THE COMMAND OF God to his People TO COME OUT OF BABYLON, Revel. 18. 4. DEMONSTRATED To mean the Coming out of the Present PAPAL ROME: With a most Earnest Persuasive to All to Come out who are in it; and a Dissuasive from looking back, if come out, or Entertaining any Alliance with That Communion: And herewith a Calculation of the Time the Papacy can, according to this Prophecy Continue, is given. On Solemn Proof, notwithstanding the known Variety and Contrariety of Judgements, and former Mis-Computations, It can survive but Nine or Ten Years in its Present State.  
Printed in the Year 1688.   

To the Reader.  
THe People of this Nation, professing the Protestant Religion, are in danger to be surrounded with all Methods of Insinuation and Seduction to entertain the Popish Leaven; which how little soever it appears in Bulk, and how small a Proportion soever in number of Persons compared with Protestants it is rated at, it yet undoubtedly hopes to Leaven the whole Lump of the Nation, claiming to itself the Privilege of the truly Catholic Christianity, to which it can no more than pretend.  
The Romanists do not only seem to themselves to be, but likewise glory as being on the higher ground, tho' infinitely (as it may be in general Expression said) inferior to the Protestants in Arguments of Scripture, Reason, and Antiquity, Yet while they offer Argument for Argument, Objection for Objection, Answer for Answer; All Men, and at all times, are not so wise to see, know, and be firmly persuaded for Truth against Errors, especially when Deceptions are flanked with hopes of advantage on one side, and fears of disadvantage on the other; which the Supreme Prince hath in His hand to distribute on each side.  
At the best the Controversy seems to depend, and to be like to depend while the World stands, as thus managed; but if indeed the Word of God having plainly foreseen the state of things, and the Roman Obstinacy and Impenitence to the last, hath given the Pourtracture of Romanism in its full Proportion, so that it may be known and understood of all who will apply their Minds to the Consideration. This cuts off all further Dispute, and all its specious Pretences, and seeming Arguments, and the Vails thrown over its Superstition, Idolatry and Blood, are thin Lawns under which may be seen plainly the City and the Beast, described in the Revelation. Now no Arguments against it can be like this, nor sooner make an end of the Controversy, nor more secure Persons from being tempted to revert to that Vomit the Nation hath cast out, nor more effectually persuade out of that Congregation and Assembly, those who are now in the midst of it; although it seems to Fare much with the Generality of them, as with those of whom Solomon speaks, who falling into a deep Ditch, as abhorred of God, They seldom return again and take hold of the ways of Life; for such Guests are in the Depths of Hell.  
And because it concerns them who are the Votaries of that Religion, to wipe off this great Blot that Prophecy (I make no doubt to say I have demonstrated) hath laid upon them: And because too many Protestants are not willing to think so severely of them, as this Prophecy Imports, nor to judge the way of Prophecy proper to deal with them, and because particularly One of a public Ecclesiastic Character seems to take upon himself us an Umpire between Protestancy and Popery, and like the Days-man in Job, lays his hand on both: I therefore desire any of those persons, laying aside Passion, in which soever of these Classes, to make void what I call Demonstration, and to render my Speech nothing worth.  
For I would only surprise in the first place this one Objection, viz. That the Greek Churches, and the whole Train of Churches, that follow them, are either omitted by Prophecy, or must be condemned, as under the Apostasy with the Romanists; although they have denied, and do deny the Roman Supremacy, Infallibility, and come not up at least to their Transubstantiation, and its Idolatry.  
But it is most Evident Prophecy hath not omitted them, nor does yet charge them so deep in the Apostasy, as the Roman Church, though it does severely Censure them of too sad a Part in it. It does not omit them; For the Two Wings of the Great Eagle that bear the Church into the Wilderness, the very Expression of the Apostasy, though Including the mysterious Providence of God in things also, do so plainly Import the Eastern and Western Empire; that they define 
For all these things see the Line of Time.  the Time of the Apostasy, beginning within the space after Theodosius the Great, and Augustulus; For at no other time had that Empire its Two Wings so distinct, as from his Death, to the Cessation of the Western Empire. It also Represents the Eastern and Western Apostatising Hierarchies by the Two Horns of the Other Beast, that spoke like a Dragon, though Horned as a Lamb, that joined in making the Image to the Grand Roman Beast, and to Cause it to Speak, and to Cause, etc. Revel. 13. All which was notably fulfilled in the Grecian Affectation of Universality, by John the Patriarch of Constantinople, laying the Foundation of that Tyrannous Title, which Phocas the Grecian Emperor soon after decreed to Rome and its Bishop, and the Grecian Counsel of Nice; together with the Bishops of the West establishing Image Worship, is much more Notorious, An. 787. On All which the Judgement of God in the Two Mahometan Woes of the Saracens and of the Turks fell so heavy on them, That under the Ignorance, Barbarity, Superstition, Poverty, and the total Destruction of the Grecian Empire by the Mahometans, Those Churches and All Dependent on them lie at this Day, though not so deep in the Apostasy as the Romanists, expecting the Resurrection of the Witnesses, (So many as are truly the Church of Christ) and then the passing away of that Turkish Woe; For the last of those Woes still keeps them down, And only those who shall after that continue Impenitent, will be in danger of Rome's last Judgement; All which are sufficient Notices of Prophecy concerning them, and of their Elevation in the Apostasy not of Rome's Degrees.  
This Objection then Foreclosed, let Him that can make void, what I have said concerning Rome.  
For that this Prophecy of the Revelation is a Book of Sense, no one that looks into it, and hath Sense himself, can deny, any more than that Euclid's Propositions are so, though not understood by the most; And I doubt not, the generality of Hands, into which this Discourse may fall, believe it to be Divine. But many believe also, That the Divine Author did not design to be understood, at least till some other state of Times. I do acknowledge, it hath in his wise Disposal lay much hid from Ages and Generations: but that he hath given Leave, Encouragement, and Assistance to the understanding it, I will use in this place no other Argument, than the Discyphar and Explication he hath given of the Community we are now to treat of, and the Recommendation of it to the Minds that have Wisdom to observe: For having first given it under the Emblem of a Woman sitting on a Beast of seven Heads and ten Horns, he unriddles the Heads to be seven Mountains and seven Kings, and the ten Horns to be ten Kings, and the Woman to be that City that at that time Reigned over the Kings of the Earth; which is as plain an Interpretation he meant Rome, as if any one in these days should first draw London in an Emblem or Device, and then say, It is the City that is at this time the Capital City of the Nation; I doubt not, any one that understands common Sense would think it plain enough, London was the City, and if the Emblem were Treasonable, the Innuendo would be thought sufficient to take away his Life.  
And That It is the present Papal Rome, the Procedure of the Argument is even as easy; For if the Emblem of London were given with the Succession of Kings from the Conquest, under which it hath been the Capital City till it came down to our present Sovereign (whom God long preserve, and let our King live for ever) it would be a sure Character, the present London was intended; even so sure may the present Papal Rome be known to be intended by this Prophecy.  
These two things I look upon as indubitably certain, the Discourse of which runs to Pag. 17. And as to the Calculation of Time I fix upon, I think it as clear, certain, and easy, as by the Balance of the Time of the Moon with the Time of the Sun, It would be to a skilful Astronomer to tell us how many Lunar Years, or Years of the Moon have passed from the Conquest, when we are agreed how many Years of the Sun it is; as is endeavoured to be made out to Pag. 32.  
However, the Two first, That Rome, and the present Papal Rome, are designed by the Prophecy, are as certain, as plainest Words of the Prophecy, expounded by itself, can make them. On which, I throw down the Glove to all Gainsayers.  
And if so, they are sufficient to Found well the ensuing Inferential Corollaries to the End; and to build an earnest Persuasive to come out of that 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Communion, as the very Force of the Prophetical Word implies, as well as the Vogue of Language; and if we are Come out, by no means to look back, nor so much as to make any Terms with it: For it can give us no Equivalent to incline us to yield it but a Toleration to its re-seating itself into a possibility to make public Offers of its Golden Cup to the Nation. No Indulgence can be a valuable Price for this; For, The Glory of Christ and of his Kingdom, which that Eclipses, is of more value than our Liberty; and yet God forbidden but that all due regards of the most Christian, Evangelick Spirit, should be born to all the Persons, from the highest to the lowest, who are of it, much more to all Protestant Dissenters: But to suffer, so far as it is in our Power legally, and in our Places, to hinder this Prophetess from Seducing, whoever reads these Seventeenth and Eighteenth Chapters of the Revelation, and what is to follow to the End of the Prophecy, which cannot come before the Fall of this Babylon, and finds, (as I am not afraid to say) I have proved, It is the present Papal Rome that the Prophecy intends, will see Argument sufficient against it, if he be a Christian, and a Protestant; and the more zealous he is of Christian Protestancy still the more Reason. And as for all Ambidexters, Two-handed Achitophelians, or Judasses', who think to find it in their Account to be on both sides; as they are now the private Scorn and Despisal of the Age, so in future Records, and not long hence, they will stand Pillars of Salt.   

Pag. 27. Line 24. read, after Wound, During the Christian Emperor. lin. 27. blot During the Christian Emperor.   
REVEL. 18. 4. And I heard another Voice from Heaven, saying, Come out of her, my People, that ye be not partaker of her Sins, and receive not of her Plagues. 
THIS Voice is Another; For it succeeds the mighty Cry of the strong Voice of an Illustrious Angel, which had gone just before, and proclaimed, Babylon the Great is Fallen, is Fallen. Now although these Two Voices are prepared 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 Herd, and Recorded by the Apostle John, the Apocalyptical Amanuensis, or Scribe; that so from that very Time, the Execution of the Things declared may be expected, and prepared 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 prepared, 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 Forty two Months of the Beast are expired, 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 the Light of this Prophecy duly weighed and considered, be convinced; that It is the City symbolised, 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 signify; 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 desired, that by the General Rules of Universal Scripture, we may without the particular Understanding of this Prophecy be secured from both the Impurities, and from the Judgements 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 Coming out of it, and enforce the Charge here given to come out of it; and all this as peculiarly derived from this Holy Oracle, in comparison of which, all the Streams derived from Antiquity are Low and Flat in showing 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 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 described.  
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 Emblem 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 Typed by a Woman; the New Jerusalem by the Bride, the Lamb's 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 affirmed 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 Universal 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 Universal Monarchy, and that some Supreme Power had its Imperial Residence there, took its Title from that City, exercised 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 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 Emperor of Rome, when our Lord was Born, made a Decree, that All the World, viz. the World of the Roman Empire, which Aspired, as it were to equal the very Habitable Earth in Extent, should come under a particular Census, 
Luc. 2. 1.  or be described, that so an Account of the large Bounds of the Dominion, the Numerousness, Strength, and Riches of the Subjects might be rendered 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 Freeborn of that City; It made such a City no mean City. The Immunity of being so Freeborn was so great, that many purchased 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 served 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 that when This City is declared to be the City that Reigned 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-hilled 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 herself is portrayed 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 City's Heads; as an , 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 Partisans of Rome in its present State, dare not deny that the Woman here described, 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 Thunderstroke 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 described is not yet past, there are these two Evident Reasons.  
1. That whenever this Prophecy is fulfilled, there must be an utter Destruction, Ruin, and Desolation of the City; for the Woman expounded to be the City Chap. 17. is the same, whose Desolation is so amply and finally declared 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 Millstone 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 outlived the Calamities that it suffered at any Time since the Prophecy, and hath always so recovered itself that it is at this day in Grandeur, so that the Truth of the Prophecy must be wholly overthrown, or not yet fulfilled; and so it must be yet to be destroyed.  
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 Lamb's Wife making herself 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 Satan chained, shut up, and sealed 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 raged 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 Judgement 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 showing the ill-matching of Consequences, (especially when the Consequences are so Great, as the Day of Judgement only can parallel; (as they have truly enough considered,) than 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 Prophetic Table.  
Rome in the present State is that, which hath been from the 
Proposit.  Time the Imperial Name of the City Rome ceased, 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 Judgement, 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 Prophetic 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 famed for its Seven Mountains; the certain, and more accomplished 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 joined with it establishes it in the Evidence of Two most undoubted Testimonies of it.  
Yet still it is to be considered, the Woman sits on the Mountains, only as a City is described by its Situation, and this City by its Situation 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 expressly styles 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 Portraiture, as we shall find; and He coming 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 Prophetic 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 prophetic 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 concerned 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 itself 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 destroyed; 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 short-lived 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-lived, and the Eighth; because the Seventh and Eighth imply so much, the Seventh is to continue a short space. The Eighth therefore necessarily is supposed 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 the Eighth, in which only the Prophetic Time is concerned, 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 Led the Course of the City's Time; So that the Spaces of it might be measured thereby: But if Those Seven Kings only, that were Heads had been named, while there was Another between, that was no Head, and he had not been Named; 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 swelled 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 straight and tied; For if the very exact Pourtraicture of the Beast had been only designed, It had been more Just and Even, without any mention of the Seventh King, that pertained not to the Beast, nor to the Woman as carried by the Beast. But It was absolutely necessary, that King also should be mentioned, 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 placed 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 enquired; 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, 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 Transposed 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 Seven, 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 than can only lie 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 inclines 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, aught 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 expressly 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 fixed on the sixth King, to distinguish it from being a Head; and what is set on the 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 signify Kingdoms, and not only single Kings; So Dan. 7. 17. what are called 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 named) binds up together as uninteressed in their Duration or Succession: The Last of these Heads, which is the Seventh and Eighth King, is eminently styled the Beast, because His Supremacy is chief 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 charged 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 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 Called, 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 Judgement Written in this Prophecy is not as yet Executed; From the Time than 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 Millstone. How impossible is it therefore, these Kings should be other than 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 Thunderstroke of this Prophecy; and that the People of God are called 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 destroyed. For that is the Rome out of which the People of God are called, even that Rome, that is to be ●hus destroyed.  
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 John's Time of writing the Revelation, 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, Emperors 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 Acknowledgement; nor the Roman Empire more confessedly carried 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 pvissantly 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 Emperors 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 Emperors and Chiefs: Thus every way the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or [Another] falls so duly upon the Christian Emperor, that It is even to ravishment at the Wisdom of the very prophetical Grammar, that so placed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or [One] that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or [Another] might follow big with Sense, and yet veiled with secrecy; 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 than the eighth King, who is plainly aimed 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 prophetic 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 Emperors. The Heathen and Christian Emperor 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 Emperors was alike, and the same Imperial Form, yet the Spirit and Soul of the Government being so purely Christian in God's 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 carried the Name of Supremacy derived from the City Rome itself, 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 itself 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 than 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 Judgement upon Sodom, the Plagues upon Egypt, 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 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 called, 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 Man's 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 expressly designed 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 called to come.  
For the due management of this Argument, Three Points are necessary:  
The Time itself of the Beast must be assigned 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 assigned 
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 assigned, 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 defined 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 expressly assigned 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joined with a Word of Time, generally signifies in the New Testament) Forty Two Months; Now in that Power, or as the Word signifies, a Privilege or Authority was given Him, It sets out, though not a Lawful Authority that was to be obeyed, 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 carried 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, than the forty two Months must needs be the Gage 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 endeavoured 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 Forty 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 inquire, 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 conjoined, that the Beast 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 Forty 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 carried 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 Judgements 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, carried 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 received 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 assigned 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 than 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 ministered to this grand Beast, till He came to his Number, and after served 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 assigned 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 assigned 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 Cipher or prophetic Shorthand 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 prophetic Time, ever since It was first set and sealed 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, mysterious, 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 it's 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 wondered 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 couped 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 Mushroom City and Prince, that should Rise and Fall before they could be known to Live, or be warm in that Potency; where could the world's wondering after the Beast, and worshipping Him lodge within such straits of Time? How would the Acclamations to Him [who is like unto 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 Kindred's, Tongues, and Nations receiving his Mark, etc. 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 Nutshell 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 expired; 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 than 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 justify 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 itself, 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 Clothed. 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 Latin word Menses hath made the Confusion, and I know not what should misled them but Inobservance, seeing the Hebrew and Greek words exactly translated are Moons, not Months, which kept to, had cleared all doubts.  
There is a third Reason which is very great, and would absolutely 
Reas. 3.  determine 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 Clothed with the Sun, must give Law to the Course of that Time that concerns 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 than 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 called 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 matched 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 Clothed 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 refer the searching Reader to the Treatise called, A Scripture-Line of Time, which I have made Public, and satisfy myself with what concerns the Matter in hand; That the Forty Two Months of the Beast are Lunar Time, and must be measured 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 denied upon the proof given; and is enough to our present purpose.  
For upon this Groundwork well laid, that these Months are (as the very Propriety of the Expression requires) Months of the Moon, and to be applied 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 shortening 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 Forty Two Months will be as 1222 Years in answer to 1260 Years, as near, as Time of the Sun and of the Moon can be proportioned 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 persuaded, (for I allow one Year for Rounding the Number) gained such a space of time as twelve hundred twenty two Years; very little under or over, for the Woman to Sat 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 entering.  
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, defined by Prophecy, both as to the City or Woman carried by the Beast, and inclusively as to the Beast also.  
This Point divides itself 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 eupected 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 itself.  
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 Dies; whenever therefore the sixth King, that was in the Apostles time expired, 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 expired, 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 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 Removed out of the way by that supreme dispose of Providence, or done out of that middle space determined 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 itself 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 Emperor, expired, 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 claimed a Title of Empire from that City since that Year; No one hath Advanced 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 Emperor left that Title [Bishop of Rome] in Being, when He Fell, It hath survived ever since 
* Their so much vaunted Succession witnesseth this Point. ; For little Failures or Interruptions make no difference, where the same Title and Supremacy still run on. It was then proclaimed 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; and however He may summon his whole strength now at last, yet it shall be only to Die; and thus the Thing is justified in the Event: and thus the Time of His, the Beasts, and the City Rome's 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 Explained; 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 stained 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, called Aholah, and Aholibah. This Prophecy 
Ezek. 20. 27. c. 23.  hath therefore determined 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 shows 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 Emperor, who, though He was a King, was no Head, and the seventh Head did not Succeed, till the Christian Empire Expired.  
The Prophecy expressly tells us, the Beast was deadly Wounded in 
Answer.  one of his Heads, which was during the Time of the Christian Emperor, 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 Empire, as Idolatrous and Bloody in its Persecutions had expired: But because the whole of that Time, Heathenish Idolatry and Persecution was Fashioning into Antichristian, the Beast lived, though deadly Wounded, and the Dragon gave his Power and Seat, as by Will to the Beast.  
The Pope was long ere he arose to such Supremacy, as would 
Object. 3.  Answer the Prophetic Types.  
And so Prophecy Represents it; The Gentiles or Antichristianizing 
Answer.  Laity the Inhabitants of the Earth, under the other Beast or Antichristianizing Hierarchy of Bishops; their Dignified, and Inferior Clergy; Horned 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 Emperors; was Wounded deadly in One of, viz. the sixth of its Heads or the Pagan Emperors and Powers subdued by the Christian Emperors.  
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 conferred upon it, and accordingly Forty two Months were assigned 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 continued till the Grand 
* Called Beast, tho' but a Head in Imitation of the little horn, among the Ten, (another Emblem of this Beast) called the Beast, and delivered to the Flames, Dan. 7. 11.  Beast had an Image made to Him to be Worshipped, and All Swore 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 Emperors, 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 merged into those of the Beast, having till then supplied what was wanting in the time of the Night, although the Beast's Infant Succession, as Eighth King, and his Forty Two Months commenced 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, 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 answered by a further settlement of the very Beginning and Epoch of these Forty Two Months of the Beast: For whenever the Beast Rose, those Month's Rose also; Now the Beast's Rising is fixed 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 portrayed in Prophecy, yet with some regard to the variety of Times that passed 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 Crowned, showing 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 Crowned, having been both Crowned in the former Vision, and explained in this.  
But let us Examine when could these Ten Kings receive Authority as Kings, and be justly owned 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 Universal 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 ceased, and 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 called Ten, not to raise a Scruple about their exact Number, Ten, neither more nor less, 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 called 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 fulfilled.  
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 continued 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 Adored 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 Triple 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 ere these Kings gave their 
Object. 2.  Power thus to the Beast.  
It is most true, it was so, even as It was ere 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 Bottomless Pit, whither He went down, when He became a Fallen Star, 
* When Phocas gave Him the Title of Universal, 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 shows, He had a double Rising, One by way of mere Providence, as out of the tumultuous Sea of worldly Affairs, that necessitated the Emperor 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 assumed 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 acknowledged by Christ's own Command; and as the Crowned Horns, or Ten Kings are to be acknowledged, who give Him their Kingdom and Power.  
No Kings, or Powers may be acknowledged in their Idolatrous 
Answ. 1.  or Superstitious Commands: No Caesars, no Kings, and much more no Popes can be so Obeyed.  
2. But upon this very Account He ought not at all to be acknowledged, 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 abhorred 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, evinced the Settlement of the Epoch, or Beginning of these Forty Two Months, both by the Prophecy, and by the Event; and come now to fix the latter Branch, or what Prophecy hath determined concerning the End or Period of these Months, although that cannot be declared in the Particulars, or manner of the Event, but must be waited for till He shall show 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 jota of the Prophecy Fall to the Ground.  
Now to make this Point as plain as Prophecy hath made it, It is to be considered in the two Grand Oracles that are given of 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 dropped 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 determined to it for so long; And so long the Woman's 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 Forty 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 Burn, that it is devoted to: And Egypt, 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 consigned 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 show 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 lie in the Street of that Great City, which plainly joins 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 lie in the Street of his Great Imperial City: So than the City and the Beast are here first so nearly conjoined, 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 Forty two Months were not out; For so long was given Him by Prophecy, which in another Character is called, Time, Times, and Half a Time, and as applied 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 show 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 Forty 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. Vlt.  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 Killed 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, 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 until the Words of God shall be fulfilled: Now this Counsel, Determination, and Will of God is that which is explained what it is, It is even that they should Give their Kingdom and Power to the Beast: And how long? Until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And Those words were declared, 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 called 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 fulfil 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 Whore's Fornication. But when those Words are fulfilled, and those Forty Two Months, than 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 signify the Ten Kinged 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 Sum 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 Rome, sitting upon the Pope, is, and hath been in that Possession so long.  
That Time so allotted is expressly said to be Forty 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 applied 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, Forty two Months applied 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 Emperor, 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 outlast 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 Forty two Months, when the Twelve hundred sixty Days of the Witnesses Sackcloth, and the Woman's Wilderness State began also, viz. 437.  
It is no matter what became of the Gentiles Forty 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.  Kinged 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 Kingdom, lasting till its Forty two Months End; Which being an Observation foreign to this Matter, needs not be enlarged, yet well observed 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 answered the Characters of Prophecy.  
Does the Prophecy signify 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 Idolatries, Superstitions, and Sensualities?  
Does the Prophecy Represent a Caesar in an Image, and hath not the Pope's Triple 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 Splendour 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, Kindred's, and Languages; and what hath Papal Rome pretended more forcibly to than such an Universality of its Religion, which is called Filthiness, Spiritual and Bodily, and All Abomination?  
Does Prophecy set out the Idolatries of such a City and its Prince by the Blasphemy of God, of his Tabernacle, of All that dwell in Heaven, and this openly avowed 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 Killed; 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, Falsely so called, have answered the prophecy?  
Do other prophecies of Scripture say, there should be a Grand Apostasy, out of which should come a Man of Sin, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, one above all Law and Control, as Supreme, and Infallible, justly styled 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 Blasphemed?  
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 lengthened 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 Heaven's open to Christ, Revel. 19  
Does not another Prophecy say? Some, a certain Sort, and Society or Community of Men shall Departed or Apostatise from the Faith, giving heed to wand'ring Spirits as Devils 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 Hypocrisy of Liars, and Legendary Priests, who disguising themselves in the Garb of extraordinary Holy Persons Coin 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 Foretell a Great Antichrist, of which the Little Antichrists in his Days were but Forerunners; and did He not Foreshow 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 Farewell of his Epistle, Little Children, keep yourselves 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 joined 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 called, 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 itself 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 Apostasy from Christian Religion, disguised under the Name of Catholic Christianity, that hath concentred itself in Rome under the name of an Universal 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 show it to his Servants as containing this, as One of the greatest Points of it: viz. Concerning this Apostasy, 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 supposed, but hath its greatest and most Fundamental Uses.  
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.  
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 Apostasy 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 allayed its Supreme Excellency, and turned it into so worldly a Religion, that it neither hath nor can be Refined to itself, till that whole Apostasy be consumed 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.  
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 duly apprehended; For the Mystery of Iniquity worked 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 reserved 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 adjourned to the Day of Judgement, as generally understood. For then Christ shall render up the Kingdom to God and the Father, and God shall be All in All.  
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 honoured 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 extreme 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 fulfilled, 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 Apostasy 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 Apostasy 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 not the Grand Prejudice against so guilty a Community, that Prophecy hath long ago passed upon it? There ought at least to be all means of Reconciliation perpetually used. 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 Apostasy, 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 determined 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 Controversy, than those endless Combating out of Antiquity; for when all the Incertainties of the ways of Discourse among the Ancients, may leave us in an Amaze, and bewildered, the Testimonies of God are sure. Again, Those Ancients might be deceived as Men, but the Righteousness of Divine Oracles is Everlasting: yea, how great Certainty do these Prophetic parts of Scripture give to the Expositions and Discourses out of Doctrinal parts of Scripture! And certainly, had God stirred up the Spirits of the Reformed, by the most industrious 
Indeed prophecy if not thus concealed, could not have been fulfilled.  Searches into the Word of God, to have conjoined the one with the other, and to have bestowed that Time and Diligence in the Explication of Prophecy of Scripture, that they have done in Researches into the Ancients, the Controversy had been long ago at an end, and the Apostasy exploded. But God hath, in the deep ways of his Judgement, 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 consumed by it.  
Hereby arises a Judgement upon other Prophecies of Scripture, that respect this Grand Apostasy, 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 than Judaisme, 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 recovered: 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 itself 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 grass in again  the end of the World, into their own Olive, But it is beyond my Intention to engage further into these Things, and it is enough to give only Intimations of them.  
It shows 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 Lie upon Christianity, as Popery is, who perish in not Receiving the Truth in the Love of it, Who Believed not the Truth, but had Pleasure in the Deceivableness of unrighteousness, whose names are not written in the Lamb's Book of Life from the Foundation 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 wand'ring Stars falling from their own Steadfastness, but fixed 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 Engaging 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, Practice, or Government.  
2. When this Apostasy 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; Finished before their prophecy ends. Rev. 11. 7.  and Prophesied in it against the Apostasy, and when the Apostasy risen 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 called the Church of Pergamus, that High Towering 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 Damned for Heretics, which shown they were retired form Rome, and called by its Name as if of that Church, although thus gently censured.  
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 declared against it, as such a Painted Prostitute, and separated from it, though they were encompassed with it as with Lions, 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 avowed Separation from it, by Coming out of it, but by Laws and Sanctions, prohibited the Superstitions and Idolatries of it, and of its Prince; who ought to be under this Twofold Caution: as the Church of Sardu is Admonished, 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 Reproved 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, barefaced, avowed Sins of Spiritual Sodom, and its Impurities, seeing the Providence of God hath so far delivered 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, etc. 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 poured out, as the Plagues of Egypt, and Fire from Heaven upon this Spiritual Sodom and Egypt, 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 pulled 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  shall be unjust still, But He that is Justified from that Apostasy shall be for ever juctified from it. After that time there is neither Reformation nor Apostasy.  
FINIS.