I Have in the Foregoing Discourses Adjusted these Visions of Daniel, and his whole Prophecy to the Time of Ezekiels Prophecy, and particularly to that Cardinal Vision c. 40. &c. of the Glorious Temple and City, and therein to the last Joynt of the Line of Time before it, viz. the 390 days, at the end of which, as I have shewn; Ezekiel had that so great Vision, giving a visi­onal Cessation to his Bearing the Iniquity of the House of Israel.

I have adjusted also the first of these visions to Nebuchadnezzar's Supreme Monarchy by his Conquest of Egypt, viz. to the Second year of it, and the twenty seventh of Jehoiachins Captivity, and the Thirty fifth of Nebuchadnezzers general Reign.

Now in all these parti [...]ulars, these Two visions have deep Interest, as I have shown; I now address my self onely to this point, to prove that these Two visions are a Real, and Sub­stantial Calendar of Time to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, when the Sanctuary shall be Cleans'd; according to that Great Note of Daniel's Third vision, at the End of the 2300 Evenings and Mornings, and most Agreeing with Ezekiels Prophacy, when also according to that Prophecy, the Everlasting Throne shall beEzek. 47. 7, &c. set up.

These Two, then and indeed the Third vision of Daniel give the Time, how Long; That great vision of Ezekiel shall be vision onely, and put nothing into Act, and Effect: The Third vision which is Exactly numeral, I have already publish'd the probation of, as Reaching that End.

Without any further preface therfore, I lay down these fol­lowing Arguments to prove, that these Two visions are such a Substantial real Calendar, and contain also a short Hierogly­phical numeral Calendar; of Time, Times, and Half a Time, that Falls into all the Variety and yet Complication of the Characters of Time, in the great Prophecy of the New-Testa­ment, the Revelation, which together with the real Substantial Characters of these visions, make the Time demonstratively certain, that the succession of Christs Ringdom shall be 1697.

Argu. 1 The first Argument I shall Level to this point, shall be; That These Two Dreams, or visions are made so Re­markable by God, that They are worthy to be such a Calen­dar of Time, as I affirm of Them; Now the first vision as laying the Foundation, is fuller of outward pomp, and more prepar'd for publick, and universal notice; But the second is more Inward to the Glory, and Kingdom of Christ, as a se­cond, and more perfecting Hand drawn upon the First.

The First visionary Dream was granted to Nebuchadnezzar, in whom an Ʋniversal Monarchy then Resided; which made him a fit Head of that Image, and of that Time also to be con­tinued all along in a Course, descending from the Head to the several parts, even to the Feet and Toes, and then and there to be Broken in pieces, and to be succeeded by the Kingdom of Christ.

And as in preparation to this very purpose, the Greatness of this Monarch is so often Amplyfied in the Prophets; He is several Times Call'd by God, Nebuchadnezzar, My Servant; as the Great, not onely Substitute of Divine power, but as the [Page 3] proto Type of it, as it shall appear in Christ. God gave Him All Nations to serve Him, even the Beasts of the Field and the Fowls of the Heaven; Jeremiah was Commanded to send Yokes to all Na­tions, as a Symbol of serving Him, and submitting to his Yoke; Ezekiel calls Him King of Kings, a style Prophetick of Christs supreme Title; and the Mighty one of the Heathen; Daniel repre­sents him by the great Tree, whose shaddow cover'd and protected the very Fowls of Heaven and Beasts of the Earth; and All Flesh was Replenish'd with its Fruit. His Greatness reach'd to Hea­ven, and his Dominion to the End of the World.

This made Him the Head of Gold, the Beginning of the Ʋni­versal Monarchy, that was to succeed in the Persian, Grecian, and Roman States; and to Foreshow, what a Kingdom the King­dom of Christ was to be in its Universal Extent; For whose sake such a Calendar of Monarchies was given; To fore-tell which the Jews and Gentiles stood, as one Body under the Shade of the great Tree, Nebuchadnezzar.

And that this Dream of the Image might be the more Nota­ble, and Remarkable; There was a Concurrence of all things, that might make it so: First, in regard of the Ʋniversal Monar­chy of the Prince, that had the Dream, whereby every Circum­stance of the whole matter had an easie and almost a necessary passage through the most known parts of the World.

It being given to the Prince himself, it must needs be the more Notorious, and the more Certain; and to a prince not worshipping the True God; It must be the more undeniable, and free from the Suspition of a pious Fraud; The manner of giving the Dream was by the ordination of Providence such, as to cause the greatest Agony, and Perplexity to his Thoughts; For his Imagination was deeply Imprinted, that a very Stu­pendious Dream had found a place in it; And what yet it was, was gone from Him, which contributed exceedingly to the Notoriety of the Thing. For first all the Magicians, Astrolo­gers, and Wise men of Babylon were summon'd upon the Oc­casion.

When they came, there was nothing offer'd them, but a rude Apprehension of such a Dream; whereas if the Dream it self had been told them; They might have fastend some satis­factory, however false Interpretation to it, and so the thing have dyed? When they could offer no Resolution in so diffi­cult a Case, there was to make the matter more Notable, a [Page 4] decree to put them to death; After all the King's perplexity, and even Fury, God gave him such a Resolution by Daniel, as sav'd so many Lives, which fix'd the thing yet deeper in all Mens Thoughts, and gave Assurance, that the King was fully satisfi'd within Himself; That the Dream reveal'd to him by Daniel was the same, that had Graven it self so deeply on his mind in his sleep.

And it was therefore ordered to be a Dream, because accord­ing to the opinion of those Nations, and also in the thing it self, a Dream so exactly Fram'd, under so great sense, was least under the power of the understanding, and therefore Di­vine, and Immediately from God.

Now that all these great Preparations, and solemn Circum­stances should be thus ordered, and disposed by God, without some High designation of God for the Glory of his own King­dom, and some very Admirable Prophecy, and Course of Time lay'd out to it, I appeal to any person, that shall duely weigh, and consider it, whether it be so much, as probable.

On the other side, whether if there shall be other very weighty Reasons, that such a Course of Time to the divine Kingdom is design'd; This great Ceremony so immediately order'd by providence, does not exceedingly concert with it, and add to the Reasons otherwise drawn? Seeing else, All this Dvine state was to adorn a Heathen Prince's Dream concerning Heathen Potentacies, and no change upon the Heathen world for the better, nor any Accruement to the divine Kingdom here­by; but onely those Temporary, short Acknowledgments, that dyed upon the Breath, and Lips of that Pagan Prince that made them, while neither Himself, nor his Kingdom were Converted to the True God.

Argu. 2 Although there was no End of Glory to the Divine Kingdom, worthy the Magnificence of the Manifestation to the Babylonish Prince in this Dream, short of the Divine Kingdom it self; Yet taking the Divine Kingdom at the End, there is a very great and Glorious Correspondence betwixt this Manifestation, and the Divine Kingdom.

For at the Time, when the Kingdom of God seem'd to be lost, and swallowed up, and to be even as it were, none at all, through the deep Captivity of the onely True people of God, then in the World, under this Babylonian King; Yet to shew the surmount of the Divine Kingdom in its vertue, and efficacies, [Page 5] there is by the true, and Supreme Monarch of the World, a Dream so Rivetted into all the Imaginative faculties of this so great visible Monarch, his Substitute and Servant, that could not be, by all the Pleasures, and business of a Court, forc'd from thence; and which yet could not be so much as call'd in­to Knowledg, what it was, nor Expounded but by a parti­cular Minister of the Divine Kingdom, the Prophet Daniel; All the Fatigues of the Astrologers, Magicians, and Wise-men, the Seers of that great Prince being to no purpose in their Divi­nation.

And this Dream retreived out of the dark of a Troubled, but unknowing Imagination, where it was written, as in Mar­ble, in so indelible, and yet secret Characters prov'd to be, and was Acknowledg'd in the Inlightned understanding, and not Incertain Imagination of this Prince, to be a Prophecy of the uneasie Rest of his own Monarchic Power, that was conti­nually Over Turn'd, Over Turn'd, Over Turn'd Babylo­nian. Persian. Grecian., till He whose Right it is, should come, and take it out of the last Rest of itRoman., Even the Son of God Himself.

All which so wrought upon this otherwise Haughty Poten­tate, that He made this Confession to Daniel; Your God is the God of Gods, and Lord of Kings, and a Revealer of Secrets; And as a further Acknowledgment, He exalts Daniel, as in a Repre­sentation of Gods Supremacy over the World, to be over the Province of Babylon, and Chief of all the Governouors, and over all the Wise men of the whole Dominion. A great Prophecy of the Subjection of Babylon it self to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, and here the Horn of Israel that seem'd Dead, was made to Bud according to Ezekiels prophecy of this very Time, as before argued. c. 29. 17.

And further, that Miracle from Heaven so Enclosing his Servants in the Furnace with the Guards of Providence, that the Flame was a Wall of Fire to defend onely, and not to kin­dle upon them, while it Burnt up their Enemies, vindicated Gods Supreme Royalty over Nature, and caus'd that Exorbi­tant power, that durst erect such an Image for his own Glory, and command the worship of it, under a penalty so dreadful, to proclaim the reverence of the True God, under a more dreadful penalty.

And lastly, God suspended this Monarch from his Throne, and Levell'd him with the Beasts, by depriving him of his [Page 6] Reason, till he came to such a humble Publication of the Name of God, as was the nearest to True Religion, that could be, not to be determin'd to be True Religion.

And it is most observable, that as the Son of God appeared to this very first of the Four Monarchs, as it were in person, who was the Supreme Monarch truly so call'd, that his Right to the Kingdom designed Him, might be the more understood, and Testified; So Daniel, a Jew had his Skirt taken hold off, thus leading to the True God and his Kingdom; and He himself with the other his Three Companions in the Patience, and Kingdom of Jesus Christ had a promotion in that Babylonish Monarchy, Prophetical of the Kingdom first comming to the Jews, when it shall be Given under the whole Heaven to the Saints of the most High.

Thus jealous was Divine honour, not onely over it self, but careful of presenting to Universal view, and notice its great design of setting up an Ʋniversal Monarchy, and Kingdom in a visible Glory by that great Son of Man, who is also the Son of God; The Glory was not so Given to another, but that it was seen to this Gentile Ruler, as sitting on a Throne far above Him; and He on all occasions was humbled, and abased before it.

And whether these Acknowledgments of the Father, might not have an influence on Evilm [...]rodach the Son, and move Him to that kindness to Jehoiachin, and to set his Throne above any of the Kings, the word of God gives us no possitive Rule to assert; Yet probable it is, both the Father and the Son, however convinc'd of the true God, knowing Gods determination of the Seaventy years Captivity of the Jews, They minght not re­lease it, as Cyrus did. It being God's Councel, it should not be done during that Monarchy, because as in Time, so in other great Regards, it could not Agree to that Type, Babylon was to Bear, to be so honour'd.

Argu. 3d. The very Frame and Fabrick of the Dream, or Vision it self is a full Evidence of a Calendar of Time to the King­dom of Jesus Christ.

For the Image it self is a Calendar of Time, and while that sands, the Calendar cannot be out of date, for the Monarchy like the Sun, from sign to sign moves on, and slides down from the Head to the Arms, and Breast▪ then to the Belly, and Thighs, then to the Legs, and Feet; and points to time all along according to the nature of a Calendar, both by its duration and [Page 7] by its motion, and while the Feet are unbrokan, the Image stands, and remains a Calendar.

2. The Four Mettals, Gold, Silver, Brass, Iron, and a mixture of Clay, according the General Emblem of successive Ages, in this very order signifies the Flower, and top of Time, and the Head of it at first, and at last the very dregs of Time.

In which the second is said to be a Kingdom Inferior, not soDan 2. 39. much intending the strength, or Temperament of the follow­ing Persian Monarchs, in many regards exceeding the Babyloni­an, as the Inferiority, and Posteriority of Time, in regard of which the Head was of Gold, as further off from Ruin, and Desolation; to which every succession approached nearer, till the very Feet and Toes of Clay had the Fatal and Destructive stroke, wherein all fail'd and fell. So as in Litteral Bobylon, the Glory began in Gold, so in mystical Babylon the Feet and Toes of Iron and Clay shall be struck and Broken, and the whole Image shall Fall, and Great shall be the Fall of it.

3. The Monarchies themselves, into which the parts of the Image are Interpreted, Describe a long Time; since it is suf­ficiently known, such Potentacies must have Time to display Themselves in; And that if They succeed one Another, it must be a long Tract of Time, that must give them oportu­nity to Come on, and go off from the Stage of so publick Acti­on; Therefore They themselves, as Kingdomes, or Monarchiies describe long Time.

And seeing the Kingdom, that shall stand for Ever and Ever, and that shall have the dominion under the whole Heaven, is plainly plac'd at the End of these Four, and Breaks in peices the last; The Kingdom of Christ that does this, and so the whole Falling and Beaten to Powder, and passing away as the Chaff of the Summer Floor, must needs be the Scene, that must open last, and its Times be beyond all their Times.

Till therefore These Four Kingdomes have had their Time, the Kingdom of Christ comes not on, nor breaks them in pieces, and till the Time, the proper Time of the Kingdom of Christ be come, these have not had their Full Time; So this is an In­dented Character of Time, if any one, That if the last of these Kingdomes be yet continuing, It is certain, Christ's Kingdom is not yet; And if Christs Kingdom be not yet, it is certain, the last of those Kingdomes is yet continuing, and is not dash'd to powder, and all the Image with it, as it shall be by the Stone cut out [Page 8] of the Mountain, Filling the whole Earth, when his Kingdom shall come.

Argu. 4 After a most stately, and Magnificent description, or Iconism of Four mighty Monarchies, that visibly and sensibly rul'd over the World, and aw'd it; and that by force, and power broke in pieces all who did not submit; There is sub­joyn'd the presence of a Fifth Kingdom, or Monarchy, that the God of Heaven should Set up, and had never yet been set up, that should Break in pieces, and Consume all these Kingdomes, and should it self stand for ever. And the description of the Four precedent is evidently on purpose to Introduce, and set at the clearest, and fullest Light the last.

The doubt then is, what Kingdom this last should be; The Sovereignty of Supreme, and Universal providence is at all Times alike; The most High always Rules, changes Times, and Seasons, Pulls down, and Sets up; It cannot therefore be under­stood of that; For to what Account would so particular and express Iconism of that Turn, that is always the same, and al­ways alike? or why should that Kingdom of the supreme God­head administred by his Providence, that is an Everlasting King­dom and Endureth throughout All Generations, be thus Postpon'd to Four great Monarchies, that existed before them; and by, and in which they Themselves always subsist while they do subsist? This divine Providential Kingdom then it cannot be.

Let it then be suppos'd to be the Spiritual Evangelick Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, beginning at his Resurrection and Christianizing so great a part of the then Known World, and which by degrees brought Nations and Princes into Subjection to it, not onely Spiritual, but also Politick, Civil and Monarchic, from the Time of Constantine.

And that it was not the Spiritual and Evangelical Kingdom of Christ, I will contest onely on this Topick; When an Image is made up of Four Monarchies, Sensible, Visible, and that did all their work in such a Sensible, Visible manner; It is against those curious Laws of Iconism, in which the Holy Spirit is as Exquisite, as in the very order of the Creation, or in the Fabrick of Mans Body, to subjoyn a Spiritual Stone and Mountain, that should as a Stone smite the Image, and Break it in Pieces, and then it self became a great Mountain filling the Earth, and all this one­ly in an Evangelical Spiritual sense, and then Rise up into a perfect Spirituality or Heavenliness, and therein continue for Ever. [Page 9] This I assert, (and leave the assertion to every judicious Con­siderer,) to be so unlike the admirable Emblematizings, or Re­presentations of the Divine Spirit, as to be by no means endured.

For the Stone and the Mountain thus understood, take up no Room, nor give any more Resistance, or Anti-typy to the four Monarchies before, then the Hoasts of Immaterial Beings do to Bo­dies, how innumerable soever; or then the Omnipresence of Im­mensity does to the motion of material Beings throughout the whole Sphere of worldly space; or the Notions of Vertue and Justice make resistance after the manner of Armies to the In­sults of bodily Puissance: and therefore though the Kingdom of Christ had great Effects upon the World in that very spiri­ritual Sense, and by way of Consequence, upon bodily Acti­on; yet the Imagery of it were as improperly joyn'd with the Imagery of the Monarchies, as the laying Spirits in Colours would be, when the Action of Body and Matter is intended to be re­presented first; and then that Body and Matter forc'd out of its place by other however purer Matter, that should fill its Room and Space: for so it is here, the Stone, though Cut out of the Mountain without Hands, becomes a Mountain filling the Earth, and the Saints of the most High take the Dominion under the whole Heaven, which Expressions plainly shew, the State of these Monarchies is not taken away, and supplyed by a State above All Heavens, but by a State as well under the Heaven, and upon the Earth, as on high; so that the taking away all Earthly State, and a Heavenly State succeeding it, cannot be the meaning of this Vision; nor a spiritual State before that, can be the meaning; for the highest spiritual State that hath been yet in the World. viz. the Ministery of Christ, and his Apo­stles gave no disturbance to the Monarchies of the World, no [...] made any remove of them.

Argum. 5 The Heavenly State of Christs Kingdom, or in the pure and perfect Eternity being foreprized by those Expressi­ons forenam'd, from being the meaning, and importance of this Vision, we may further argue, that neither the Spiritual State of Christs Kingdom at his Resurrection, nor that Spiritual State prevailing upon the multitude of Christians, first by Conver­sion, and then upon Temporal Princes, as Constantine, and Princes, since the Empire becoming Christian under Him, can be the purport of this Vision.

For though the Kingdom of Christ did grow great in its Spi­rituality and Divine Truth, in the Ministry, Death, and Re­surrection of our Lord Jesus Christ; And though the World was in very Great, and wonderful manner converted to Chri­stianity after it, and though the Kingdom of Christ did become visibly and sensibly Great under Constantine, and did break in pieces the whole material, and secular frame of the Heathen Ro­man Monarchy, and might seem hereupon to become a Moun­tain filling the whole Earth; and indeed great notice is taken of it in the Revelation, as if the Kingdom of our God had been come, Revel. 12. Yet by comparing two things; one in this Prophecy, the other in the Apocalyps, we shall be plainly convinc'd, that neither the Spiritual Kingdom, nor his Kingdom supposed in the Christian Empire can be this Stone, Mountain, nor Kingdom, and certain Knowledge not only of History, but of the general State of the World will make it good.

1. That the Kingdom God sets up shall not be left to other People, that is, It shall not be as the other Kingdoms, bequeath'd, left by Will, or as we speak demised to other People; not with­out the Death, that is, the Ruine of the Testator, as to his Dominion, however his Life might be prolonged. This is ordain'd by him, whose Dominion is to all Generations. Thus the Babylonian demis'd to the Persian, the Persian to the Graecian, the Graecian to the Roman, the Roman shall be forced to surren­der to the People of the most High; But they shall never pass away their Dominion, over whom the Lord Jesus is Prince to any diverse People, as the Inheritor of their Power.

But now let the Kingdom be understood of the Spiritual Kingdom of Christ, or of the Empire as Christian, becoming the Kingdom of Christ, and this Character will fit neither; for the Spirituality of Christs Kingdom was thus far left to other People, that the Apostle after the Resurrection of Christ, says, That day shall not come, except there come an Apostasie First, a defection [...] Thes. c. 2. from the Kingdom of Christ, and the Man of Sin, who is a Prince most opposite to Christ, be Revealed; accordingly it is said, The Spirit speaketh expresly, some, viz. a Generation of men shall depart from the Faith, &c. How then can so much as the Spiri­tual 1 Tim. 4. 1. Kingdom of Christ be said to stand for ever and ever: And then for the Kingdom of Christ being supposed to become Great by Constantine, and other Christian Princes since Him, It cannot be made good, for besides the Inrodes, the Barbarous Nations [Page 11] made on the Empire, and the Kingdom of the Beast Rising so soon, as the same Hour, the Empire fell; Besides all this, the Mahometan Imposture and Pseudo-Religion arose against the spiri­tual part of Christs Kingdom; and its Tyranny against the appear­rance of the Kingdom of Christ, that should fill the Earth. How then did the Kingdom of Christ in this Sense break in pieces all other Kingdoms, and consume them, that It might it self fill the Earth? Or how was the Kingdom under the whole Heaven given to the Saints of the most High? Or how was his Kingdom such an Everlasting Kingdom? But when ever Christ takes the Kingdom, It must be thus universal in its spread, and Everlasting in its Duration.

From whence I conclude neither the Spiritual Evangelical Kingdom, begun at the Resurrection of Christ, nor the Christian Imperial Kingdom at Constantine is the Kingdom here foretold; but one yet to come, and though the Spiritual Kingdom then begun never indeed can be totally destroyed, nor so much as the Impe­rialness of the Name of Christ declared in Constantine shall ever be deposed; yet the Consumption of all other Dominions, and the Greatness of the Kingdom under the whole Heaven cannot so much, as be pretended to be Fulfilled, while Popery, and Ma­hometanism have such a Name in the World; nor can the Pro­phesie possibly allow any Abridgment of what was once obtain­ed by this Kingdom, which yet hath certainly fallen out to Christianity in both the Spiritual and Imperial Kingdom of Christ; from whence it is certain, It is not the Kingdom here prophesied, that hath yet been.

Nor, to speak Impartially, can It be understood by either of these Prophesies, that there should be any visible Regiment at least in the then known parts of the World, but what shall be given to the Saints of the most High, when That Kingdom shall appear, for All shall be taken from those of the four successive Monarchies, that had it before, or what ever was enjoyed by any of them within any of those Territories; seeing of Them particularly It is prophesied that their Dominion shall be taken away, and given to the Saints of the most High, and then are added more large, and comprehensive Words, taking in the whole World.

Argum. 6 If the very Frame of the Vision be such, as is most proper for the giving such a Calendar until that Great Kingdom of Christ, then we have Reason to look upon it as such a Calendar.

Let us then consider in the Image these several Things;

• 1. The whole Image made up of all its Parts.
• 2. The Distribution of the Parts, as the several Residencies of the Monarchies.
• 3. The Monarchicness it self.
• 4. The Monarchicness first United in its Residency to such and such Parts, and then its remove to other Parts.

Now in every one of these Particulars by the Wisdom of the Divine Spirit some assurance of Time in general is Given, as It runs to the Kingdom of Christ; but most particularly, the Calendar is fix'd in the Duration of the Monarchic Residence in each part; then in the Remove of the Monarchicness from one part to another; as shall be seen by this following Reflection on each.

The whole Image is made up of Four Monarchies, which in Allusion to the Humane Body, make the upper and lower parts of such a Body; the higher Parts the Precedent, and first Ages of Time, at and after the Vision given; and so furthest from the End, or Kingdom of Christ; the lower parts the af­ter Ages nearer, and nearer to the End, or Kingdom of Christ. The whole Image therefore hath a fitness to describe Time by its Higher, and Lower parts; and further, It self standing, and having its several parts subsistent or in Being, is thus far a Calendar, that we know thereby; The Time of the Image is yet, and that therefore the Kingdom of Christ is not yet Come, even as we know by the Kingdom of Christ not yet Appearing; The Image is yet standing.

Thus we see, the whole Image, and the distribution of its Parts is prepared, as the Dial-plate of a Clock, or Watch; or as the Months in the year, giving together the Circle of the Suns motion.

But then the Monarchicness is as the Sun moving from Sign to Sign, or from Month to Month, or as the Hand on the Dial-plate from Hour to Hour; so moves that Monarchicness from the higher to the lower parts, and thereby defines Time; For the Higher the parts in which the Monarchy resides, the further off from the Kingdom of Christ; the lower it subsides, the nearer to the Kingdom of Christ; If then we can find the Monarchicness in any parts of this Image yet Resiant or Resting, we know in general the Kingdom of Christ hath not yet appear­ed; but if we find it in not only the Legs, but in the Feet and Toes, we know, as the Apostle says, It is the last Hour, but it is not [Page 13] yet out. Let us then consider these Four Kingdomes, or Monarchies, as closely united, as they make this Calendar of Time, as the Hu­mane Body is; however the parts, as several Kingdomes con­test one with another, where the Monarchicness shall Reside; while then the Feet support the whole, the whole stands; and as the Head of Gold, the Arms and Breast of Silver, and Thighs of Brass, give Lustre to the Iron Legs, and Feet part of Iron, and part of Clay; So the Feet of part Iron, part Clay, at the same Time support the more excellent Mettals, and show their danger of being Beaten together, when ever those partly Brittle Feet fail, and the Image falls thereupon; Till then they Remain, as in the Type united, as Bodily parts, however the Monarchicness, as a Spirit Flitts and shifts in its efficacy of Power, and Action from one to another; viz. from the Higher to Lower, on which ac­count in the following Vision, it is said, the last or fourth Beast in the Little Horn, and his Body is given to the devouring Flames; But the other Beasts had onely their Dominion taken from them, but their Lives were Prolonged; That then, which principal­ly gives us the Time of the Calendar is the Motion of the Mo­narchic Spirit from part to part.

Now that Monarchic Spirit, which is specific to all these Mo­narchies is Idolatrous, Salvage, Cruel, oppos'd to the Kingdom of God, and of Jesus Christ; So long then as such a Spirit Ani­mates, and Informs any part of this Image, so long the Calendar is in date. And if we can find where this Spirit is now in its Monarchic, Energetic force, we may know whereabout, we are in this Calendar; For seeing it is most undeniable, the Head of Gold was the First Kingdom, and the Kingdom arising after, and Inferior in Time was the Second Kingdom, That which next followed after was a Third Kingdom, that was of Brass, and then a Fourth of Iron, first as in the Legs, and then part of Iron, part of Clay, as in the Feet and Toes of the last state; and that each of these are called Kingdomes and not single Kings, and one after another, and that God hereby made known to Nebuchadnezzar, what should be hereafter; Seeing All these things are undeniably thus; It is also undeniable, these Mo­narchies are a Calendar of Time: And lastly, seeing the Kingdom that stands for Ever, and Ever, so particularly smites the Image in the Feet, and Toes of Iron, and Clay, and that the Iron, and the Clay and the Brass and the Silver, and the Gold were Bro­ken in pieces together; and that in the days of the Kings, Symboll'd [Page 14] by the Toes, the God of Heaven would Set up a Kingdom, and lastly, that the Stone cut out of the Mountain without Hands, shall Break in Pieces the Iron, the Brass, and the Clay, (which is set in the middle, as in the point where all were Broken) and the Silver, and the Gold; It is most evident, This Image of Gold, Silver, Brass, Iron, and Clay, is a Calendar of Time till the Ever­lasting Throne, which must be the same with the Throne in Ezekiel, and that the Toes particularly, as of Clay are the very Last part or End of the Calendar before that Throne, or Kingdom.

Argum. 7 The Consideration of the following Vision ofCh [...]p. 7. the Four Beasts given by God to Daniel, is a further Assurance of the Calendar to the Kingdom of Christ, drawn in these two Visions: For therein God hath doubled the thing for the certain­ty of it; as in Pharohs Dream of old, Interpreted by Joseph, and there is no Reason to doubt, both Visions Center in the same design to lead by the same Four Kingdomes to the Kingdom of Christ, and at the same Time, viz. at the End of the Four Monarchies: There is no Reason, I say, to doubt, although the Materials, or Symbols of the Visions differ so much, as one to be taken from the several parts of the Body of a Man, the other from Salvage Beasts. For so the similitudes in Pharohs dream much differ'd; one taken from seaven Ears of Corn, the other from seaven Kine. But as then, so now, The great Inten­tion was to Ascertain the Event by Ingemination, For the Four Kingdomes in both Visions so evidently plain, and the Ever­lasting Kingdom at the End, are unquestionable Assurances, that both Intend the same thing, viz. a Substantial Calendar of Four Monarchies to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

But yet this latter Vision differs from the Former in Two regards.

1. The former was originally given to Nebuchadnezzar, a Heathen Prince, and Expounded by Daniel; This is first gi­ven to Daniel, and upon after Visional search more fully ex­plain'd by God to him; and so there is a more inward discove­ry of things relating to the Kingdom and Church of God, then was vouchsaf'd to an Alien to the Common-Wealth of Israel, al­though That was admirably Great, and greatly for the Glory of the supreme Being and Governor of the World; and a lasting Monument of it to after Ages, and also an Illustrious Testimony of the Kingdom of Christ, that should at the last break [Page 15] in pieces his own and the three succeding Monarchies, which were, as hath been shewn, a Table of Time to that Kingdom, and therewith all other Monarchies and Kingdoms.

But yet this was but in the gross; To Daniel an eminent Mi­nister of the Divine Kingdom, there is a more explicit Revelation of Antichrist, the great Enemy, and opposite of that Kingdom, who was the Clay of the Image, and in whom the whole should be broken; and this with the incident particulars, of the Ty­ranny, Antichrist should exercise over the Saints; of the Son of Man Receiving the Kingdom from God sitting in Judgment on Antichrist; and then the Saints possessing the Kingdom under Christ, are great Amplifications of the former Vision, and more agreeable to Daniel, a Domestick of the Divine Kingdom, and so most fit to lead to that Kingdom.

2. The former Vision was in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar, when the Babylonian Monarchy had gain'd the ascendent over all the Kingdoms, so as to be an Ʋniversal Monarchy. The lat­ter Vision was in the West, and Evening of that Monarchy, viz. in the first year of Belshazzars short Reign, who was the last Babylonish Monarch, and to whom the Scripture records only three years. In the first Vision thereof the Types were more condecent to a Prince so aggrandiz'd by God, viz. A great Image of excellent Brightness, and terrible Form; a Head of Gold; but in the latter Vision, these four Monarchies are represented by Beasts, seated in the midst of Violence, Blood, and Spoil; and chiefly beastly and bruitish Idolatry, and Persecution; especially the first and last of these Monarchies were so. And as to the second, although the great Services of some of the Persian Princes to the Church of God might seem to have deserved a fairer Character: and so the acknowledgment, the Great Alex­ander is reported to have made to the True God in the High Priest; yet in regard of the Idolatry, and Ravage upon the World, and as making up one Image of Universal Monarchy oppos'd to the Kingdom of Christ, and lastly in regard of the Persecution of some of the Princes of both those Monarchies against the Church of God, of which the Persan Princes with­standing Christ, Dan. 10. 13. Haman in Esther, and Antiochus of the Graecian Monarchy so great a Type of Antichrist desolating the Sanctuary, and taking away the daily, are Instances, They are all under the same Name of Infamy.

Yet in the Infinite Mercy of God to any degree of Peniten­cy, Nebuchadnezzar's acknowledgment of God after his so great Humiliation seems remembred with Honor in that Symbol; After the plucking of the Wings on the Lyons back, shewing at once both the speed, and the shortness of the Babylonish first Monarchy; It was lifted up from the Earth, and made as a man to stand on its Feet, and a mans Heart was given to it: In all other, These Monarchies together, as alienated from the Worship, and Religion of the True God, and as Predecessors of Anti­christ are described from what is worst; Bestialness and Fe­rity; and therefore the whole of their Dominion to be taken away, and consum'd by the Kingdom of Christ.

Now in that this Vision thus resumes the Time, that was past, from the first Vision, It argues, The two Visions so evidently of the same Importance, One at the Beginning, the other at the End of the Babylonian Monarchy are a substantial Calendar of Time, to begin as from the Vision of Ezekiel, and to determine at the Everlasting Throne that Ezekiel had foretold, as they most evidently both do; and so define the Time betwixt that Visi­on, and that Throne, which is the point we are in pursuit of.

It is true, when the Sacred Chronology comes to a numeral Line, or a Line of Time by Number, the Babylonian Monarchy is then left out, as it must needs be; because else the numeral Line beginning after it could not be exact, and because it is so per­fect in the Account of the 2300 Even. Morn. that there needed no service from the substantial Calendar, which is thenceforth to be guided by it.

Argum. 8 I come now to the last and undeniable Argument, that These Visions are a Calendar of Time to the great King­dom of Christ. And that is, if it can be made out by Holy Scripture in Agreement with Universal History; That from the very Time of these Visions given, Things have been in Motion, and are still in the Motion, They should be, ac­cording to this Calendar to the Kingdom of Christ; Then it will be impossible to deny, that These Visions are indeed a Calendar of Time to that Kingdom. But this is to be made out from Scripture, and therefore They must be a Calendar; For first the Scripture is express, that according to this Calendar, the Babylonian Kingdom gave way to the Medes and Persians, ac­cording to that Hand-writing, that so much Terrified Belshazzar, of which Daniel was the Interpreter, Thy Kingdom is divided [Page 17] and given to the Medes and Persians; viz. to the Breast and Two Arms of the Medes, and Persians, but so that the Persian Domi­nion Rose above the Medes; and that one Horn in Cyrus started up so much higher, than the other, that it had the sole Domi­nion. So that though Darius the Mede, took the Kingdom or the Ʋniversal Monarchy from Babylon first; Yet we read of Cyrus King of Persia his first year Following immediately; For in answer to Daniel's prayer at the very End of the Se­venty years, the Commandment immediately came forth, which was by Cyrus, making in his first year a decree for the Release of the Captivity, and therefore his First year must be at the End of Darius his first year; So we read of his Third year, and of the years of the following Kings of Persia, by which we know the Persian Kingdom was the Second Kingdom.

The passing off of the Persian Monarchs is no less express; For the Grecian He Goat Brake the Two horns of the Persian Ram, who Took the Kingdom from Babylon, and Stamped uponDan. 8. 7. Him; And to shew the Ʋniversal Monarchy then pass'd, the King of Grecia is said to do according to his Will, an expression of thec. 11. 3. Ʋniversal Monarchy in this Prophecy.

Alexander the Great is by all allowed to be that Grecian King, figur'd by the Leopard, and He Goat, and is expresly nam'd King of Grecia.

After Alexander, There was a continual mutation, and change of that Monarchy out of one Hand into another; that it was as into the four Winds in regard of the motion, and Variation, till it after settled in the four Kingdoms, and Conspicuously in Two; the Lagidae of Egypt, and the Seleucidae of Greco-Syria, as in the Two Thighs of the Image, so Remarkable a Character of Time as to be known by the Dhil-Karnain or Two Hornes, as it were from this Prophecy of Daniel, and these, Prophecy especially insists upon in the Eleaventh Chapter, as the King of the South, and of the North, as shall be after explain'd.

And in this succession, the Calendar is very clear, and not to be doubted, as hath been already, and shall be further made good in these Three great Positions, wherein the further pro­gress of the Calendar down to our very Time, shall be even de­monstrated.

Posit. 1. That the Time delineated by this Calendar cannot be expir'd.

Posit. 2. That the Calendar, and its Time being not expir'd, it can be continued onely in the Roman Monarchy.

Posit. 3. That the Calendar having its subsistence in the Ro­man Monarchy, there is, as may justly be expected, such an Idea of it, partly Historical but especially Prophetical in the New Testament, agreeing with undoubted History, as shall exactly correspond this Prophecy of Daniel, whereby we may know whereabouts we are in this Calendar, with an answer to Objections.

Posit. 1 This Calendar is to expire in the Stone cut out of the Mountains without Hands, that is, by a High, divine, superna­tural power; smiting the Image, and Becomming a Mountain, that shall Fill the whole Earth. And in the days or Their dayes of those Kings (to make the date most exact) viz. of the Feet, and Toes, part of Iron, and part of Clay; The God of Heaven shall set up a Kingdom, that shall not End, not be left to other people, but it shall Break in pieces, and Consume all these Kingdoms, and They shall be Broken in pieces and become, as the chaff in the Summer Threshing Floors, and the Wind shall carry them away, so that their places shall be no more found.

And according to the Second Vision, the Calendar must expire in the Giving the Body of the Little Horn (Broken in the follow­ing Vision without Hand that is, by an immediate divine pow­er, to the consuming Flame) and giving a Dominion, Glory, and Kingdom to the Son of Man, that All People, Nations, and Langua­ges, should serve Him; The Kingdom, and Dominion, and Great­ness of the Kingdom, viz. particularly of that Ʋniversal Monarchy, that had been according to the Image shifted from part to part; and more then that, the whole Dominion or the Dominion under the whole Heaven shall be given to the People of the Saints of the most High.

Now I would appeal to all thinking, and considering Men, who do not Implicitly yield up their faith to the Stream of Interpreters, whether These things have yet been plainly, visibly, and notoriously Fulfill'd; as is justly to be expected in Prophecies already Incarnate, and compleated in their Events; And especially in an Event so great above all other Events; or whether it can be suppos'd; such Firm, Solid, natural Ex­pressions of a Kingdom can be Attennuated, and Evaporated in­to Metaphor, and Similitude; Seeing it is much to be believ'd, that therefore Metaphor and Similitude is so often us'd; because [Page 19] All Things that are written, shall be at last Fulfill'd in so High, Perfect, Substantial, massy Event, and uncontradictable Rea­lity.

If then these Things are in this manner to come to pass, and are not yet come to pass; we know, this Calendar cannot be as yet expir'd, or out dated.

Posit. 2 If the Calendar then be not expir'd, it can be conti­nued onely in the Roman Monarchy; For there is nothing more evident, then that it must be continued in one of those Four Monarchies, that are given in the Image, and in the Vision of the Beasts; and seeing the Babylonian, the Persian and Grecian, whether in Alexander, or in the Divisions, into which his King­dom Fell, have had their succession, one after another, and that none of them continue at this day in such a succession, The Calendar must subsist in a Monarchy of such a Succession, as is given in those Visions, and a Monarchy that survives in that Succession at this very day.

It must be a Monarchy of such a Succession, because the Two Visions do plainly import, and declare such a Succession, as closely connected, and conjoyn'd, as the members of a Hu­mane Body from Head to Foot, and as the parts of Time from part to part are conveyed in each Month and Year; As therefore the member of any other Body, the Legs, or Foot of a Foreign Body, cannot supply the place of such a member in this, or that Body that it is not of, no more can any other Monarchy or Kingdom supply the place of any of these Monar­chies, that are not Joyn'd in the just order, and scituation of each Monarchy, with respect one to another in this Image; or any more, then a Month, or a day taken from another Year, or Month, can support the Course of this Year, or Month.

And it must be a Monarchy, that survives at this day, or else it cannot be a Monarchy of the Image; For such a Monarchy must whatever it be, sustain the Course of Time to the King­dom of Christ as before described; which no Monarchy can do, that is not even now extant, because the Kingdom of Christ hath not yet appeared.

Now no Monarchy can answer Prophecy in these Two points, but onely the Roman Monarchy; For all History agrees, no Mo­narchy or Kingdom succeeded Alexanders proper and personal Kingdom describ'd in this Prophecy, but the Grecian division of that his Kingdom, which besides it was Grecian still, and there­fore [Page 20] cannot be said to succeed the Grecian Monarchy; besides this, Is does not remain in that succession at this day, that it ought to do, to support the Course of Time as given in this Prophecy; That Grecian division therefore must be reputed one Third Mo­narchy with Alexanders, All Grecian, though of another Model from Alexanders; Yet such as Prophecy gave it, as of one in Alexander, and as divided into Four after Him, and then more Remarkably into Two; If that be so, then no other Monarchy, but what succeeded that Grecian Monarchy as so divided, especi­ally into the King of the North, call'd the Greco Syrian, or Seleu­cidean, and the King of the South, the Egyptian, or Lagidean Kingdom, can be the Monarchy we design; Because, as hath been said, it must be in immediate succession to the Foregoing Monarchies; so that any supposable Grecian Monarchy, or King­dom under the Turk at this day, that hath come in, out of the orderly course of Succession, and not of such a Figure, as this Prophecy hath given it, can be the Monarchy, we are in pursuit of, although such Monarchy may continue, till the Kingdom of Christ shall succeed.

But now how exactly does the Roman Monarchy Answet in the point of Succession; For first, the very Prophecy of Daniel tells us, that the Kingdom of Alexander should be divided to the four Winds, and then that it should be pull'd up for others, besides Those; It was divided for the Four, and yet remain'd the same;Dan. 8. 8. Dan. 11. 4. But it was to be pull▪d up for others, so as to cease to be a Mo­narchy; Now those others besides must be they, whoever they were, who devour'd, and stamp'd on the Residue with Legs of Iron, Dan. 2. 40. as in the Image, with Feet of Iron as by the fourth Beast, in the vision of the Beasts, and they must be Romans. Dan. 7. 19.

For it is very well known, that the Grecian Partite Monarchy came near to the days of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Flesh, and yet not so near, as to make any fair Interpretation of so much, as the God of Heaven setting up the Spiritual Kingdom of the Gospel in the days of those Kings, pourtrayed in the Image, if that divided Grecian Kingdom had been the Fourth, and Last; and yet again so near, that it is most known in all History, that no other Monarchy could come between that Grecian Monarchy, and the Birth of Christ, but the Roman Monarchy onely, so that if the Kingdom of the Stone out of the Mountain, had been onely a Spi­ritual Kingdom; Yet still the Roman Monarchy must be the fourth. This seems order'd as on purpose to divert Interpreters from [Page 21] the divided Grecian Kingdom as the fourth Monarchy, and neces­sarily to shape them on the Romans; And it is most evident, not onely in all History, that the Roman Monarchy was then come to its Zenith in the Reign of Augustus, but especially in the sacred Histories of the Gospel, for there came out a Decree from Caesar Augustus, at that very TimeLuk. [...]. that our Lord was Born. And that it particularly cover'd the Jewish Nation the onely People of God at that Time, to which Prophecy had so singular an Eye; And the decree from Augustus was, to Tax or describe the whole Oecumen, or Habitable World as by the poll; Was not this a Fourth Ʋniversal Monarchy from the Babylonian, the Per­sian, the Grecian, and was it not Roman &c?

But further to make it more known, at the death and Crucifixion of our Lord, The Sentence was given by Pilate the Roman Substitute, or Governour, and the Jews declared on the occasion; They had no power to put any one to death. So that the Roman Ʋniversal Monarchy at that Time, is become an Ar­ticle of Faith, Crucified under Pontius Pilate, declares the Roman fourth Monarchy.

And now that the Evangelical Kingdom by the Birth, Ministry, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ was set up by the God of Heaven, that we might not think, This Spiritual Kingdom was the Fulfilling of Prophecy; There was no Breaking of this fourth Kingdom by it, nor of any other Kingdom, as is Foretold in these Visions; But Christ, altho' he own'd himself King of the Jews, yetJoh. 18. 36. declar'd his Kingdom not of this World, nor from hence; That is, not from below, but to come down in the Jerusalem from above; He did not therefore disannul Caesar's Kingdom, nay He Establish'd it by that Command, Render unto Caesar &c. as it were in care, that Prophecy might be Fulfill'd concerning that fourth Monarchy; Agreeably after the Ascension of Christ, Paul, as directed byActs 25. 1 [...] God, made that Famous Appeal to Caesar, and all the Apostles taught subjection to the Roman Powers. This shews, a spiritual Kingdom was not the design of Prophecy, but an Imperial; For when Constantine, as an Ʋniversal Emperour declared for Christ; It was then said, with high Doxologies, the Kingdom of our GodRev. 12. 10 is come, as an Emblem of that Kingdom yet to come.

Thus far I have then undeniably, as I must be Bold to say, Reason'd; That seeing the Kingdom of Christ is not yet come, some of these four Monarchies must be in Being; For they are a Calendar to it; that it can be onely the fourth Monarchy, that [Page 22] is thus in Being; For the Babylonion, the Persian, the Grecian, which were the three first even by name in Daniels prophecy, are past and gone off, as in the successive Dominion of Each; The Roman then succeeding the Grecian and being so Great a Monar­chy after it, as hath appeared, must be the Fourth. And even because, it is the Fourth, it must be in Being, because the King­dom of Christ is not yet come; And it must therefore continue in Being, till that Kingdom comes.

On the other side, we may assuredly Argue, that as the Roman Monarchy was in Being, as an Ʋniversal Monarchy since the days of Christ, so by the general knowledge we have of the World; It continues in Being in the Roman Papacy, and the Kings yet devoted to it: It is therefore certain, the King­dom of Christ is not yet come, as it is to come according to this Prophecy. And thus much then we are sure of before hand, that we cannot stir off from this very Roman Monarchy, till we come to the Kingdom of Christ; For if it were ever a fourth Monarchy, there is no Monarchy after, nor beside it, according to this sure word of Prophecy, that can be a Remaining Calendar to us to that Kingdom; Because whatever Monarchy was the fourth Monarchy, must continue to the Kingdom of Christ, we must therefore run upon it, as upon an Ecliptick Line given us, from which there must be no variation.

And if we can hold the Footing we have hitherto found in the History of the New Testament by the Prophecy succeding it, and to which the History leads us, and in Agreement with Ʋniversal History, we shall certainly come down with the Ca­lendar we are upon, to our own Times, and know how near we are to the End of it, and so to the succession of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

Posit. 3 I come therefore to the third Position, There is such an Idea of the Roman Monarchy in the Prophecy of the New Testament, as will most exactly Correspond the Prophecy of Daniel, in concert with most Agreed, and Indisputed History, and shew us, whereabouts we are in this Calendar, and how near to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

But before I come to compare this Idea with the Prophecy, and most known Roman History, and thereby to Educe the Ca­lendar, as it goes on, I must observe by way of premisal these Three Things.

[Page 23] 1. That the Prophecy of Daniel does not name the fourth Monar­chy, nor tell us what Monarchy, or what National Cognomination it hath, as it hath in some part of Daniels Prophecy (as hath already appear'd) told us, that the Head of Gold or first Kingdom was the Babylonion, that the Babylonian Kingdom was divided to the Medes and Persians, the Kingdom therefore necessarily after it; And the He Goat of Greece was moved with choler against the Ram of Persia, and stamp'd upon Him, that is subdued Him, and therefore that must be the Third Kingdom of Brass.

All this notwithstanding, it never distinguishes the Fourth Kingdom by its name; Herein the Apocalyptic Proyhecy agrees; It very plainly, as we shall see, describes a Monarchy or Kingdom, yet it never expresses to us what Kingdom it was; As Daniel tells us, the fourth Kingdom in the Image is in the Legs of Iron, and Feet, and Toes part of Iron, part of Clay; and in the Visions of the Beasts, the fourth Beast with its Feet of Iron, its Horns and its little Horn was the fourth Kingdom upon Earth, and yet never says, in any part of his Prophecy, what Kingdom it was; even so the Revelation describes a Dragon, giving His Throne, Power, and Great Authority to a Beast, to whom Power was given over all Kin­dred, People, Tongues, and Nations, and therefore must have a Great Kingdom, yet it never declares, of what Nation or People, this Kingdom should take its name.

Nevertheless, if it be so evident, as it hath been, that no Kingdom came between the Grecian and the Romans, no not so much, as any Spiritual, or Evangelical Kingdom of Christ, as hath evidently appear'd by express Scripture History; It is even Scrip­ture Demonstration, the Roman Monarchy was the fourth Monarchy, and therefore must be the continuing Monarchy, until it, and all the rest shall be Broken by the Kingdom of Christ.

There must be therefore some great Reason, and which Prophecy would have us take notice of, why it Throws so Re­solvedly such a veil of Secresie over this Monarchy; And we may plainly find, it is for the sake of the last part of this Mo­narchy, which is in a mystery, an Apostasie comming out of a mystery of Iniquity, a City in the mystery of an Apostate Adulterous Church and an Imperial Idolatrous power in the mystery of a Spiri­tual Supremacy: For the sake of which last state of this Monarchy the first is not disclosed; Because if the last were joyn'd, as Pro­phecy hath joyn'd it; The disclosing the first, would disclose the last; and that both should be joyn'd, the very Prophetick frames require.

Thus the Covering this fourth Kingdom in Daniel, and the Revelation, doing the same in the Kingdom it describes, ar­gues they are both one and the same Kingdom, and that He that would understand them, must have Wisedom, as the Prophecy admonishes to lay things together, and to com­pare them; For if this state had been openly Foretold, the very opportunity and Action of this Apostasie had been sur­priz'd. The very Concealment is therefore to the prudent considerer a discoverery and an assurance, what Kingdom it is; And the unwary, which are the multitude; And even the wise, under the Enchantment of the growing Apostasie knew little of it.

2. The frame of the Divine prophecy is herein very admira­ble, and observable, in that there is no determinate form as­sign'd to the fourth Beast, whereas the first had the Form of a Lyon, the Second of a Bear, the Third of a Leopard, the Fourth had no Form at all ascrib'd to it.

Now the Reason of this is, partly, that the Ballance of Prophecy might be held even, between the Concealment of its mind to the generality, and the possible discovery of it by the wise, and considering Reseacher of Prophecy. If there had been a form given in Daniel, and the same form given in the Revelation, it had been too open, and plain a discovery: If there had been one form given in Daniel, and another in the Revelation, it had made a confusion so great, that even the Se­rious, and prudent searcher of Prophecy could not have Broken through, except there had been such an Exposition, as is gi­ven in the change as it were of Scenes, as of the Persian Ram in Dan. 8. which was Emblem'd by a Bear, c. 7. and of the Gre­cian He Goat, c. 8. which was as a Leopard, c. 7. and such an Ex­position had been too open in this case.

The Prophecy of Daniel therefore gives no shape at all, be­cause the Prophecy in the Revelation would have a peculiar reason to give the fourth Beast, in its first state or Legs of Iron, and a Beast with Iron Teeth, the form of a Dragon, which Rea­son had not been ripe in Daniels Time, as we shall see present­ly; And it had great Reason to give the same Roman Beast in its last state, [peculiarly to shew its succession to the Three first Beasts,] first the form of a Leopard, as in the Belly and Thighs, because of its immediate succession to the Grecian Monarchy, as it was Roman; And then as by the Grecian Monarchy, it succeeded [Page 25] the Persian Monarchy, it is said to have the Feet of a Bear; Especially, as the Bears Fore-feet are its strength, and resem­ble Arms in the Body of a Man, and so agree with the Arms in the second Kingdom of the Image; and then it had the Mouth, or Head of a Lyon resembling the Head of Gold; whereby its suc­cession by the Graecian and Persian to the Babylonian is assured. And thus the Calendar of Time in these successive Monarchies is firmly established, and brought▪ down and Recapitulated, as in the last state of the Fourth Kingdom; both as in the Image, and as in the Vision of the Beasts; wherein also it is to Expire: Apply further to the Fourth Roman Kingdom in its last state the Legs of Iron, all other parts of the Image being already dispos'd, in the Dragon, giving his name [Beast] absolute, and without any Form, which the Revelation ascribes so generally, and Em­phatically to the last state of the Roman Beast in the Head of Ten Horns, as one with the whole Roman Beast, and also with the Image; and you have the Calendar of the Four successive Mo­narchies brought down to this last Roman state in an Emblem so lively and certain, that no wit of Man could have Exco­gitated; Onely the divine Spirit hath found it, which is a great Assurance of Prophecy in this matter.

3. It is yet to be Remark'd, There must needs be many considerable variations betwixt the Prophecy of Daniel, and of the Revelation; Because both Time was so much further and higher advanc'd at that Time, and also because it may well be expected, The Revelation of the New Testament, may accor­ding to the excellent Light of the Gospel throughout it, ex­cell the Revelation of the Old Testament, or the Prophecy of the Prophet Daniel; This is to be well settled in our Thoughts, that we may not be stumbled or offended, when in after parti­culars we observe the Variation.

And first there is this general variation, that the Prophecy of the New Testament, knowing, that the Three first Kingdoms were pass'd off before the days, even any of so much, as the very first of the days of the New Testament gives no Representation of them any further, then as They are Re­capitulated in the Beast; So that the whole Apocalyptick Pre­diction appertains onely to, and gives the Schemes of the state of the Roman Empire, after it had subdued all the Three first Kingdoms under it self, and become the Ʋniversal Monarchy of the World. And this it does with Relation to the Church [Page 24] [...] [Page 25] [...] [Page 26] of Jesus Christ, as its principal object and aim, which is a most remarkable Consideration, Assuring us, the Revelation is a Continuation, and further Explication of what remain'd unfulfill'd of Daniel's Prophecy, from those very first days of the New Testament, or when They began.

That we may then go on with the Prophecy of Daniel; As the Calendar we are upon, was most declaredly brought down to the Roman Monarchy at the Birth of Jesus Christ; So there are several Periods of the Calendar from that Time, wherein the Prophecy of Daniel, and of the New Testament Agree most Illustriously with History, in Relation to the Roman Empire.

Period. 1 It is most notorious notwithstanding the Birth, Death, Resurrection, Ascension of Jesus Christ, and the Apostolical preaching; The Roman Empire continued one, and continued Pa­gan in the supreme Powers, and in the Body and Bulk of the People; From hence it is evident, the Calendar was not Run out, because the Kingdom of Christ did not onely, not Fill the Earth, but did not consume other Kingdoms, as it is first to do, before it Fills the Earth; And therefore no Interpretation of Filling the Earth with the Gospel, or Spiritual Kingdom can stand Good: And further, the Calendar was not come down to the Feet and Toes of the Image, nor into the Head of the Beast, dishevelling it self into Ten Horns, as it must in its last state; But during the Pagan Empire, it remained perfectly One; and therefore was not in its last state.

Now of this Pagan Empire, Two Things are most known.

That Jesus Christ having come into the Flesh under the Roman Monarchy, Sathan the old Serpent and Dragon being aware, that that Kingdom, which shall utterly destroy his Kingdom was entred; He as a Dragon watch'd that manly Birth to destroy it, if it were possible first; He then inhabiting the Pagan Roman Empire, it is fitly Resembled to a Dragon in regard of that Spirit, that inhabited it by a most particular influence over it; And because when Christianity began to spread it self in that Empire in a multitude of Christians; It had a Jealous eye over it, and over the Empire, it might raise; Therefore by Ten so known and Famous Persecutions it endeavour'd as a Dragon to devour it, and to surprize that Supreme Monarch Jesus Christ, who should Rule the Nations with a Rod of Iron, which the Christian Church compar'd to a Travelling woman was to Bring forth; Herein the Pagan Empire is Resembled to Pharoh the Egyptian King of Old, who fearing the overgrowth of Israel into a Kingdom, as a Dra­gon [Page 27] lying in the Nile waited to devour it, by Killing the Male Children; And thus Herod the Roman Vassal, though King of the Jews, watch'd to have devour'd Jesus Christ, the Incarnate King, who shall sit on the Throne of his Father David, and of whose Kingdom, there shall be no End. Thus admirable is the Concinnity and Agreement between the Pagan Emperors of Rome, that was to be a Spiritual Egypt, and the Dragon. How plain there­fore is the Calendar of the Roman Empire in this particular to the very last of it, as Pagan; Dioclesian and the other last Hea­then Emperors being among the Persecutors of the first rank, and therefore we must needs be certain whereabout the Time of the Calendar then was. For we know this state lasted about 300 Years after the Resurrection, and in the clearness and particularity of this, the New Testament exceeds the old. Con­sider further this Imperial power with relation to the rest of the World, and it was Salvage, Dreadful, and Terrible, as Daniel styles it, and as the Revelation styles it, as a Dragon, devouring and Con­suming all other powers as with Iron Teeth, and stamping on them as with Legs of Iron, on which account the Dragon is said, as it were, to sweep down the Third part of the Stars, or other Prin­ces,Rev. 12. 4. and powers of the World with its Syrma, its Tail or Train of Power, and enlarged Empire; And in that, it is call'd the Third part of the Stars It thus sweeps down; It is agreeable, that its Succession to the Third, or Graecian Empire should be Con­noted, which it so particularly drew down; from whence the Third or Third part becomes in this Prophecy a Cypher or pri­vate Character of the Roman Empire, Whether in the West, the most proper peculiar Rome, and Roman Empire, or in the East, that affected also to be call'd Roman Empire, even as Con­stantinople, New Rome; and These Two are therefore in these Prophetick Hieroglyphics call'd Two Wings of the one Great Eagle or Roman Empire.

And that we may know the Prophetick Calendar was taken care of in this Pagan state of Roman Empire, the whole Roman Beast, that is said to be diverse from the other Beasts in regard of its many, and more Eminently Seven forms of Government, very strange to the other Three Kingdoms before it, especially in the last, the Papal Supremacy, was pictured as with Seven Heads, Heads of that City, that when St. John wrote the Reve­lation, Reign'd over the Kings of the Earth, and therefore could be no other, then Rome. And it is particularly said, Five were [Page 28] Fallen, One then was; which we know, could be no other, then the Pagan Emperors; Thus exact is the Calendar, or account of Time, till Constantine, under whom the Empire became Christian; Because all History Agrees whereabouts in Time it was.

Period. 2 The second Period of the Roman Empire, since the Resurrection, according to Prophecy, and most known in History, is the Christian Roman Empire under Constantine and his successors; And the Time is very well known in History and Agreed, whereabouts it was.

But it must be acknowledged, this Period or change of the Empire from Pagan to Christian is not at all shaddowed in Daniel's Prophecy; in either of the Two Visions of the Image, or of the Beasts, it hath no Lines, or Mentions.

And the reason is very clear, and plain; For when the Spi­rit of Prophecy was pleas'd to give a Calendar of Time by Two Visions, Both representing a Monarchic Frame, though of Four Monarchies; Yet they were but One in a Bestian enmity, and Contrariety to the great Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

A Christian Monarchy, that was given for a short space, as an Emblem, shade or Specimen, though but a dark one, of that Kingdom of Christ could have no proper place there, but must have confus'd the Frame.

But as if it were on purpose to compensate the silence of the Christian Monarchy in Daniel, and because it may seem a Dis­continuer in the Bestian Calendar of Kingdoms, and in that Frame of Four, and yet but One; and especially in the Two states of the one Roman Fourth Monarchy; The Prophecy of the New Testament is much the more careful, and Abundant, and seems as it were to make Amends for this Appearing violati­on; that whereas all the Four Monarchies are as one Bestian Monarchy, or Image, and the Fourth Monarchy, but one Beast There comes in as Ex improviso, as unforeseen a Christian Mo­narchy in the midst of that Last Fourth Monarchy, and spoils the whole Frame; and disturbs especially the Calendar as it may seem, but it will be found much otherwise.

1. For there is, as I may Reverently call it, a Prophetical scene in the New Testament Prophecy on purpose to Represent a Christi­an Empire casting out the Pagan, in the Woman the Church bring­ing forth after most painful Throws, Sufferings and Martyrdoms a Manly Child, caught up to the Throne of God, and the Dragon Cast [Page 29] down, and and a solemn Doxology upon it; Now is the Kingdom of our God come, This was a great Emblem of the Kingdom of Christ, as it is an Imperial Kingdom and not a Spiritual onely; And this is so plain, that no Interpreter doubts it of the Christi­an Roman Empire, nor of the Admirableness of the Emblem Re­presenting it.

2. There is a distinct account of the Roman Monarchy in its Seven Heads, which were crowned Heads, or Formes of Sove­raign Government, and all Bestian, or Idolatrous, full of the names of Blasphemy. And they must needs be of Rome that was carri­ed alought by them, because Rome without dispute was the City, that then Reign'd over the Kings of the Earth, as It is said Revel. 17. ult. Among these There is one King, that is plainly styl'd [...] to be a King of another sort, No Head; For there were but Seven, and the Eighth is expresly to be One of the Seven, viz. Heads; So the Seventh King could be no Head, for Five had been Heads and Fallen, and One then was, and the Eighth was of the Seven, therefore the Seventh could be no Head.

The Room, therefore of this King in the Calendar is Embo­limean, and perfectly Intercalar; And it is so plac'd, that it must be, as I may so speak in the Seventh Stall of those Kings, immediately after the Pagan, as All History knows, the Christi­an Empire was, and just before the Eighth King, or Papacy, as History also knows, the Christian was in such a sense, as Prophecy will guide us unto.

But that it might be known to make no great Infraction in the Bestian Calendar, It is said Emphatically, He must or He [...] ▪ ought in regard of his unnaturalness to the Bestian Monarchy, according to Prophecy to continue but a short Space; that is but about a hundred and fifty Years.

Can now any care be greater with Relation to the Christi­an Empire, that we may know it was; That it was by way of Interposal, as in the midst of the Roman Bestian Monarchy, and the very Time, when, and where it came so between, and the general Scantling of Time, it lasted?

3. The Apostle Paul, according to the wisdom given to Him, discoursing of these Things shews, that the Kingdom of Christ 2 Thess. 2. 1. &c. that was to have its Times, its own proper Times, could not at­tain its proper Times, even according to his own Oath, till an Apostasie according to Daniel's Prophecy, had brought forth1 Tim. 6. 15. the Man of sin, and He had had his own Times; and therefore [Page 30] the Apostle is most vehement upon Christians, not to expect that day of Christ ▪s Kingdom, till then; For he knew the Oath Dan. 12. of Christ was absolutely against it; There shall be Time, Times, Half Time first.

Therefore saith the Apostle, though Christ be come into the Flesh, though the Roman last Monarchy be now in its Course, which may quicken your Expectations, yet expect not that day of Christ, till after the Times of the Man of Sin.

And that you may not expect those Times too soon, Know that God hath Interpos'd a Curb, an Hold fast, that shall keep back the Man of sin, till his own just Times; For the mystery of Iniquity is now at work, and would bring him forth before his Time, but there is a Christian Empire, that will Hold fast its Time, and be before Him, and will cast him on his just point of Time, that his Time, Times, and Half a Time assign'd him by that Oath of Christ may so end, that the Kingdom of Christ may succeed in its proper Time immediately after the Times of the Man of sin, which had not God thus Interpos'd a Christian Empire, and the Pagan Empire had continued no longer, it would not have done according to the great Times design'd by God; Set in, and by his own Power for Christ's Kingdom.

Thus by the Apostles discourse the Calendar is not weakned, but strengthn'd, and the Christians of the Apostles Times, and of all Times, since he writ, may be led through the stages of Time since the Resurrection of Christ to the Kingdom of Christ; As if the Apostle should say, Watch the Pagan Empire, when it ends; For after that, there shall be a preternatural [...] a Successor of another kind, a Christian Emperour who keeps back the Succession of the Man of Sin, that ought to suc­ceed immediately, after the Pagan Empire according to the Course of nature; But yet it will not disorder but keep Tight the whole Calendar, the Man of Sin shall after that Christian Empire be Revealed just in his own Time; and whenever the Times of the Man of Sin shall end, expect the day, comming and appearance of Christ, for Christ shall consume him with the Approach of his com­ming, and Abolish Him with the Brightness of his own Appearance.

From the Resurrection of Christ then, the Pagan Empire lasts to the Christian Empire, the Christian Empire till the days of the Man of Sin, or Antichrist; The Times of Antichrist till the Times of Christ and of his Kingdom, an exact, and an easie Calendar, Solid, and Substantial; And seeing we all know the Pagan [Page 31] Empire is past, That Christian Empire we speak of, viz. of Con­stantine and of his successors, till done out of the way, had its Course, and ceas'd; if we can but know then, how long the Times of the Man of Sin last, we must needs know, how long it is to the Kingdom of Christ.

But it is most plain, this Holder back is a very Elegant Insi­nuation of a Christian Emperor, that stay'd the Succession of the Man of Sin after the Pagan Empire, till his own just Times, and no longer, though the Con-naturalness of Paganism, and Anti­christianism was so Great, and the Mistery of Iniquity then at work to attemper one to the other, that he might very well have come just after Paganism, and Paganism have merg'd into it; but God had decreed a Christian Empire between, a Specimen of the Kingdom of Christ, (even as in Nebuchadnezzars first Babyloni­an Kingdom there were those sudden Appearances of the Di­vine Kingdom in his Acknowledgments of God) which Anti­christ supplanting, it made him the more exceedingly, and [...] Antichrist.

4. As a further Care of Prophecy concerning the Calendar of Time, and the Interposal of the Christian Empire, it gives us this plain Account of the State of the Roman Bestian Empire, during that Christian Empire, viz. That by Reason of the Christian Empire, that was not Bestian, nor any of those Heads. The Roman Beast lay wounded; and it is said, the Wound was a Wound unto Death, and a Wound with a Sword, and a Wound in one of the Heads; and that we may take further notice of the Wound, It is said, His deadly Wound was healed, and he did Live. Rev. c. 13.

Now this Wound hath been much mistaken by some Inter­preters, as if it were the Wound given by the Barbarous Nations, invading the Empire, of which in the next particular we shall find another Account; But it is very plain, because the Wound was in one of the Heads, and that the Christian Empire upon which the Barbarians fell most peculiarly, was none of the Heads; It must needs be, that the Wound intended was on the Pagan Im­perial Head, whom Constantine the Great, and Theodosius the Great, besides other the Christian Emperors so remarkably Wounded, even unto Death, that It never recovered in a pure­ly Pagan but only in the Pagan Anti-christian Head. To which, because of the Congenialness of the one to the other, the Dra­gon is said in prophetic Language to deliver his Throne, Power, and [Page 32] Authority by way of Succession, and to live and to be worship'd in Him.

So that though we are not plainly told, it was the Draconic Head, which we found to be the Pagan Empire, was wounded, yet in that it is said, The Dragon was cast out of Heaven; that the Dragon gave his Power, Throne, and Great Authority to the Beast, and was worship'd in Him, the World wondring after the Beast. There is nothing more plain, then that it was the Pagan Dragon that was wounded by the Christian Empire, coming next after it, and healed in the Beast coming in as a Head.

This then was the Wound, that the sixth Head, as Pagan, Idolatrous, and bloody, could not maintain its Supremacy, and Imperialism, till the Antichristian Head succeeds it; but an Em­pire, a Christian Empire, prophetic of the Kingdom of Christ, rooting out Pagan Idolatry, and advancing Christianity so newly per­secuted to death by Paganism came between, by which, though the Empire continued, yet the Bestianism of the Empire was ready to dye, and had dyed, but that there was a decree, to permit it to be Heal'd, and Reviv'd within a short space in the Antichri­stian Beast; which could therefore be no other, then whatever succeeded the Christian Empire in Roman Beastian Supremacy; though, as we shall find only in an Image of Supremacy, and therefore must be the Papacy; else the Wound were not Healed to this day, which were most contrary to Prophecy, as destroy­ing the frame of the Bestian Monarchies in Daniel, and the whole Image of Things in the Apocalyps of John.

Now this Note of the Beast wounded is so great an assurance of the Care of Prophecy over the Calendar, given in Daniel, (though this Wound was not revealed in his Prophecy, as im­proper to it, and not to its Time) as can be given; and makes us more certain of the Truth of it, then if that occasion of its Care had not been, as the Truth of a Prediction is more seen by taking notice of a preternatural Accident, and foretelling it, then if such an Accident had not been; we are therefore to consider the Prophecy of Daniel, and John, as all one Prophecy of the Divine Spirit in both; and as but of one, and the same Author, writing several Prophesies in several Times, and filling up the former by the latter.

And thus all History agrees; That the Christian Emperors came after the Pagan Emperors, and disabled their Idolatrous and persecuting Power. And that after the Christian Emperors came [Page 33] the divided State of the Roman Empire in several Kingdoms, and Kings, united in the Papacy, and hath continued to this very Day; which must therefore be the Beast with his Ten Horns; (though all be convey'd, as it ought to be, according to this Pro­phecy, in a Mystery, and in an Image,) or else the Revelation can­not be a True Prophecy.

5. There is another principal Note, that the Sacred Prophecy of the New Testament gives, on purpose to shew, that the Besti­an-Antichristian-Roman Supremacy in the seventh Head; call'd the Beast, and his Ten Horns; did not immediately succeed to that Pagan, Beastian Monarchy; but that there was the coming be­tween of a Christian Empire; and that the Bestian Kingdom, that followed that Christian Empire, was the Papal Kingdom; the know­ledge and regard to which is of so great moment to this pro­phetic Calendar, that Prophecy hath taken so great Care in it; and It is thus to be understood;

The Four Monarchies succeding one another, as in the Image of a Humane Body, the Succession must be, as by way of kind Communication, as is between the several parts of the same body; And this was to shew, one Idolatrous Spirit, a Spi­rit contrary to the Kingdom of God, and of Jesus Christ inform'd, and intelligenc'd the whole from Head to Foot.

But though these Monarchies were so united in one Spirit, and therefore as in one Body; yet to shew the contrariety of each succeding to each former Kingdom; they are in another Vision represented, as Four Salvage Beasts, each latter ravaging on that in power before it.

Thus the Persian, as by a Belluine Might, vanquished the Babylonian, the Graecian the Persian, the Roman the Graecian, as Daniels Visions, c. 7. c. 8. and all History make notorious.

And thus it was determin'd by God, that the Ten Kings that came in, as Feet of Iron in Succession to the Legs of Iron; and the Horns in Succession to the Iron Teeth, should come in as by way of Leaving, or Legacying, or kind Communication, as from part to part. And so indeed, the Pagan idolatrous Empire did, as it were naturally, and spontaneously resign, and dye into the Antichristian rising out of it; thus it is represented after a prophetical, emblematical manner by the Revelation; The Dragon gave its Throne, Power, and Great Authority to the Beast, that is, the Pagan Emperor to the Papal Antichrist, what ever distance of Time there was between them; and so they worshipped the [Page 34] Dragon in the Beast, as aforesaid; Thus it was as between the Congenial, one Pagan and Papal Beast, and the Legs and Feet of the Image.

But then as the Vision of the Beasts imports each Kingdom succeding the former, as by violence; so these Horns or Ten Kings came by violence into the Empire; for so it pleased the wise, and Holy Governour of the World, it should be▪ The Nations foreign to the Roman Empire transplanted them­selves from their own Seats, and by armed force plac'd them­selves in Italy, and the several parts and Provinces of the Ro­man Empire.

And yet they all made still the same Roman Monarchy, and the same Beast, because, whereas the Persian King succeding the Babylonian did not place his Royal Greatness in Babel, but in Shushan, nor Alexander in Persia, but in Graece, nor the Ro­man in Graece, Persia, nor Babylon, but transferred all to Rome; The barbarous Nations on the contrary do not remove the Po­tentacy from the Roman Territories to the Countries, from whence they came, but continue it, where they found it, and Inhabit, and Inherit the former Residencies of Roman Power, and so are the same Empire in Feet of Iron, and of Clay.

For if the Feet of Iron make no Transplantation, much less would, or could the Feet of Clay, much more tyed to the same Earth, from whence they sprung; and above all to the Roman Earth of St. Peter, where He, say they, as Bishop left the print of his Foot, as in Clay, that the Roman Hierarchy might sprout from it.

And they are all the same Beast also, whereby the Calendar, and Succession is maintained; for to shew, the same Idolatrous and Hostile Spirit to the Kingdom of Christ influx'd all; the Dra­gon gave his All, as was noted before; and the whole is, as nearly allyed as part to part in the same Body, acted by one and the same Spirit.

And this was all certainly an Illustrious, and adorable Care of Providence over Prophecy; That Things should be just thus; that Prophecy might be fulfilled in the Roman Monarchy, conti­nuing One and the same Monarchy, as we shall see, in Ten Kings united, in one Ecclesiastic Roman Supremacy, as Ten Horns in one Head; and the Capital, Imperial City Rome was continued for the same Head, by a most astonishing, and even amazing Or­dination of God, as the other Capital Cities within the Roman Dominion for the Ten Kings each in their own Kingdoms.

But still, there were all the Violences of War made use of for the Succession of the Ten Kings, as Feet of Iron; and they were as necessary for the Feet of Clay, to rise in the midst of those Noises, stilly, silently, unobservedly to their Grandeur, and the Supremacy of One Pontiff, even He of Rome, among them.

To adjust therefore every thing to this Succession with the Decorum of the prophetical Types, let us now observe the admi­rable Concert of Providence and Prophecy in this Period.

In the first place therefore as a great Emblem of the Glorious Kingdom of Jesus Christ, and his Ʋniversal Monarchy over all Nations, and especially his Triumph over that Ancient Kingdom of Sathan, Pagan, and Heathenish Idolatry; wherein Himself, and his Angels, and the Demoniz'd Spirits of his Ser­vants were so immediately worship'd; there is a wise Ordina­tion by God of a Christian Empire, to remonstrate this Victory in an Empire then own'd, as the Ʋniversal Empire of the World, and where Heathenism had seem'd to Triumph over Christiani­ty; but Christians thus overcame, by the Blood of the Lamb, by the word of his Testimony, and by Christians not Loving their Lives unto Death.

This Empire therefore enter'd, as into the Heart of the Fourth Monarchy in Daniels Visions by a High Dominion, and Ordination of God, though so contre-natural to it, that on all Accounts It is as a casting Sathan out of Heaven, and as it were the Coming of the Kingdom of our God.

The whole Order therefore of these Emperors throughout the whole Time of the Christian Empire is so far all one order,Revel. 17. v. 10. that from first to last, they are All one seventh King, as the Kings of Judah were All, One House of David; but this Empire in its former and in its latter Times differ'd much in the puri­ty of the Christian State, and in the Illustrious Presence of God with it; as Zedekiah and those latter Kings did from David and Solomon; yet so, that while the order it self stood, there could be no Succession of the Bestian Kingdom; for they are specificly distinct, which is a note of great weight in the Calendar; and it is even demonstrated, That all those Christian Emperors in sacred Register, are but One; because They are called One other King, and that they are specificly distinct; because the Eighth is of the Bestian Heads, the seventh before it is not.

But now, as to our Note; this Christian Empire look'd like an Infracture on the Calendar; for that, a Succession was due to the Feet of Iron, and Clay, and to the Ten Horns, and to the little Horn; that is; to the Ten Kings, and the Papacy, as soon as ever the Legs of Iron, and Head as of the Teeth of Iron, that is, the Pagan Empire was depriv'd of supreme Power; so that this▪ Christian Empire according to Daniels Visions was to have dyed, as soon as it was born.

Prophecy therefore, as it were remembring in the New Testa­ment, what it self had said in the Old, and, as conscious of the short space, This Empire was to continue; and knowing well, That there were four Trumpets of War decreed, and prepar'd, as Storms and Tempests to remove it; in the very next Vision to that of Heathenism desolated, which was Revel. 6. last; It pre­sents four Angels, c. 7. 1. Holding the four Winds, that They should not blow by those Trumpets, c. 8. and a charge is given them, to take heed to their Commission, that they should not let out those Winds, until the Servants of God were sealed in their Foreheads; that is, That the Christian Empire should continue, and continue in Glory, and Peace, till Things were prepared for the Succession of Antichrist, that Man of Sin, or Beast, as this Prophecy styles Him; and as we shall find presently, that seal­ing of the Servants of God in the Forehead imported; Till the Feet of Clay then were ready for their Succession, the Feet of Iron should not succeed; for they were Feet together, though of so different a Mettal, and not to cleave; nor the Ten Horns, till the little Horn, though in another appearance. viz. of a Head in the New Testament-Prophecy, should be ready for his▪ Succession also; for at the same Hour Both were to receive Power.

Now what does this so peremptory Charge import, but a miraculous, as it were, and immediate over-rule of the natu­ral course of Things, according to Daniels Visions? and the ver­tue of it lasted in full force from the Christian Empire of Constan­tine the Great, till the Death of Theodosius the Great. Then there was such a Relaxation of this Charge, that the Angels prepared Themselves to sound, but did no more, then prepare.

Now how agreeable is this to History? soon after Theodosius's Death, these Clouds and Storms began to hover and hang, but did not fall, in their full effect of doing the Christian Empire out of the middle, as the Apostle speaks, 2. Thess. 2. 7. where it stood as a [Page 37] Wall of partition betwixt the Bestian Times of the Pagan Empire, and the Times of the Antichristian Bestian Empire, that They could not meet; but then according to Daniels Prophecy ex­pounded by the Revelation, They clos'd; for then the Dragon, or Pagan Empire gave its Throne, and Great Authority to Anti­christ, or the Bestian Empire, and the Antichristian Times began▪ And thus the man of Sin was held back, as the Apostle said, that He might be revealed in his own Time, and the middle Time being of an arbitrary interposal, but Divine, is, an Inter-reign of no Account in the Bestian Empire, but all comes naturally toge­ther, that the Dragon, as was said, Gave his Throne, &c. as if there had been no Interruption.

And how decorous now to the Type is All the State of Things, as to the Heathen Empire remov'd!

1. It was absolutely necessary to the Succession of the Papa­cy, the Heathen Empire should be removed; It was then most de­corous, it should be done by a Christian Empire, the Emblem of the Kingdom of Christ, and not that the Feet, and Toes of Iron of the Roman Bestian Empire should ravage on the Legs of Iron, nor the Horns of the seventh Head on the sixth Head, which ac­cording to prophetic Representation kindly yielded the Suc­cession to it, as was said.

2. The Christian Empire gave Great Advantage to the Feet of Clay, or the Antichristian Hierarchy to negotiate their own power by the Favour of Christian Emperors, and their Donations of Titles, and Revenues to Christian Bishops, and to a Christian Clergy, as they affected to be call'd.

And Shoales of People then coming in to the Princes Religion, there was a condescending to the Pagan Divi, consecrated Tem­ples, Holy-days, Priests, Pontiffs, Rites to the Dead, Images; So, that Resemblances were found for them of a Christian Name, until Things came to that pass, that the Servants of God were seal'd, that is, the true Christian Glory was stay'd, seal'd up, and reserv'd to the future Time of the New Jerusalem, and secur'd for that against Antichristian Contagion; The Gentiles in Pagan Rites enter'd into the outward Court, or Profession of the Christian Name, and the True Worshippers retir'd into the Temple; The Witnesses put on their Sackcloth, out of whith they are not yet, and the True Christian Church fled into the Wilderness, in which it is still Hid, though not so close, since the Reformation, but yet waits the perfection of the Reformation; All which are [Page 38] Expressions of the Antichristian Succession, together with the Ten Kings, and for which the Trumpets were stay'd from sounding, till he who judg'd Righteously of the True Epoch of the Apo­stasie, gave them leave to sound.

In the second place, as to the removing of the Christian Empire, how admirably fitted are the Types also! For seeing the Besti­an Supremacy in the seventh Papal Head, and the Ten Kings could not be, till all Light of the Sun, Moon, and Stars of the Christi­an Empire were darkned, and the Empire it self quench'd, as a Lamp in Water, and Rome so often taken, and re-taken; that it had no Title of Supremacy over it, but that of Bishop; and the whole Glory of the Empire blasted, as by Hail mingled with Fire; who so fit to do this, as Barbarian Nations, whom Pro­phecy brands as the Instruments of Sathan, the Dragon persecu­ting the Woman the Church, that brought forth the manly Child, and who were to be the Horns of the Antichristian Beast, by whose Mediation the Dragon gave his power to Him?

But this Empire, however it carried the Name of Christian, and bore the Emblem of the Kingdom of Christ still, as Jerusalem, even after the Crucifying of Christ was call'd the Holy City, yet it was so deeply by this Time Antichristianiz'd, that the Judg­ment of God administer'd by these barbarous Nations did indeed pursue it. For he abhor'd the Idolatrous Prostitutions, and Re­lapses to Paganism under the disguise of Antichristianism, from which he had so wonderfully rescued it.

As therefore of old, He gave up Jerusalem to be either Captivated or destroyed by litteral Babylon, on whose Idolatries it doted; even so He now delivered up the Christian Church, and Empire, as so Antichristianiz'd to be either destroyed, or ensla­ved by those Feet of Iron and Clay, and that seventh Head, and its Ten Horns; so that what Sathan did with a Hellish malice, God most Righteously, and Supremely, though most severe­ly executed by Him.

And thus we have brought down the Calendar, and settled it on that great pillar of Time, the Christian Empire, Inaugurated in Constantine, Illustrated a new in the great Theodose and Vaca­ted in Augustulus, from which as we shall find the man of sin in his own Times, as the Apostle calls them, commencing, and of which we have a numeral Calendar given us by Prophecy. And the Time where we are to begin, we are most certain of by History; That it was close to 475, from whence there­fore [Page 39] it is to be dated, for then Augustulus was compell'd to Abdicate Empire. Then therefore Antichristian Times began, as I shall now go on to make out and to shew the state of Things from that Time going on, till now; as we all in great measure must needs know to be very Astonishingly agreeing with Prophecy.

I have now, I say, brought down the Calendar in my own Judgment, and I offer it to the Judgment of all the Serious, (supposing it acording to the Spirit of God, and therefore un­deniable) to the fourth Roman Monarchy, establish'd upon an Article of Faith, at the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ; I have led it from thence through the Pagan State of it, of which a Dra­gon watching a Manly birth to devour it, is an Emblem so signifi­cant of the dreadful Persecutions for above 300 years after Christ as to be even demonstrative; and so conducted it to the Chri­stian Empire, of which the Dragon cast out of Heaven and a Man­ly Child caught up to the Throne of God, in a Kingdom decreed him as in Heaven (though not immediately Appearing on Earth, as is manifest by the Churches flying into the Wilderness) is an Emblem so Beautiful, and Inviting, as not to be refus'd.

And if we do but yield that, to be the Emblem of the Roman Monarchy, first persecuting Christianity, and then it self becom­ming Christian, we are of necessity concluded, that either that Christian Empire was all the Kingdom of Christ, or that the Ro­man Monarchy is that Roman Fourth Monarchy still in a direct op­position to the Kingdom of Christ; For so the Fourth Monarchy must be the fourth Monarchy till then, and if the Roman be the Fourth, that must be so.

Now that that Christian Empire is not the Kingdom of Christ, we must needs know, because it did not consume all other King­doms, and because that of Christ shall never end, but that of a Christian Empire would continue but a short space; About an 150 years was the bounds of it. And violently it was made to cease by the Barbarian Force, which Prophecy calls the Dragon per­secuting that Christian Church, that brought forth as a short Emblem of the Kingdom of Christ in that Christian Empire, the Manly Birth, Christ as a Soveraign.

And least we should think, it had a succession, and so an endurance in the Papacy and Christian Kings, and Emperours that rose out of its ruins, we find according to Prophecy; All [Page 40] that succession is involv'd in the dark Portraictture of a Beast and its Ten Horns; That true Christianity, that brought forth that Empire, is close Hid in the Wilderness, for 1260 years, till the end of which it cannot return; besides, even that Papal state suppose it had been a succession of a Christian Kingdom; It hath been, if I may so speak, Woe Trumpetted by the Saracens, and Turks, for so great a space, that as hath been said, it could not be the Kingdom of Christ, and therefore must be the Kingdom of Antichrist.

For so we find the Beast, as an Eighth King succeeded the Seventh or Christian King after a short space, and the very same Beast of the Seventh Head succeeded the Sixth Pagan King wounded in his Head, so his succession was double; In Time, He succeeded the Christian Emperour; as Bestian, He succeeded the Pagan sixth King, who according to Daniel gave him his Throne, Power, and great Authority. For the Papacy in his Ten Kingdoms, devoted to him, is a Pagan Christian, or Antichristi­an Supremacy; Thus it was, and thus it ought to be, that Pro­phecy might be fulfill'd.

Thus far then we are most assured, whatever succeeded the Pagan Empire in Time, was the short spac'd Christian Empire; whatever succeeded the short Christian Empire in Time must be the Beast, that notwithstanding the Interposal of the Christian Empire is united according to Daniel to the fourth Bestian King­dom, and according to the Revelation to the Dragon; And seeing no other succeeded the Christian Empire in Time, but the Papacy, and the Ten Kings; Therefore that is the Continu­ation of the fourth Monarchy in the Image, as Feet of Clay and of Iron; and in the vision of the Beasts, as the Beast and Ten Horns, and remains, and shall remain so, until it shall be Broken by the Kingdom of Christ.

Period. 3 Our Calendar Reaches down to 475. by Prophe­cy and by History; and here there enters a Bestian state which will take up more then Half the Time, from the giving of these visions to Daniel; and a Moyety, or thereabouts of the whole Time, that the fourth Kingdom had so much, as a Being, even at the Ʋrbs Condita, or the building of the Roman City; more then the Time thrice over, that it came into this Calendar, which was at the Cessation of the Graecian Empire.

Because therefore this Time would be so long, it pleased the infinite wisdom, and goodness of Holy Spirit of Prophecy, to [Page 41] give some light before hand to his Servants, how long this Time should last; It pleas'd it, I say, to give here a Numeral though a mystic Calendar, even just here, and to tell us, that Laws and Times should be given for Time, Times, and the divi­ding of Time into the Hand of the little Horn.

And why, seeing were are bound to search as far as we can, what, and what manner of Time, the Spirit of Christ did signifie, was it given here, rather then in any other part of the vision of the Beasts, if it had not been the pleasure of God, that we should know before hand, how long this last Bestian state should exist?

For if we had been to wait the event onely; There had been less need of a Calendar here, then in any other part of the vision: For the Kingdom of Christ, immediately comming into its succession, after the Times of this last Roman state; It will give a more Indubitable Resound of its event than any other event of the vision can be suppos'd to do; It was certainly therefore given to define Time before hand.

But if with the Comment of Prophecy it self in the Revela­tion, it were not to be understood, Then it must be given to no end; Let us therefore be encouraged to search it; For it is cer­tainly to be understood, as I hope we shall find.

And that we may understand it, These Two Things are necessary: 1. To expound the Calendar in its Epoch, or be­ginning, and in its just Course, Extent, and Period: and then, Secondly, to Adjust by the Symbols of Prophecy, and the most noble Assurances of History, or rather of our own knowledge and Experience (The Things being much in Being, and Ex­istence at this Day) the Congruity of Events according to it, so far as They are already pass'd, and thereby to derive the most ascertain'd Expectations, of what is yet to come.

Now that we may do the first, it is necessary, that we con­cert Time, Times, Half a Time with Forty two Months, which are the Apocalyptick Calendar for the Regnancies of the Beast, and his Ten Horns or various Kingdoms according to the Resemblance of the Ten Toes in the Image; which have been already prov'd to be in an immediate succession to the Christian Empire.

In the first place therefore, we must observe the Correspon­dence betwixt the Time, Times, and Half a Time, and the Forty two Months; Let therefore Time signifie a year, according to that note, Prophecy hath undoubtedly on purpose provided us with, of Seven Times passing over the Head of Nebuchadnezzar in [Page 42] his Lunacy; for that Times should be more than Years, the course of his Conquests till within about Ten years of his Death will not allow; for in the Twenty seventh year of Jehoia­chins Captivity, He made, as it appears, his last Conquest, and had been as we may perceive by Ezekiels Prophecy in a continu­al course of Victory to that Time, as hath been more at large in a former Discourse discussed. Now that Twenty seventh of Jehoiach. must be the Thirty fifth of Nebuchad. for Jehoiakims Third was his First; Add therefore the last eight of Jehoiakim to Jehoiachims Twenty seventh, they make Nebuch. Thirty fifth; and Evilmerodachs First, who according to Scripture succeeded Ne­buchadnezzar his Father, falling on Jehoiachins Thirty seventh; there remained Ten to Nebuch. when Ezekiel prophesied his Con­quest of Egypt, within which Ten the seven of his Delirium must be comprehended; the seven Times therefore could not signi­fic more, then seven Years. For his Life we see would not allow more; nor can They in any fair supposal signifie less, there being no determinate measure of Time, worthy to be call'd Times, except Months; and seven Months is a Time much too short for his being turn'd out, as among the Beasts; or that the stump, or little short Time of his Reign should be so Banded with Iron, that It might be secur'd to Him. Now I have thus industriously debated this Matter, because I would gain by it that, I think cannot now be deny'd; That a Time in Time, Times, &c. denotes a year. If then a Time de­notes a year, Times joyn'd with Half a Time must denote two Years, because there is no medium betwixt One Time, and Half a Time, but two Times or two years; so that the whole is Three years and a half.

Let us then calculate the forty two Months, and we find They answer just Three years, and a Half, so that when we come to find as we shall do all along, by the compare, that the little Horn among the Ten Horns in Daniel, and the Beast in the Re­velation, however they may seem to differ, are the very same; Even the Forty two Months will demonstrate, that the Times and Half are three Years and Half, as forty two Months in general Ac­count make.

Now if They are Three Years, and a Half, we know certain­ly They must be prophetically multiplyed, according to the stan­dard of All prophetical Time, given to Ezekiel, c. 4. except there be a plain Reason against it; each day of each year must be­come [Page 43] a Year. Besides no Time so small, as Three years and a Half can serve such a Kingdom, as that of the Beast's.

The General sense of the Calendar then, being thus establish'd, the next thing to be done is to fix the Epoch of the Calendar, which is as it were the Foundation, of every Calendar.

Now seeing the Prophecy of the New Testament gives, as we have found, so clear an Account of the Time of the Christian Empire interposed to the Roman Bestian Empire betwixt the Pa­gan, and the Antichristian, of which Daniel says nothing; we may from thence learn the most precise, and definite Time of the Succession.

And It is evident, The Succession must be immediately af­ter the Abdication of Empire by Augustulus, which was the very Time of the decease of the seventh King; and therefore, as close as Succession is to Succession, so close must be the Antichristian Empire to the Christian Empire. For so the general Laws of Suc­cession require.

And much more when God interpos'd an Empire, that should be an Emblem of the Kingdom of Christ till that was done out of the midst by an Ordination, as Supreme, as It was there set, there could be no Succession, so that It could not be till Abdi­cation. Thus on one side.

On the other side, seeing It was an unnatural Interposal be­twixt the Pagan-bestian and the Antichristian-bestian Kingdom, as soon as ever that Christian Empire was according to that most pregnant Expression of the Apostle done out of the midst, That Separation and distance made as it were by violence and not willingly betwixt Bestian and Bestian clos'd up; and as in the moment, Bestian reunited to Bestian, as by an Elastic force of self Restitution; so that the Succession could be no longer de­lay'd, then just the Abdication of Augustulus.

And by the way we may observe, Abdication, whether out of fear, and necessity, or a desertion out of Resolution, rather to part with Government, than to govern according to the fundamental contract of Government, is a doing a Government out of the midst, and makes a good, and valid Succession, in Gods Account, even where He had so particularly order'd a Suc­cession, because Government is so necessary, that no vacuum can be allowedOpor [...]t Impera [...] ­rem stan­tem, R [...] ­gem regen­rem Em [...]ri▪; The Powers therefore, that are Powers in Being, and in the actual Execution of Justice, are ordained of God, and to be obey'd. Rom. 13. 1. 2.

For thus it appears here, the seventh King was, according to Prophecy, to continue only a short space; and being constrained by Odoacer the Barbarian Conqueror to renounce Government; Himself took the Title of King of Italy, and not of Rome, the Providence of God so ordering it, as it were to keep the Suc­cession clear; and so the Succession immediately vested in the seventh Head and Eighth King, that is, in the Antichristian Pa­pacy.

And of this, the Sacred Prophecy gives all the Testimony possible; for when it gives a series of Kings, One after another, and says Five were fallen, One is, Another is not yet, and when He Revel. 17. 10. comes, must continue a short space; and the Beast is the Eighth; It is plainly to say, though in other words, The Eighth King, who ever He is, that is the Beast, succeeded immediately to the seventh, who was the Christian King or Emperor. Now seeing whoever was the Supreme of Rome all along hitherto, and must continue so till the Kingdom of Christ, must have suc­ceeded the Christian Emperor, and been the Beast; I do but ask then, who hath demanded, claim'd, and been defended by the Ten Kings, as Supreme of the City Rome for hundreds of years? He must be This Beast.

Again, because the Ten Kings as Feet of Iron with the Feet of Clay, and as Horns with the Head, were to have a Succession at equal dates with the seventh Head, and Eighth King, the Pro­phecy having so definitively given the Time of the Beasts Suc­cession; that it was, whenever the seventh Head ceas'd; It gives also the Time of their Succession, that It was at the very same Time, even at [...]. The like man­ner of de­fining Time is other Times used in the New Testament. John 4. 52. Acts 10. 30. One Hour with the Beasts Receiving Power; That is; At the very same Time, the Beast received Power, They received Power also, for they received Power at one Hour with the Beast; and therefore the Feet of Iron, and of Clay, and the Head and the Ten Horns together received Power immediately upon the Abdication of the Christian Emperor, which was at 475. The same Phrase or manner of speaking is therefore us'd concern­ing both; Power was given to the Beast to continue Forty two Months, That He might do all Things spoken of Him from First to Last. He had Power to continue forty two Months, orRev. 13. 5. [...] for his whole Action; Power was given to Him, during the space of Forty two Months; so the Ten Horns received Power as Kings, Rev. 17. 12. though They had a motion and violent Action before, yet as in the Apostles Time, They had no Kingdom, so They had no [Page 45] Right of Succession until the Beast received Power; and They then received Power as Kings of a lawful Succession, even at one and the same Hour with the Beast.

And now seeing the Beast, and the Ten Kings received Power together, there must be some very Cardinal Time for them to re­ceive their Power in; the Ten Kings altogether with one another; and then, They altogether with the Beast, and the Beast to­gether with every one of them; This, I say, cannot be in Reason supposed without some supreme, and eminent Desig­nation of Prophecy concerning the Time, when It should be, and when God would be pleas'd to have it so accounted to be; for could so many Kings, who by various Accidents and Emer­gents of War arose to Kingly Power, some at one Time, and some at another, be suppos'd to receive Power together at one, and the same Hour, Historically, and in matter of Fact? Besides, according to all History, It was not so; some of these Kingdoms got up much sooner, then others; It is therefore on a Propheti­cal Account, and on positive determination of the Time by Divine Authority; God, by whom Kings Reign, and who dates Kingdoms, as He pleases, dated the Power of the Beast, and the Power of these Ten Kings; All to an Hour; and He hath told us, when It was; It was, when that peculiar Christian Empire of Rome He had set up, was by his Providence superseded; be­fore that, though these Kings were Kings, and the Bishop of Rome Bishop of Rome; yet they were Kings, and the Pope of Rome Pope of Rome under one Imperial Head, who stood by Divine Ap­pointment as their Supreme Lord; He was their Head by a Divine Right; and They All under Him, and in that Right in a dependence upon him, even as Herod on Augustus, though not in Fact; for He, who gives the Kingdoms of the Earth to whom He pleases, declares so; and tells us, The Beast came into his Hour as an Eighth King, when the seventh gave up; and though the sixth Head, or Pagan Emperor was gone off so long before, yet as in the Water, or Air, when the interpo­sing Body is removed, the ambient Air, and Water from eve­ry side immediately clap together; so the Bestian Pagan, and the Bestian Antichristian Kingdom does, when the Christian Em­pire was done in the Apostles Phrase, so full of this Sense, Out of the midst.

Having therefore clear'd, and made Good the Epoch of the Time, Times, Half Time, I will now before I proceed to con­sider [Page 46] their extent, shew how great the Agreement of what we have seen in the state of the Roman Empire, since the Christian Empire in it was done out of the midst, how great, I say, the Agreement of it with Prophecy is, which will make good that Solid, Substantial part of the Calendar, and shew us, How plainly Time hath run on according to the Aqueducts, and Chanels foretold to it so long before in these following Obser­vations.

Observat. 1 Let us then observe the Papacy, the Cardinalism, the Episcopacy, the whole Roman Hierarchy, and their depen­dencies in so great numbers on the one side; and on the other the several Kingdoms, into which the Roman Empire hath been so long and is still parted, with the warlike Kings, and Peo­ple thereof; And I may appeal to all the World, whether there could be a fitter Emblem, or Representation on both parts, then Feet, part of Iron, part of Clay; What weaker then the one? What more Potent, and puissant then the other? And yet notwithstanding the weakness of the one, and the puissance of the other; The Ten Kings, Agreeing to give their strength, Power, and Might, and their Kingdom to the Beast, They make the Pope a Seventh Head of Roman Supremacy, and Ʋniversality, and the Hierarchy Feet, Foundations of Govern­ment, and of the state of the World, by being mingled with the Iron, however They do not cleave: Surely this matter being so well known, as to run into sense; we see it with our eyes, as to the Event; and the Emblem, as easie to be understood, as Familiar, as the Notices of Iron, Clay, Feet, of which the Em­blem is compos'd are; The attent consideration then would con­vince even an Atheist of the Truth of Scripture Prophecy; even a Pa­pist, that the Roman Hierarchy is intended; how much more then may it convince Protestants?

The Kings have also made the Pope a little Horn, They have given him Territories, Guards, Forces, Revenues, as a King, pul­ling up the Gothick, the Graecian, the Lombardic power, as Three Horns before Him, wherein Martell, Pipin, Charlemaign and Ludovi [...]us pius were his great Benefactors; But all this was but very inconsiderable in compare with the rest, as to an Iron Potentacy, were it not for the Spiritual Supremacy, the Riches of which is Incomputable.

Therefore he Looks with the Eyes of a man, as the only Infalli­ble Seer of the Christian World; He hath a Countenance, more [Page 47] stately then his Fellows, the other Ten Kings; over whom he hath a Mouth speaking great Things in the challenges of Supreme Dominion, as the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and as in his place, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; He hath Times, and Laws given into his Hand, and a Calendar of Time peculiar to Him; He hath been for several Hundreds of years the great Leviathan in the Christian World, the Chief of the Sons of Pride, and of the ways of Providence, and God's Government of the World; That a Horn so weak in its true Anatomy, and Intrinsick value should have borne such a sway in the Empire, and Governments of the Earth, piercing even to the Indies and formerly unknown parts of it: who that reads Daniel in compare, with what he hath seen, known, read, or even heard of the Papacy will not rather think, Daniel of late years took the Portraicture and writ the Character of the Papacy, then spoke of it at the distance of so many Ages before it! But he was guided by Him, to whom all Things, past, present and to come are an even Now.

In the same manner let us reflect upon the Cardinalism, Arch-Bishops, and Inferior Clergy with their Innumerable Train of officers, as on the Feet of Miry Clay, the Beast rising out of the Earth; more often in their originals, not of the Blood of Kings, and Nobles, weak in their warlike Prowesse, Prophets teaching lyes, who are the Tail of Mankind; Yet with these as with the Seed of Men, poor, weak, Inconsiderable men, sprung from the Earth, The feet of Iron mingle themselves, and make together the Feet of the Image, as equally essenti­al parts of Government; and the Clay is, as we say, Cheek by Jole with them; These Merchants of Rome become the Grands of the Earth; I desire no other, but a Free, Impartial, Frank Judgment upon the Evidence now given, that the Papacy, and Roman Hierarchy are most lively Represented by the long, and so known Conjunction of the Powers of Clay in Conjunction with those of Iron, the Kings, and Princes lying within the Roman Dition.

Observat. 2 Equal to the first is the second Observation, wherein we shall find the present state of the Roman Empire, ty­ed and linck'd to Prophecy, both in Daniel, and the Revelation in that great and Remarkable point of Agreement; An Image made to the Beast, and the Beast joyn'd so often after with his Image, and the Beast and his Image.

Let us then reflect on the Famous Memoir of Prophetick Histo­ry in the first universal Monarch; the Golden Head of the primi­tive, Litteral Babylon; Nebuchadnezzar in conceipt of that mighty Image, He had seen in a Dream so divinely expounded, and of which Himself was the Head of Gold, would be worshipped, and obeyed in the Counter-point of that Image set up, and whoever would not worship that Image, was to be cast into a fiery Furnace.

In like manner the other Beast, or the Antichristian Hierarchy to raise up the Papacy, as another Golden Head of mystical Baby­lon, said (by way of Oracle, and with lying Wonders, and bring­ing down the Fire of divine Vengeance by Anathemaes, and Ex­communications, as from Heaven,) to the Bestian people, that they should make an Image to the Honour and Glory of that Roman Pagan Idolatrous Empire, that had such a wound by the sword of Constantine, and Theodosius, destroying Pagan Idolatry, and yet did Live, and did so plainly appear to Live in the New Antichri­stian Idolatry; Especially in that Image now to be Dedicated to it; viz. a new kind of Supremacy, a Spiritual, Ecclesiastick Supremacy, that should have Power to speak, and to Cause, That All who would not worship that Image, should be kill'd.

This I confess, is in Daniel no more, then Prophetical Ana­logy, and Allusion; but in the Prophecy of the Revelation, It rises to the very Height of Argument.

That we may then understand this great point, let us ve­ry strictly attend the Prophecy; and we shall find, that the Image is made to the first Beast, that is, to the Roman Idolatrous Supre­macy, consider'd as one, and the same Beast, though of diffe­rent Heads; yet necessarily One, and the same Beast in both the Pagan and Antichristian Heads, as if we suppose a Beast of Two Heads, each and both would be the same Beast.

But the Roman Empire, considered as Beastian, having lost Supremacy in its Pagan, and Imperial Head, so wounded as hath been said; The Hierarchick Beast or Roman, Antichristian Hierar­chy with its Two Horns like a Lamb; of which the Bishop of Rome was, even before the Christian Empire ceas'd, a Principal, and almost supreme part, Exercises the power of the first Beast before it, and in its sight, that is, before an Empire, that was to be­come of a Pagan, an Antichristian Beastian Empire and therefore surviv'd; and it spake as a Dragon for the Restoring, and Re­erecting a Beastian Supremacy,: And because by the decree of [Page 49] God, and the state of affairs; This could onely be an Ecclesia­stick Supremacy, which is a Supremacy, but in an Image, and in an Antichristian Supremacy which is not Pagan, but in an Image; There is a Revival of worshipping the Babylonian Prince in an Image, but such an Image, that could Speak, and cause to be kill▪d, All, who would not worship according to its Antichristian Idolatry, the Image of the Pagan; and who would not profess slavery, and vassalage under the Ecclesiastick, or Pseudo-Spiritual Supremacy, the Image of the Imperial. So it would be effective of all Bestia­nism, yet it would be to the former Bestian, Pagan Head, but as in an Image, This is a most distinguishing, assuring note of Prophecy, whom it means, wherever we can find this Bestianism as in an Image; Let us then behold it in the Roman Papacy.

1. To this Bestianism, there is essentially required Monarchic Roman power, and Supremacy; And was there ever more plainly Monarchic Roman power then in several (and for the sake of the number of Toes, Ten) Kings, expresly noted to Receive power as Kings, of great power and strength, and Independency, and then giving their Kingdoms, Power, and Strength to the Pope, on a Spiritual account, or as an Ecclesiastick supreme; Just as All their Territories were held in Chief heretofore, by their depen­dence upon, and submission to a Roman Martial Emperour, fear'd, and obeyed of all; in whose Court, they had their Embassadors, Residentiaries, Leigiers, Envoys; In the same man­ner on a Spiritual account, they submit to the Pope, as the Holy Father, as his Holyness, as the Vicar of Christ, and the onely Su­preme on Earth over Consciences; They unite in him, have their several Ministers of Embassie with him, and he hath put on, and kick'd off Crowns; Behold, and say, whether this is not the former Cesarean Supremacy and yet in an Image! How fitly therefore does the Prophecy say! They Receive power▪ as Kings, and yet with the Beast, through the Destination upon them under a divine decree, to give their Power thus, as if they could not have it without him. Thus his Great power lies in his Image, and for all his vaunts of Ecce duo Gladii, His Hornship were most Puny without this Image, a very little Horn with­out it.

2. Idolatry is a second essential Constituent of Bestianism, in so much, that as we have found; The Christian Emperour, tho' he had the Roman Supremacy, and was in his latter Time much Antichristianiz'd, yet was as the Kings of Judah of a Mes­siah-order; The Pagan Emperors, All Idolaters were also All [Page 50] Bestian, however some, as the Antonines, Alexander Severus as also others of them were more more Humane; Just so, the whole order of Popes, however some better, some worse, yet are all Bestiam because all Idolatrous.

But this Idolatry is in an Image; It is therefore by the Spirit of Prophecy peculiarly styl'd in Daniel, speaking great words against the most High, which is expounded by John, Blasphemies; Now Blasphemy is a Form deriv'd from the Idolatry of the Ancient Israel, under the Appearance of a Church of God; They held the name of the true Jehovah, and yet joyn▪d the Idols of the Heathen, Your Fathers Blasphem'd me on the Hills; This Idolatry Isa. 65. 7. cover'd with the name of the True God is peculiarly call'd Bla­sphemy, for it is the making the name of God a pander to Ido­latry, which is Blasphemy. And this is most particular to the Antichristian Idolatry, committed upon the name of God, of Christ, of Angels, of Saints, of Martyrs, as in Honour of God, and of Christ, and so deriv'd on Images; And whoever does not worship thus, is Anathematiz'd, as Prophane, Sacrilegious, Blasphemous, Branded by the lying Spirit of Antichrist with some note of vengeance from Heaven, even as Christians of old were vilified as Injurious to the Gods, and persecuted as publick Pests, and Causes of misfortune.

This Idolatry therefore strictly speaking, is an Image made to the ancient Roman Idolatry, not to the Pagan Names of Idols but under the Imagery of names, truly great and sacred in them­selves; and who, so far, as they know it, Abominate the Ido­latry commited upon them; as a prophetick Type of which, John was Twice so severely restrain'd in his Veneration of the Angel; This kind of Idolatry is therefore so notably according to the event defin'd a Blaspheming of God, and of his Taberna­cle, viz. the Humanity of Christ; and of Them, who dwell in Heaven, viz. Angels and Saints; For these pretended Honors are in Heaven Interpreted, as the greatest dishonors, and Re­proaches, and so Blasphemies, both upon the Excellency of the Divine Being, and the Glory of his Saints so coursly Repre­sented; as also as if the Saints were pleas'd with such Entrench­ments on the One God and One Mediator which is indeed to Bla­spheme Them.

3. Bestianisd is, Bloodiness, Cruelty, and Persecution, Ravaging upon the Saints of God, and of Christ; Wearing out the Saints of the most High, making war with, trevailing over, overcoming and killing [Page 51] the Witnesses of Jesus; And this is also cover'd under the Ima­gery of Extirpating Heresie, Blasphemy, and Irreligion; which are the odious Sambenitoes, Disguises clap'd on Saints, and the Imagery put upon them by that Bestianism in an Image, even as Pagan Persecutors cover'd Christians with the Skins of Beasts, and the more cruel Imputations of Beastlike Enormities to them; And to sum up all, how exact is Prophecy in the manner of the Execution of this Feral Rage! The Image speaks, and causes to be kill'd, All, who do not worship; which is, as it were, Word for Word; The Spiritual power Delivering up to the Secu­lar; This Spiritual Bestianism, as it is part of Clay, can put no man to death; It must be done for it by the Iron of the Feet, and yet this Little Horn hath often appear'd in Armour as in Iron, and found means to push and gore to death by himself, and to make Good the Prophecy, He is a Horn, yet but a Little one; and therefore it is generally done by the other Horns for Him, when Iron is required.

Now in all this Imagery, There appears a Recapitulation of the whole Image, commanded by the King of Babylon to be worshipped; In the wise Providence of God, the last state of the Image is enshrin'd, as it were in an Image, sets up the great Idolatry of Image-worship, cas'd up, and veil'd under reverence to God, and to Christ, and to the Holy ones; And for the sake of this Imagery, the Servants of God are made Sacrifices to Flames, and all kinds of death really and effectively, though under an Image, and by an Image; In the same manner there is a Recapitulation of the Beasts in the Little Horn; For He is Leopard, as it were all over; Antiochus, that infamous Little Horn of the Graecian Leopard in its four Heads was his exact Type, betwixt whom, and this Roman Beast, Daniel twice notes the suc­cession; passing over the Pagan Empire: c. 8. 23. c. 11. 36. This Beast had also the broad Feet of a Bear, resembling Hamans Letters sign'd by the Persian Ahasuerus, throughout his 150 Provinces to put to death the Jews; So the Beast by his Ten Kings through­out his Kindred, Tongues and Nations causes the Witnesses to dye, by the decrees like the Mouth of the Babylonian Lyon Nebuchad­nezzar commanding Idolatrous Image worship.

And thus we see every way what a definitive Character of the last Roman state, the Image made to the Beast is.

Observat. 3 Let us observe, how Prophecy is Fulfill▪d in the last state of the Image, in that Character or Note of the Feet, [Page 52] as part of Iron, part of Clay; that tho' the Iron, and the Clay shall mingle, They shall not Cleave.

This is admirably answer'd in Two Things.

1. In the notorious distinction of Ecclesiastick, and Secular or Laic, the latter of which cannot without great Profanation, and even sacriledg be confounded with the Former; A thing very strange to Apostolick writings, wherein the whole Flock are call'd [...], a Holy Priesthood, the Church; And the Ministers of the Gospel, Elders and Presidents, noting onely order, and not distinction of any other kind; Although therefore the Spirituality, as They are call'd, often invade the Secular Autho­rity, and Power; Yet it is in the Guarb and Canonical habit of Spiritual and Ecclesiastic, to keep that Character High and In­delible, herein the Little Horn was in Daniel's Prophecy Re­mark'd so diverse from the other Horns. Dan. 7. 24.

2. It imports the always separableness, and the certain Se­paration, that shall be betwixt the two Powers, when these Ten Kings shall hate the Whore, and burn her Flesh with Fire; So that though the Kings, or Feet of Iron, as well as of Clap, shall be broken, as is foretold of Them; Yet it is to be un­derstood onely, as they are parts of the Image, and as toge­ther with the Clay they make the Feet of the Image, and are as Horns on the Head of a Beast; whenever they separate them­selves from the Papacy, They become Princes of the Reformation, and if zealous, and sincere therein, They are with the Lamb, as his Faithful, Called, and Chosen.

And of this, for near these Hundred, and Eighty years last past, God hath been pleas'd to give an Exemplar though but very Imperfect in Comparison, of what shall be, in that Separation, Princes, and States, styled Protestants have made from the Church and Pope of Rome. But how dark and ob­scure is it, and how much brighter shall it be, when it shall be done universally, by all these Ten Kings, and their King­doms, when the Apostasie shall be drawn of, and the King­dom of Christ shall be in its succession.

The very same ought to be acknowledg'd of the Reformed Episcopacy; It is by no means to be confounded with the Feet of Clay, whose Idolatrous Apostasie, degrades them to so low a Station; Yet it were to deal deceitfully in the divine Pro­phecy, not to say; That a much higher state of the Churches of Christ shall supersede present Constitutions by the very dawns of the glory of the Kingdom of Christ.

Observat. 4 It is no Indiscernable Character of this Roman state in its Feet of Iron and Clay, that it remains to this day, waiting, as it were, for that stroke, from the Stone cut out of the Mountains without Hands: For it hath already, as hath been noted, consum'd more Time, then had pass'd before it from that so fam'd Ere of Ʋrbs condita, or the building of Rome; But because this is matter yet to come, and when it is come will put all out of doubt, I shall onely observe, that as in these two Visions of Daniel, so in the Apostle Paul, and in the Revela­tion, Notes of Ruin, Comsumption, Abolition Son of Perdition, going into Perdition, Being deliver'd to the consuming Flames, the Beast taken with his false Prophet, and cast into the Lake, are Brands deeply set upon Him; and together with his Consump­tion the Glory of the Kingdom of Christ is declared, which is so certain an Assurance, that neither the Kingdom of Christ is yet come, nor this last state of the Roman Monarchy yet past, that a greater cannot be given. And when these things are, Then shall the whole Image in its Idolatrous Frame and Com­posure, Fall, and be Broken, and Rise no more:

For the Roman Monarchy in the Feet is the very Foundation of the whole Image; As the Feet are to all parts of the Body, So also are these Feet, and Toes to the Image; And because, They are part of Clay, thither is the stroke especially directed, and there is the Image to be broken.

Now as the Gold of the Head Communicated its lustre; the Silver, Brass, and Iron Communicated their value, and strength to all the parts; and as the Greatness of the whole Image gave it Dread and Majesty, and an Ʋniversality of power; So the Clay, on which the Image stands, as part of the Feet and Toes Communicated its Weakness, Brittleness, and under those, as Types, its Antichristianism to the whole; So that the Clay, Symbolizing that Antichristianism, is inserted in the mid­dleDan. 2. 45. betwixt the Iron, the Brass, the Silver, and the Gold; To shew, it communicated it self to the whole; and by it the force of the blow was distributed through the whole, so that All was Broken, that made up that Composition of the Image with the Clay; and so far, as it was tainted with that Anti­christianism, it is utterly Broken, and made as the chaff of the Summer Floor.

Now as if Samsons strength had pass'd from his Head, and Locks, where it first dwelt, while the dimensions, and particular Characters of his person remain'd; and so come down from [Page 54] higher to lower to his very Feet, and there Broken; So have we seen the Monarchic Spirit, aod Life, here describ'd, passing from Mettal to Mettal, from part to part, comming down to the Feet, the Seat of that Antichristianism, that is to be Bro­ken, and the whole Image with it to Powder; And seeing these Feet and Toes have continued so many Ages beyond all the former parts, how can we but earnestly pray for that happy Revolution; and if we are not so in Love with that state, as to pray so for it, yet however we should fear, and prepare for it.

Thus far I have been representing the real, and solid part of the Calendar, of which I cannot doubt the Satisfaction, It hath given to every observing Mind; It now remains, that the numeral, though mystic part of it be consider'd under that Characterism of it; Time, Times, and Half a Time in the Prophe­cy of Daniel.

And that this may be understood, It must be expounded to us by that so divinely Learned, and truly infallible Key of it, and of the whole Prophecy of Daniel, the Apocalyptical Pro­phecy of the New Testament; and the Exposition it gives, is as in a Complication of Charactorisms of Time; Twice forty two Months, Twice twelve hundred, and sixty days, and Twice three Times, and a Half, but with the little variation of Three Days and a Half for the great Reason of alluding to our Lords three Days in the Grave; that we might learn to find a deeper, and more intimate part in the space given, as our Lord was but a deep part of the first, the whole of the second, and a small deep part, viz. the very dawn or Morning-Break of the Third Day in the Grave; which yet is call'd, being Three Days and Three Nights in the Heart of the Earth. This plainly teaches us, there was parallel-wise in these; Time, Times, and Half a Time; a deeper Tyranny of the Beast, and of the Apostolical Church cclips'd by it; and its Seed, the Witnesses suffering under it, in some parts of these Times, then in others.

And These Things I have more at large handled in their proper place of the Line of Time, and shall now only recal what is necessary to present this Time more at full.

And in the first place It is duly to be Remark'd, that as the Spirit gave a Calendar, however Mystic, but just at the Rising of the Ten Horns on the Head of the Fourth Roman Beast, which appears the seventh Head or Papacy in the Revelation, with his Ten Horns or Kings, and He a little Horn among them; So in the [Page 55] Revelation, It affixes those Charecterisms of Time to the Gen­tiles coming in to the outward Court, and to the Witnesses putting on Sackcloth, and to the Church fled into the Wilderness upon it; as al­so to the Times of the Beast, who is the seventh Head of the Fourth Beast in Daniel, which we have proved to be Roman; and to his Ten Horns, and to the Woman persecuted by the Dragon, ma­king War with its Seed by the Beast, to whom he gave his Throne, Power, &c. Killing her Seed the Witnesses. By which as also by the very express use of Three Times, and Half the Spirit hath, if we will receive it, demonstrated to us; That the Ten Horns, and Little Horn in Daniel, and the Beast and its Ten Horns in the New Te­stament-Prophet John are the very same Kingdom.

And the Time is doubled in the Witnesses, and the Woman both for the certainty, and also explanation of the Church not to be found, as the Beasts and Romanists vaunt before Luther; but Col­lectively as a Church, Woman, or Mother, Hid in the Wilderness, and yet districutively War'd with, and kill▪d in single Saints, or Wit­nesses, as its Seed.

Now it is most Evident, that in every one of these Characte­risms of Time, Three equal parts and a Half part of Time are still most clearly, and peremptorily defin'd, that we may thereby be most assuredly guided in the Calculation, or Computation of the whole space; And then, they are made up into eighty four Indictions, giving a broad Indication, It was a Time soon after Constantine, that was intended to be defin'd; For so, soon after Him, Indictions came to be general Characters of Time, being as Chronologers most agree, instituted under him.

That we may then find the fundamental Reason of this Time, we must consider, that the Kingdom of Christ having made an Appearance, and given a Specimen of it self, as hath been shewn, It was Estop'd by that Oath of Christ; There shall be Time, Times and half a Time for that Kingdom to be under an Eclipse; In which Time, That He, the little Horn made so Fa­mous, Dan. 7. should scatter the Power of the Holy People, or drive the Church into the Wilderness for those Times, and Half a Time.

Accordingly Revel. 12. This very Eclipse is represented to come to pass; For the Kingdom of Christ, from Constantines Christian Retgn to the Death of Theodosius the Great, as the Church cloathed with the Sun; had the Bestian Pagan Kingdom compar'd with the Moon, under its Feet, as it were diametrally; Hereupon there begins a gradual darkness, or Eclipse upon the True [Page 56] Church; For the Pagan, Bestian Kingdom, being now to become Antichristian-Beastian, That Antichristian Beastian Kingdom bor­rows (as the Moon in an Eclipse does) most Light and Glory from the Sun, and yet Eclipses that Light from the World; For it turns its own dark obscure shade downward, and retires the Light from above.

How does this most admirably Resemble the Antichristian Church, in which former Paganism finding it self so to lye un­der the Sun, takes as it were, the advantage to guild it self with the Beams of Christianity; It takes upon it self the Aposto­lick Faith, the Acknowledgment of Scripture, the names of Christ, and of his Saints, the style of Catholick Church.

And all this it does, That it may engross to it self Those Titles of honour, and Glory, that Riches, and splendor which is onely due to the True, and pure Christianity in the Kingdom of Christ.

Hereby it robs the World of the Light, and glory of Chri­stianity, for instead of those powerful, and enlivening rays, it casts upon the Earth, Idolatry, Superstition, Ceremony, Foppery of Religion, which are ancient Paganism Antichristianiz'd, and must needs chill, make wan and pale all appearances of Gospel Truth, so far, as any were, but in deed rather darken and obscure them, altogether, as truly Gospel; and this indeed was turning Christianity, as much as is possible into Fable, according to that Papal Prophaness, that styl'd it so, when themselves had made it so.

Together with this obscuring of Truth; that Honour, and Glory most due to the Church of Christ, and to his Servants, that should fill the World, is so intercepted by the Children of the Night, usurping it; that while the Church is in the Wilderness and unseen, tho' cloath'd with the Sun, its Seed, the Witnesses, that should shine with the same Beams, are cover'd with Sack­cloth according to the Prophetical allusion; the Sun became as Sackcloth of Hair; and Kill'd all the day long.

Never was shade, or portraicture thus fitted to the life, but who, as the divine Spirit, can at the same Time hide in Cyphar, and yet declare the thing plentifully, as it is?

But now this Time of the Eclipse is determin'd to be Twelve Hundred sixty prophetical days, or years of the Sun, whose state is to guide, and determine this Time; In which regard the Moon, that is, the Times of the Moon, are under its Feet, and [Page 57] to be guided, and over-rul'd by it; It comes then to be con­sider'd, that the Times of the Moon are not equal to the Times of the Sun; For the Time, in which the Moon measures the Zodiac twelve Times, and hath as often New Congresses with the Sun, and thereby makes the lunar year, is agreed to be, as near, as can be computed a thirty eighth part less, then what the Sun requires to visit the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac, and to give twelve meetings to the Moon in its yearly Course; so that the Moon is advanced near eleven days in the stage of a New Year, before the Sun hath finish'd any year.

Proportionably the Beasts Times and Half Time are expound­ed in the Revelation by Forty two, not only Months, but Moons; For every several Month is as under another Moon, call'd therefore, a New Moon, and therefore Months must be Times of the Moon, for they are Moons; but the Moon is not the Sun; If therefore These Moons had begun at the same Time, the twelve hundred sixty days began, They must have ended Thirty eight years sooner, then They could end according to the Symbol; For then the Eclipse should have lasted, when the Moon had no longer been so posited, as to intercept the Suns Beams, that is, the Glory of Christ in his Church.

Therefore in the Jews Times, from whom This, as All the other Types in this Prophecy, relating to the Church and Servants of Christ are taken; There was the Intercalation of a second Adar the last Jewish Month, betwixt each precedent and following year, that was to be intercalar, that it might supply the hollow, or vacuity in the Moons Time, and guide the Paschal New Moon in its due regard to the vernal Sun, to keep Time with it.

Now the Rule of this Intercalation; because the balance be­twixt the Motion of the Sun, and of the Moon; was the Decem-Novennal Cycle, or so generally known Golden Number.

And lastly, this Intercalation was generally necessary, but eve­ry Third year, of all which particulars the Treatise of that learn­ed Jew, Maimonides, concerning the New Moons and Intercalati­on is a Great Testimony, and his sixth Chapter gives Great Light to the Type, we are are upon.

For proportionably, The Forty two Months of the Gentiles are, as Intercalary, to the Months of the Beasts, and begin Thirty eight years before them, and are, as it were, a second, supple­mental Adar, to the Time of the Draconic sixth Head, and come in as a fit space of the Dragons giving his Throne to the Beast.

For the Barbarous Nations are call'd Gentiles, because They ravag'd on the Christian Empire, the Emblem of Christs Kingdom, though indeed Sathan by Them, as hath been say'd, miss'd his Aim; For the Empire was now Antichristianiz'd, and the True Church hid.

Yet their coming into the outward Cuort of the Empire, and of the Profession of Christianity, and to become the Beasts People, manag'd at first by the other Beast, or Antichristian Roman Hierar­chy, God was pleas'd to ordain as the beginning of the Apostasie, upon which the Witnesses put on their Sackcloth, and the Woman actually fled into the Wilderness, and the Twelve hundred sixty days began; And because the Beasts Moons did not begin till thirty eight years after; Here is the Intercalation of the Thirty eighth part, the Beasts Moons would want; and given in two Nineteens or Cycles of the Moon, setting right the Moon to the Sun, that so the Moon of the Antichristian Bestian Kingdom might be in its just Time under the Suns Feet, with which the Church was cloath'd, to Eclipse it.

Now this Type is so wonderful, as not possibly to fall into this Model of Time by chance, with that admirable Congruity, and therefore cannot be look'd upon, but as divinely design'd, and so to be accepted, as demonstrative; That the Beasts Months beginning at 475. There must have been Thirty eight years of Bestian preparatory Time before them; with the first of which the twelve hundred sixty days, or years beginning, All may end together 1697.

And if it be ask'd, what becomes of the Months of the Gen­tiles, after the Beasts Months enter'd; and of the Action of the other Beast, or Antichristian Hierarchy, who exercis'd the Power of the First Draconic Beast, and spake as the Dragon, not dead, but to live in the Antichristian Beast; The Answer is; The Gen­tiles Months merg'd into the Beasts, who had Power given Him over all Kindreds, Tongues, and Nations, as an Antichristian Head; and so though for the Grace of the Type, They are given, as Forty two Months; yet They are drown'd in the Beasts Months after They have done their Service of Intercalation, before the Beasts Months began; even as smaller Accounts of Time are swallowed up in that of the Reigns of Supreme Princes, da­ting All Times; Then also the other Beast became the Beasts false Prophet, the Tutor or Guardian of his Infantile Power, till He came to his manly Number 666. and after that, his Inse­parable Spirit, and Intelligence; as hath appear'd in all Coun­cels; [Page 59] before the Beasts Times, wherein the Hierarchy had been Heaving the Papacy into an Antichristian Idolatrous Supre­macy; The Dawn of which was visible in the Councel of Chal­cedon within the Gentiles Intercalary Months; within his Times con­firming and swelling it to a Height, as in the second Councel of Nice, and in the Lateran Councels of the Eleventh, and Twelfth Centuries; Or supporting the declining State of it, as in that last Famous Councel of Trent in his Half Time.

But besides all, that hath been spoken, let us, but take Time, Times, and Half a Time; and we may by one easie way of Argument, and in which any one may satisfie himself, assure our selves in this determination of Time, that I have made.

For when a Calendar of Time is given in Time, Times, and Half a Time, as the measure of that space, wherein a Kingdom and Government, as of returning Pagan Bestianism, should Eclipse, and obscure the Kingdom of Christ; after it had given an Emblem and appearance of it self, (which is the Foundation of the whole Type) the very Frame and aspect of such a Calendar ne­cessarily imports, that the Time and Times are Three equal parts, viz. The Time one single part, and Times Two equal parts in themselves, but double, when conjoyn'd; and then the Half Time the just Half of any of those equal parts.

And thus the explication of Time, Times, Half a Time by those so particular Characterisms assure us; For Twelve hun­dred sixty days, and Forty two Monnhs necessarily carry us up­on Three equal years, and one Half year; and Three days and a Half are yet more express, that There are Three equal parts, and one Half part of any of the Three equal parts, in­tended to be given.

Now that these are explanatory of these three Times and a Half is in two Instances, viz. of the twelve Hundred sixty days and of the Beasts Forty two Months most clear, which is enough to the present purpose; For the twelve Hundred sixty days and the Three Times and Half, are both the measure of the space of the Woman in the Wilderness, and so the same; And the three Times and Half, and the Beasts Forty two Months are both given, as the space of the Power of the little Horn in Daniel and of the Beast in the Revelation; both which I have already prov'd are the same, and therefore the Times, and the Forty two Months must be necessarily the same; and so equal in the Three parts, and a half part.

But further, when the Times and Half are thus distributed, and with such allusion to the Death and Burial of Jesus Christ, as in the Witnesses lying dead three days and a Half. It is both in the thing it self, as in the allusion most evident, that the first Time is allowed for the Ascendency of this Kingdom of the Beast, till the Eclipse of the Kingdom of Christ by it becomes Total; The two Times are the uniform Continuation of things in that very State, the end of the First Time left Them; But when It comes to a Half Time, the Kingdom of the Beast, being at the very moment of that Half Time entring, what It was, all the Two Times; It just then comes under a check, and surprise, and can continue the Total Eclipse no longer; but shall continue a partial Eclipse, till the Half Time given to Him be also ex­pir'd: Then that Kingdom shall be prescinded, as at the middle, with both Ruin, and Infamy; upon which the Glory of Christ, his Kingdom, Church and People so long Eclipsed shall at the End of that Half Time shine out much more gloriously, then ever yet It hath done, and after a short preparation, to a perfect day without any more Night.

Let us then examine, at what Time the Half Time enter'd, which may be certainly known by that check, and surprize upon the Antichristian Kingdom, that It could no longer totally Eclipse the Church of Christ, as it had done; And what Time that was, there is a Vox Populi, a common saying, even of the Antichristian People, that indeed is Vox Dei, the very Oracle of God concerning the Half Time; Where, say They, was your Church before Luther? that is; It was before indeed all along from Christ, but It was for Time, and Two Times under an Eclipse, even Total, that It could not be seen before Luther's Time; From his Time It hath been (blessed be God) to be seen, but not as It shall be at the End of the Half Time, so here is evidently the Half Time begun.

Now what Chronology is not agree'd, that Luther appear'd at 1517? Here then, viz. at 1517, the Half Time most certainly Began; For from that Time, not any accidental change, or for a Time, but an unmoveable Reformation, and Retrenchment upon the Antichristian Kingdom hath ensued in the revolt of se­veral Kingdoms and States from it; And how unmovable it hath been; So universal consent in the late Revolution, as it appear'd against Popery, is in this Protestant Nation a Monument, undoubtedly set up by God as a Specimen, what shall be at the end of the Half Time, whatever Judgment our sins may in the mean Time provoke upon us!

Being thus assur'd then, when the Half Time began, we are also most certain, the Half Time is a Half, equal to each of the Three equal parts; In twelve hundred and sixty therefore, an equal Half part to each equal whole part must be one hun­dred, and eighty; And if this Half part begin at 1517. It must end at 1697. by a consequence undeniable.

And then, if from 1517. where the Half Time began, we carry backward one Thousand and Eighty, the just Amount of the three equal parts, They must needs reach back by a re­trograde motion to Anno 437. of the Christian Account; at which Time the Ten Kings were every where, carving their Kingdoms out of the Empire, under the play of the first Trumpet.

So the Gentiles at that very time came, as before explain'd, into the outward Court, and their Forty two Months began, and gave Thirty eight Intercalar years, till the Beast and the Ten Kings receiv'd Power, as hath been explain'd, which was at 475, as was before explain'd.

And thus the Times of the Beasts Moon, so under the Feet of the Church as to Ecclipse it, by surprizing the Glory proper to it, as Cloath'd with the Sun, are made equal to the Times of the Church in the Wilderness, and of the Witnesses in their Sackcloth, and run equal with them to the end; and the Gentiles Months are of no further considerations but most naturally, and simi­milarly sink into the Months of the Beast, and are united with them.

And yet lastly, to make this Calendar most undoubted, If we should lay aside the distinction betwixt Lunar and Solar Time, and the Intercalation upon it, and take the Time, Times, and Half Time as of the little Horn onely, absolutely, and by themselves; Yet allowing the Little Horn, the same with the Beast, the eigth King, succeding the Christian Empire at 475; as hath been so fully prov'd, and let the Half Time, as hath been also prov'd enter with Luther, they will come to the very same point of 1697; if we allow but five Years from Luther 1517, viz. till 1522 for the revolts from the Bestian Kingdom, which Reformed Princes and States in that Time made; and which have conti­nued to this day; at which very Time Images, and the wor­ship of them, of greatest Interest in Bestianism began to be cast out; And then proportion the Times, and half Time among themselves; (as was before most undeniably stated) The expe­dients of Lunar Time, and of Intercalation will be more necessary▪ to set the Bestian Time at an even ballance with the whole Apo­calyptical [Page 62] Emblem both of the state and Characters of this Time, then to make certain the Calendar, and its computation. For Luther's appearance or so very little distant from it, as not to destroy the very symbol of the Half Time, is so certain a Bar­rier of that Half Time; and the Cessation of the Christian Empire, so certain an Epoch of the three equal Times, that we cannot fail of proportioning them all amongst themseves and knowing, the longest of their duration can be but till 1697.

The Calendar being thus determin'd, let us consider the distri­bution, and as the Half Time hath appear'd to be a Time of de­clination; So the first Time Comprehended his succession, his ascending to Supremacy receiv'd from Phocas, ratified by a Coun­cel at Rome soon after; and so onwards his Bestianism and Idola­trous establishing Imageworship by the second Counsel of Nice; His becomming a little Horn, and rooting up any Horns in his way, his disposing of Crowns, and Excommunicating Empe­rours; All which he attain'd before 797. the Period of his first Time, acording to the ballance of it, with the 1260. day; And the constituting and Crowning as Emperour Charls the Great of France, very close to it in the year 800. and within it, if we Calculate the Times and Half of the little Horn, (as we may with very little variation do) within themselves.

This Observation of the Beast rising, as from an Infantile State, shews us; The Revelation considers his succession as an Imperial Bestian Seventh Head bearing ten Horns, who becoming within his first Time, a little Horn also, himself rises according to Daniel, to his number at his powerful and effective Image; And this arising to and settlement of power very naturally agrees with the first Time of any Potentacy.

His two Times, however full of variety of accidents, as All worldly power is, yet speak one main, and deep of power, as the two Times are joyn'd; but with some little distinction, as they are two Times; in which there was a spread of the roots and Branches of Bestian power; viz. in the coupling of the two Times; and so we may observe at that very Time, viz. in the Eleventh, and Twelth Centuries; enlarged Idolatries to the Hoast, more Blasphemous assumptions in the Temple, and Church of God; His Persecution of the Saints and Churches of Christ, more Bloody; the History of the Albigenses, and Waldenses is the Pyra­mid of it; His Exaltation of himself above all, even the high­est Names of Majesty, and Empire more prodigious, and Lucife­rian; as the History of his Treaty of the German Emperors, and of [Page 63] our own King John, are abundant Testimonies: These things were most notorious about the latter part of the First of the two Times ending 1157. and the second of the two Times beginning, when the other ended.

The Half Time is remarkable for the Cutting off such a Lap of his Bestian Purple, and Scarlet, with so much Dishonor; the Con­tinuance yet of so Great a part as necessary to his Half Time; and that yet more Infamous and Destructive stroke on these Feet of Clay, that now hangs over Him, and will certainly Fall by his Periodical, and Fatal 1697. Thus every way is our Calendar as­sur'd in the whole, and in the Distribution.

And with how great Grace do these three Times, and Half agree with that Moon intercepting and so Eclipsing the Glory, and Kingdom of Christ, first partial, till after the middle of the First Time; then total till the end of the Two Times; At the Half Time the First Re-appearances of Light were very surprizing; But there is yet an obscurity; But It shall at last so go off, So that the Sun of Righteousness shall shine out in its Strength, and the Light of one Day shall be then as the Light of any seven, that have been hi­therto, since the Reformation.

Object. Now if It should seem any Disparagement to the Calendar, that the Turkish so vast Empire hath no place in it, though seated in so large Traicts of the Ancient Roman Empire, and in the Imperial City of its Eastern Empire, Constantinople, call'd New Rome.

Answ. The Answer is clear; It is so far from disparaging the Calendar, that It much strengthens, and Illustrates it; For It hereby is most evident, that only those Four Monarchies, we have so much spoken of, make the Calendar and only in that order, wherein the Divine Spirit plac'd Them; so that neither Persia, nor Graece, whatever Greatness They have had, since the former was demonarchiz'd by Alexander, and the latter by the Romans, have any place in this Calendar; And though the Tur­kish Power hath invaded so much, what was heretofore Roman Empire; Yet It hath been on purpose so plac'd by Divine Ven­geance, that It might the more closely offend, and annoy the Apostate Roman State, and be a more effective Woe upon it. In the mean Time, It hath been so limited, that It could never possess Rome, nor the Amplitude of the Western Empire.

Yet it is evident, Prophecy is not ignorant of the Mahometan Greatness, but most abundant in the descypharings of it, both in Daniel, Dan. 11. 40. under the King of the South, as the Sa­racens, [Page 64] and of the North in the Turks; and so in the Revelation, chap. 9. in the First Woe Trumpet of the Locusts, and the Second Woe Trumpet of the Armed Horsemen; and that They Both Fall in with the Times of the Calendar, and are as much engrafted into it, as They have been, or are into the Roman Empire, as hath been shown in the Line of Time; where It ought to be; and the Times of the present Mahometan Kingdom in the Turks shall certainly take End with this Calendar, when that Apostate Bestianism shall cease to require so Great a Vengeance upon the Christian World; on which Account, when the Witnessess enter into Glory at the Period of the 1260 Days; It is said the se­cond Woe is past, but a Greater Third Woe immediately seizes the Apostasie, even the succeeding Kingdom of Christ.

The naming of which by way of strongest Interest should oblige us to watch, and keep our Garments, that our Shame may not be seen.

For as that Kingdom will put an utter end to all Pagan Impe­rialism in the World, by ways and Methods known to Him, who does, whatever He pleases, and as It shall utterly destroy Antichri­stianism which we so Highly have disavowed; So It will be as severe on all Formal, Ceremonial, Persecutory Protestancy, and not only that, but all Prophane, Irreligious Protestants unreform'd in Heart, unreform'd in Life; For It is a Kingdom of Truth, Righteousness, and Peace, not in Word but in Power.

And seeing, It is certainly so near, as I have Represented, and that All the Policy and Power of the World, can no lon­ger interpose against it; but that Christ will take to Himself, his Great Power, and Reign; however Angry the Nations will be at it, and will destroy them, that have destroyed so long the Earth, and will stay the Wicked with the Rod of his Mouth, and with the Breath of his Lips; How diligent should All be, to prepare for so Happy a Revolution, if we are found of Him in Peace; For if not, we shall in vain call to the Mountain to Hide us, and to the Rocks to cover us, when the Great Day of His Wrath is Come.

The Prophetical Map of which Holy and Blessed State, is too large here to present, but it is necessary, that a short delineation of it, so far, as is agreeable, to support the last, and most excel­ling part of the Calendar, be given.

For in both the visions, the vision of the Image, and the vision of the Beast; There enters at the end inseparably, and no way possible to be divided a divine Kingdom, of which the expressions are so full, and high, that it is self evident, the grand Intend­ment [Page 65] of the Holy Spirit was by the four Monarchies to lead to that Supreme Kingdom, that where They end, That may begin; which is of it self a great proof, that if we are thus far right in the Calendar; as the Evidence of Divine Revelation assures me, we are; We must be near so great, and happy a Revolution, the Complement of the Calendar; and are now as on a Pisgah view of it.

For the Kingdom of Christ hath an immediate succession to the Times of the Beast, even as the Bestian Kingdom, and Times had to the Christian Empire; The succession is immediate, but the Illustrious Glory hath a Time of Preparation after the succession.

In the Face of all Prophecy This succession appears in Daniel's two Visions: the Divine Kingdom follows the Feet, and the Little Horn, even so close, as to be said in their Days of those ten Kings. The God of Heaven Sets up a Kingdom, Dan. 2. 47. as it were, within them, because so just at the end of their Time; The Apo­stle Paul tells us The approach of Christ, to the Bestian Times is so near, that Christ blasts Him with the Spirit of his Mouth, and brings to nothing the blaze of his Moon, by the full Glory of his own appearance: That Illustrious Man of Sin, the Antitype of Antiochus the Illustrious is so out-shone, that He is a Lamp put out in obscure Darkness; In the whole view of the Revelation, the Glory of Christ's Kingdom rises as the Beast falls; and when He, and his False Prophet are cast into the Lake; or, as Daniel speaks, His Body deliver'd to the consuming Flames, Then the Kingdom is given to Christ and his Saints, as in full Glory: They sit on Thrones and Reign with Him.

But nothing is so express, as the Oath of Christ, as at the Mor­ning of the Half Time, or Reformation; a beginning Glory Seal'd, or stay'd in the Thunders seal'd, till the end of the Half Time; Christ solemnly swears at that Time, There shall be after Time, Times, and Half Time allowed No more such kind of Time; The false High Priest, the Counterfeit of the True is not made without an Oath, indeed; But because, he is but a Coun­terfeit; He is cut off at his Half Time by an Oath also, and can­not be a Priest any longer; He is broken without Hand from Heaven.

As soon as ever the Oath takes place, That Time of the former date of Times and Half Time is no longer, it Immediately follows. The Mystery of God, that is, the Glorious Kingdom of Christ, so much, and so long spoken of by the Prophets, shall [Page 66] be immediately in Motion by it self to its complement, and perfection.

Accordingly at the end of the Twelve Hundred and sixty days, and of the Three days and Half, the same, as hath been prov'd, with Time, Times, and Half Time; There is as in their Days of those Ten Kings the appearance of the Kingdom of Christ in the Witnesses rising, &c. even just before the Blast of the seventh Trumpet; And then the Seventh Trumpet sounds, and immediate­ly there are Loud voices in Heaven; The Kingdoms of this World are become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ; The King­dom is proclaimed and advances all the Time of the Seventy five years, in which the Twelve Hundred sixty years, become Twelve Hundred ninety years, and then Thirteen Hundred Thirty five the Epoch of the perfectly Blessed state of that Kingdom of Christ: All which lay'd together, is perfect Scripture Demonstration of the Complement of the Calendar, and of the Kingdom of Christ in its succession so near to us, as 1697, and then rising to perfect glory.

And until that Time, there is to be a continual prayer for, and Expectation of such preparatory motions in the World, as by which Bestianism shall not onely, not be allowed to Re­gurgitate on any of the reformed Nations, by any of their Prin­ces Giving anew their power to the Beast, that had Revers'd their power from Him, but that the rest of the Ten Kings, and Kingdoms shall hate the Whore; And that within the Reformati­on it self, that Synagogue, Prophecy, Brands, as the Synagogue of Sathan, that was always [...] a Friend to Primacy, and to casting out of the Church on its unscriptural Canons, should be bending to worship at Philadelphiaes Feet, and thereby the Refor­mation become perfect, and Illustrious.

Let us then take off our Hearts, and Eyes from all worldly Glory, whether Civil, or Ecclesiastic, which is now in its low West, and adore the Glory of Christ in his Kingdom, as the rising Sun, now near its East, and Morning Dawn. As the Stars, let every one move, and even Fight in their Courses, and help the Lord against the Mighty; Let us wait for Jesus Christ from Heaven, who before Pontius Pilate witness'd that good Confession of his Kingdom, which though it is not of this World, is yet of the approaching World to come, whereof we speak; and though, it is not from hence, or from beneath, yet is the Jerusalem coming down from Heaven; which he in his own proper Time, now at Hand will shew, who is Lord of Lords, and King of Kings.