half according to that of Ezek. 4. I have given thee a day for a year Though afterwards upon the 20th Chapter of the Apocalypse he does in express terms contradict this very Interpretation When ever says he did Lyranus see a day taken for a year And though in Ezekiel God said I have given thee a day for a year yet what ground is this to take a day for a year in Scripture Alcasar also upon the 2 d verse Chap. 11. Apocalypse does determine That the 42 months and the 1260 days must necessarily be taken in a mystical and not in a literal sense Notatione quarta in vers 2. And they both agree with Bellarmin l. 3. de Pont. c. 8. that the 42 months and three years and an half must be understood according to the Caldaick Account CHAP. VI. Rev. XIII The 25th Proposition The Second Beast Rev. 13. an Vniversal Church-Head distinct from the First The 26th Proposition The Beast A Secular Head confederated with an Vniversal Church-Head but distinct from Him The Second Beast a succession of many single Persons The Beast and the False Prophet are the present Secular and Ecclesiastical Roman Heads or the Imperial and Papal Power Objections answered THere have been sufficient grounds of Assurance given that the Beast is really in being at this present time It is in the next place necessary to enquire after those Characters of him that do distinguish him from all other Sovereign Powers upon Earth The greatest difficulty in this Affair arises from the great resemblance that there seems to be betwixt the First and the Second v. 1 11. Beast in the 13th Chapter of the Revelations For they are described as two distinct Sovereign Powers in one and the same Roman Dominion The Second Beast is said to exercise all the power v. 12. of the First Beast before him And therefore do we find these two Beasts confounded together by many of the best esteemed Interpreters It may then be
powers of it are acknowledged by the Authority of Rome to belong to them f Ludovic à Bebenburg tho on the German or Caesarian side de juribus Regni Imp. Rom. pag. 5. The Reason why he that is elected is called King of the Romans is both in reverence to the Most Holy Roman Church and in honour of the City of Rome whose People had formerly the Monarchy of the Empire M. Freherus in Commentario Hence that proud Voice of Rome at the Coronation of the Emperor Henry the VIIth I confirm unto the Prince the Sovereign Power with the Crown of Crowns and give him command over the Cities and Nations of the World Let the Eagles defend my Glory And in the Seal of Charles the IVth with which the Golden Bull the Instrument for the present manner of the Imperial Elections is sealed and other publick Instruments The City of Rome is in the stamp of it with this Motto Roma caput Mundi regit Orbis fraena rotundi Goldast Politic. Imperial pars 5. p. 349. Sed postquam Christiana Orthodoxa Religio c. But after that the Christian and Orthodox Religion prevailed so as to make a noise all over the World And that by this means the High-Priests at Rome came to be adored by Princes Kings and Emperors with the greatest humility and a singular kind of devotion it came to pass that by the common Consent of all Christian People that of the two several States of the Christian World The one should be govern'd by the Popes the other by the Emperors But yet so that the Emperors should acknowledg both their Imperial Dignity and Power to proceed from the Popes of Rome as the true Mediators and Intercessors for them But this is further confirmed by the Civil Law which suffers not the Imperial Majesty to be subject to any human Laws but on the contrary does openly declare it to be above all human Privileges and Laws Bellarmin shews Lib. 3. de Translat Imp. Roman in Germanos That the present way of electing the Emperor was setled by Pope Gregory the VIIth in the Golden Bull to confer the Power and Authority of Emperor of Rome upon the Person elected by them and chap. 12. lib. 1. says That all kind of Christian Princes whatsoever have acknowledged the Roman Empire to have been amongst the Germans ever since the Year 800. Goldastus in his Politic. Imperial part 1. p. 76. sets down the particular form of the Oath that the Electors take before their choice to this effect I. N. by the help of God will chuse a Temporal or Secular Head for all Christian People that is a King of the Romans to be advanced to be Emperor And it is the Order of the Golden Bull That they should not depart from the City of Francfort till the major part of them have elected a Temporal Head for all Christian People that is A King of the Romans to be created Emperor Aventin l. 6. Histor Boior Pope Adrian in his Letter to the German Princes tells them That the Roman Empire was translated from the Greeks to the Almaines so as that their King was not called Roman Emperor till he was crowned by the Pope Before his Consecration he was but King after his Consecration he became Emperor From whence then says he had he the Empire but from Us And afterwards gives this reason for it For Rome is our Seat The Seat of the Empire is Aix in the Forest of Ardenne Radevicus l. 1. c. 16. Frederic the Emperour who had denied all Subjection to Pope Adrian yet in his very defence of himself for it says thus The first Voice in our Election we owe to the Archbishop of Mentz and then to the other Electors in their Order Our Regal Unction to the Bishop of Cologn and the last which is the Imperial Unction only we have from the Pope Ibidem And Pope Adrian presently after in his Subjection to the Emperour minds him That his Magnificence had acknowledged That it was the Pope that set the Imperial Crown upon his Head Cornelius à Lapide upon the 10th v. of the 17th chap. Apoc. To confute that Opinion that would have the seventh King succeeding the Emperours to be the Pope The seventh says he is here said should continue but a little while whereas the Pope and the Emperour have continued a long while together The Pope therefore did not succeed the Emperours in the Roman Empire but continues there together with Them as we see now the most Serene Ferdinand to be the Emperour of the Roman Empire and our most Holy Lord Paul V. to be the High-Priest or the Pope of the Roman Church Grotius in Respons de Antichristo The German Princes chuse the Emperour but their Choice must have the Approbation of the City of Rome which has conferred their Right and Power upon the Pope from that Approbation has the Emperour the Title of ROMAN EMPEROUR and many things in Italy which belonged to the ancient Roman Empire from whence comes the Homage that is done him for the Dutchies of Milan Montferrat Mantua and many other Privileges there besides Nor can it be said upon this account That the Emperour is made by the Pope for the Authority of the Roman Empire was always the same even when the Emperours were some Thracians some of Illyricum and some of Hungary And so was it afterwards with Charlemaigne and now with the Princes of Germany See Grot. c. 9. lib. 2. de Jure Belli Pacis and in the Commentary of it in Prop. 21. Lud. à Bebenburg cap. 5. It is apparent from History That Germany even after the Division of the Empire of the Franks was accounted a Kingdom by it self that is distinct from the Title of the Roman Empire M. Freherus in his Comment upon this Our Emperours at this time observe this in their Title Emperour of the Romans King of Hungary Bohemia Dalmatia c. Ludovicus the Emperour the Son of Pius was called King of Germany which was almost from the first times of the division of the Territories of Charlemaigne He does also in the next Chapter shew That the seven Electors chuse the Emperour as a College or as the Representatives of all the Princes and People that are subject to the Roman Empire which Authority is conferred upon them from the City of Rome by the Golden Bull of Charles IV. If it shall be objected That the Constantinopolitan Emperours were the only true Roman Emperours and were unjustly deprived of their Western Dominions by the Pope it is to be remembred That the Constantinopolitan Emperours themselves confirmed the Title of the Western Emperours Lud. à Bebenburg cap. 5. and M. Freherus in his Comment there proves that Transaction betwixt the Eastern and Western Emperours by the Authority of Ado Rhegino Philip of Bergamo Platina Voluterranus Egnatius especially that of the Eastern Emperour Michael which was published in St. Peter's Church at Rome and confirmed
the Application of it to the fall of Paganism by Constanstine's Conversion is That the Reign of Diabolical Rage in the Imperial Head against the Christan Church was then at an end and that Christianity was mounted on the Throne instead of it But there is no manner of hint about the end of the Imperial Head it self or of the change of it for a new Head It is only the change of the Reign of the Devil in that Head and therefore is it said to be Satan only cast down And though one would judge this to be a great change of Affairs yet there was no reason from hence to make the loss of the Dragon's Power the end of an Head because his Power never was the beginning of one The Imperial Head had not its denomination or distinctive Character from the other Heads upon the account of the power of the Dragon in it and therefore it cannot cease to be an Head only for having that power cast out of it That it was not the power of the Dragon that was the distinguishing Character of the Imperial Head from those that were before it is certain For the Red Dragon with the Seven Heads and Ten Horns must necessarily be some Roman Power persecuting the Church of God And then it must 1. Either begin at Pompey's Conquest of Judaea which was in the time of the Consulary Government and continued in the Dictatorship of Julius Caesar and so the Red Dagon would be in one or two Heads more besides the Imperial and therefore could not be the mark of distinction betwixt them and the Imperial If so then the continuance of the Imperial Government without the Dragon in it has all reason to be accounted the same Head still since the Dragon was no part of the essential difference of the Imperial Head from the two others that went before it and therefore does the casting out of the Dragon out of the Imperial Head make no change of that Property which made it an Head Or 2dly The Dragon must be the Roman persecution of the Christians And then the Imperial Head would have been begun a long time before the time of the Dragon in it which would plainly show that as the Imperial Government was an Head of the Beast before it was possessed by the Dragon so must it continue the same Head of the Beast after it was dispossessed of the Dragon 2. And whereas this Opinion seems to be countenanced from the immediate consequence of it in the 13th Chapter which is v. 3. the appearance of an Head wounded to death and healed again It is to be considered that the maintainers of this Opinion themselves do allow at least 140 years space betwixt the Fall of the Dragon and the Rise of that other Beast And then there is no Argument at all from the nearness of the two Visions to one another either to interpret that Fall of the wounding of any of the Seven Heads or to make so little a distance of space betwixt the Fall and the Rise of the Beast There is a plain mention of a flood cast out of the Dragon's Rev. 12. 15. mouth which in Prophetick Language signifying an inundation of vast multitudes of People does give opportunity and time enough for the wounding of the Head and the healing it again and this distance betwixt them is by our Adversaries said to be 140 years Indeed this very 13th Chapter does shew the power of the Dragon to be wholly spiritual considered by himself For he is represented here as active as he was before he was cast down which shews that he was only an Evil Spirit in one of the Heads and not the Head it self For then his casting down would have been the Dragon's deadly wound as the Head of the Beast that was before past is represented to be so wounded whereas the Dragon is as much in action after his fall as he was before He was then the same spiritual Power when he was in the Head and when he was cast out of it and therefore distinct from it 3. It will be further urged that this would make the Imperial Head continue an Head of the Beast after it was turned Christian whereas the Heads of the Beast are said to have the names of blasphemy upon them But it is known that things are called by the name of that which is most predominant amongst them And since the time of the Christian Emperors in that Head was inconsiderable in comparison of the time of Heathenism the Objection has no weight in it 4. But then it seems harder to answer that Character upon the Seventh Head or Gothish Kings It will not be so very difficult if it be considered That the Seventh Head is the mixed form of Imperial and Regal Government For it is not hard to find the beginning of that degeneracy of Christianity which is called Blasphemy in the established Roman Religion a WE find in St. Augustine contra Faustum lib. 20. c. 2. which was near an 100 years before this time that the Manachees would have the Orthodox to be like the Pagans And Faustus thence says Ye have turned the Idols of the Pagans into Martyrs whom you worship with the same kind of Invocations And the Edicts of Valens and Theodosius against the Adorations of the Image of Christ confirms it Hospinian pag. 49. The Worship of the Saints by Invocation c. seems to be very near akin to the Worship of the Lesser Gods amongst the Heathens and then it must needs be Blasphemy H. Salmeron praelud 7. in Apocalyps gives this very reason why by Babylon the Harlot must be understood Rome Heathen viz. because it did worship the Images of all the Gods in the Pantheon as the Saints of the Eastern Empire at that time And however different the Goths might be from the Romans in Opinion yet we have b Petavius Ration Temp. part 1. l. 6. c. 2. de Theodorico And tho according to the Religion of his Country he was of the Arrian Sect yet he defended the Rights and Liberties of the Roman Church with all faithfulness And Sigonius says of Odoacer before him That he gave the Bishops and the Churches their due respects lib. 15. de Imp. Occident And Baron Anno 476. that he gave the Catholick Church no trouble in Church-matters But sufficient Instances of the preservation of the Rights of the Roman Church by the Gothish Kings may be found in Cassiodorus's Book of Variar As Lib. 2. Ep. 28. There is first Theodoric's Profession that he ought not to force Religion upon any not upon Jews Lib. 3. Ep. 45. He mentions the Defenders of the Rights of the Roman Church Commissioners setled by himself and upon their complaint of an Injury enjoins his Deputy by all means to right them according to the former grants to the Roman Church Lib. 4. Ep. 20. orders the Restitution of Gifts taken away from the Church Athalaricus after him makes
of Competitors to the Kingdom and besides not owned as heads of Rome that there is no reason to account it any setled change of the Imperial Head Prop. 21. part 1. Hugo of Arles had indeed the Principality of Rome with Marozia but he was presently cast out of it again Besides that r Ibid. cap. 14. The German Writers account Conrad and Henry Auceps Emperors in succession to Ludovicus the immediate Emperor before them and then there will not be above 8 years of vacancy others reject these two because they were not anointed and crowned by the Pope But the Germans do much dispute the necessity of that the Kings of Germany with whom the Imperial Title of Rome had continued by right of Succession from Charlemaigne till that time did still retain the same right in appearance because they were neither formally disowned by the City of Rome nor had any other set up there in their place For the Kingdom of Italy was then accounted a particular Jurisdiction by it self distinct from the City of Rome And the Pope was by that time almost absolute in that City So that all that could be inferred from hence would be that the False Prophet acted for a little time without the Beast 9. And this last Observation may occasion a Scruple How the Emperors can be said to be an Head of the City of Rome when some hundreds of years they have had no more than the bare Title of it The easie Answer to this is That all that is required to make an Head of the Beast is to be Å¿ See Note the 6th on the 6th Chapter a setled Secular Authority owned for Supream at Rome And 't is no wonder that he should be called an Head of it and have so little power or influence over it For all his power was to be exercised before him by another Church-Head distinct from him It cannot be thought necessary Rev. 13. 12. for the Emperor to be particularly resident at Rome to be the Head of Rome For then the Roman Emperors ever after the making Ravenna the Imperial Seat by Honorius must have ceased to have been the Heads of Rome 10. It may then be replied That the Constantinopolitan Emperors in the time of the Gothish Kings of Italy had the Title of the Imperial Head of Rome and upon that account should seem not to have been changed from the time of the Vision But it must be remembred That it is not sufficient to have a Title only but that Title must be owned by the chief Authority of the City of Rome for the sole Secular Sovereign Power of it Whereas it has been made to appear that in the Reign of the Gothish Kings of Italy the Constantinopolitan Emperors were far from being owned for the only Sovereigns of Rome For they were no further owned to have any thing to do there than what the t All Historians give an account of the Imprisonment of Pope John the First for crowning the Emperor Justin in the East and of the absolute Sovereignty of the Gothish Kings over the City of Rome See Notes on the 4th Chapter Lib. 3. Kings of the Goths who were then in the real and actual possession of Rome did allow them as Partners with them in the Honour of the Title of that City 11. It may also be objected That the Emperors have been very often in Wars with the Popes which is contrary to the strict Confederacy that is every-where expressed to be betwixt the Beast and the False Prophet But since they have been notwithstanding at a constant agreement in the great design of their Confederacy which is persecution for false Worship their occasional differences about other things is not to be regarded at most not more than the Differences betwixt the Popes and the Ten Kings who yet give their Kingdom to the Beast 12. How also can the Ten Kings be said to have given their power to the Beast about the time of Justinian when they were many of them Arrians at the greatest distance from the Religion of Rome The Answer to this is That they were soon brought under the Authority and See of Rome France Spain and all Justinian's Conquests changed about the end of that Age. 13. If it be said That when the Roman Empire was divided into Ten Kingdoms distinct from one another there could be no one Secular Head that could deserve to be called the Beast It may be answered That the Beast is but such an Head of the Roman Empire as has a superior Right to the Authority of the chief City of the Empire while the whole body of it is divided Prop. 21. into ten Sovereignties and by that Right has a claim to a Jurisdiction paramount to them all And such is the claim of the present Emperors to u See Notes m and n on the 6th Chapter reserved Rights over all the divided Kingdoms of the Roman Empire And there is at present so great and publick an acknowledgment of the German Emperor's Superiority over over other Kings only as he is Roman Emperor That as has been observed he is suffered to have the precedence of Kings who have both a much larger Dominion than he and a much ancienter Title and who take place of him before he has the Imperial Title when he has nothing but his Hereditary Countries But that which is chiefly to be regarded for the qualifying him for this character of an Head amongst the Ten Horns is That he is properly said to be the Roman Civil Head of those Ten Kings in one common Design that they are all engaged in because he is so acknowledged to be by the False Prophet who manages them all for that end and gives Him the Title of their Head in it 14. It may be further enquired How it can be said That the Imperial Power has subdued three Kings as it is said of the Little Horn in the 7th of Daniel It is answered That whatsoever is said there of the Little Horn is to be understood of the Beast in the Revelations in his joint confederacy with the False Prophet as one Thing engaged in one Design And then whatsoever is done by the False Prophet in that Design will be said to be done by the Beast so that the subduing of the three Kings may thus be either x Hierom. Rubeus Histor Ravennat pag. 145. says That Justinian built that Magnificent Temple of Sancta Sophia in memory of his Persian Vandalic and Gothick Victories Cuspinian de Casaribus pag. 139. gives an account of Belisarius's Expedition against the Persians and that he entred in a Triumph into Constantinople for that Conquest And pag. 140. says That he had a most Pompous Triumph from the Spoils of the Vandals being then Consul in ordinary And pag. 141. says That when Justinian had recovered Italy and subdued Africa and Persia he put the Glory of his Victories into his Titles Justinian's Conquests or y
the single Persons that Rule in that Division or Form of Government that is signified by Prop. 16. each Head and each Horn. 5. And still more inconsistent is it to make the Beast and his Seven Heads to be Roman Powers and yet Antichrist signified by the Eighth King which was one of the Seven not to Most of the Romish Interpreters come till after the end of all Roman Rule or that the Fourth Beast in the Tenth of Daniel should be the Roman Empire and yet the little Horn of that Beast not to appear till after the destruction of the Roman Empire For this would make the little Horn of the Beast to be no Horn of it but to appear after the ruin of the Beast whose Horn it is which is a contradiction 6. Of much the same nature is that Absurdity That the Beast called the 8th King is Antichrist a little before the end of the World and yet that Babylon that is described to go all The same along with it and to be destroyed before it is Rome Heathen 7. Nor does it much help the matter to affirm That Babylon does signifie both Rome Heathen and Rome in the time of Antichrist about the end of the World For by by Prop. 2. and 3. it is evident That Babylon is in all Ribera c. the mentions of it in the Revelations one and the same state of Rome in the Reign of the Beast and in which it is destroyed 8. That Opinion which makes the Heads of the Beast to be single Persons and yet the Reign of the Beast to continue at Grot. Dr. Hammond Prop. 6. and Coroll least to the time of Justinian is inconsistent with the determination of the term of the Beast in the Prophecy to the last Head of the Beast For if the Beast be nothing but the Beast under its last Head and all the Seven Heads be but so many Successions of single Rulers only it is impossible that the time of the Beast should continue many years after the time of St. John for the Sixth Head was then in Rule Rev. 17. 10. 9. And upon the same grounds it is impossible That the Ten Horns of the Beast should be after the time of the last Grot. Dr. Hammond Corol. 1. Prop. 12. Head of the Beast or that the time of the last Head of the Beast should be yet past because the Beast continues to the Second Coming of Christ and is the same with the Reign of its last Head Prop. 6. and its Corollaries 10. Amongst those Opinions which make the Heads of the Beast to be so many Successions of Roman Power I could not entertain any of them about the constitutive difference of one Head from another but that which made it to consist only in the setled change of the name of the Civil Power because that was the only known difference of Successive Horns in Daniel ch 8. and of the five first Successive Heads in the Revelations and besides the only difference betwixt all kinds of Heads or Horns upon the same Beast whose signification is agreed on is nothing but the different name of the Civil Power either from its peculiar Terrritory in those that are represented to rule all at a time in a divided Monarchy or from the different appellation in those that succeed one another in an intire Empire So is it above sixty times in the agreed examples of Daniel and the Revelations See discourse on Query the 2d And therefore I could not but look upon Alcasar's determination of the Seven Heads to Seven Roman Persecutions of the Church as arbitrary and much more the opinion of those Protestants who agree that the only Constitutive Difference of the Six first Heads of the Beast is nothing but a different name of the Civil Power for they were all Six of the same Mr. Mede Dr. More Religion and yet will make the Two last Successions of the Eight which compleat the Seven Heads to be nothing but Two Changes of Religion under the same Civil Head with the Sixth For this is to make a new Rule for the difference of the Two last Successions without any ground for it from the Prophecy and contrary to all the known and acknowledged Examples either in the rest of the Heads of the same Beast or in the Heads and Horns of other Beasts and gives great advantage to the Papists to despise the Protestants Application The Pleas for it may be seen answered in Answer to Objection 1 2 3 against the 2 d Query 11. There is so plain a distinction in the Second Beast of the 13th Chapter from the first Beast there and the one so manifestly Most Protestants Prop. 24 c. set forth as an Ecclesiastical Power under the Character of the False Prophet in distinction to the other whose Image and Honour he is altogether employed to advance that I could never yield to make them but one and the same thing viz. The Papal Power only But yet because they make but one joint Confederacy for the interest of a false Religion against the true Church they are therefore sometimes promiscuously used to signifie the actions of one another in that common concern and the Image and Babylon are in the same manner used Thus is Babylon said to be fallen chap. 14. 8. to signifie the decay of the Power of the Image and the Beast in the 17th chapter is said to have the Power and Strength of the Ten Kings given him which belongs properly to the Image of the Beast 12. It seems to be a very unnatural force upon the Text to make the Seventh King none of the Seven Heads in chap. Dr. More c. 17. 10. For it is manifestly reckon'd up in order as one of those Seven Kings which in the beginning of that verse are said to be the Seven Heads and without making it one of the Seven Heads there will be but Six Heads upon the Beast in the 13th chapter Prop. 4 5. For it is agreed that it was the Sixth King and Sixth Head that was there wounded and it must be the same Head that was seen healed which also is agreed to be the Eighth King and last Ruling Head If therefore the Seventh King were no Head there would be no new Head after the Sixth but only the Sixth healed of a wound whereas there were Seven really distinct Heads seen upon the Beast That which is pleaded for the ground of this Opinion is answered in the Answer to the 1st 2d and 3d Objections against the Second Query It will much confirm the strength of the whole Process of the Propositions before laid down to observe to what strange shifts those Interpreters have been put that own any part of the Demonstration and yet will stand out against the Conclusion Those that own Babylon to be Rome but not the present Rome Christian are forced to make it to be Either Rome Pagan
Council thus speaks We have pronounced a definitive Sentence free from Error certain and Infallible by the assistance of the Holy Spirit inspiration of the Holy Ghost The Emperour 's mere will was thereby made a Divine Law obliging the Conscience under the notion of the immediate will of God whenever the things enjoyned were really no part of his declared will And thus came the Emperours to make good the Title of Their c Cod. Justinian tit Trinitat l. 3. Theodos Valentinian Hormisdae P. P. According to those Laws which have already been made by our Divinity How much Our Divinity abhors And Novell 126. A most manifest constitution Of Our Deity Nostri Numinis Baronius Anno. 419. Honorius the Emperour gives this order to Symmachus Praef. Urb. upon the information sent him about the Schism of Boniface and Eulalius We Command that Boniface forthwith depart and obey our Celestial Command And Symmachus in Answer to Honorius's further order to receive Boniface returns this We having published the Celestial Decree every one was rejoyced at it Pancirol Notit Imp. Orient p. 109. The Emperour did first subscribe his name to the Rescript before any else A. A. Manu Divina Ibidem p. 172. 6. And thus used the Prince to subscribe his Hand A. M. D. That is August Manu Divina Novel Valentinian l. de Homicidio casu And those who had the Emperours hand to their Letters are said to be pricked or pointed down by the Divine Hand lib. 4. c. de Advocat dicitur jamjam Justinian calls this A Divine Marking out Divinam subnotationem l. 1. in fin c. de Justin c. confirmand Accordingly had the Emperours Letters-Patents the name of Sacra in distinction to all other Licenses So Zeno Lib. penult c. de Re Militari We allow none for the future to be Listed either in their Horse or Foot without the Commendatory Letter of our Divinity sine numinis nostri sacra probatoria And afterwards That they only be listed on the Confines or in the Lists who have a License for it from Our Divinity Probatorias sc Sacras a nostra Divinitate And Pancirol Notit Imp. Orient pag. 255. Observes in general That the Actions and Affairs of the Emperours have every where in the Civil Law the epithete of Divine as His Divine Indulgence His Divine Delegation His Divine Sanction His Divine House c. Divinity which was before the stile of their common Edicts upon much more proper and real grounds than ever before was thought of and the obedience that was given to their will in such things under the notion of the dictate of the Divine Spirit and as necessary to Salvation to be believed was the giving them a Divine Honour and the worshipping of their will as the Will of God 2. All the honour and preference that is given to the Roman Church is said even by General Councels which did first distinguish this Church from the rest to be given it only because Rome was the Imperial City of the World All the Worship then that is given to the Roman Church is given it only in Honour of the Imperial Authority of that City and so the worshipping of that Church is the worshipping of that Authority d Concil Constantinopol sub Gratiano Theodosio Canon 5. So Socrates l. 5. c. 8. And Sozomon gives this Reason for it l. 7 c. 9. Because that Constantinople had not only the same name and a like Senate and Magistrates with Rome but did also carry the same Ensigns of Authority after the manner of Rome and was equal to old Rome in all Rights and Honours The second General Councel at Constantinople did decree That the Bishop of Constantinople should be the next in precedence to the Bishop of Rome because that City was new Rome And this is thus explained by the Fathers of the 4th General Councel of Chalcedon at their confirmation of equal Priviledges to the See of Constantinople with those of the See of Rome The Fathers say they gave the See of old Rome its Priviledges upon the account e Concil Chalcedon sub Mareiano Valentin Canon 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for its being the Reigning City Baronius Anno. 448 Cites Valentinian's acknowledgment of the See of Rome Novell 14. That the merit of St. Peter the Dignity of the City and the Authority of the Synod were the foundations of its Primacy If there had been a Divine Right it would have been a diminution to it to speak of the other And in the year 451. He quotes Galla Placidia's Letter to her Son Theodosius about that Affair who says there That it did become them to keep up a due reverence to the City of Rome because it is the Lady of all the rest A clear evidence of the ground of the Primacy of the See of Rome is that Law of the Emperour Leo l. 6. l. 15. and in sin c. de Sacros Eccles which was made a little while after the Councel at Constantinople when the Empire of Rome in the West was just falling We judge and ordain says he That the Most Holy Church of this Most Religious City of Constantinople the Mother of our Piety and of all Christians of the Orthodox Religion and the Most Holy See of this Royal City for ever have for the future in consideration that it is the Imperial City All Priviledges and Honours over the Creations of Bishops Right of Precedence before all others and all other things which they shall be known to have had either before or during our Reign And that this continued appears from l. 16. c. de Sacros Ecclesiis The Church of Constantinople is Head of all other Churches Upon this account also was it as Guicciardin observes l. 4. Histor That the Bishops of Ravenna and Constantinople so often disputed the Primacy with the Bishop of Rome because that it was thought that the chief Seat of the Church followed the residence of the Imperial Power And the Arch-bishop of Ravenna in particular refused to receive the Pall from the Bishop of Rome in acknowledgment of the superiority of the Pope for the Reign of four Popes together viz. Martin 1. Eugenius 1. Vitalian and Adeodat and they were therefore called Autocephali or Self-headed by the Popes in memory of it Anastasius Bibliothec. in these Popes lives says that it was against the Supremacy that they contended of the Imperial Authority of it upon the same account did the Hundred and fifty Bishops at Constantinople give the same Priviledges also to the See of New-Rome judging it in all reason fit That a City adorned with a Senate and an Imperial power should enjoy the same Priviledges with Old Rome 〈…〉 like unto it to have the tokens of Majesty in Ecclesiastical Affair The Synod in Trullo gives the general reason of this from 〈◊〉 Ancient Canon of the Church in its Thirty eighth Canon which was That the Ecclesiastical dignities should follow the Imperial Orders
Diaconus de Gest Longobard c. 37. who was near those times Phocas says he at the request of Pope Boniface did Decree That the See of the Church of Rome should be the Head of all Churches because that the Church of Constantinople did write it self the first of all Churches See Note g on this Chapter Our Lords the Emperors Our Most Gracious and Pious Lords and subscribed themselves Their meanest Servants And that which is the chief flower of their Authority their Universal Headship or Supremacy over the Catholick Church was begged m Boniface the 3 d did so far acknowledg this Title of Universal Head to be the Emperour's favour That he has the Emperour's grant for it proclaimed at Rome in a Council of 62 Bishops Platina in Boniface 3. Sigonius says That Boniface sent an Embassy to Phocas to desire it by which means he obtained that Decree of the Emperor Phocas by Boniface and could not be obtained but by the drudgery of an approbation of Murder and Assassination and then also not without n The Contest about the Universal Headship appears plainly to have continued from the Order of the Council of Chalcedon for the place of the Patriarch of Constantinople The Law of the Emperors Leo and Anthemius l. 16. c. in fin de Sacros Eccles for the superiority of the See of Constantinople was soon after that Council Pelagius the 2 d. condemns John Patriarch of Constantinople for that claim and so does Gregory the 1st after him See Note g on this Chapter Platina says in Boniface 3. Though his pretentions were not always obeyed yet there has ever since that time been a Schism betwixt the Greek and the Latin Church Bellarmin in Praefat. in lib. de Pontifice The Greeks opposed the Popes Supremacy in the year 451. in the Council of Chalcedon and in the year 600. declare the Bp. of Constantinople Universal Bishop great contests against it as an usurpation upon the Rights and Liberties of other Churches to mind him by whose favour only he came to possess it For the Emperor o Cuspinian de Caesaribus p. 140. Mauritius wrote to Pope Gregory To obey John Patriarch of Constantinople as if Head Patriarch of all others Mauritius just before had commanded Pope Gregory to acknowledg John Patriarch of Constantinople for the Universal Head There is great reason then to account the Honour shown to the Papal Authority and his Clergy which are the Life and Soul of the Roman Church to be an honour done to the Power that raised him and supported him 4. The Worship that is given to the Roman Religion may well be called the Worship of the Imperial Authority because it is the Secular Arm that makes the Church-Laws to be obeyed and thereby it does appear That it is the owning of these Laws by the Secular Power for its own will and command that gives all the life and force to them and that therefore they are obeyed as the Laws and Will of that Power only The Church might make what Laws it pleased to the Consciences of men Their Anathema's would not have been much regarded by those who knew them to be unwarrantable But that which sets the edge upon them is the Secular Arm of the Civil Power 'T is then the Secular Arm that is in reality the chief thing that is worshipped or whose will is complied with as the Will of God and as the Law of his Religion It is therefore very properly the Worship of the Beast both before the division of the Empire when all the Secular Authority was only Imperial and also after the appearance of the p Canon 3. Concil Lateranens 1. The Secular Powers are enjoyned to take an Oath to prosecute Hereticks to the Rooting them out of their Territories And those Princes that neglect to do thus are to be Excommunicated and their Subjects Absolved of their Oath of Allegiance to them and their Lands to be exposed to the Seizure of Catholicks See Note c and f on Chapter 4. The Council of Milan and Arles send to their Emperours to make their Decrees effectual Aeneas Sylvius afterward Pope Pius 2d Epist l. 53. We are all of the same Faith with our Princes If they were Idolaters we should be so too and should deny not only the Pope but Christ himself also if the Secular Power did but press us to it Otho Frisius in prol l. 4. Chronic. There are two persons set up in the Church The Sacerdotal and the Regal the one to execute the Ecclesiastical Censures by the Spiritual Sword the other carries the Material Sword to execute the Secular Sentences And as Spiritual possessions are under the jurisdiction of the Spiritual Sword so are the Dignities of this World as Dutchies Counties c. under the jurisdiction of the Material Sword Ten Kings in it because N. B. they are found to give their Kingdoms to the Beast or to that Religion which the Imperial Authority does set up For this end alone is it that the Imperial Authority has its confirmation at present from q Goldast Polit. in Imperial H. 1. pag. 72. Speaking of the Installation of the Roman Kings or Emperours They do then require an Oath from the Supream Monarch of the whole World To defend the Roman Church to exterminate Hereticks and to secure the Dignity of the Pope by all manner of ways Glabar l. 1. Histor in fine Benedict the 9th made this Decree That none should be called or taken for Emperour but He whom the Pope for his good behaviour shall make choice for a fit person for the Common-weal and upon whom he shall set that Imperial Crown which is a Golden Apple set with Jewels and a Cross in the middle of it viz. To denote the end of his power to be to defend the Church And such is every Imperial Crown of every particular Prince Clementina unica de jure jurando Gives the Oath that the Emperour takes to defend the Rights of the Church the Head of the Church that it may enforce the Spiritual Power of the Church and by this means do both the Civil and Ecclesiastical Power come to be Worshipped in one and the same Act of obedience From hence it is now easie to apprehend how the false Prophet does exercise all the power of the first Beast before him For Rev. 13. 12. since the first Beast is found to be the Imperial power the exercise of all his power must be an Universal Supremacy over the Roman Catholick Church and this does very well answer the Popes exercise of the power of both the Roman Swords And it is said to be done before the first Beast as that signifies in Honour of him or in Honour of the chief seat of the Empire The first great effect of this power is to cause all the world to Ibid. worship the first Beast And that is when the Papal Authority does either make the World receive the Imperial
Church in the same Seven Headed Ten Horned Empire or better satisfy us why there needed two different figures of Dragon and Beast to signify those two kind of Hostilities against the Church of Christ For by this it appears that the Beast and the False Prophet were to be in outward appearance the most directly contrary to the Dragon that could be and even to look like Christ himself and therefore that this False Prophet must really be such an one of that Kind as our Saviour calls d See Malvenda Not. praeced And the Fathers agree That Antichrist shall take away the Worship of false Gods See Irenaeus Not. Praeced Arethas in V. 11. c. 13. Apoc. Two Horns of the Lamb because he shall feign himself to be kind and benign that he may deceive Idem in v. 14. He doth Miracles That Antichrist might be thought to be Christ a False Christ or a false pretender to be his Deputy and Vicar upon Earth The Character of which kind of False Christs and False Prophets in being able to deceive the very elect by their great Wonders and Signs is just the same with the power of this eminent False Prophet for doing great wonders also for deceiving all those that dwell upon Rev. 13. 14. earth by the Miracles which he had power to do Wherefore the speaking like a Dragon in this False Prophet with the appearance of a Lamb must signify his speaking or commanding under the vizard of the Vicar of Christ the same kind of acts of Cruelty and Tyranny for an Idolatrous worship which the Red Dragon was active in against the Woman in the Chapter just before The profession of Christianity is now we see so far from excusing the Bishop of Rome from the Character of the False Prophet That it is necessary for him to be a more eminent Professor of that Religion than any other person in the Church to be capable of having it applied to him And the enforcing of false-worship by all the Arts of Cruelty under the pretence of the Authority of Christ does therefore fill up the whole Character that is given of his having the Horns of a Lamb and speaking like the Red Dragon for nothing does more resemble the nature of the Devil than Antichristian Tyranny under the Mask of Piety Well therefore may the Dragon be said to give his power to the Rev. 13. 2 3. Beast since the Devil may be safely enough supposed to inspire this design of carrying on this Adoration of the Roman Power and of that Church by force of Arms and sanguinary Laws like the Reign of the Red Dragon in the time of Heathen persecution described in the Chapter just before By this may be understood the true meaning of the casting V. 9. down of the Dragon with the Seven Heads and the Ten Horns out of Heaven in the 12th Chapter For as that Figure has the proper mark of the Roman Empire in the Seven Heads so must it be the Devil inspiring the Roman Empire to bloody Acts against the followers of the Lamb who are said to have overcome him by not V. 11. loving their lives unto the Death Wherefore the casting down of the Dragon out of Heaven can signify nothing else but the mortifying of the Pagan Power against the Christian Church after the conversion of the Imperial Head to the Christian Religion For since the Beast is found to arise with Justinian and the fall of the Roman Dragon is in the Text described to be before the time of the Beast and yet to be after the time of St. John the Dragon can be no other raging power of the Devil Reigning at Rome and Tyrannizing over the Christian Church but only the Devil raging in the Heathen Emperors before the Conversion of Constantine From the time of Constantine to the Reign of Justinian there was no such Roman Tyranny exercised against the Christians that had the least show of so dreadful an appearance and whatsoever any professed Christian Emperors might do in that kind must be under the appearance of the qualities of the Lamb and so be another Beast different from the Dragon It is certain that at this appearance of Christianity upon the Imperial Throne this Prophecy was apprehended to be so plainly fulfilled That Constantine's Effigies was set up in publick over his Palace-Gate trampling upon a wounded Dragon which says Eusebius was done to signifie his conquests of those Tyrants Lib. 3. c. 3. de Vita Constantini that oppressed and persecuted the Church at the instigation of the Devil in allusion to the Books of the Prophets where the Devil thus raging against the Church is called a Dragon And Constantine himself Socrat. l. 1. c. 6. in his Epistle to Eusebius for the repairing of the Churches calls his conquest of Licinius who was the last of the persecuting Heathen Emperors The foiling of the Dragon and the restoring of Christian Liberty to all Men. By the same reason whatsoever is expressed to follow the Dragons fall and to be before the rise of the Beast must be understood of the Roman Empire turned Christian before the time of Justinian and therefore the Dragons casting a flood of water out of his mouth to carry away the Woman with it must be understood Rev. 12. 15. of some great inundation of multitudes of Pagan people upon the Roman Empire that was able to have carried away and to have buried the true Church in it For waters are interpreted to signifie multitudes of people in the 17th Chapter A Flood therefore must denote e Victorinus in v. 15. cap. 12. Apoc. The Waters which he cast out do signify the Army that followed him Ribera on the same place Interpreters agree That by the Waters Persecution that is of multitudes is understood The Devil sent an Army to Persecute the Saints that fled into the Wilderness Sabo Tyconius He cast out Waters after her That is the Violence of Persecutors And afterwards It signifies an Army of Persecutors Andreas Primatius Haymo and Ausbertus say the same and quote that of Psalm 122. When Men rose up against me To which may be added many other places in the Psalms concerning the Floods and Water-floods some very extraordinary overflow of such multitudes And was there ever any thing more exactly answerable to this than that prodigious inundation of barbarous Nations over all the Western Empire presently after the full accomplishment of the Victory of Christianity over Heathenism about the times of Theodosius St. Jerome describes those times with the characters of the last dismal state of things which should be the forerunners of the end of the World The swallowing up of this flood by the Earth to help the Woman can V. 16. thereupon be nothing else but the Leagues that were made with these people with the several allotments of habitation to them within the bounds of the Roman Empire as one people with the Romans and their entrance
thereupon into the Church And thus comes the Roman Empire to appear with Ten Kingdoms in it shown by the Ten Horns and this was the helping of the Woman because the Church by this got her freedom and peace and gained these Barbarians to her But the Dragon is said to be still in great fury against the Woman and therefore went to make War with the remnant of her seed which Rev. 12. 17. keep the Commandments of God and have the Testimony of Jesus Christ where we may observe a plain distinction made betwixt the Seed of the Woman The Warr that the Dragon makes is with that part of her Seed which keep the Commandments of God and have the Testimony or are the Witnesses or Martyrs of Jesus Christ which intimates that the Rest of her Seed should depart from the Commandments of God and from the truth of the Gospel of Christ By this we have a new scene opened about the enmity of the Dragon against the Church The Time of it is after the Settlement of the Divisions of the Empire in those Kings of the Barbarians signified by the swallowing up of the great flood by the earth That is after the rise of the Ten Kings in the Roman Empire and the party against whom this War is carried on are the Godly Seed of the Woman not against all her Seed but against those only who keep God's Commandments and are the Witnesses or the Martyrs of Jesus or as they are elsewhere called The Witnesses in Sackcloth How this was brought to pass That which does immediately follow this design of the Dragon does inform us For immediately upon it appears a Beast with all the same Emblems of the Roman Empire that the Dragon had and to him the Dragon Rev. 13. 1. is said to give his Power and his Seat and great Authority v. 2. And thus does the Dragon fulfill the intention that he had just before to War with the chosen Remnant of the Womans Seed He does not appear himself in it but inspires another set up in his place to do it By which it is evidently signified That this new war with the dutiful part of the Womans Seed is not managed by any Roman Power which is openly known to be the professed Enemy of God and of the Christian Religion as that Government of the Empire was which had the open appearance of the Devil's management in it And if it were not such a Power that should appear like an open professed Enemy of the Christian Religion it must be such as must profess that Religion and out of a pretended zeal to it exercise all the Tyranny of the Devil or Dragon against the true professors of it For all the great business of the Beast is Religious worship and if that Religion be not professed enmity to the Christian because that would make it the open show of the Dragon as it was before his fall It must then be a zealous outward profession of the Christian Religion to persecute and to destroy the true maintainers of it This does determine the time of the first settlement of the Woman in the Wilderness for the space of a Time Times and an half For thô it be said Chap. 12. 6. That She fled into the Wilderness yet it is not there said that she was setled there but only that she had a place prepared for her there to be fed for One Thousand two Hundred and Sixty days And besides after many great Actions intervening she is said at the 14th Verse to be but then in a condition to fly into the Wilderness and after she was flying thither the Dragon cast out a flood after her and hindred her settlement there till that was swallowed up and therefore did her Time Times and Half-time begin but just at the same time with the Dragon 's persecuting the remnant of her Seed which was just at the first rise of the Beast and so confirms the Synchronism of the Woman and the Beast for their whole time We are therefore now to enquire from the History of the Christian Church how it can be said that from the time of Justinian all the true Professors of the Christian Faith were forced by Tyrannical usage to worship the Will of the Christian Roman Emperors about matters of Religion thereby to fit the Characters here given to the Beast to the Imperial Head restored in the West And thus we find that at the Time that the Christian Church The Woman was secured in the Two Imperial Seats of the East and West the two Wings of a great Eagle from all the inundations of Pagan people or from the face of the Serpent The Devil did then set up persecution in the Roman Throne against the true and faithful Members of the Christian Church The Remnant of the Seed of the Woman which keep the Commandments of God while she her self was in the Wilderness or in a place of security CHAP. VII Rev. XIII The particular point of the first date of the Rise of the Beast enquired after in order The first conception and progress of the chief Malignity of the Beast It entred with Theodosius and was setled by Justinian And appears to have been the enforcing of Vniversal Conformity by Penalties able to make the generality of the World to comply against their Consciences Justinian 's peculiar Talent in the setling this Method for Conformity FRom the former Account of the over-ruling Authority of the Christian Emperors in all Church-Affairs and of the great veneration which they had for the Councils assembled under them it is obvious for any one to conclude That they lay very open to the danger of requiring Divine Honours to be given them For this must needs make them very apt to command many things which God has left free and undetermined to be received for Points of Faith necessary to Salvation as inspired by the Holy Ghost in Council And it is evident that in such a case the will of him that enjoins such things is taken for the Will of God and so he may very well be said to require the Honour of God to be given to his own will One cannot but think it very probable upon this account that such a kind of Worship as is called the Worship of the Beast was sometimes enjoined before the Rise of the Beast since there were many Erroneous Councils before that time And it may be many things in Orthodox Councils made to be Inspirations of the Holy Ghost and pressed upon the Consciences of men as Divine Oracles necessarily to be obeyed which were but the mere Arbitrary Injunctions of men But yet though the same kind of Worship might have been commanded before his appearance yet it could not be the worship of the Beast till it was the owning of the Roman Authority for the Will of God in those particular Circumstances of Antichristian Idolatry and Tyranny in which it is described to be all over the
Ordain That all usurped jurisdiction of any Bishops over another's Province shall be ipso facto void And that lest the fear of any Mans power should creep in under a shew of an Holy Function and so we should lose that Liberty insensibly and unawares which our Lord Jesus Christ did purchase with his own Blood the Ephesine Council not long after the time of Theodosius had made an excellent provision against any incroachment of any one part of the Christian Church over the rest so that though there might be some irregular exercise of the Imperial Authority yet whenever any considerable Diocese should have stood up for their Liberty though against the Roman Church they had a right to plead for it from that Council In this estate did things continue till the fall of the Western Empire and then the Arrian Goths being the Masters of Rome and the West there was a composition betwixt them and the Eastern Emperors for a f It appears from Cassiodor Variar L. 10. Ep. 26. That the Gothish Kings did not press any in Italy to their way Theodate to Justinian says there Since the Deity suffers many Religions to be we dare not enjoyn one alone to be followed For we remember it is said That Men must sacrifice willingly to the Lord not at the command of any one to force them to it With good reason therefore does your Piety invite us to that which the Commands of God do require And in the time of Justin before Thedoric forced him to leave off persecuting the Arrians in the East And Zeno and Anastasius before Justin are represented as Lovers of Peace and Union rather than a strict Conformity of which Zeno's Henoticon is an example Petavius says of the Emperour Anastasius That he gave every Man liberty to profess what Sect he pleased Rationar Temp. Part 1. l 7. c. 3. Theodoric to all the Jews lib. 2. ep 27. Gassiodor Variar We cannot says Command Religion because none is to be compelled to believe against his Will mutual Tolleration of Orthodoxy and Arrianism in their respective Jurisdictions And before that had the Emperors Zeno and Anastasius contrived a form of Faith for a Comprehension and Union and did connive at a general Liberty of Conscience But the Emperor Justin after them begins the Project of an Vniversal Conformity to the Roman Religion At the sollicitations of Pope Hormisda he makes g See Petav. Rationar Temp. Part. 1. l. 7. c. 3. Item Anastasius Bibliothecar in Hormisdâ an Union betwixt the Greek and the Latin Church which had been in a Schism against one another near forty years After that in Pope John's time sets out several Edicts against h Petav. ibidem Item Blondus de Inclinat Rom. Imp. in Occidente Pag. 37. Pope John in whose time the Emperour Justin being wholly set upon rooting out all the Heresies throughout the Eastern parts deprived all the Bishops of that Sect of their Places and put their Ministers out of their Churches And a little after not only the Eutichyan Heresy but all kind of different Parties were suppressed throughout all the East Anastasius Bibliothecar to the same purpose in Joanne 1. the Hereticks and heavily persecutes them so as even to suppress all kind of Heresie throughout the Eastern Empire But he was forced by i Anastasius Bibliothec. in Joanne 1. gives an account of Theodoric's sending Pope John in an Embassy to Justin to acquaint him That he would ruine all the Catholicks in Italy if he did not restore the Arrians in the East to their Dignities and Churches And that Justin did thereupon comply with him Theodorick king of Italy to desist and so his Design came to nothing But however there was so good a Correspondence by this means setled betwixt the Emperor and the Bishop of Rome for that common Interest that the Emperor submits to be crowned by the Pope which was the k Petav. Rationa Temp. Part 1. l. 7. c. 3. The Emperour received the Pope with all honour and was the first that received the Imperial Crown at the Popes Hands Anastas Bibliothec. in Joanne 1. first Example of that kind and got the name of Justin l Hieron Rubeus Histor Ravennat pag. 141. Item Anastas Bibliothec. in Joanne 1. the Orthodox for his Piety to the Church This good Correspondence betwixt the Secular and Ecclesiastical Power of Rome was the only means to carry on an Vniversal Vniformity in the Roman Religion For the Imperial Authority was now confined to a very small Jurisdiction and the rest of the Empire was divided into several Kingdoms which had no other Secular Sovereign to command them but their own particular Kings There was therefore no other way of reducing them all to one Religion but by the advancement of a Spiritual Roman Authority to be the principle of Vnity amongst them whose business it should be to overawe the Conscience with the Curses of the Church for the enforcing the execution of the Imperial Penalties For as the Imperial Laws were for every thing else the standing Laws of these divided Kingdoms so the only way to make their Edicts and Sanctions of Councils about Church-matters to take place amongst them was to have them confirmed and enforced by the Authority of an Universal Head of the Church And though the Church Head seems by this to be the principal in all this Affair yet the Temporal Penalties of the Laws being the only certain means to effect an Universal Conformity and this Sovereign Head of the Church himself being also a Creature of the Imperial Power to carry on his design of Uniformity in the Roman Religion as has been observed all the Obedience that Chap. 22. is given by other Princes and their Subjects is really nothing but the Worship of the Beast or of the Imperial Religion and they give their Kingdoms to the Beast when they force their Subjects to submit to that Religion There was nothing that could make it look more like the worshipping of that Roman Authority than this Submission of the Ten Kings who were absolute in their Kingdoms and had as much right to appoint the Laws of Religion to their Subjects as the Roman Emperor had in his own Territories But by this conformity to the Romans they did seem to lay down their N. B. Crowns at the feet of that Nation and to adore them as the great Dictators and Oracles of the Will of God There is indeed not the least appearance of so general an Uniformity at the end of the Reign of the Emperor Justin who as has been observed was not able so much as to bring it about within the bounds of his own Territories But Justinian immediately after him appears in this Design like a new Blazing-star in the East whom all the World began to be afraid of One would indeed from a cursory view of his History be apt to entertain no other Idea of him than as a very eminent Conqueror
Faustus the Manichee The occasion of this Idolatry not enforced by effectual Laws till Justinian 's Reign I Have been the more particular in the Explication of the worship of the Beast because that is made in the Prophecy to be the chief malignity of his Power For the exercise of his Tyranny over the Consciences of Men is that which gives life and spirit to all the Corruptions of the True Religion which the Roman Church sets up for the indispensable Laws of the Christian Faith The Idolatry of the Church of Rome alone by it self would want the greatest part of the frightful Appearance in which the Beast is described and which the enforcing it upon the Consciences of all men by the secular Arm has set it forth into the sense and feeling of the World But besides the Characters of the Malignity of the Beast which are generally summ'd up in the Worship of him there is also a particular description in the 17th Chapter of the Idolatrous state of the Roman Church under the name of Babylon the Great Whore which is a known term amongst the Prophets to express the Idolatry of a Nation which had been the True Church of God And this charge of Idolatry is brought against the Church by the Prophets not only when they worshipped strange Gods but also when they worshipped the True God by corporeal Representations as it has been sufficiently made out of late by the disputes about Aaron's and Jeroboam's Calves and may be sufficiently shown from that one place in Hosea chap. 4. 15. Though thou Israel play the Harlot yet let not Judah offend and come ye not See the Dean of St. Paul's Discourse of the Idolatry of the Church of Rome and Papists not misrepresented to Gilgal neither go ye up to Bethaven nor swear the Lord liveth where their Idolatry is made to consist in a Religious Oath to Jehovah or to the true God in the places where the Calves were placed And that they did really intend all that worship to the True God appears further from Chap. 8. v. 13. They sacrifice flesh for the Sacrifices of my Offerings and eat it but the Lord accepteth them not And that they applied themselves to the Calves in those Sacrifices appears from Chap. 13. 2. They say of them Let the men that sacrifice kiss the Calves which does all belong to Ephraim and to Samaria who had just before been mentioned for their Calves so that their swearing by the Lord and their sacrificing of his Offerings which are said before to be done at Gilgal and Bethaven the places of the worship of the Calves cannot possibly be understood of any other intention of worship than to the True God in the presence of those Calves So again Chap. 8. v. 5. Thy Calf O Samaria hath cast thee off mine Anger is kindled against thee where the kindling God's wrath against them is called their being cast off by their Calf as they had represented the presence of God in his House by that figure Now for this kind of Idolatry we need not be long in seeking after the recovery of the Western Empire by Justinian We find that in the Second Council of Nice about 200 years after that they insisted Act. 7. upon the old Tradition and practice An. Dom. 787. Petav. of the Universal Church for the use of Images which though it cannot be verified of so long a practice of the Church as they pretend nor it may be of that degree of honour which they defined for any time before yet we cannot think such an Assembly of men from all parts of the World so impudent as to plead ancient Tradition and long practice for that to which there had been nothing like in use of the Church before their time But the proof of it which they alledge out of the 82d Canon of the Sixth Council in Trullo which was near an hundred years before that time is a very clear instance of such practices in the An. Dom. 707. Petav. Church so little a while after Justinian That Canon ordains That the Image of Christ as the Lamb of God should be received amongst the rest of the Venerable Images which gives us to understand that Images were then frequent in Churches And the 73d Canon of that Council does intimate to us what use was made of the Images that were made to represent the Person of Christ For it ordains That Adoration should be given to Christ by the figure of the Cross and to shew their reverence to it that it should never be engraven upon the Church-floor lest it should seem to be trampled under foot and triumphed over By both these Canons it did appear that Images were then commonly used with great veneration if not adoration in the service of God So common a practice as this not much above 100 years after the Reign of Justinian may very safely be concluded to have been begun in his days And indeed it is evident to have been then in use by that celebrated Act of * Baronius Anno 591. Screnus Bishop of Marseils in breaking the Images that he found to be adored in his Churches And this was but about 40 years after the death of Justinian and must be supposed to have been some while in use before it came to be so grosly abused as to stir up the zeal of Serenus to break them which Pope Gregory the First tells him never any Bishop before him ever did And Hospinian's Account of the first occasion of Images in the Church Histor Monachatus pag. 49. does agree well with this He makes the Irruption of the Barbarians upon all the Roman Empire to have been the occasion of introducing the custome of Images which they had been always used to in their Paganism and were indulged in it upon their conversion in a new way and their Irruption was long before the time of Justinian There also he affirms that Gregory himself was the Establisher of the Invocation of Saints and of the use of Images which might well be looked upon as the earnest of spiritual fornication in the Church before they came to be openly adored and therefore might denominate the Church an Harlot as that name may well enough be given to an Adulteress from her first entertaining of the sollicitations of her Paramour But even in the days of Justinian according to Caranza's Explication of the second Canon of the Second Synod of Tours it appears that Images were so commonly received in the Church that there was a place set a part for them upon the Altar called by the name of the Armarium Caranza Annotat. on 2d Canon Synod the Second And it appears from the 26th Law of Justinian's Code Tit. de Episcop Clero that the Image of the Cross and the Reliques of the Saints were looked upon to be so holy as to be thought fit to have an Imperial Law made that they should not be set up in any Prophane or Common
Alcasar Grotius Dr. Hammond Two hundred Years after the Empire was turned Christian and was then burnt in the possession of a Christian King by a Christian Emperor Or To make it to be Rome a little before the end of the World grown prodigiously rich by Foreign Traffick Rev. 18 19. and having brought the Kings of the earth under her Subjection v. 3. in the space of Three Years and an Ribera c. half Or To make it to be both Rome Heathen and Rome at the end of the world which should cry I sit as a Queen and shall see no sorrow v. 7. and which should not have the Pagan Power of it abated or ended for above a Thousand Years after it began to be Rome Christian all which are such monstrous Inconsistencies as to make any conclude them to be impossible Those that own Babylon to be Rome and the last Ruling Head of the Beast to be Antichrist about the end of the World and that the whole Seven Heads are so many immediate Successions of Ruling Powers to make the Sixth Head continue from Ribera c. Most Papists Rev. 17 10. the time of St. John when it is by the Text signified to be in Rule to the time of the Seventh King that is in their opinion to a short space before the end of the World they are forced to make the Sixth King to be of a much longer Continuance than the Imperial Government at Rome that was the King in being at the time of the Vision For they own that the Imperial Government was long since at an end at Rome and therefore are they forced to make their Sixth King to be all those persecuting Powers of the World that reach from the time of the Vision to about the end of the World in consequence of which it is necessary for them to make the Beast in general to be the whole World and the rest of the Heads so many Successions of either persecuting Ages or Monarchies of it and this is so contrary to the known acceptation of a Beast and its Heads or Horns for one Ruling Nation only all over the Prophecy of Daniel as it is by these very persons acknowledged that nothing could make it appear to what a forced shift they were fain to flye to avoid the bringing in of Antichrist into the Roman Church many Ages ago if they should have granted the Sixth Head at the time of the Vision to have been the then Ruling Imperial Power of Rome only But a much more apparent shift is it in those who think themselves forced to own the Beast to be but one single Nation only or the Roman Empire and the last ruling Head to be Antichrist Bellarm. c. about the end of the World and the Head in Rule at the time of the Vision to be the Imperial Government but after all this for fear of bringing in Antichrist into the Roman Church too soon to make the Seven Heads to signifie collectively all the Roman Emperors either at Rome or Constantinople or at Vienna whereas the number Seven is apparently here divided into broken numbers which does as certainly determine the Heads to that definite number in an immediate Succession to one another And nothing could have made it appear how so well a versed understanding in the Critical use of words as Bellarmine's was resolved to outface his own Knowledg to avoid a dangerous Consequence for if he had allowed the Seven Heads to have been just so many Successive Changes of the Rule of the Romans he must certainly have made the Sixth Head end at the Succession of the Kingly Government of Rome upon the fall of the Western Empire tho the Imperial Government at Constantinople had been part of the Sixth Head For the change of the other part of it at Rome did make a new Change of the whole Government that is from Imperial to the mixt Form of Kingly and Imperial together as the Tribunes with the Consulary Power were a Change of the Consulary Head of the Government But of all the forced shifts that we meet with the most Paradoxical and absurd are those of the Grotian way they grant Grot. Dr. Hammond the Beast to be the Idolatrous Roman Empire and the Heads to be Successive Changes of Roman Rulers and the time of the Beast to continue at least to the Reign of Justinian and yet make the last Ruling Head of the Beast to be at an end with the Reign of Domitian which is Contrary to all the Representations of the Beast in the 17th chapter as ending with his last Head Prop. 6. Corol. ibid. they do also by this make the Ten Horns to be a long time after the last Head which are said expresly to give their Kingdom to the Eighth King or the Beast under the last Ruling Head They do also make the Seven Heads of the Beast to be but so many single Persons contrary to the known signification of the Heads and Horns of Beasts all over Daniel They do also make the different Shows of the same Beast in the 11th 13th and 17th Chapters to be really distinct Beasts from one another without any ground for it but the different Shows of them contrary to what the exact resemblance of their Characters to one another would make any judg them to be and contrary to the First Book plain demonstration of their being but one and the same thing from the Characters of them and contrary to the sense of almost all kind of Interpreters especially those of the Roman Party who cry out against the main foundations of this Opinion as nothing but the extravagancies of men without any Preface to my former Treatise The Judgments of God c. sense in them tho the whole business of all the pains that is taken by these Contrivances is to remove the charge of Idolatry from the Church of Rome Those that own the Fourth Beast in the Seventh of Daniel and the Beast in the Revelations to be the particular Nation of the Romans and yet will make the little Horn of the one and the last Head or Eighth King in the other to come after the destruction of the Beasts to which they belong Most of the Romanists show that they value not Contradictions to keep off Antichrist from appearing in the Roman Church And those that own the last time of the Beast to be about the end of the world and yet will make Babylon that accompanies the Beast to the last to be Rome Pagan must have much the same contempt The same of the plain intimations of the Prophecy and those also that can think That Babylon is not the same thing but several vastly distant States of Roman Rule in the several mentions of it or both Rome Pagan and Rome near the end of the World Prop. 2 3. Those of the Protestants that make the Change of Religion in the Imperial Head to be a new
Head seem to be so wholly intent upon the Charge of Antichristianism upon the Church Most Protestants of Rome that they neglect all known and acknowledged Examples of the difference of the Heads of Beasts to fix their Charge And to hold to it they are forced to wrest the natural and plain sense of the 10th verse of the 17th Chapter of the Revelations and to find out some far fetched Criticisms to make it good As the making of the 7th of those Seven Kings that are said to be the seven Heads to be none of those Heads And Dr. More 648. as the making 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to denote the Seventh King to be quite different from the rest does appear to be See Prop. 4. They are also forced to make the wounded and the healed Mr. Mede Head to be two distinct Heads of the seven which is contrary to the plain Expressions of the Prophecy which mention it to be seen but as one and the same Head wounded and healed and is also contrary to the common acceptation of a Head wounded and healed which can be but one Head Others of them are forced to make the Seventh King and the Eighth to be the same thing and for that end to transpose the latter end of the 10th verse and to make it come after the Monsieur Jurieu Accomp des Prophecies pag. 190. 2d Edit Most Protestants beginning of the 11th contrary to the natural order of the Text. Those that would fix all the Charge of the Beast and the False Prophet upon the Papal Power only are forced to make nothing of the plain Characters by which they are distinguished from one another when named together nor of the Change of the name of the Civil Government of the Romans at the fall of the Western Empire though that was the only difference betwixt the first six Heads of the Beast according to their own Opinion For the first six Heads were all of the same Religion that is Pagans And upon this account is it that most of them are forced to make the first appearance of the Beast to be of a very uncertain date that is according to their fancy about the first great appearance of the Papal Power which cannot well be fixed Whereas the first Rise of the Beast must have been a very visible and remarkable Change of the Supream Power of Rome from that which was the 7th Ruling Power of it to the 8th called the Beast It is upon this account that some of those who incline to the former Opinion and yet do plainly see that the Beast must be a Change of the form of the Civil Power of the Empire do therefore make the Ten Kings with the Papal Power to be the Beast that is the Eighth King or last Ruling Head But what Prop. 6. an absurdity do they fly to in this when it is manifest that the Ten Kings were the Ten Horns and none of the Seven Heads Others of them indeed defer the Rise of this Papal Beast to that manifest Change of the Imperial Power at the fall of the Western Empire in Augustulus as the end of the true Christian Emperors who are their Seventh King but then they are forced to make nothing of the succeeding Sovereign Power of the Italian Kings of Rome who were as Absolute Sovereigns of it notwithstanding their Royal Seat at Ravenna as any of the Western Emperors had been from the time of Honorius who first made Ravenna the Imperial Seat They are also forced to pass over the Change of the Regal and Imperial Power of Rome to the pure Imperial Government at the recovery of Rome by Justinian as of no account for a new Head though they must own the Eastern Emperors to have been as much Sovereigns of Rome at this Re-conquest of it as the Western were before the loss of it and when they were the acknowledged Sixth Head This appears from the Power of the Eastern Emperors Exarchs after the recovery of the West The Fourth BOOK THE Application of the Characters OF THE BEAST In the REVELATIONS CHAP. I. The force of the Applications of the Characters of the Rev. XIII Beast to confirm the first date of his Reign A Caution to those who have taken up with a former Hypothesis The uncouth Composition of the Beast of the Parts of a Lyon of a Leopard and of a Bear applied to an absolute exactness The Rising of the Beast out of the Sea The Continuance of his Reign for 42 Months AFTER the more close and demonstrative way of proof that has been made use of to determine the particular nature and first Rise of the Beast It will much confirm the knowledge that is now had of him to see how easie and natural the Application of all the other Circumstances of his History will appear to be upon this foundation And this may serve for an additional proof à posteriori as the Demonstrations of the principles of natural things by their causes are much strengthned by their perfect agreement with all the effects that we can apply them to or with all that experience does teach us of them But yet it must always be remembred That though the Application of an Instance or two should seem to be something harsh or forced That no man ought for that to question the former Conclusions unless upon a new examination he can find them less necessary than they did at first appear No man ought to doubt of a plain and manifest truth because he sees it to be seemingly inconsistent with some other Conclusions that are deduced from it which are not so plain and necessary I know not of any such harshness in any of the Applications that I am now going to make but rather think them so well agreeing with the Characters of the Text that they are enough to surprize one into an admiration of the Congruity of them But I interpose this as a convenient Caution to those who may find a convincing evidence in the proof of the maint Point to which the Applications are fixed but by reason of some prejudices and long use of a former Hypothesis may not think some of the Applications so well fitted to the Prophecy as they will imagine their own to be For this will be apt to make them judge many things which to all others would appear very tolerable at least to be harsh and uncouth to them To begin then with the figure and composition of the Beast It is said to be in the several parts of it like a Lyon a Leopard Rev. 13. 2. and a Bear which do manifestly refer to its being the Fourth Beast in the 7th Chapter of Daniel which is there represented immediately after the account of the Three Kingdoms shown by v. 7 23. those Three Beasts and is said to have devoured them And those Three Beasts are agreed to be the Babylonian Persian and Book the IId Graecian Monarchies The