tion concerning the Rife of the great Anti-Chrift or Rome Papal. For when we have done this, and fixed this æra or epocha, we may by an eafy confequence fee the time of the final fall and deftruction of this dreadful enemy.

II. I must in the next place improve the refolution of this question both theoretically, as a key to unriddle the dark apocalyptical times and periods, and practically, in order both to the regulation of your thoughts, and the government of your lives in fome very weighty confiderations deducible from thence.

The first thing therefore which I have to do, is to attempt the refolution of the principal apocalyptical queftion concerning the rife of Anti-Chriftianifm.

Now, in order to anfwer this diftinctly (which hath exercised and wearied out all apocalyptical writers hitherto), there are some things I would premise as fo many poftulata, which generally all are agreed in, and which Mr. Mede, Dr. More, Mr. Durham, and Dr. Cressener, have irrefragably proved. 1. That the Revelation contains the series of all the remarkable events and changes of the fate of the Chriftian church to the end of the world. 2. That mystical Babylon, or the great whore

defcribed

defcribed there, doth fignify Rome in an AntiChristian church state. 3. That therefore this cannot be Rome Pagan properly, but Rome Papal. 4. That the feven heads of the beast, or the Jeven heads of the kings, are the feven forms of government which obtained fucceffively among the Romans; and seeing the fixth of these was that which was only in being in John's time (the former five having fallen before), that therefore, confequently, the feventh head, which under another confideration is called the eighth (the intervenient kingdom of the Oftro-Goths being the seventh in number,though not properly Roman, and therefore, in that fenfe, none of the heads of the Roman government), is the laft fpecies of government, and that which is called moft peculiarly and by a fpecialty the Beaft or Anti-Chrift.

Thefe poftulata being fuppofed as certain (which I would reckon no difficult thing to prove, were it needful), I muft in the next place premise two preliminary confiderations, before I come directly to anfwer the question itself.

The first is this, That the three grand apocalyptical numbers of 1260 days, 42 months, and time, times, and a half, are not only fynchronical,

3.

chronical, but must be interpreted prophetically, fo as years must be understood by days.

That thefe three numbers are fynchronical will appear plain to any impartial confiderer, that will be at the pains to compare them as we have them fet down in this book of the Revelation, viz. 1260 days, chap. xi. 3, and chap. xii. 6; the 42 months, chap. xi. 2, and chap. xiii. 5; and the time, times, and an half, chap. xii. 14. For it is clear that the Gentiles treading down the holy city 42 months, chap. xi. 2, is the cause of the witnesses prophefying for 1260 days in fackcloth, v. 3; and is not the woman or churches being in the wilderness for the fame term of days, chap. xii. 6, any other than a new representation of the witneffes prophefying in fackcloth? Seeing this must be while the beaft is worshipped and ferved by the whole Roman world, during mens' lunacy, of 42 months continuance, chap. xiii. 5; and therefore feeing the woman is faid to be in the wilderness ftate of defolation and perfecution for a time, and times, and half a time, in order thus to be preferved from the beast and serpent, as we fee chap. xii. 14; it is likewife plain that this number of three years and a half must

be

be the very fame with the two former numbers. Only it is to be obferved by the way, that this period of time, when it is mentioned in relation to the church, is spoken of with refpect to the fun, either as to his diurnal or annual rotation; whereas when it is defcribed in relation to the beaft's unftable kingdom of night and darkness, it is made mention of with refpect to the inconftant luminary, which changes its face continually, while it makes our months. And hence it is that the church is represented, chap. xii. 1, under the emblem of a woman cloathed with the fun, and the moon under her feet.

Now as thefe numbers are fynchronical, and the fame; fo it is eafy to prove that they must be understood prophetically for years. I fhall not infist here upon the conjecture of a learned man*, that there was no diurnal rotation of the earth before the Fall, and confequently no days of 24 hours, but only an annual rotation of this our planetary world; which he gives us as the original reason of the Scriptures putting days for years frequently. For whatever be in this, it is plain that the scripture

* Whifton's Theory of the Earth, page 8, 79, 81. See Hypoth. 3.

fpeaks

Speaks thus in feveral places; by putting a leffer number figuratively for a greater, as well as a definite for an indefinite. Witness the appointment of the week of years, Exod. xxxiii. 10, 11, which is spoken of as it were a week of days, verfe 12; the feventh year of which is therefore called Sabbatical, with reffpect to the Seventh Day Sabbath. In the fame way of fpeaking, Ezekiel was commanded to lie 390 days on his left fide, and 40 on his right, each day for a year, as God himself fays, chap. iv. 5, 6. So likewife God punished the murmuring Ifraelites with 40 years abode in the wilderness, with relation to the 40 days that were fpent in fearching of the land of Canaan, Num. xiv. 32. The feven years of Nebuchadnezzar's Lycanthropy is thus called, indefinitely, days or times, Dan. iv. 32, 34. Nay, our Saviour himself speaks in this dialect when he calls the years of his miniftry days, faying, I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I fhall be perfected, Luke xiii. 32. But the most remarkable place to our purpose is, the famous prophecy of Daniel's 70 weeks or 490 days, chap. ix. 24, reaching down from the edict of Artaxerxes Longimanus, in his 20th year, Neh. ii. 1~10,.

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