KING JAMES HIS Divine prophecy, OF THE wars and Distractions of the present and future Times, IN Relation to the two Witnesses their coming down from Heaven, fighting, and how slain by Antichrist, and being again risen in imitation of Christ, and clothed in sackcloth, they work miracles and wonders, such as we have seen some already.  
Written by King JAMES.  

Published according to Order.   
LONDON, Printed for R. Austin. 1645.   

King JAMES His divine prophecy of the wars and Distractions of the present and future Times, &c.  
HOw this can stand with any point of Divinity, or likelihood in reason, that these two glorious bodies Enoch, and Eliah, shall come down out of Heaven, or Paradise,( make it what you will) preach, and fight against The Antichrist, be sleine by him, after many thousand years exemption from the natural course of death, rise again the third day, in imitation of Christ, and then( having wrought many wonders) to go up again to Heaven, making an ordinary past between Heaven and Earth, how this( I say) can agree with Divinity or Reason, I confess, it passeth my capacity: and especially, that they must be clad in sackcloth, whose bodies( I hope) have been so long ago so free from sin, as I think they shall need no more such maceration for sin. For they must be now either in Heaven, or Paradise, if in Heaven( as doubtless they are) their bodies must be glorified, for no corruptible thing can enter there; and consequently they can no more be subject to the sensible things of this world, especially to death, but if they be in earthly Paradise, we must know first where it is.  
Bellarmine indeed in his controversy, ( Lib. de Grat. primi hoins) it much troubled to find out the place where Paradise is, and whether it be in the earth or in the air. But these are all vanities: The Scriptures tell us that Paradise and the Garden of Eden therein, was a certain place upon the Earth, which God choose out to set Adam into; and having there after for his sin banished him from the same, it is a blasphemy to think, that any of Adams posterity came ever there again: For in Adam were all his posterity accursed, and banished from the earthly Paradise, like as all the earth in general, and Paradise in special, were accursed in him; the second Adam having by grace, called a certain number of them to be co-heritors with him of the heavenly Paradise, and jerusalem. And doubtless, the earthly Paradise was defaced at the Flood, if not before: and so lost all that exquisite fertility and pleasantness, wherein it once surpassed all the rest of the earth. And that it should be lifted up in the air, is like one of the dreams of the Alcoran. Surely no such miracle is mentioned in the Scripture, and hath no ground, but from the curious fancies of some boiling brains, who cannot be content Sapere ad sobrietatem.  
In Heaven then for certain are Enoch, and Eliah: for Enoch( saith the Text) walked with God and was taken up, Gen. 5. 24. and Eliah was seen carried up to Heaven in a fiery chariot, 2 King. 2. 11, 10. And that they who have been the in-dwellers of Heaven these many thousand yeares, and are freed from the laws of mortality; that these glorious and incorruptible bodies( I say) shall come in the world again, preach and work miracles, and fight against The Antichrist, be slain by him, whom natural death could not before take hold of, as it is a fabulous invention, so is it quiter contrary to the nature of such sanctified creatures, especially I wonder why Enoch should be thought to be one of these two Witnesses for Christ. For it was Moses and Eliah that were with Christ at the transfiguration, signifying the Law, and the Prophets, which would be the fittest Witnesses for convincing of Antichrist. But why they have exempted Moses, and put Enoch's head in the yoke; I cannot conceive. But I have too much laboured in the refuting of this foolish, and indeed childish fable; which I am so far from believing in any sort, as I protest in Gods presence, I cannot hold any learned Divine( in our age now) to be a christian that will believe it, but worthy to be ranked with the Scribes and Pharisees, that raved, and dreamed upon the coming again of Eliah; though Christ  told them the contrary. As for some of the ancients that mistook this matter. I do not censure them so hardly.  
And having now refuted that idle fable; that these two Witnesses were Enoch, and Eliah: it falleth me next to guess, what in my opinion should be meant by them. I confess it is far easier to confute such a groundless fable as this is, contrary to all grounds of Divinity and Reason, then to set down a true interpretation, of so high and dark a mystery. And therefore as I will not presume to bind any other man to my opinion herein, if his own reason led him not thereunto, so shall I propound such probable conjectures, as( I hope) shall be free from heresy, or unlawful curiosity.  
In two divers fashions may the mystery of these Witnesses be lawfully and probably interpeted, in my opinion: whereof the one is, that by these two Witnesses should be meant the Old and New Testaments. For as the Antichrist cannot choose but be an adversary to the Word of God above all things; so will he omit no endeavour to disgrace, corrupt, suppress, and destroy the same. And now whether this book of the two Testaments, or two Witnesses of Christ, have suffered any violence by the Babylonian Monarchy, or not, I need say nothing; Res ipsa loquitur. I will not weary you with recounting those common places used for disgracing it, as calling it a nose of wax, a dead letter, a leaden rule, and a hundred such like phrases of reproach: but how far the traditions of men, and authority of the Church are preferred to these Witnesses, doth sufficiently appear in the Babylonian Doctrine. And if there were no more but that little book, with that pretty inscription De l'insuffisance De l'Escriture saint, it is enough to prove it. cardinal Peron. And as to the corrupting thereof, the corruptions of the old Latin Translation must not be corrected, though it bid Evertere Domum, instead of Everrere, for seeking of a penny; and though it say of John, Sic eum v●●o manner donec veniam, in place of Si, though it be known a plain lie, and that the very next words of the Text disprove the same. Nay, so far must we be from correcting it, as that the vulgar Translation must be preferred by catholics, to the Bible in the own original tongue. And is it a small corrupting of Scriptures to make all, or the most part of apocrypha, of equal faith with the canonical Scriptures, contrary to the Fathers opinion, and decrees of ancient counsels? And what blasphemous corrupting of Scripture is it, to turn Dominus into Domina throughout the whole Psalms? And thus our Ladies Psalter was lately reprinted in Paris. Is not this to confounded Christs Person with hers? and as for suppressing of the Scriptures, how many hundred years were the people kept in such blindness, as these Witnesses were almost unknown, for the laics durst not,( being forbidden) and the most part of the Clergy either would or could not meddle with them.  
Thus were these two Witnesses of Christ,( whereof himself saith, Scrutamini Scripturas, illae enim testimonium perhibent de me) these two Olives, bringing peace to all the Believers, even peace of conscience; these two Candlesticks, standing in the sight of God, and giving light to the Nations, represented by candlesticks, even in the very order of the Roman mass. Thus were these two Witnesses( I say) disgraced, corrupted and suppressed,( nay so suppressed and silenced, as he was brent for an heretic that durst presume to look upon them) kept close in a strange tongue, that they might not be understood; Legends and lying wonders supplying their place in the Pulpits. And so did their Bodies lye in the streets of the great City; spiritually sodom, for spiritual fornication, which is idolatry; spiritually Egypt, for bringing the Saints of God in bondage of human Traditions, [ Q●●re oneramini ritibus?] So did these Bodies( I say) lye three dayes and ●● half; that is, the half of that spiritual Week between Christ his first and second coming: and as dead carcases indeed did the Scriptures then lye, without a monument, being laid open to all contempt, cared for almost by none, understood by as few; nay, no man durst call for them, for fear of punishment, as I have already said. And thus lying dead, as it were, without life or vigour( as the Law of God did, till it was revived in Joshuah's time) the inhabitants of the earth, that is, worldly men, rejoiced; and sent gifts to others, for joy that their fleshly liberty was now no more awed nor kerbed by that two-edged sword: for they were now sure, that do what they would, their purse would procure them pardons from Babylon; Omnia vaenalia Rom●; so as men needed no more to look up to heaven, but down into their purses to find pardons. Nay, what needed any more seeking after heaven, or taking it by violence or fervency of zeal, when the pardons came and offered themselves at every mans doors? and divers spiritual men vaunted themselves, that they neither understood old Testament nor new.  
Thus were these two Witnesses used in the second half of this spiritual Week; who in the first half thereof were clad in sackcloth, that is, preached repentance to all Nations, for the space of five or six hundred yeares after Christ, God making his Word, or witness, to triumph, riding upon the white horse in the time of the Primitive Church, as that they overcame all that opposed themselves unto it, beating down every high thing, as Paul saith, excluding from heaven all that believe not therein: and strongly( with the spiritual fire thereof) convincing the stiffnecked pride of unbelievers, as ever Moses or Elias did, by the Plagues of Egypt, and famine, convince the rebellious Egyptians, and stiffnecked Israelites.  
Neither should it be enough to disgrace, corrupt, and suppress them, but killed must they be at the last, to which purpose cometh forth censura generalis, ut mucrone censorio jugulare eas posset; and cutteth their throats indeed: for, the author ordaineth all Translations, but their own, to be burnt, which is yet commonly practised: nay he professes he cometh not to correct, but to destroy them, controlling, and calling every place of Scripture heretical, that disagreeth from their traditions( with almost as many foul words, and railing epithets, as the cardinal bestowed on my apology) not ruling, nor interpreting Scripture by Scripture, but making their traditions to be such a touch-stone for it, as he condemneth of heresy, not only those places of Scripture that he citeth, but layeth the same general condemnation upon all other the like places wheresoever they be written, in the Scriptures. And yet( praised be God) we begin now with our eyes,( as our Predecessors have done in some ages before) to see these Witnesses rise again, and shine in their former glory: God as it were, setting them up again upon their feet, and raising them to the Heavens in a triumphal cloud of glory, like Eliah his fiery Chariot: which exalting of the gospel again, hath bread such an earth-quake, and alteration amongst many Nations; as a tenth part, or a good portion of these that were in subjection to that great City, to wit Babylon, are fallen from her; seven thousand, that is, many thousands having been killed upon the occasion of that great alteration; and many others converted to the fear of God, and giving glory to the God of Heaven. This now is one of the ways, by which( I think) this place of Scripture may be lawfully and probably interpnted.  
The other is more common, and seemeth more literally to agree with the Text. And this is to interpret, not the Word of God, but the Preachers thereof, to be meant by these Witnesses. Few they were that first began to reveal the Man of sin, and discover his corruptions, and therefore well described by the manner of two Witnesses: Nam in ore duorum aut trium testium stabit omne verbum. And in no greater number were they that begun this work, then the greatness of the errand did necessary require. They Prophesied in sackcloth, for they preached repentance. That divers of them were put to cruel deaths, is notorious to the world: and likewise that( in the person of their successors in Doctrine) they arose again,( Sanguis Martyrum est seemen Ecclesiae,) and that in such power as is more then miraculous. For, where it is accounted in Scriptures, a miraculous work of God wrought by his holy Spirit, when the Apostle Saint Peter converted above three thousand in one day; these Witnesses I speak of, by the force of the same spirit, converted many mighty Nations in few yeares: who still continue praising God that he hath delivered us from the tyranny of Antichrist that reigneth over that great City, and with a full cry proclaiming, go out of her my people, least ye be partakers of her sins, and her plagues. Let therefore these Miracle-mongers that surfeit the world, and raise the price of paper daily, with setting forth old, though new guilded miracles, and legends of lies, let such( I say) consider of this great and wonderful miracle indeed, and to their shane compare it to their paltry wears. Thus have I in two fashions delivered my conjecture, what I take to be meant by these two Witnesses, in the eleventh of the Apocalyps, there being no greater difference between them: In the one taking it to be the Word of God itself, in the other the Word of God too, but in the mouths of his Preachers.  
FINIS.