THIS Voice is Another; For it succeeds the mighty Cry of the strong Voice of an Illustrious Angel, which had gone just before, and proclaim'd, Babylon the Great is Fallen, is Fallen. Now although these Two Voices are prepar'd for a particular Time, and that is still to come; yet they sound backward from that Time, where­in they are to have so perfect an Elevation, to the Times be­fore; and so consequently to all Time forward, from that ve­ry Time wherein these Voices were Heard, and Recorded by the Apostle John, the Apocalyptical Amanuensis, or Scribe; that so from that very Time, the Execution of the Things de­clar'd may be expected, and prepar'd for, as in their proper Time to be executed.

But more especially since the Time of the Reformation, and so onwards, the nearer we approach the Time for which it is prepar'd, the more the Voice, with which we have now to do, is to be attended, as if it sounded louder and louder; And it shall most sensibly do so, when the Fourty two Months of the Beast are expir'd, which we shall find, will be at the farthest Nine years hence.

Let us then consider the Importance of this Voice, and it is plainly the Separation of the People of God, and so of every Person among us, if we are of his People, from any Commu­nion with that City or Community concerning which we shall by [Page 2] the Light of this Prophecy duly weigh'd and consider'd, be con­vinc'd; that It is the City symboliz'd, or set out by this Mysti­cal Woman; And our Separation must be proportionable to the danger of being tainted, or struck with the Contagion of its Sins, or Apprehended and Reachd by the Thunder-shaft of its Plagues: For so is the Charge; Come out of her, my People. And so is the Enforcement, Lest ye be partaker of her Sins, and lest ye Receive of her Plagues.

Now that we may do this; It is highly Expedient at least, to use the utmost Enquiry into this Prophecy, that we may know by the Characters of it, What, and what manner of City the Spirit of God in it doth signifie; and what or what manner of Time also, It hath denoted, or else we cannot so well judge what is 1 Pet. 1. 11. our Duty, or what our Danger:

For though I would allow, with as much Largeness of mind as can be desir'd, that by the General Rules of Universal Scri­pture, we may without the particular Understanding of this Prophecy be secur'd from both the Impurities, and from the Judgments of this City, by Adhering to the Truth, and Purity, and Mercy of the Christian Religion in Doctrine, Discipline, Worship and Practise, according to the just measures of the Word of God; yet we cannot do it with those particular Evi­dences of that Divine Reason, nor with those vigorous Emo­tions of Zeal against such an unclean Communion as this Prophecy rightly apprehended would arm us with; For certain­ly, The Pen of this Divine Scribe was not made in vain.

I will therefore use the highest Diligence of Research and close Enquiry into the Prophecy, concerning the City, and the Times appointed to it; and then concerning the Comming out of it, and enforce the Charge here given to come out of it; and all this as peculiarly deriv'd from this Holy Oracle, in comparison of which, all the Streams deriv'd from Antiqui­ty are Low and Flat in shewing the Great Abominations of that City.

But Blessed is he that Readeth, and They who Hear the Words of this Prophecy, for now the Time is more at hand, as to what we are now to Treat of, than when the Oracle was first given, although each part of this Prophecy was in its own Time and Order at Hand, according to the Line, wherein each Thing was to come to pass, and which Line began in the Things that were first to come to pass, and did come to pass from the Re­surrection [Page 3] and Ascension of Christ, which are but one Time in the Account of Prophecy (as we say in Law, The whole of each Term is but one Day;) and from thence the Revelation is dated, as from its Epoch, or Beginning-Point.

First therefore concerning the City, there are such Characters as undeniably assure us This City can be no other than the City Rome that is here thus describ'd.

The City resembled by a Woman, a not only Imperious, but Charact. 1. Imperial whorish Woman, is plainly Expounded by the Angel to be a City; And it is usual in Prophecy to Figure Cities by that Embleme of a Woman, and not only Cities, but Churches, as Revel. c. 17. c. 18. Zion, by a Woman grieved in Spirit; the True Church in this Prophecy is often Typ'd by a Woman; the New Jerusalem by the Bride, the Lambs Wife. And Adulterous Churches by Adulte­rous Women; as Aholiab and Aholibah are the Pictures of Samaria Ezek. 23. and Jerusalem, both as Adulterous Cities and Churches.

But this Woman, this Imperial and Imperious whorish Woman, is affirm'd to be [...], with all the Empha­sis and Force of Expression that can be; The City, The Great; That hath (now, saith the Apostle John, that I am in writing it) at this very present Time, the Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth.

Now a City that had then the Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth, undeniably imported a Capital City, the Seat of an Ʋni­versal Monarchy at that Time. For as a Monarch hath in the ve­ry nature of a Monarch, all subordinate Magistrates under him, and accountable to Him; so an Universal Monarchy hath States and Kingdoms under it; that however in their parti­cular Kingdoms They may be over and above all others, yet still their Power is Limitable and accountable to, and may be Appealed from to the Universal Monarchy and Power.

When therefore This City is said to be The City, The Great, Having at that Time a Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth; It is to say, the City spoken of was at the Time when the Reve­lation was given the Seat of an Ʋniversal Monarchy, and that some Supreme Power had its Imperial Residence there, took its Title from that City, exercis'd its Power under that Title, and as the then present Head of that City bore up the City by such Title; so that it is said to have a Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth, because such a Power, so related to it, had a Kingdom [Page 4] over all other Kingdoms far and near, or had such an Uni­versal Monarchy or Kingdom.

Now what City that was, that had then a Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth, in the sense now declared, besides the Noti­ces of Universal History in that matter, it is most evident from Scripture, that it must be even that very City Rome, for Au­gustus, at that time the Emperour of Rome, when our Lord was Born, made a Decree, that All the World, viz. the World of the Roman Empire, which Aspir'd, as it were to equal the very Ha­bitable Earth in Extent, should come under a particular Census, Luc. 2. 1. or be describ'd, that so an Account of the large Bounds of the Dominion, the Numerousness, Strength, and Riches of the Sub­jects might be render'd to Him.

We read in the History of the Acts of the Apostles, how great the Honour was for any City to be accounted a Member of that City, that its Natives might be the Free-Born of that City; It made such a City no mean City. The Immunity of being so Free-born was so great, that many purchas'd it at an exceeding Rate, who had it not by Birth. We find the Apostle Paul, though he was a Jew, and immediately subject to the Jewish Law, yet, as it were directed by an Impulse of Providence, Ap­peals to Caesar's Tribunal, as the Highest upon Earth. These and many other Expressions assure us, what City it was that at the Acts 22. 28 Time Reigned over the Kings of the Earth.

And it was very necessary, the Scripture, that loves most in all weighty matters to be serv'd by its own Records, should take this great Notice of the Roman Empire; Because as the Fourth Monarchy, it was of the Four the most Remarkable; For in it Dan. 7. the Kingdom of Messiah, that is to be so Universal a Monarchy in­deed, began to be set up in its Beginning, and will in the End of the same Roman Monarchy be a Dominion under the whole Heaven, given to the Saints of the most High; the first of which is Ac­counted for in the History of the New Testament, and the Last in this Grand Prophecy of it, the Revelation.

But further, to carry on the Certainty of this City being the City Rome, at the time the Apostle John wrote the Revelation, we may observe what is so well known, That there was no Change in the State of the Roman Empire, except a greater En­largement of it from the Days of Christ, and the Apostles, to the Time of the writing the Revelation by the Apostle John. So [Page 5] that when This City is declar'd to be the City that Reign'd over the Kings of the Earth, it is most evident Rome was the City in­tended.

It is therefore called the Great City, according to the manner Charact. 2. of speaking at that Time; Roma Sacra, Augusta, Aeterna, Rome the Sacred, the Imperial, the Everlasting Rome. How often there­fore doth the Revelation style it the Great City, and Babylon the Great, and The City, and The Great?

This Woman is said to sit on Seven Mountains; And the Ho­ly Charact. 3. Spirit is so Industrious, if I may so speak with Reverence, to give this Notice of the Famous Seven-Hill'd Rome, that it goes out of its way to give it; For whereas the Beast only and not the Woman is Entitled to the Seven Heads; Besides the Seven Heads of the Beast, on whom the Woman sitteth, the Wo­man her self is pourtrayed Sitting on Seven Mountains, as The names of which are most universally known to be the Capitoline, the Pa­latine, the Aventine, the Celan, the Es­quiline, the Viminal, the Quirinal. Seven Heads (besides the Beasts Heads, I say,) so that the Divine Wisdom steps as it were aside to fetch in these Seven Mountains as the Cities Heads; as an uncontroula­ble, unmoveable Character and Assurance of this City. For never was any City in the World so famously known by its Seven Hills as the Seven-Headed City Rome.

There being then no possibility of Avoiding it, the most zea­lous Partizans of Rome in its present State, dare not deny that the Woman here describ'd, and expounded by the Angel into a City, is the very City Rome, and no other; They do therefore Acknowledge it; There are but Two ways then to rescue Rome in its present State from the Dint of this Prophecy.

1. That it was Heathen Rome the Prophecy intended, and that therefore it hath had its Accomplishment many Ages ago.

2. Or that it may be some State of Rome, that is not yet, nor hath yet been, but is to be some short time before the End of the World.

If therefore the Prophecy will not endure either of these, that it is past, or to come, it is then Demonstration, that it must be the Present State of Rome, that is under the Thunder-stroke of the Prophecy: Seeing All, that Time enfolds in its whole Na­ture, is either past, present, or to come:

Now that the State of Rome here describ'd is not yet past, there are these two Evident Reasons.

1. That whenever this Prophecy is fulfill'd, there must be an utter Destruction, Ruine, and Desolation of the City; for the [Page 6] Woman expounded to be the City Chap. 17. is the same, whose Desolation is so amply and finally declar'd chap. 18. so that there can be no possible supposal it can be otherwise: And that the Desolation is utter and Final, besides the whole Course of it all along, is most apparent by the Emblem of the Mill-stone thrown into the Bottom of the Sea; as of Babylon of old, that is a place of Wild Beasts at this Day: Every thing in the whole Prophecy is levied on purpose to express a supreme Abolishment of this City out of the whole Nature of Things.

Now no such Abolishment of the City Rome hath yet been, but it hath out-liv'd the Calamities that it suffer'd at any Time since the Prophecy, and hath always so recover'd it self that it is at this day in Grandeur, so that the Truth of the Prophecy must be wholly overthrown, or not yet fulfill'd; and so it must be yet to be destroy'd.

I say nothing of the Cities of the Nations Falling at the same Time that Great Babylon came in Remembrance before God, because I would rest only upon what is most indubitably plain.

2. The Glory of the Church, and of the Kingdom of Christ, the Bride, the Lambs Wife making her self ready to the Marriage, c. 19. 20. 21. and that whole Blessed change of Things, answering the great Types of the Prophecy, immediately follow the Desolation of this City Rome: So in Daniel, after the giving the Beast to the Flames (as is here foretold also after the Final Destruction of Babylon) the Kingdom under the whole Heaven is given to the Saints of the most High, and Sathan chain'd, shut up, and seal'd into his own bottomless pit, that he might deceive the Nations no more. But that these Happy Things have not yet come to pass, there needs nothing more to convince All that bear the Christian Name, than the Imposture and Tyranny of Mahomet, that hath rag'd within the very Bow­els of the Christian World so long a space.

The most observant therefore of the Roman Commentators on this Prophecy, finding how impossible it is to adjust the Prophecy of these two Chapters to Rome changed from Rome Imperial, as Heathen, to Rome Imperial, as Christian, have thought the second Interpretation the safer Refuge from the Terror of its Judg­ment here foretold, and much the rather, I doubt not, because an Exposition resting on a Futurity can be less Evicted in its Disagreeableness, than what bears on Things past, and what is to be just at the End of the World, can be hardlier confuted by shewing the ill-matching of Consequences, (especially when [Page 7] the Consequences are so Great, as the Day of Judgment only can parallel; (as they have truly enough consider'd,) then what was to have been so many Ages ago Attended with such Conse­quences as have not yet come to pass, which every one can plainly charge.

But yet the due and close Search into this Prophecy will as much Confute this, as the other, as is now to be made evident: which, that it may be done, I will lay down this Proposition, and prove it from the whole Prophetick Table.

Rome in the present State is that, which hath been from the Proposit. Time the Imperial Name of the City Rome ceas'd, and still conti­nues, that Symbolical, mystical Woman, or City, upon which this Prophecy, and the whole Designation of it, perpendicularly, or as we say, point-blank Falls, and not a Future Rome and Antichrist to be expected, Three years and a half only before the Day of Judg­ment, as some Papists would have it.

To prove this, I use this General Argument: That which 1 General Argum. gives us the distinguishing States and Times of this City, accor­ding to this Prophecy, and according to the General Reason of Things, must be the distinguishing of the Times, and States of its Seven Heads, and Eight Kings; Even as in all States, King­doms, and Cities, their Times are given by the Reigns of the Princes and by the Governments over them; If then by the computing the Times of these, it shall appear, the present Rome is this Woman or City, the Demonstration will be secure.

Now Thus is the whole Prophetick Frame. This City sits on a Beast of Seven Heads, for those Seven Mountain-Heads are by the By, and only to give the presumptive Knowledge of this City, so fam'd for its Seven Mountains; the certain, and more accom­plish'd assurance, even to Plerophory, of which is, its having at that Time a Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth: yet this of the Mountains joyn'd with it establishes it in the Evidence of Two most undoubted Testimonies of it.

Yet still it is to be consider'd, the Woman sits on the Moun­tains, only as a City is describ'd by its Scituation, and this City by its Scituation on Seven Mountains which is a very Grand Cha­racter of it: But the Woman sits on the Beast of Seven Heads, as a Man or Woman are carried aloft on the Beast that bears them, or on which they Ride; so this Woman sits, as a City, fast, sea­ted on Seven Mountains, and as an Imperial Woman Riding in State on the Beast, that bears, (as the Prophecy expresly styles [Page 8] it) or carries her, and offering her Golden cup of Fornications to the Kings of the Earth, intoxicated with the Grandeur and Riches, as also with the Sensuality of her Lusts and Adulteries.

Encircled therefore with these Seven and Seven of Heads for Assuring the City, and for the greater flourish of the Type, The Woman sits on high; and the Two Sevens of Heads are expoun­ded by the Angel to be Seven Hills or Mountains, unmoveable Heads. And [ They] viz. the Heads, (not [ There] as the Eng­lish Translation too Low) are Seven Kings, who are the mo­ving, living Heads of the Beast, on which she sits, and by the Flitting or Remove of the Principality from one Head to ano­ther, the Times of the Woman, or of the City, as we shall see, are to be dated; for though the Heads are always united to the Beast, as all one Animal, or Bestial living Creature, however monstrous it may seem, yet the Kingship of the Heads was in a Succession till it came to the last King under which it now is, and hath been so long.

Now among these Seven Heads that were Kings, there was a Seventh King cast in, that was of another kind, as being no Head, which is of very great consideration in this prophetical Portraicture, as we shall find; and He comming in makes the Seventh Head the Eighth King.

That we may be therefore guided by this whole Type to the certain knowledge of the present State of this City, I will lay down these four Propositions, with the proof of each.

These Seven Heads and Eight Kings are not together Kings, or Propos. 1. in the Exercise of Sovereignty at one and the same Time, but are in a Succession, or after one another; This is most unde­niable, for Five had been before the Prophecy given to the Apo­stle; and were Fallen, viz. from their Principality, or Exer­cise of Sovereignty, else they were not Fallen; for they are still represented on the Beast, and never part from it, as in the Prophetick Image, but pertain to the Integrity of the Beast or Ro­man Imperialism from first to last, which always consists of all its Parts. They were Fallen then in regard of Principality, or Exercise of Sovereignty, which they had in their proper Time or Season. Their union therefore to the Beast preserves them still their place, as Heads in the prophetick Sculpture, but not as Kings still in Being.

Now these Five Fallen Heads are given as in One, or as in a Knot and Clamp together, the Prophecy being little concern'd [Page 9] in their exact Distinction, or Succession; it being enough to it, that there were before the Prophecy Five Supreme Roman Govern­ments, (which, as we shall see, It calls Kings,) Whether they were just in an order, or whether traversing one another, it is all one as to the Prophecies Concern in them. The Caution therefore in the Prophecy in this matter is very observable, knowing what objection might be made concerning the Succes­sion of the Kingly, Consular, Dictatorian, Tribunitial, and Decem­viral Power, the so well known several Governments of the Roman States, It gives them in a Heap of Five together: Sig­nifying, It intended no more than to mark by them the Beasts Heads before the Prophecy, as past, or Fallen, and only Remarks the Succession of the One that then was; and that It was not while the Five were, and that they had been, and were Fallen, before the Prophecy was given; which sufficiently de­monstrates the Succession betwixt the Five, and the One then in Being; which is all the Prophecy aims at, and troubles not it self with the order of the Five among themselves, any farther, than that Five such were, and that they drew along the Times of the City to the Succession of the One then in Being.

The Seventh was plainly to be a King, but was not yet come, but was to come, and to continue but a short space, when He came; which farther assures the Succession: For seeing He was not come, He could not be together with the Sixth King, who then was, nor could He be at the same Time with the succeeding Eighth, in whom the City was to be destroy'd; for He was to continue but a short space: And then after Him the Eighth King follows, the Eighth, viz. in strict Order, because the short­liv'd Seventh came between Him and the Sixth; But the Eighth was of the Seven, viz. of the Seven Kings, who were also the Seven Heads; there must be therefore a Succession between the Seventh short-liv'd, and the Eighth; because the Seventh and Eighth imply so much, the Seventh is to continue a short space. The Eighth therefore necessarily is suppos'd not to be so cur­tailed in Time; Both Kings, and so not together, and the Other Seventh no Head; for the Eighth was of the Seven Kings that were Heads. From all which it is most impossible, but that a Succession must appear most manifestly.

There is no Appearance of the least of an Hiatus or Gap; Propos. 2. there is no Interreign, no vacuum, or empty space in the Suc­cession betwixt the Sixth King, then in Being, the Seventh and [Page 10] the Eighth, in which onely the Prophetick Time is concern'd, but all the Caution against it that can be; for why was this Seventh King, who was no Head, put in, but that he might stand, as an Embolimean or double Seventh King, like our Embo­limean or double Twenty fourth of February in every Emboli­mean or Intercalar, or, as we usually speak, Leap-year, that there might be no disorder in Time, as here no Gap in the Successi­on; For thus only could the Succession of these Kings exact­ly Lead the Course of the Cities Time; So that the Spaces of it might be measur'd thereby: But if Those Seven Kings only, that were Heads had been nam'd, while there was Another be­tween, that was no Head, and he had not been Nam'd; There must have been a Leap of Time from the sixth to the seventh Head, and no Account of the Seventh King (making the seventh Head the eighth King) to have swell'd up that space of the seventh King's Time into Appearance and Notice.

From whence it is Evident, that the Seventh King, no Head of the Beast, that Carries the Woman, and yet A King of the City, is cast in to keep the Course and Current of the Prophetic Time strait and tight; For if the very exact Pourtraicture of the Beast had been only design'd, It had been more Just and Even, with­out any mention of the Seventh King, that pertain'd not to the Beast, nor to the Woman as carried by the Beast. But It was abso­lutely necessary, that King also should be mention'd, that the Time of the Prophecy with Relation to the Beast, and the City might be under just Computation, which it could not have been, except the Seventh King, being King of the City, as before said, and Coming between the sixth King and Head, and the Eighth King but seventh Head had been plac'd in his Regular Succession, how­ever it seem to interrupt the state of the Beast, who for that time (as we shall see) lay wounded, and so was to suffer that Disorder in this his prophetical Representation.

The King that was no Head can have no room in the Order Proposit. 3. of Succession, but just in that Seventh Place: For the Seven Heads are seven Kings, viz. Seven that are also Heads; Seeing then there are Eight Kings, although but seven Heads: There must be one of these Kings who is no Head; Else there must be eight Heads, which contradicts the Prophecy: Which Place then the King No Head holds must be enquir'd; It cannot be any of the Five Fallen; For they are in Construction of Speech necessarily Heads, For those seven Heads are Seven Kings, Five of which Kings, [Page 11] who were Heads are Fallen: So the very Frame of the Words requires. But besides the Five are put together, and so must be of a Kind, and therefore All alike Heads, or All alike no Heads, if All no Heads, where then can be the Seven? therefore of ne­cessity All Heads. And There is nothing more in the Mind and Design of the Prophecy, than to assure us the Eighth King is a Head; For whereas He is the Eighth in Number of Kings, He is Trans­pos'd backward, and made the Seventh, viz. Head. For so he must be, when of the Seven; Seven, Take them either as Kings, or Heads, both which as together and in one are Sevens, and no other are Sevens but they who are both Kings and Heads; For the seven Heads are seven Kings. And it is plain He is last of the seven, and so must be the seventh; viz. Head and King.

The Dispute then can only lye betwixt the seventh and the sixth Kings, which of those Two shall be the King, who yet is no Head. Now the very Contexture of the Words necessarily determines us upon the sixth as Head, as well as King, or at least strongly enclines us; For Five Kings, that are Heads are Fallen, And One is One, what? but of the Heads, who are Kings. [...] Another is not yet Come, Another, what? but King, Yet not Head, For He is Another; For when such a Point of difference is to be decided, there is great Reason to give the word Another a greater weight of Sense, then only a casual Word of Order; but it seems the Spirit of Prophecy chose that word [ One] that the word [ Another] might fall emphatically and yet concealedly, as possible to be casually, where He would have it just Fall.

Further, when He Comes, He must continue but a short space, which is said only of the seventh King, and no Head, For the Five are put together, The Sixth is; The Eighth goes indeed into Perdition, but after how long Time is here but Intimated: On­ly the seventh is of short space, who being no Head of the Beast that Carries the City, ought to be of short space only; For neither the Beast nor such a City could have survived long, if the King no Head had been of long duration: But they were to survive long.

Lastly, the Eighth is expresly said to be of the Seven, immedi­ately after the Seventh had made an Interruption between the Heads, being no Head Himself, but if the seventh King had been a Head, and the sixth none, we might have expected, what Falls so on the seventh King, would have been fix'd on the sixth King, to distinguish it from being a Head; and what is set on the [Page 12] Eighth King to assure Him to be a Head, would have been in the same measure Communicated to the seventh King, to assure Him to be a Head, as well as King, if the sixth King had made a Chasm or Breach betwixt the Heads, whereas All falls fit on the seventh King on all sides to be no Head.

But though All This be enough, yet we shall have much more to Assure us when we come to know who these Heads are; that of all most indisputably the sixth must be a Head, and the seventh could be no Head, seeing the heads are Full of the Names of Blasphemy.

These seven Kings are not seven particular Kings, or single Proposit. 4. Monarchic Persons, but seven Governments, having each a Num­ber or Succession of such single Kings under them; For Kings in Prophetic Scripture signifie Kingdoms, and not only single Kings; So Dan. 7. 17. what are call'd Four Kings, no one doubts Mean Four Kingdoms; Accordingly v. 23. the Fourth King is In­terpreted to be the Fourth Kingdom.

In this Prophecy, proportionably the Beast with Seven Heads is the whole Roman Empire or Kingdom (according to the old Prophetic Emblem of Heathenish Monarchies) from its first Foun­dation, and Beginning to its last Overthrow, in which Rome, the Imperial City, hath been always by the Seven Headed Beast Exalted and borne on High.

The Heads are the several Governments and Forms of Empire, that have each in their several Seasons exercised Supremacy, and Sovereign Authority in that Monarchy State or Kingdom, Five of which the Prophecy (as before nam'd) binds up together as uninteressed in their Duration or Succession: The Last of these Heads, which is the Seventh and Eighth King, is eminently styl'd the Beast, because His Supremacy is chiefly treated of by this Prophecy, and in which the whole City and All goes into Per­dition with Him.

Now to demonstrate, that these Heads and Kings must be Forms of Government, let us consider, one and the same City, the City Rome is Carried upon the Beast of these Seven Heads (to­gether with the Cast-in- King) its whole Time, even to its final Desolation: For its whole Ichnography or Representation is charg'd upon these Seven Heads, in the last of which It is utterly Desolated. The Heads therefore cannot be several Monarchies and Kingdoms; For They are All the Heads of One Beast or Mo­narchy, and so not several Monarchies or Empires. They All [Page 13] bear up the One City Rome, and so must be one Roman Supremacy: Nor can they be single Kings or Monarchic Persons, seeing neither would Seven Lives support the Grandeur of Eternal Rome, as It was Call'd, nor in Fact have any Seven so supported it from the Apostle John's Time, much less Two, (One of which was then in Being,) although we cast in the Embolimean seventh King, but not Head; For since the Writing of the Apostle is above sixteen hundred Years, and yet the Judgment Written in this Prophecy is not as yet Executed; From the Time then that This City was said to have such an Ascendency, as to have the Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth, to this time of the Desolation here Foretold, the City Rome was to be kept up in Dignity by its sixth King then in Being, by its seventh King no Head for a short space, by its Eighth King and seventh Head, under which it is to sink as a Mill-stone. How impossible is it therefore, these Kings should be other then Governments or Successions of several Persons, or numbers of Persons in each Government?

Let us now lay together these Four Propositions, and consi­der their Amount to that which we are upon; That which we are upon, is, That the Present and not a Future Rome or Anti­christ Falls under the Thunder-stroke of this Prophecy; and that the People of God are call'd out of the present Roman City or Church: The general way of proving this must be by finding, that the Present Rome is upon the Eighth King and seventh Head; Toge­ther with which It is to be destroy'd. For that is the Rome out of which the People of God are call'd, even that Rome, that is to be [...]hus destroy'd.

To find this we must consider the Eight Kings and Seven Heads, under which Rome passes its whole Time, and be able to judge of their Times. To which end I have debated these Four Pro­positions.

1. That these are Kings in Succession. 2. That the Successi­ons are immediate, and without any void Time between. 3. That the King that was no Head can have no Room but in the seventh place. 4. That the seven and eight Kings are not single Kings, but several, and a number of Kings under each King.

Now let us consider the Amount of these four Propositions, and it must needs be that these Things will follow.

That whatever King or sort of Government carried the City Consequ. 1. Rome aloft in the Apostle Johns Time of writing the Revelation, [Page 14] must be the sixth King, for Five then were fallen, with whom the Prophecy had no further to do, then to give them, as a mark of the City, and of the Beasts carrying it. One was then in Being, which following the Five must needs be the Sixth.

We know both by History, and by Scripture mentioning Au­gustus, Consequ. 2. Tiberius, Claudius Caesar, Emperours of Rome, That the Head bearing up Rome in the Apostles Times was the Heathen Imperial Head; And seeing there was no Time, that Rome was more drunk with the Blood of Saints, in universal Acknowledg­ment; nor the Roman Empire more confessedly carryed the Names of Blasphemy, then at that Time; We know by the same universal Consent, that of all others the sixth King must needs be a Head; which decides so far the doubt betwixt the sixth and the seventh Kings, which should be of them Two the Head, seeing both could not; and it assures us the sixth must be the Head. And indeed were not the Prophecy so puissantly against it, It looked fair to be the Rome, and Beast of that Time here meant, but for great Reasons that can't be.

We know by undoubted History, the Heathen Imperialism fell Consequ. 3. by Constantine, in whom the Empire became Christian: And seeing there was no Inter-reign, or breach in the succession of Kings af­ter the sixth, the seventh must immediately succeed; And there­fore It must be the Christian Empire, because that immediately followed that Heathen; from whence it appears how admirably agreeable the Prophecy and the Event are; For as we have made evident by the words of the Prophecy the seventh King could be no Head, carrying the Names of Blasphemy. So the Christian Empire acknowledging the One God, and the One Mediator, the True God, in whom is Eternal Life, was free from this Brand, and by wonderful Wisdom of Providence It was ordered, that Constan­tine, and other the Christian Emperours withdrew themselves much from Rome, so that they did not as the Heads of the Beast bear Rome so high, but It was in an Eclipse, Constantine building the City Constantinople as a New Rome to shade the Old; And which is wonderful assuring as Prophecy presents the Beast wounded in One of his Heads with a deadly wound, so we know by History the Beast as an Idolatrous Empire was wounded in the Christian Victories over the Idolatrous Emperours and Chiefs: Thus every way the word [...] or [Another] falls so duly upon the Christian Em­perour, that It is even to ravishment at the Wisdom of the very prophetical Grammar, that so plac'd the [...] or [One] that the [Page 15] [...] or [Another] might follow big with Sense, and yet veil'd with secresie; and lastly, This Empire continued but a short space; viz. about an hundred and fifty years, which was short compa­red with the five fallen before the Prophecy, bundled together; shorter by half than the sixth King then in Being; but beyond comparison shorter then the eighth King, who is plainly aim'd at, and for whose sake the seventh King was cut so short in Time, that he might have his full Time, viz. of forty two prophetick Months (as we shall see) above twelve hundred years in ordina­ry account.

The only Objection I can possibly divine thus far, is, that be­cause the form of Government was Imperial both under the Hea­then and Christian Emperours. The Heathen and Christian Emperour cannot be understood to be two forms of Government, and so the sixth and the seventh Kings seem confounded into One, and thereby this account is overthrown.

To this I answer first, seeing we are sure the Heathen Empire Answ. 1. must be the sixth King, that then was; It will very little alter the case, as to the present Rome, For It is certain that sixth King must be fallen; we are also certain, the seventh being to continue but a short space, must be fallen also, because the space from the sixth King hath been so very long. From whence it will follow the Eighth and last King must be, and must have been long in play, and whoever is, and hath been long so, must be the eighth King, and Rome must be this Rome under him, and this Rome and He must be destroyed together; and if we will believe the Pro­phecy, all this must be sure. And so, as I say, the difference can­not be great; For under whomsoever the City now is, He must be the eighth King, Rome borne up by Him must be the Rome here described, and must be destroyed with Him the Beast; and the People of God must come out of it, as It is and hath so long been in the eighth King.

Although the form of Government under the Heathen and Answ. 2. Christian Emperours was alike, and the same Imperial Form, yet the Spirit and Soul of the Government being so purely Christian in Gods Account, It highly merited to be reputed and given, as a new Succession of Kings, as a distinct seventh King, being so much Another, so much different from those before, and from that after it, although It had great Failings, even as the Kings of the House of David had, and yet were in substance a Line of Honour in the sacred Register.

By all this we must know, the seventh Head, but eighth King Conseq. 4. must have immediately succeeded at the expiration of the Chri­stian Empire, because that continued but a short space after the Hea­then Empire in Being in the Apostles Time, but a long Time hath now run out, and yet Rome is in Grandeur.

Whatever Name hath therefore carryed the Name of Supre­macy derived from the City Rome it self, and borne up that in Grandeur above the Kings of the Earth at any Time, or at this day, and more especially for a long space together, since the Fall of the Heathen Empire, and since the Fall of the Christian Em­pire, and of its very Imperial Name must be the eighth King; be the Name what It will: And Rome sitting upon that Beast, as that which hath drunk into it self the Name of the whole Beast must be that Rome, and its eighth King, from whom the People of God are to separate, that they may not partake of their Sins, nor re­ceive of their Plagues, or else the Prophecy can have no sense, or its sense cannot be True.

And seeing we know that All This Time Rome hath incor­porated the Name of a Church with the Name of a City, and that the Bishop or Pope of Rome hath had the Supremacy of that City and Church, and carried it on high, riding as a Queen in State by Virtue of that Supremacy since the fall of the Imperial Name first as Pagan, and then as Christian we must know, that He is the Beast, the eighth King and seventh Head, and that Rome as a Church now, more then a City, though a City too, is that very Rome, from which the People of God are to come out, because of the foulness of its Antichristian and Idolatrous Fornications, and because of the Horror of that Vengeance to be exacted upon it, of which the Judgment upon Sodom, the Plagues upon Aegypt, and the Vengeance on Samaria and Jerusalem were but Types; For It is that Edomitish Border of Wickedness against which God will have Indignation for ever.

For if Rome, and no other be the City, as we have seen beyond Contest, it is, the Pillars of its Time from the Prophecy are so high and lofty, that they cannot be over-seen; The sixth King then in Being when the Apostle John writ is one Pillar, the so more than Monumental Destruction of so Imperious a City is the other Pillar. Whatever time runs between these Two Pillars by the express Words of the Prophecy are given to the sixth King then in Being, to the short space of the seventh King, and the whole, how long soever after to the seventh Head and Eighth King. It [Page 17] being then sixteen Ages since the Apostle Writ; It is undeniable, these Kings must be Governments, or distinct Supremacies, ha­ving each many single Persons under them, else they could not sustain so long a space; and the seventh fewest, because the short­test.

The Government that was in the Apostles time is long Fallen, no one can question, suppose then the seventh King were disputa­ble who He is, the Eighth must yet be in Action, because the Seventh had so short a space: Whoever the Eighth is, He must be as close united to the City Rome, as the Rider is to the Beast on which such Riders sit. I appeal therefore to all the the World, that can but understand Sense, when it is most plainly laid be­fore them, who this can be, but the Pope of Rome? who alone, and no other with Him hath been thus united to Rome the City and Church, above these last twelve hundred Years.

From all which it most absolutely follows the Present Rome is the City and Church, that is to fall under those Plagues for her Sins, out of which therefore the People of God are call'd, that they may not partake of their Sins, nor receive of its Plagues [...]: Which I undertook to demonstrate, and is, I doubt not, in every considering Mans sense demonstrated, as far as is necessary by a general Argument. But I shall yet give far­ther Assurance of it, and Answer all Objections under the fol­lowing Arguments, which shall be yet more particular.

If it can be proved, that the Beast that carries the Woman, and Argu. 2. is that seventh Head, and Eighth King, of which so much hath been already discoursed, hath been in the Possession of the Time expresly design'd by Prophecy to that Beast that carries the Woman, as the seventh Head and Eighth King, and is now in the Possession of that Time, and that it ought to be so long, as it hath already, is now, and must still continue to be; This will be yet more particular proof of the Woman, that it is the present Rome, out of which the People of God are call'd to come.

For the due management of this Argument, Three Points are necessary:

The Time it self of the Beast must be assign'd by express Point 1. Words of Prophecy, that there may be certain Knowledge of that what it is.

There must be substantial Proof offered, that the Time as­sign'd Point 2. will bear such a Length, as will Comport with this Ar­gument.

Seeing the Event at the End cannot yet, as a matter of Fact Point 3. give Evidence, that the Time is justly assign'd, there must be good Evidence of the well fixing the Epoch, or Beginning of that Time according to the Prophecy, and according to Event also; and the Event, that is to be expected at the End, must appear to be sufficiently defin'd by Prophecy, both as to the City or Woman carried by the Beast, and inclusively, as to the Beast also.

I begin with the First Point, viz. That the Time of the Point 1. Beast is expresly assign'd by Prophecy; For which I Vouch that known Place, Revel. 13. 6. And Power, Right, or Authority was given to Him the Beast to continue (as the Word [...] joyn'd with a Word of Time, generally signifies in the New Testa­ment) Fourty Two Months; Now in that Power, or as the Word signifies, a Priviledge or Authority was given Him, It sets out, though not a Lawful Authority that was to be obey'd, as is most apparent by every thing pertaining to this Beast, yet It imports a signal permission, and ordination of God's to that purpose, and that He carryed the Woman as a King or Head of the Beast, viz. of the Idolatrous Empire, and by a Figure, or Synech­dochically the Beast Himself as Head, oft denotes the whole Body.

For the driving this home to the purpose, I am sensible It will be necessary to give Proof; That the Beast, c. 13. and c. 17. are one and the same Beast; For if the Beast were not the same in both Chapters, we could indeed have no guidance from the forty two Months assigned to the Beast, c. 13. concerning the Time of the Beast, c. 17. But if it be one and the same Beast in both Chapters, then the forty two Months must needs be the Gauge of the Duration of the Beast, c. 17. as It is c. 13.

Now besides many Agreements between the Two Repre­sentations, assuring them one, and the same, that would require much Discourse, and Consideration of the whole Frame of this stupendious Point of the Prophecy; I shall, as I have endeavour'd all along in each Branch of this Discourse, choose One, that requires least Discourse, and yet is most undeniable; that is, the Beast in the Beginning of chap. 13. who had one of his Heads Wounded, and the Deadly Wound was healed, is the Beast that had the Fourty Two Months limited to Him: The very same Beast had by the Ministry and Service of the other Beast, of whom I will not now enquire, It being unnecessary to the Force of this Argument: The very same Beast, I say, had an Image made to Him, with which He is ever after so conjoyn'd, that the Beast [Page 19] and his Image go inseparably together; the very same Beast had the Number of his Name, as also his Mark made particular unto Him: All these the Beast, that had the Fourty Two Months de­creed to Him undeniably had, for the Prophecy Affirms it in se­veral express Words, Calling the Beast that had these, the First Beast; the Beast that had a Wound by a Sword, and did Live; the Beast whose Deadly Wound was healed.

Now the very same Beast that hath the Image, the Mark, the Name, the Number of the Name, and was worshipped, is He that is carryed all along with these infallible Characters upon Him through every Chapter of this Prophecy, after his Description, c. 13. till He is brought together with the Woman, the City, or Church under the seventh Vial, and both utterly destroyed, c. 19. And they who had gotten the Victory over his Image, Mark, Name, Number of his Name, and would not Worship Him, nor his Image, celebrate the Judgments of God made manifest, upon the Woman, the City, and upon Him, Cast into the Red Sea, or Lake of Fire; as Moses and the Israelites upon the Brink of the Red Sea of Old, sung the Praises of God in casting Pharaoh and all his Host into that Red Sea, a kind of Type of this Destruction. c. 15.

And after all was fully executed upon the City, carryed upon the Beast, upon the Beast Himself, and upon his false Prophet and their whole Party; They who are first, and most eminent in the first Resurrection are they, who had not worshipped the Beast nor his Image, nor receiv'd his Mark, nor his Name; so manifest­ly referring to the Beast, who had All these, who is the Beast that had the Forty two Months assign'd to Him. c. 13. And indeed It is so far from two Beasts, that there is not (except that Beast, whom the Prophecy calls the other Beast, who had no Image, Mark, Name, nor number of Name;) any more Beasts then this One Beast, who had all these, who is kept so distinct as not to be confounded by the special care and caution of the Divine Spirit. And that other Beast first ministred to this grand Beast, till He came to his Number, and after serv'd Him as his false Prophet, and they were adjudged both to the Lake together; which, I hope, is full proof, that the same Beast who had the forty two Months assigned to Him, is the very Beast, who bears Rome aloft in this c. 17. and supports its Time at this day. And now the Time assign'd is very express in this Prophecy, viz. Forty two Months, which was the first point to be made out.

There must be substantial proof, that the Time assign'd will Point. 2. bear such a length as may comport with the Argument, that is to reach from the Expiration of the seventh King above twelve hundred years ago, and so onward till the Times of this Eighth King and seventh Head shall end also.

Now It is at first sight evident, Forty two Months are (naturally understood) a Time so very short, and curt, that They afford no room nor space for Action, that is great and considerable. But it is as evident there is a Cyphar or prophetick Short-hand for Time, that multiples Days into Years, and weeks of days into weeks of years, and so consequentially and proportionably Months of Days into Months of Years, and so proportionably these Months of Days into Months of Years: And this hath been Standard for the Rate of prophetick Time, ever since It was first set and seal'd by God, Ezek. 4. 6. I have appointed thee each day for a year.

And that therefore It should be so here, there is greatest Reason. 1. Because It is eminent, stupendious, profoundest Prophecy, even this whole Book of Revelation, and particularly this of the City and of its Prince the Beast, and requires deepest search, and a Mind that hath Wisdom, as is more than once ad­monished in this very point, and part of the Prophecy, that con­cerns the Beast, as if it were the most dark, misterious, and low­est laid of any Thing in this whole Volume of Prophecy; so that if ever there be place for such Interpretation of Time, here it is.

2. The necessity of deferring to the Prophecy its own Gran­deur, requires this Interpretation of Time; For when it por­trays such a Power, as the Beastial Power, and Principality, eve­ry stroke of which is great, and admirable; when It draws such a City or Community sitting upon it, so every way wonderful, as that John wonder'd with great Admiration, and that principally and in a manner solely in relation to this Beast of the seventh Head and Eighth King, and at the Woman upon Him. If the whole of this Grandeur, Power, and Principality both of the City, and of the King (for both are to be destroyed together) were coup'd up within the short space of three years and a half, how small and pe­tite must the Prophecy be, in describing with so great State and Eloquence of Types and words such a Mushrome City and Prince, that should Rise and Fall before they could be known to Live, or be warm in that Potency; where could the worlds wondering after the Beast, and worshipping Him lodg within such straits of Time? How would the Acclamations to Him [ who is like unto [Page 21] the Beast] be spent in a Breath? How would the ministry of the other Beast to him have any place? Where would his War with the Saints, and his Power over all Kindreds, Tongues, and Nations receiving his Mark, &c. find Room. How could the City or mystical Woman arrive to those heights, as to offer the Golden Cup of its Fornication to all the Princes and Inhabitants of the World, or to rise to those Riches, to draw such Confluency, as to make its Mer­chants the Greats of the World? Who sees not this Nut-shell of Time cannot contain the Ocean of this Prophecy?

Besides, as we have before at large found, the City is to be kept on high by the sixth, seventh, and eighth Kings, from the days of John the Apocalyptical Prophet; we know how great a Time hath run out since then, we know the King, that then was is long and long ago expir'd; the seventh King was to endure but a short space, and what short space must it then be, if the eighth King or Beast was to endure but three years and a half? And yet upon this eighth King was the Woman Rome to ride until its utter Desolation. But it hath and doth still sit Queen since the Apostles Time to this Day, and mostly upon this Beastian King, how can then forty two Months if Litteral, answer so long a space? So that there is nothing more undeniable then that these forty two Months are to be drawn out by the Prophetical Elaboratory into Months of Years.

3. When upon a just and severe Computation, we find, that these forty two Months prophetically expounded, will reach from the very Time, where according to Prophecy they were to begin, down to this Time, and allow for the event, that is to be still expected at the end of those forty two Months, not yet be­ing come to pass, and will indeed exactly touch that very period that by Prophecy is affixed to them all together; It is the great­est proof of the forty two Months so to be expounded, that can be expected or desired, until the event justifie all.

Let us then proceed to an exact Calculation of the Time gi­ven us in these forty two prophetical Months, and there see what length they reach.

The great matter in Question will be whether these Months import Time of the Sun or of the Moon; for between Time of the Sun, and of the Moon, there will in the whole forty two Months be near thirty eight years difference.

But there are these three great Reasons they must according to the strict propriety of the word, and Thing, [ Months] be re­gulated by the Moon, and not by the Sun.

This was always the Sense of the Scripture, where ever It Reas. 1. mentions Months, it intends Time governed by the Moon, which had, as all know, so great Domination over Jewish Time, that the great Solemnities of their New Moons and Feasts received Law from it, and It created all the Time, the Scripture calls Months, and because of those New Moons must necessarily do so. So that if It were not so here, Scripture must vary from its own use of the word throughout all other places; for It hath no word, that it expresses Months by, but precisely taken from the Moon or the Newness of the Moon. Now why It should do so here without any Reason, It should do so, but much the contrary, as will appear, what Account can be given?

There is nothing more evident, then that this divine Pro­phecy Reas. 2. keeps a strict and severe Distinction betwixt the Children of the day, and of the Night, betwixt the Witnesses, the Seed of the Woman, the Church, and the Woman the Church it self, who are all of the Day; and the Gentiles and the Beasts Times, who are of the Night. For the Times of the former are signally measu­red by Days, as governed by the Sun, wherewith the Church is Cloathed. But the Times of the latter are charactered by Months, as conducted by the Moon, the pale and wan Luminary of the Night; which Moon the Church is said (not without regard to this very matter) to have under its Feet, and therefore not fit to give its Character of Time. And seeing this hath been taken notice of by many Interpreters of the Revelation, It is much of wonder, they have not measured these Months by the Course of the Moon which Rules the Night.

The Latine word Menses hath made the Confusion, and I know not what should mislead them but Inobservance, seeing the Hebrew and Greek words exactly translated are Moons, not Months, which kept to, had clear'd all doubts.

There is a third Reason which is very great, and would ab­solutely Reas. 3. determin this Point if it were well Comprehended; and that is, that the Sun is the great measure of Days and Years, and of all Time by its superior Motion, and the Moon does but borrow from it as its Light, so its power of guiding and deno­minating any Parts of the Course of Time: Even so the Church and its Seed, who is Cloathed with the Sun, must give Law to the Course of that Time that concernes its self and its Seed. And It hath the Moon under its Feet in this respect also, that it gives Laws to the Course of the Moon's Time by its own Time; so [Page 23] then these forty two Months of the Gentiles, and the forty two Months or rather Moons of the Beast, can be no other than Lunar, or time of the Moon, as they must, being call'd Moons; And so as time of the Moon must be subordinated to the account of Time by the Sun's Motion; So these Months must be subordinated in their measure to the Beginning and Ending of the Twelve Hundred and Sixty Years, with which they are always match'd as Corre­spondents, viz. of the Woman, the Church in the Wilderness; and of its Seed, the Witnesses in Sackcloth, and therefore must needs be Lunar Time or Time of the Moon; For if they were Months of the Sun, (if we might call time of the Sun; Months, whose ve­ry Name denotes Time of the Moon alone,) and self-dependent Time the False Church, even as the True Church must be Cloath­ed with the Sun, and have the Moon under its Feet, which is con­trary to this Prophecy.

But if we should attend the full dimensions of this Argument, It would lead us into the whole state of the Characters of Time, gi­ven in Daniel and this Prophecy, which would be too large a Dis­course for what is here intended; and therefore I referr the searching Reader to the Treatise call'd, A Scripture-Line of Time, which I have made Publick, and satisfie my self with what con­cerns the Matter in hand; That the Forty Two Months of the Beast are Lunar Time, and must be measur'd according to the time of the Sun, or the Twelve hundred and sixty Years of the Woman in the Wilderness, and the Witnesses her Seed in Sackcloth, which cannot be deny'd upon the proof given; and is enough to our present purpose.

For upon this Ground-work well laid, that these Months are (as the very Propriety of the Expression requires) Months of the Moon, and to be apply'd to Twelve hundred sixty Days of the Sun; It is very plain, the, both Days and Months, cast a Coun­tenance or Face of Three Years and a half Prophetically to be Ex­pounded; Years of Years for Years of Days: But, as there is an Abbreviation or shortning of the Solar Year, or Year of the Sun, into Three hundred sixty, for Three hundred sixty five Days: So let each Year of the Moon be rated in a Proportion, and, as five Days and upwards of the Sun's Time are taken off, so let as many of the Moon's Years be taken off also; and whereas the Year of the Moon is Accounted by the best Accounts of Time, at 354 Days, let it be accounted at 349 Days, and these Fourty Two Months will be as 1222 Years in answer to 1260 Years, as near, as [Page 24] Time of the Sun and of the Moon can be proportion'd one to ano­ther: For which I Appeal to the exactest Accountants of Time.

Now by all this Discourse, I have undeniably, as I hope, and cannot but be humbly, yet fully perswaded, (for I allow one Year for Rounding the Number) gain'd such a space of time as twelve hundred twenty two Years; very little under or over, for the Woman to Sit the Beast of the Seventh Head, who is the Eighth King: But that It will exactly Comport with the Argument we are upon, viz. That it is a time sufficient to the definings of the Time by this propheey, is to be seen under the Third Point, for the management of the Argument, upon which I am now en­tring.

There must be good Evidence of the well-fixing the Begin­ning Point 3. or Epoch of this Time, according to the Prophecy, and accor­ding to the Event also. And the Event that is to be fixed at the End, must appear to be sufficient, defin'd by Prophecy, both as to the City or Woman carryed by the Beast, and inclusively as to the Beast also.

This Point divides it self into these two Branches.

1. The well-fixing this Epoch or Beginning of these twelve hundred twenty two Years according to Prophecy, and according to the Event. 2. And in the same manner to fix the Event to be evpected at the End.

For the well-fixing the Epoch or Beginning of the Number of Branch 1. these Years, according to Prophecy, and according to the Event it self.

1. I must recollect and enforce what I have before largely insisted upon; when there is a Succession of Kings, According to that Maxim in Successive Governments, The King never Dyes; whenever therefore the sixth King, that was in the Apostles time expir'd, the seventh must needs Succeed. For the Succession and Entail is made by God himself, and therefore must stand firm and sure; And when the Seventh expir'd, as necessarily on the same account must the Eighth Succeed, who was also the Seventh Head; And according to this inviolable Succession, the Apostle to this very same purpose, speaking of the Man of Sin, his being Revealed in his Time, declares, as a stop upon Him, however the Mystery of Iniquity was so early at work, however earnest He was to Succeed, yet the Succession, which was the Thing that held close and strong, would Hold its Hold; So that the Man of 2 Thes. 2. Sin could not be Revealed before his Season, or proper Time; with­in [Page 25] his Time, Times, Half Time; For he that Holdeth, viz. the Dan. 7. 25. 12. 7. sixth King in his Time, the seventh in his Time, would Hold his Hold till each King, and the last especially was Remov'd out of the way by that supreme dispose of Providence, or done out of that middle space determin'd by God: And then by due Advances was that Wicked One Revealed; Now who that considers that Man of Sin of the Apostle Paul, and the Beast of the Apostle John, can think of them, and not think them the same? But that is not the present Business to prove them the same but this Prophecy it self is demonstration enough, as before explained.

Thus far the Matter is determined according to the Prophecy, whenever the Seventh King, asserted to be the Christian Empe­rour, expir'd, viz. by a Civil Death, or the Cessation of the Im­perial Name, and Power, immediately the Eighth King according to Prophecy must succeed, and bear up the Roman City in Gran­deur, and whoever hath Borne up that City in Supremacy since that Time, must be according to Prophecy that Eighth King, the Beast. Now I Appeal to all the World, what the Year was, when the Western Imperial Name Fell; and it is known in all Hi­story to be the Year of Our Lord, according to general Account, 475, from whence Time since passed Allows these Forty Two Months their full space of 1222 years, within Nine or Ten years; as shall be further urged presently. I appeal in the same man­ner also, what Name or Power hath Borne up Rome since that Time, claiming Supremacy Himself, and giving it to that City; For He must be the Eighth King, or the Beast, who hath so born the City; or the Prophecy must be False, and who knows not, it is the very Bishop or Pope of Rome that hath so done; For in the wonderful Disposes of God No one hath claim'd a Title of Empire from that City since that Year; No one hath Advanc'd that City by Imperial Residence since that year but the Pope of Rome Alone; and He hath done it to all Intents and Purposes in the Face of all the World.

The Last Roman Emperour left that Title [ Bishop of Rome] in Being, when He Fell, It hath survived ever since Their so much vaun­ted Succes­sion witnes­eth this Point.; For lit­tle Failures or Interruptions make no difference, where the same Title and Supremacy still run on. It was then proclaim'd by Jerome, Antichrist was Born, and ever since he hath been growing up till He came to his Manly Age, and to his Consistent Age according to Prophecy; But since the Times of Reformation indeed, He hath been in a Decay, and so He ought to be by Prophecy; [Page 26] and however He may summon his whole strength now at last, yet it shall be only to Dye; and thus the Thing is justifi'd in the Event: and thus the Time of His, the Beasts, and the City Romes Supremacy united to Him, as the Rider to the Beast, un­der the Name of a Church, hath had so long of its Forty Two Months.

I know there are some Objections, but none can avail against Prophecy so clearly, so demonstratively Explain'd; I will very briefly pass over them.

The Bishop of Rome cannot be this Beast of the Seventh Head, Object. 1. and therefore not the Eighth King, nor Rome the City borne up by Him, because He owns the True God, and Jesus Christ, how then can He be a Head full of the Names of Blasphemy? or Rome the Fa­mous Church of the World be Babylon, the Mother of Harlots?

Whatever may be the Profession of the True God, yet when Answer. that Profession is Adulterated with Idolatry, and stain'd with the Blood of Saints; God accounts of those Powers and People ac­cording to what His Word declares; Zedechiah was a Profane, Wicked Prince, and that latter Succession of wicked Princes after Josiah, Lyons: Idolatrous Israelites, are said from the very Begin­ning to blaspheme God: Samaria and Jerusalem are those Infamous Prostitutes or Harlots, call'd Aholah, and Aholibah. This Prophecy Ezek. 20. 27. c. 23. hath therefore determin'd that Doubt, what Esteem God hath, and All his People are to have of, both of the Pope and his Church. And there is no Fence against the Divine Oracle. The Man of Sin sits in the Temple of God, and Exalts Himself as God, and shews Himself, that He is God, which is both Blasphemy and Idolatry; and He bears the Name of it in being called Holiness, and our Holy Lord.

According to the very Explanation of Prophecy given; There Object. 2. is not a close Succession of Heads, though there should be of Kings; For between the sixth and the seventh Head was the Christian Em­perour, who, though He was a King, was no Head, and the se­venth Head did not Succeed, till the Christian Empire Expir'd.

The Prophecy expresly tells us, the Beast was deadly Wounded in Answer. one of his Heads, which was during the Time of the Christian Emperour, who, as we have seen, was to come betwixt the sixth and the seventh Heads, and had not the eighth Head been to Succeed, and had He not actually Succeeded after no long space, in the style of Prophecy; The Beast had indeed Dyed, That is; the Ro­man [Page 27] Empire, as Idolatrous and Bloody in its Persecutions had ex­pir'd: But because the whole of that Time, Heathenish Idolatry and Persecution was Fashioning into Antichristian, the Beast liv'd, though deadly Wounded, and the Dragon gave his Power and Seat, as by Will to the Beast.

The Pope was long er'e he arose to such Supremacy, as would Object. 3. Answer the Prophetic Types.

And so Prophecy Represents it; The Gentiles or Antichristianizing Answer. Layty the Inhabitants of the Earth, under the other Beast or Antichri­stianizing Hierarchy of Bishops; their Dignified, and Inferior Clergy; Horn'd like a Lamb; (among which the Pope of Rome was Principal, and ever aspiring) were a Protecterian Supremacy, during the Wound of the First Beast, or Roman Empire as Idolatrous, which under the Christian Emperours; was Wounded deadly in One of, viz. the sixth of its Heads or the Pagan Emperours and Powers subdu'd by the Christian Emperours.

During that Time therefore of the Wound, and also during the Infancy of the Kingship of the Seventh Head and Eighth King, That Hierarchy hath the High, though Infamous Title of the Other Beast conferr'd upon it, and accordingly Forty two Months were assign'd to the Gentiles, as a Signification of such a Bestial Power, under the Aristocracy of the Other Beast, and to note its time.

And thus Things continu'd till the Grand Call'd Beast, tho' but a Head in Imitation of the little horn, among the Ten, (another Emblem of this Beast) call'd the Beast, and deliver'd to the Flames, Dan. 7. 11. Beast had an Image made to Him to be Worshipped, and All Sware Fealty to him by Receiving his Mark; which was the perfect Healing the Wound, and the Infant Kingship of the Seventh Head: Then He came to his Number 666, which was not till An. Dom. 725 or 6, during the Christian Emperours, many Years after his Succession, which the Infancy of a King does not Prejudice. Then the Other Beast, though undivided from the Grand Beast, submitted to be his False Prophet, and the Months of the Gentiles naturally merg'd into those of the Beast, having till then supply'd what was wanting in the time of the Night, although the Beast's Infant Succession, as Eighth King, and his Fourty Two Months commenc'd against the Twelve hundred sixty Days, as the Moon's Nights against the Sun's Days.

Thus it is no Objection against Prophecy, but according to Pro­phecy, that the Beast was so long Rising to his Exercise of Supre­macy, as seventh Head and eighth King. For He is the Beast, that was in its Six Heads, but deadly Wounded in the sixth of them by the seventh King no Head, and so was as Not in any Appearance, till the seventh Head, and eighth King was grown up to his Num­ber, [Page 28] and the Wound healed by an Image made to Him; And Great, and Small, Rich and Poor, Bond and Free received His Mark.

2. But this Objection will be more fully answer'd by a fur­ther settlement of the very Beginning and Epoch of these Forty Two Months of the Beast: For whenever the Beast Rose, those Months Rose also; Now the Beast's Rising is fix'd to an Hour, For the Ten Kings receive Power, or Authority at One Hour, viz. the very same Hour with the Beast: And they receive Authority as Kings that same Hour; For here [...] is to be Inter­preted at one Hour, as [...], at the Ninth Hour, Acts 10. 30. And they receive at that One Hour Authority, as Kings; They had no Kingdom in the Apostles Time, although then they were as Ten Horns to the Roman Empire, but uncrowned Horns. For the Beast, or Idolatrous Roman Empire, consisting of its Seven Heads and Ten Horns, and of the Body of the People were always alike pourtray'd in Prophecy, yet with some regard to the variety of Times that pass'd over it: The Heads are therefore in the Ro­man Dragon, or Heathen Imperial State, first represented Crowned, (for they always imported Supreme Power,) and then in the Beast, the Heads having been already Crowned, the Horns are pre­sented Crown'd, shewing at the one and the same Hour, the Seventh Head of the Beast came to the Exercise of Sovereignty, The Ten Horns also received Power as Kings; And in this Vision, c. 17. Neither the Heads nor the Horns are presented as Crown'd, having been both Crown'd in the former Vision, and explain'd in this.

But let us Examine when could these Ten Kings receive Autho­rity as Kings, and be justly own'd as such, for the Prophecy says they had received no Kingdom as yet; And it was at One and the same Hour with the Beast, viz. when He succeeded the Seventh King, or when the Roman Christian Empire ceased; For when their Ʋniversal Monarch, their Lawful Prince renounced Empire, as Au­gustulus did; Then had the Beast Authority to begin His Months, and then these Ten Kings received Authority as Kings, which could not according to the Law of Kingdoms (to which Law the Pro­phecy yields Deference) be, while the Lawful Sovereign was in Being; But he ceasing to be a King, their Obligation ceas'd, ahd then they Rise up as Kings, whatever they had had done be­fore towards being Kings, was till then but Usurpation and not Authority; Which Consideration absolutely fixes the Successi­on and the Time of it: And they are call'd Ten, not to raise a Scruple about their exact Number, Ten, neither more nor less, [Page 29] but being several, into which the One Empire sprouted against its will, (as All History well knows, that at that Time the Empire was so Torn into Pieces.) But they are called Ten to preserve Regard to that First Image, in which this Roman Empire came down to the Feet, and was divided into the Ten Toes. And this being the State of that Empire under its Seventh Head, the Horns, or Kings, seated in it, are called Ten with respect to that First Statue given of the Four Empires, and of the last Form of the Last Empire. And they are call'd Horns, because notwithstanding They were Absolute, Independent Kings, Yet as Horns give offen­sive and defensive force to the Head, and that hath Supreme Man­nagement of them; so these Horns gave their Power to the Se­venth Head. So making Him an Universal Monarch, or eighth King, till the Words of God are fulfill'd.

Now I know not how a firmer Settlement of the Beginning of these Months, just at the Cessation of the Christian Imperialism can be made than is now made by this last Addition.

But because it may be said, the Name of Pope is no Kingly or Object. 1. Imperial Name, It seems to overthrow the whole Frame laid.

It is Admirable, the Care Prophecy hath taken to tell us; The Answer. Beast of the Roman Idolatrous Empire, is continu'd in Life, and is healed of his deadly Wound by making an Image to Him, who is the Seventh Head and Eighth King. The Papacy is not a real Mar­tial, Civil Sovereignty, but it is the Image only of One, It is yet nevertheless Haughty, for it is Ador'd and Worshipped; It As­sumes Power over Princes, and disposes Kingdoms, It is never­theless Cruel and Enforcive, for it Kills All who will not Wor­ship that Image; It Causes All to receive its Mark, or proscribes them, how great or small soever; It Arrogates not only a Crown, but a Tripple Crown; This Beast in an Image is therefore the Beast that is not, yet is, viz. is not the same, yet the same, the same in Real Power, yet in an Image too, viz. Spirituality of Power is an Image of Power; but enforcing that Power by its Horns, it is a Real Power, and so Is not yet, Is. c. 17. 8.

But It may be said, it was long er'e these Kings gave their Object. 2. Power thus to the Beast.

It is most true, it was so, even as It was er'e He came to his Answer. Number. For therefore Prophecy sets this Beast in View, Rising with his Ten Crowned Horns, first out of the Sea, those Trouble­some Commotions in the World, when Rome Fell, as a Burning Mountain into the Sea. But at the Rising of this Beast out of the [Page 30] Bottomless Pit, whither He went down, when He became a Fal­len Star, When Phocas gave Him the Title of Ʋniver­sal, An. 606. with the Key of it to Open it, and Ascended, Rev. 9. 1, 2. Then did He Receive the Kingdom, and Power of these Horns, till He goes into Perdition. For the once noting Him to Rise out of the Sea, and Twice to Ascend from the Bottomless Pit shews, He had a double Rising, One by way of meer Providence, as out of the tumultuous Sea of worldly Affairs, that necessitated the Emperour to abdicate Empire, and to leave Him the only Name of Supreme Eminency in Rome, but then He was not; till after, as an An­tichristian, False, Spiritual Power, or Vicar of Christ, He assum'd a Kingdom, an Universal Kingdom, as having the Keys of Eter­nal Damnation in his Hand, viz. of the Bottomless Pit.

If the Pope be an Eighth King, a Roman Supreme Power, and Object. 3. the Head, to whom the Ten Kings give their Power, Why is it not then Lawful to acknowledge Him; as the Roman Caesar was to be acknowledg'd by Christ's own Command; and as the Crown­ed Horns, or Ten Kings are to be acknowledg'd, who give Him their Kingdom and Power.

No Kings, or Powers may be acknowledg'd in their Idolatrous Answ. 1. or Superstitious Commands: No Caesars, no Kings, and much more no Popes can be so Obey'd.

2. But upon this very Account He ought not at all to be ac­knowledg'd, because He is a King only in an Image, and in reali­ty a Fallen Star, a Corrupted, Antichristian, False, Spiritual Power, Undermining and Usurping the Kingdom of Christ; and so to be abhorr'd and detested, and his Adulterous Idolatrous Church or City to be separated from, and to be Come out of.

And thus I have, I Trust, evinc'd the Settlement of the Epoch, or Beginning of these Fourty Two Months, both by the Prophecy, and by the Event; and come now to fix the latter Branch, or what Prophecy hath determin'd concerning the End or Period of these Months, although that cannot be declar'd in the Particu­lars, or manner of the Event, but must be waited for till He shall shew them, who hath Reserved them in his own power till their ap­pointed Season.

But in the mean time He hath given us the Bulk of the Events, which at the end of these Months shall be in their Mo­tion, and continual Progress, till all be Accomplished, and no Iota of the Prophecy Fall to the Ground.

Now to make this Point as plain as Prophecy hath made it, It is to be consider'd in the two Grand Oracles that are given of [Page 31] it; and Relate to the very End of the Twelve hundred sixty Days, and so consequently to the End of the Months; or to the End of the Months themselves implying the End of the 1260 Days.

As to the End then of the Twelve hundred sixty Days since the Witnesses are to be in Sackcloth during them, whenever the Wit­nesses come into a splendid State, It is certain, They can be no longer in Sackcloth; For such a State, and such a Sackcloth can by no possible means Agree. And then it will as certainly follow, the Twelve hundred sixty Days are at an End, when they change their Sackcloth for Garments of Praise. For all those Twelve hun­dred sixty Days they are to be in Sackcloth: Although therefore the Prophecy does not positively say, the Twelve hundred sixty Days are at an End, yet in that It says they were Called up to Hea­ven in a Cloud, and their Enemies beheld Them; It must needs be that the Sackcloth must be dropp'd when they are Chariotted in a Cloud, and Ascend; and so then It does by necessary Implicati­on say, that the Twelve hundred sixty Days are at an End; For else the Witnesses could not part with their Sackcloth, being deter­min'd to it for so long; And so long the Womans the Churches, Twelve hundred sixty Days last; For as their Times are equal, so their States Reciprocate.

When therefore the Twelve hundred sixty Days are by Conse­quence absolutely necessary ended, the Fourty Two Months are wheeled along with them to their Period: And that affects the City, the Great, Spiritually called Sodom for the Filthiness of its Forni­cations, and dreadful Burnings, that it is devoted to: And Aegypt, first for its Oppression of the Saints, with whose Blood it is Drunk; Then for the Plagues that will come upon it, and last­ly for its Pharaoh-like Principality, first in the Pagan Dragon, and then its Draconick Pope, to whom the Dragon consign'd His Power: And to follow all the Emblems of the City, as on pur­pose to bring it Home to Rome, It it both Resembled to the City, where our Lord was Crucified, signifying its Whoredom to be like the Whoredom of that Infamous Aholibah, or Jerusalem, the False Whorish Church, and under the Jurisdiction of Rome so much at that Time, that not without the most Notorious Sen­tence of the Roman Judge, Pontius Pilate, Our Lord was Crucified, which was for the very Service of this Prophecy, so particularly we may Believe Recorded, that in that Sense the very City Rome was the City, in which Our Lord was Crucified.

All this Affects this City, so that its Tenth Falls; Now this City sits on the Beast, For to shew it is the same City, that sits on the Beast, when the Beast, the very same Beast, that Ascends out of the Bottomless Pit, c. 11. c. 17. Kills the Witnesses; Their Dead Bodies lye in the Street of that Great City, which plainly joyns the Beast and the City together, the City, as the Imperial Residence, the Beast, as the King of it, as the Vision of the c. 17. does; For He, as King, having Power of Life and Death, those whom He Kills lye in the Street of his Great Emperial City: So then the City and the Beast are here first so nearly conjoyn'd, and so again, c. 17.

How then comes the Tenth of this Great City to Fall? (what­ever we understand by it, for I will not now dispute that) How comes it to Fall, I say, when It sits on the Beast? It could not be, if the Beast Himself did not Sink; and how could He Sink, if His Fourty two Months were not out; For so long was given Him by Prophecy, which in another Character is call'd, Time, Times, and Half a Time, and as apply'd to the Witnesses Three Days, and a Half, in Imitation of our Lord's three Days in the Grave; Till the Morning then of the Half Time and Day, there could be no such Alteration in his Kingdom, as the Reformation made, and till that Time of the Forty two Months fully exhausted, when the Twelve hundred sixty Days End also, in the Rising and Glory of the Witnesses, There cannot be a Fall of the Tenth of the City, which He bears up the Grandeur of.

And to shew farther that this Beast, that Slays the Witnesses, is the same with the Beast, c. 17. It is made known by that certain Mark of it, the Ascending out of the Bottomless Pit, and that we may know they are both the same with the Beast, who hath the Fourty two Months, c. 13. He makes War with the Saints, who are the Seed of the Woman, and Hold the Testimony of Jesus, C. 12. Ʋlt. or are the Witnesses, being thereunto Deputed by the Dragon, who gave him his Throne, and Great Authority; and He, that Beast is Taken, c. 19. as is foretold also, c. 13. He that leadeth into Captivity, shall go into Captivity; And the Ten Kings who give him their Power, who make War with the Lamb, and He overcomes them, are Kill'd with the Sword of his Mouth, c. 19. as was fore­told, c. 13. He that killeth with the Sword shall be killed with the Sword.

All which farther Assure together, with what hath been said before; That It is one and the same Beast, throughout the Prophecy of the Revelation, viz. the Seventh Head of the Roman Em­pire, [Page 33] and its Eighth King, to whom the Ten Kings, as Horns give their Power.

The second Oracle given us concerning the Period of the Forty two Months is c. 17. God hath put into the Heart of the Ten Kings to Do his Will, or execute his Determination, and to execute and perform One Determination untill the Words of God shall be fulfilled: Now this Counsel, Determination, and Will of God is that which is explain'd what it is, It is even that they should Give their Kingdom and Power to the Beast: And how long? Ʋntill the words of God shall be fulfill'd. And Those words were declar'd, c. 13. Authority was given to Him, as a Beast of Ten Horns, to continue Forty two Months: The great Event therefore at the End of the Forty two Months is, That then the Ten Kings shall Hate the Whore, and make her Desolate, and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with Fire.

From whence it is evident, how close the Union is between the City call'd the Whore, and the Beast; For while the Kings give their Power to the Beast, they bear up the Beast who bears up the City; while they fulfill the Decree of God for the Beasts Forty two Months, They are One in giving Him their Kingdom, and Power, and so long They are drunk with the Wine of the Whores Fornication. But when those Words are fulfill'd, and those Forty Two Months, then They hate the Whore, and then this Tenth of the Great City Falls. viz. the whole Circle of the Power given by these Ten Horns, or Ten Kings, who now Recall their Power from the Beast, and that Tenthness of Power Falls also: For however the Grammar of the word [...] will not bear such an Exposition of it, as should signifie the Ten King'd Power, yet the Prophecy of Daniel in the Ten Toes of the Image, the Ten Horns of the Beast, and The whole Frame of the Prophecy of the Revelation con­cerning the Beast, his Ten Horns, or Ten Kings, does forcibly over­sway the nicety of Grammar, and carries the Prophecy to this Sense, and much the rather, because as hath been argued; The Twelve hundred sixty Days will be then ended, and the Words of God fulfilled, concerning the Bestian Power, which lay so much in its Horns or Ten Kings persecuting the Witnesses.

Let us now recollect the Summ of this Argument in the Proof it gives; The Argument runs thus, The Roman City or Church, sits on the Beast, or Eighth Kimg, who hath been in Possession of the Time allotted him by Prophecy so long, as from the Seventh other King, of a short space after the sixth King, that was in the Apost. John's Time, till now within nine or ten Years of the Expiration of that Time, as a Time allowable to remain for the fulfilling of All Events, This is the Beast or eighth King bearing up that Rome, whether City or Church, out of which Gods People are Called: But the present City or Church of [Page 34] Rome, sitting upon the Pope, is, and hath been in that Possession so long.

That Time so allotted is expresly said to be Fourty two Months, those Months must be Prophetical Months, or Days for Years; Those Months must be Time of the Moon, and not of the Sun.

Those Months being time of the Moon, given by Prophecy, must be taken and applyed to time of the Sun, given by the same prophecy, that they may be rated, and known what time They contain.

According to the exactest Computation that can be made, Fourty two Months apply'd to Twelve hundred sixty Days for Years must be Twelve hundred twenty two Days for Years, that is, Twelve hundred twen­ty two Years.

The Epoch or Beginning then of these Months, fixed at the Cessa­tion of the Christian Emperour, the prophetical Seventh King, which was in the Year of our Lord 475, must needs reach to the Year 1697.

The Twelve hundred sixty Days, or Years, both of the Witnesses and of the Woman, ending necessarily at the same time, (for the one can­not out-last the other) must begin thirty eight Years before the Months, viz. 437.

But because the Witnesses could not be supposed to put on their Sackcloth, without just Occasion given, the Gentiles under the other Beast, Treading the Holy Court, must have begun their Fourty two Months, when the Twelve hundred sixty Days of the Witnesses Sackcloth, and the Womans Wilderness State began also, viz. 437.

It is no matter what became of the Gentiles Fourty two Months af­ter the Beast first Risen, and grown up to his Image, and Power to enforce the Worship of it, and the receiving his Mark, Name, or of the Number of his Name, viz. at 725, his Famous 666. For then the Beasts Months support the Seventh Headship, and the Roman City, or Apostate Church, and the Gentiles Months Merge, or are drowned in them.

The Months and Days, being given under the Character of Time, Times and Half a Time, and three Days and a half, when they arrived to the Beginning of the half Time, and Days, such a partial Rising of the Witnesses, and Retrenchment of the Bestian Kingdom, such a Fall of some of the Ten Kings from the Beast, as was seen at the Reformati­on, was allowable by Prophecy, after the manner of our Lord's three Days and Nights in the Heart of the Earth, and was a Pledge of the complete Fall of the Beast, and of the City's Fall from their whole Ten Mark: those Kings who bewayl Ba­bylon, c. 18. 9. cannot be those Ten Kings, who at last Turn to hate the Whore, who they are, will not be known till that Burning of Babylon shall be better un­derstood. King'd Principality, at the end of the half Time, or 1697.

At the same time, when the Days of the Witnesses, and the Months of the Beast End; The Turkish Second Woe or Tyranny shall pass away, and cannot sooner, because it is the Second Woe Trumpet upon the Be­stian [Page 35] Kingdom, lasting till its Fourty two Months End; Which being an Observation foreign to this Matter, needs not be enlarged, yet well observ'd adds strength to the whole.

The last Argument I shall use to perfect all that hath been said al­ready, Last Arg. shall be an Appeal to All that in any degree know the State of the World, whether the Condition of Papal Rome, since the time especially of the Beasts receiving the Key of the Bottomless Pit, as a Fal­len Star in the Days of Phocas, his coming to his Number, and Image in the days of Leo Conon hath not answer'd the Characters of Prophecy.

Does the Prophecy signifie a City, perpetuating Eternal Rome in a Ann. 725. Church as False, Impure, and Adulterate, as the Mother of Harlots Im­ports; Which Title cannot be due in its highest degree, but where True Religion is Prostituted, as appears in Aholiab and Aholibah: And hath not Rome been such a One as Papal, in all its Idolatrys, Super­stitions, and Sensualities?

Does the Prophecy Represent a Caesar in an Image, and hath not the Pope's Tripple Crown elevated upon his Spirituality and Vicarship of Christ been such a One?

Does the Prophecy speak Rome in all the Grandeur of Scarlet, Pur­ple, and precious Stones, And is not the Splendor of Rome, its Pope, Cardinals, and Hierarchy such?

Does the Prophecy set out an Universal Propagation of the Fornica­tions of such an Imperious, Whorish Woman, prevailing upon Kings, Nations, Kindreds, and Languages; and what hath Papal Rome preten­ded more forcibly to than such an Ʋniversality of its Religion, which is called Filthiness, Spiritual and Bodily, and All Abomination?

Does Prophecy set out the Idolatrys of such a City and its Prince by the Blasphemy of God, of his Tabernacle, of All that dwell in Heaven, and this openly avow'd by a Title writ on her Forehead, according to the manner of the most Infamous Prostitutes, and of Babylon Mad of Gra­ven Images, and yet all under a Mystery, So as to be doubted whe­ther Idolatry is justly charged upon it by even Those, who deeply suspect it? And is not this, and hath not this been the State of Rome most Remarkably since the Days of Leo Conon?

Does the prophecy Represent a Bestian War with the Saints, a Causing, that all who would not Worship the Image, should be Kill'd; and pro­scribing them that they should not Buy nor Sell; All, Great and Small, Rich and poor, who will not receive the Mark, &c? a City Drunk with the Blood of Saints? and what can we say, but that the Excommunication of Princes, deposing and Depriving them, the Interdicting of Kingdoms, Massacres, Martyrdoms, Inquisitions, Ravages upon the World on the account of that Religion, Falsly so call'd, have answer'd the prophecy?

Do other prophecys of Scripture say, there should be a Grand Apo­stasie, out of which should come a Man of Sin, and [...], one above all Law and Control, as Supreme, and Infallible, justly styl'd a Beast, One sitting in the Temple of God, exalting Himself above All that is called God or is Worshipped? That though the Mystery of Iniquity was then at Work for Him, yet that He could not be Revealed, but in his Season; Do we not see such a One, that hath been long in the World, claiming from the Apostles, whom yet the elder Ages of Christianity knew not, till the Time pointed out by Prophecy was come, A Lord God the Pope, as hath been Blasphem'd?

Does that same prophecy say, The Lord will Consume that Man of Sin with the Glory of his Coming, and with the Brightness of his own Appea­rance; And do we not see at this Day his Times drawn out, and lengthen'd beyond parallel for such an Appearance? And does not the prophecy of the Revelation say the same Thing? For his utter Destructi­on is not, till the Heavens open to Christ, Revel. 19.

Does not another Prophecy say? Some, a certain Sort, and Society or Community of Men shall Depart or Apostatize from the Faith, giving heed to wandring Spirits as Divels are called, and to their Apparitions, and so to Doctrines of them as Daimons, and of the Worship of them, through Or Saints departed. the Hypocrisie of Lyars, and Legendary Priests, who disguising them­selves in the Garb of extraordinary Holy Persons Coyn such Sto­ries of such Spirits appearing to them, to draw others to Worship them, having in the mean time their Consciences seared with a hot Iron, whose Badges by which They are to be known are, Forbidding to Marry, and to Abstain from Meats, making these Things the Cogni­sances of their Orders? And have we not seen this Scripture ful­filled?

Did not the Apostle John Foretel a Great Antichrist, of which the Little Antichrists in his Days were but Forerunners; and did He not Foreshew a great Idolatry coming upon the Christian World, in De­rogation from the One Jesus Christ, who is the True God and Eternal Life, on which account He makes it the Farewel of his Epistle, Lit­tle Children, keep your selves from Idols. Amen. And have we not seen, that great Idolatry against the New Testament in the Invocation of Angels, of Saints, and above all of the Virgin Mary, as a plain Viola­tion of the One Mediator Jesus Christ, Equal to the Idolatry against the One God, and the Worship of Him, and that in all kinds of Imagery, and even in a piece of Bread?

These certain Matters of Fact, and of daily Experiment joyn'd with the Prophecy cannot but give a Plerophory, a full measure of As­surance; That this present Rome is that Community, City or Church, out of which we are call'd, if we would be the People of God.

Having now so far demonstrated, that the City, Church, and Com­munity, out of which we are commanded to come is the very present Papal Rome, It remains that we enforce the Command it self to come out of it, by particular Inferences from it.

For hence It appears how necessary It is for Christians in general Infer. 1. to know, and to take notice, that there is such an Apostacy from Chri­stian Religion, disguised under the Name of Catholick Christianity, that hath concentred it self in Rome under the name of an Ʋniversal Church, and in such a Head of it as the Pope under the name of Head of the Church and Vicar of Christ: The Apostle not only speaking Face to Face, Not only when with them, but by Epistle when at distance from them, writing to the Thessalonians, thought it a point of great Moment, and of deepest Interest to inform them of it, and to possess them of it, and in them all Christians, Learned or Unlearned.

And the Love of God the Father gave the Revelation to Jesus Christ, to shew it to his Servants as containing this, as One of the greatest Points of it: viz. Concerning this Apostasie, the Seat and Residence of it, this Prostituted Church, and City, and the Beast the Prince of it, It can therefore be no such mysterious or unnecessary Doctrine, as It is generally suppos'd, but hath its greatest and most Fundamental Uses.

1 That the true Christianity may by the Compare be more known and understood in its true Beauty and Excellency, being a Pure, Solid, Even, Supreme Extract, and Cube given from the Increated, Unerring Wisdom of God in the Face of Jesus Christ, Divine, Hea­venly, Spiritual, Pure and Chaste, Full of Mercy, and of all good Fruits. But Popery is an Irregular, Odd, Traditional Christianity, made up of Idolatrous, and Superstitious Rites, Pomp, Riches, and Pleasures of Sensuality, All of the present Evil World, full of Rage, Cruelty, and Blood, against All, who do not swallow their mon­strous Articles of Faith, and submit to that slavery of their Antichri­stian Government: To keep men therefore wholly to that Excellent Rule of the Word of God in Doctrine, Worship, and Practice, and under that most merciful Discipline, it is necessary to know the Goodness of the One by the Badness of the other.

2 That one Grand Reason of the so sad Imprevalency of so excel­lent a Religion, as the Religion of Jesus Christ might be under­stood; The great Eclipse of it is by so foul an Apostacy and Mystery of Iniquity, casting so black a shade upon it, and such a Cloud of Tares upon the Field of Wheat; And this hath so universally obscured Chri­stianity, and allay'd its Supreme Excellency, and turn'd it into so worldly a Religion, that it neither hath nor can be Refin'd to it self, till that whole Apostasie be consum'd out of the World, And then, but not till then, there will be another Face of Christianity; And this is necessary to be known to abate the Scandal.

3 That the dark Interposition between the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, according to all the Prophecies of Scripture, due to him at his Resur­rection, and the glory of it, may be duely apprehended; For the My­stery of Iniquity work'd early, that it might arise to the taking away the true daily Sacrifice of Christian Religion, and scattering the power of the Holy People for Time, Times, and half a Time.

Now this is most necessary to be known, to take off the Scandal of so many Massive Prophecies and Promises as were to ensue on the Kingdom of the Messiah, both in relation to the Jews, and to the whole World of Mankind, not yet come to pass; but we ought against it deeply to consider, There was to be forty two months of the Gentiles, and of the Beast running parallel to the twelve hundred sixty days Sackcloth of the Witnesses, and the Wilderness-state of the Church; all which was to be by the Fathers own Appointment, (who reserv'd Times even as that Day and Hour in his own Cognisance or Right of Dispose) before the Kingdom of Christ, and the glorious Accom­plishment of the Prophecies, such as Esay 2. 1. Zech. 14. with innu­merable more; which being so peculiar to that Kingdom, cannot be adjourn'd to the Day of Judgment, as generally understood. For then Christ shall render up the Kingdom to God and the Father, and God shall be All in All.

4 There arises in the wise Ordination of God a mutual Justification of the Prophecy by the Separation from Rome upon the general Prin­ciples and Rules of the Word of God, without close, and strict, and express Attendance to the Prophecy, or deriving Directions from that; for how is the Prophecy honour'd and vindicated in command­ing to Come out of that City and Church, which Holy, Wise, and Con­scientious Christians see Reason and just Grounds, from its extream Pollutions in Doctrine, Worship, and Practice, and the Imperious­ness of its Tyranny, to come out from, although they did not un­derstand Prephecy so commanding them? And how could Prophecy be either understood or fulfill'd, if Things were not so bad upon such Fundamental Accounts? How could it be verified that Prophecy were so to be interpreted, if there were not so great Reasons for Coming out, supposing there had been no such Prophecy?

On the other side, How is the Separation justified by the Prophecy thus rightly expounded and interpreted! For who might not scru­ple, that so great and so long an Apostacy should grow up out of the Profession of Christianity, and that the Prophecy of the New Testament should not have seen and foretold it? So that it were, without this Reason also, hardly to be believed with that firmness and full Assu­rance that now it is; viz. that such an Apostacy is.

And why should there be no easier a Remedy, might men say, than a Separation, so solemn and avowed a Separation, if there were [Page 39] not the Grand Prejudice against so guilty a Community, that Pro­phecy hath long ago pass'd upon it? There ought at least to be all means of Reconciliation perpetually us'd. And who could believe they should be so long, after so many Debates, ineffectual, if there had not been a Prophecy commanding the People of God to come out of it, and not to expect its Repentance? So that either it would not have been so bad, as to necessitate such a Separation, or we may be certain, there is Prophecy concerning it: Such a Prophecy, and such an Apostacy, undoubtedly belong to, and interlock one within another.

Lastly, what greater or better Determination of these everlasting Disputes, than to seek into Divine Prophecy, and to find them determin'd and decided so long ago by it, against that prostituted Church and mystical City, and on the side of the Separation? This certainly in the nature of the Thing must surer and more speedily make an end of Contro­versie, than those endless Combatings out of Antiquity; for when all the Incertainties of the ways of Discourse among the Ancients, may leave us in an Amaze, and bewildred, the Testimonies of God are sure. Again, Those Ancients might be deceived as Men, but the Rightousness of Divine Oracles is Everlasting: yea, how great Certainty do these Prophetick parts of Scripture give to the Expositions and Discourses out of Doctrinal parts of Scrip­ture! And certainly, had God stirr'd up the Spirits of the Reformed, by the most indu­strious Indeed pro­phecy if not thus con­ceal'd, could not have been fulfill'd. Searches into the Word of God, to have conjoyn'd the one with the other, and to have bestow'd that Time and Diligence in the Explication of Prophecy of Scripture, that they have done in Researches into the Ancients, the Controversie had been long ago at an end, and the Apostasie exploded. But God hath, in the deep ways of his Judgment, reser­ved the lustre of open Prophecy to the Times nearer to the Kingdom and Coming of Christ, and the Brightness of his Appearance, that so the Man of Sin May be consum'd by it.

5 Hereby arises a Judgment upon other Prophesies of Scripture, that respect this Grand Apostacy, as that of the Apostle John's Spirit of Antichrist, and The Antichrist. For whatever Community, or City, under the Name of a Church, is continually saying Who shall go up to Heaven, as to other Mediators besides the One Mediator, Brings down Christ from Above, as if He had not Ascended, or were not Set down on the Right Hand of God to make Inter­cession for us. And when the same False Church is continually Saying: Who shall descend in­to the Deep of Purgatory by those many Sacrifices and ways of Propitiation, This is to bring up Christ from the Dead, as if He Himself had not made a perfect Sacrifice, Once for all, All which are a perfect Denial that Christ is come in the Flesh, and an Antichrist in ma­ny regards worse then Judaism, and always branded as Heatheanism in the Prophecy, and the very worst of Heathenism.

This Prophecy, rightly understood, would expound to us that whole prophetical Chapter 2. Pet. 3. those Predictions of our Saviour concerning the Signs of his coming and of the End of the World, Those three Mystical Cities, Sodom, Samaria, and Jerusalem, that are ne­ver to be recover'd: that Edom, the Border of wickedness, against which God hath indigna­tion for ever. It would expound to us that Discourse of the Apostle against any Church being so wise in its own conceit, as to think it self perfect till the Calling and Conver­sion of the Jews; Those dreadful Menaces on the then truly Famous, Roman, Christi­an Church of its being Cut off, and that more irrecoverably than the Jews, who shall be grassed in again e're the end of the World, into their own Olive, But it is beyond my Inten­tion to ingage further into these Things, and it is enough to give only Intimations of them.

It shews us the Care God hath taken of his Servants in all Times, since the first working Inference 2. of the Mystery of Iniquity to preserve them out of the Midst of this Congregation, and Assem­bly of the Dead, these Deeps of Hell, the Damnation of those who are given up to the strong Delusions of Believing so horrible a Lye upon Christianity, as Popery is, who perish in not Re­ceiving the Truth in the Love of it, Who Believ'd not the Truth, but had Pleasure in the Decei­vableness of Ʋnrighteousness, whose names are not written in the Lambs Book of Life from the Foun­dation [Page 40] of the World, Who are led away with the Errors of the Wicked. God hath graci­ously Sealed his own Servants, whom he hath chosen to Sanctification of the Spirit and be­lief of Truth, who are not wandring Stars falling from their own Stedfastness, but fix'd by Grace, as the Wise, who shall shine as the Firmament, and as the Stars for Ever; let us there­fore Consider the several Methods of the Grace of God herein, and the various degrees of it according to the variety of Times, and of the various Temptations upon them to Se­duction: All which have been so many Comings out of his People from this Babylon.

1. That which hath been Universal to all his Saints and Servants hath been the Inga­ging them to stand fast in the Traditions; The True sincere Traditions of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, first in the immediate word of the Apostles Preaching by the Holy Ghost sent from Heaven, and then Sealed in Scripture, without taking from or adding thereto in Doctrine, Worship, Practise, or Government.

2. When this Apostasie was risen so High, that the Gentiles were come to their Forty two Months, His Servants were so observant of it, that they immediately put on their Sack­cloth, This was precisely their Te­stimony; Finish'd be­fore their prophecy ends. Rev. 11. 7. and Prophecied in it against the Apostasie, and when the Apostasie rose higher, and became a Throne of Satan, the Pope became a Balam, an exalted False Prophet, yet they did not Deny the Name of Christ but held fast his Name: Even in the time when Anti­pas, or the Anti-Papal Martyrs were slain: Although in the mean time They might not be wholly free from some of the shade of that Doctrine, on which account, It is said, They had those, who held the Doctrine of Balam, and are call'd the Church of Pergamus, that High Tow'ring Church, that was then aspiring higher and higher; These Witnesses were retired out of it while in the midst of all that Corruption, and they Fed on hidden Manna, and were satisfied with the Absolution of the White Stone peculiar to themselves, which all the World Damn'd for Hereticks, which shewed they were retired form Rome, and call'd by its Name as if of that Church, although thus gently censur'd.

3. When this City was become Jezebel, the Mother of Harlots, under the Name of a Church, and that the Witnesses of Christ were slain by her, and her Prince, that had sold Himself to Work Wickedness before the Lord, They then declar'd against it, as such a Pain­ted Prostitute, and separated from it, though they were encompass'd with it as with Ly­ons, and Men set on fire with Rage, to Burn them Alive, and were forced to suffer this False Church, while they were come out so far, as not to have nor had it in the Account, and Re­putation of a Church; and yet in signification of being in the midst of it, are called Ihy­atyra, One of its Names.

4. The Churches of the Reformation made not only an avow'd Separation from it, by Coming out of it, but by Laws and Sanctions, prohibited the Superstitions and Idolatrys of it, and of its Prince; who ought to be under this Two-fold Caution: as the Church of Sar­du is Admonish'd, and They under it.

1. Of pursuing the Reformation to the utmost according to the Highest Spirit, and Tru­est Perfection of it being else in Danger of being Reprov'd for not having their Garments Pure and undefiled, nor their Works filled up before God in a perfect Coming Out.

2. Of not receiving back into a Sufferance or Toleration the open, bare-fac'd, avow'd Sins of Spiritual Sodom, and its Impurities, seeing the Providence of God hath so far deliver'd them, lest Many Return as a Dog to the Vomit, and have Complacency in what was cast out with Detestation by a Nation and Church.

5. But whereas these Things have not yet been done by the Servants of God so avow­edly under the Banner of this Prophecy, when the Beast's Forty Two Months are out; There shall be more Solemn Voices, that Babylon is Fallen, is Fallen, and if any Man continue to Worship the Beast, &c. He shall Drink of the Wine of the Wrath of God without mixture, That All may Come Out and Reform.

9. When the Vials are about to be powred out, as the Plagues of Aegypt, and Fire from Heaven upon this Spiritual Sodom and Aegypt, there may be some Romanists in it, who per­tain to the Election of Grace, on whom the Lord being Merciful to them, He lays hold and pulls them as Brands out of the Burning, and even forces them to come Out, as of old He pull'd Lot out of Sodom that very Moment, and with a Holy Violence of Grace to them, Rescues them from the Flames. After that Time He that is Filthy shall be Filthy still, He thai is Ʋnjust shall be unjust still, But He that is Justified from that Apostasie shall be for ever juctified from it. After that time there is neither Reformation nor Apostasie.