coincident, and are to be taken for one and the same, with that small addition of the greater and later sum of years to the former which if it be yielded, we are altogether to seek for our calculation of the Thousand Years wherein the Saints must reign upon earth.

Only one main rub seems to lie in our way, which we must be careful to remove. Our Saviour himself speaks of the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the Prophet, standing in the holy place, as a thing in his days yet to come"; and, therefore, with undoubted relation to the Roman Army led by Titus, and to the final sacking of Jerusalem. All which I do willingly grant, without any the least derogation from that former verity: for, what is the holy place, but the Temple of Jerusalem? and what is the abomination of desolation, but the idolatrous, heathenish, destructive army? such was both that of Titus, and that of Antiochus. The place, then, of Daniel, to which our Saviour alludes, with charge to him that reads to observe, is not the forementioned text now insisted upon; but Dan. ix. 27. wherein the angel, after the end of the designed weeks, tells us of the final destruction of the city and the sanctuary, which in the just time was accordingly fulfilled: so as this passage of prophecy hath no affinity at all with that of the xiith of Daniel; being not so much before it in place, as after it in time.

Yet, if the event had not punctually made good every jot of this prediction, so construed as we have declared, there might be some doubt of the sense contended for; but now, the issue of the things did so evidently answer to the words thus interpreted, as one would think there could be no place left for contradiction: for, as Junius, Rolloc, and Deodati have clearly computed it to my hands, from the time that Antiochus Epiphanes began to set up idolatry at Jerusalem, until the time wherein he was compelled by the victorious Maccabeus, both to permit, and allow, and ratify the reformation thereof by his charter', there passed three years, seven months, and about thirteen days; which amount to the thousand two hundred and ninety days, mentioned v. 11. And, from the setting up of that idolatry, if we reckon to the time of the full deliverance of God's people from the yoke of that tyranny, it will fall upon the second number mentioned, v. 12. wherein that wicked Antiochus was taken away by death; which makes up the thousand, three hundred, and five and thirty days: which day whoso should live to see, is declared to be blessed, for his happy freedom, and comfortable enjoying of the holy worship of God.

h Matt. xxiv. 15.

2 Maccab. xi. 33.

These pretend

ed doctrines

And, now, what is here in the letter of Daniel's prophecy, that doth but look towards the Thousand Years' Reign of the Saints upon Earth? Surely, not one syllable, that may, without a violent angariation, grounded upon be drawn to such a sense. Daniel by way

cannot be

of Type, or

te clear.

And, if Alstede shall pretend that these mysAnalogy. En- teries of the later times, concerning the Antichrist quiry made and the time of the Saints' Reign, are to be found whether, since in Daniel, not in the express letter, but in a way the words are of type or analogy; because he meets with the single, the sense same phraseology of time, and the like description of persons and things in the Evangelist's Revelation, which he finds in Daniel's prophecy; surely, he had need of greater authority for the warrant of such application, than I fear can be produced: and, if that were yielded; yet that, which we are wont to say of similitude, is verified much more in prefigurations, that they are not intended to hold universally; and, in short, Symbolical Divinity is not to be trusted, for matter of proof.

What mysteries there may be in numbers; and upon what reason it hath pleased the Spirit of God to take up the same terms of numeration for days, months, years, and times in the case of the Christian Church, which he made use of in the Jewish; I suppose it were too much presumption in any man to determine.

And, if the events of things be the best commentaries upon prophecies, how unanswerable those have proved to the computations and sense of our new Chiliasts shall, in due place, be made manifest.

Now if there be any other amongst those sixty-five places alledged by Alstedius, wherein the favourers of the Millenarian Reign can place any confidence for the evicting of their opinion, I should be glad to see it driven up to the head. For my part, I must sincerely profess I see none, that can so much as raise, much less settle my belief.

Supposing, then, as we well may, that this place of Rev. xx. stands alone; let us enquire, whether the sense of it be so clear, as that we may, with good assurance, build upon it, for the certainty of our resolution, concerning the state of the whole world, and particularly of all God's Saints, for the space of a whole thousand years, lost hitherto in the vulgar account of all Christian Divines. Surely, there can be but one truth; and, whatever falls beside it, is but vain opinion: as, when two points are fixed, there can be but one direct line drawn betwixt them: all other bewray a manifest variation and obliquity. The stars, because they keep a regular course, yield most certain observations of their scite and motions: but the clouds, which are raised out by vapours and carried by winds, how far

they are from affording a true judgment, let every almanack witness. Now whether this conceit be a star or a cloud, shall appear by that which followeth.

SECT. 2.

SOME expositors, then, and those neither few nor mean, have taken the Thousand Years of Satan's shutting up; The Divers to be the same thousand wherein the Saints shall Constructions reign. Others, not fewer, make the Saints' Reign of the Thouto follow this binding of Satan, for many hundreds sand Years of of Years.

Satan's shut

And, for the time of this chaining up of Satan, ting up. some take the Thousand Years for a long time, but indefinite: so Fulke and Deodati'. Others construe literally, of that determinate number of years specified. Some define it to be the whole time, since the first publishing of the Gospel to the end of the world: so Nicholaus Zegerus, Emmanuel Sa, and Estius". Some determine it to be the whole time of the Gospel published, until the days of their Antichrist; which should be three years and a half before the judgment: so Ribera", out of Augustin: so Haymo, and Joannes Gagnæus a Divine of Paris.

Some define this number of the Thousand Years to begin the Thirty-sixth year, or thereabouts, after our Saviour's death; when, the Jewish Church being overthrown, Satan rushed impetuously upon the Church Christian, and was restrained till the days of Hildebrand: so Junius.

Some define it to begin from the time of Constantine (whom Mr. Brightman conceives to be that angel, which, coming down from heaven, and having the keys of the bottomless pit, laid hold on the Dragon, and bound him in chains) till the Thousand Years expired; which ended in the one thousand three hundredth year of Christ, in the days of Boniface the Eighth, and the Ottoman empire: so Napier, and Brightman, and Mr. Fox.

Some reckon it from first preaching of the Gospel by Christ and his Apostles, until the time of Gregory the Seventh, otherwise called Hildebrand; and the time of Satan's loosing to be four hundred or five hundred years: so Dent.

Others, ending the time of Satan's shutting up, in the year 1300, make the time of his rage to be an hour, a day, a month, and a year; that is, about three hundred and ninety years after: so Brightman.

Some others make the loosing of Satan to be, when Mahomet and the Pope grew so great; which was at the end of the thousand years after Christ; in all which time the sincere doctrine was taught, till Antichrist came in with the doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass, and the doctrine of Merits, Satisfactions, &c: so Fulke.

Some place the beginning of Satan's binding up on the year 1517, when the Witnesses were raised; for that, from that time all people have not generally drunk any new poison of heresy, which might weaken or overthrow their faith: so Matthæus Cotterius.

Some others imagine the beginning of this chaining up of Satan to be after the taking of Rome by the Goths, and after Augustulus, who was the last Emperor of the West; affirming, though upon fickle grounds, that, after the fall of the Roman Empire, yea after Mahomet, there was peace in the Church for one thousand years; so as Satan was bound, and shut up in the bottomless pit, till this last age now passed: so Mariana. Others hold that this Thousand Years of Satan's binding up is not yet begun, but shall be in this age, wherein the Saints' Reign shall enter about the year 1694: so Alstedius and his followers.

There are some of those varieties of constructions (for, if I listed to look after them, it were easy to cloy the reader with many more: these tendered themselves to me suddenly, and as it were unsought) which have passed concerning the Thousand Years' Captivity of Satan, whereby it pleased the Spirit of God to make way to the Thousand Years' Reign of the Saints. In the determination whereof there is no less multiplicity of judgment amongst learned and Christian interpreters: some few whereof I shall lay forth before my reader.

SECT. 3.

AND, first, concerning the times of this reign.

The Divers

of the Thousand Years'

Reign of the

"A thousand," saith Haymo P, "is a perfect Constructions number; and, therefore, by a thousand years, we understand the present life and the future: now the Saints reign by faith; and, in the Day of Judgment, their reign shall not be terminated, but receive a glorious augmentation." So he. To the same purpose, saith Colladon, "The Thousand Years are the whole series of time here in this world, in which there shall be always a Church of Christ. As the faithful have lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years, that is in the

Saints.

Haymo in Apoc. 1. vii.

Colladon in Apoc xx.

whole space of this life, so they shall reign with Christ a thousand years in the whole duration of the world to come."

And, if this seem too large, surely these men do not shoot further over than Joannes Brocardus shooteth short; who contracteth the Thousand Years after the establishment of the Gospel, into a thousand days here on earth: as, contrarily, Jonas's forty days were stretched out into forty years.

Of those, that hold not fit to divide the time betwixt the present and future life, some understand the Thousand Years' Reign to be understood of the flourishing estate of the Church Militant, during the time of Satan's captivity: "For all the faithful," say they, "do, in a sort, live and reign with Christ here on earth, when they overcome the world by faith:" so Mr. Dent. Some, again, take it of the whole time, between the First Coming of Christ and the Second: so Oecolampadius, in Daniele. Others, waving the present life, define it to be meant of that glorious kingdom, which the souls of the Saints enjoy in heaven until the Day of Judgment: so Mariana: so Estius and Fulke, to the same purpose, thus:-"These Martyrs, being delivered from the calamities of this miserable life by the first death, and being taken up into heavenly joys, they live and reign still with Christ, through the whole Thousand Years, so long as Satan shall remain in bonds: not, that, after that Thousand Years, they shall die; but to express how great a benefit it was to the godly, to be all that while in happiness:" thus he; without any supposition of a preceding resurrection. Joannes Piscator, as going yet further, even half the Millenary way, so construes it, as that it is to be understood of the raised Martyrs and their ensuing glorification: "This," saith he, "is the singular happiness of the Martyrs of Christ, who, before these Thousand Years, endured persecution; even their resurrection, which shall be before the General Resurrection; and their reign in heaven with Christ for a thousand years, before the resurrection of the rest.

Of those, which take this Thousand Years' Reign, to be in this life below, there is no small variety of construction. Illyricus takes it to be an invertion of sense; the predicate being set before the subject, the relative before the antecedent: so as the order of the sense should be thus; "I saw the souls of those, that worshipped not the beast &c. and that died for Christ, to live and reign with him, and to sit on their thrones, and judge the wicked; reigning with Christ spiritually, in suffering bodily; as those, who, by their martyrdom for Christ, shall reign and triumph, all the time of Satan's repression, over him and his wicked instruments." Aretius, thus: "They lived again, and reigned with Christ: that is, their cause was

Flac. Illyric, Gloss. in Apoc.