The works of the pious and profoundly-learned Joseph Mede, B.D., sometime fellow of Christ's Colledge in Cambridge

CHAP. III.

Answer concerning a Discourse inferring from the Septenary Types of the Old Testament and other Arguments, That the World should last 7000 years, and the Seventh Thousand be that happy and blessed Chiliad.

I.

THE Millennium of the Reign of Christ is that which the Scriptures call The Day of Iudgment, the ancient Iews and S. Iude 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Magnus Dies Iudicii or Dies Iudicii magni. Septimus Millenarius ab universa Cabbalistarum Schola (saith Carpentarius) vocatur Magnus Dies Iudicii; Comment. in Alcinoum Platonis, pag. 322. A Day, not (as our languages commonly import) of a few hours, but, according to the Hebrew notion (from whence the name is derived) of many years: For with them Day is Time, and not a short only; but a long Time. A Day whereof S. Peter speaking, 2 Epist. chap. 3. tells the believing Iews his brethren, as soon as he had named it, vers. 8. That he would not have them ignorant, that one Day with the Lord was as a Thousand years, and a Thousand years as one Day. This is the Day of the great Assises beginning with the Seventh Trumpet, Apocal. 11. 15. where∣in Christ shall give reward unto his Servants the Prophets, and to the Saints and them that fear his Name, and shall destroy them that destroy the earth, vers. 18. The Process of this wonderful Day S. Iohn describes by a twofold Iudgment, and a twofold Resurrection, and the glorious Reign of the Saints between them. The morning Iudgment shall be of Antichrist and all his partakers, whom Christ shall destroy at the appearing of his coming, 2 Thess. 2. 8. and then shall be the first and particular Resurrection. The evening Iudgment shall be upon the remainder of the living ene∣mies of Christ, Gog and Magog, and conclude with the last and universal Resurrection

of the dead: and so the last enemy, Death, being now wholly vanquished, he shall surrender his Kingdom into the hands of his Father, that God may be all in all, 1 Cor. 15. 24, &c.

Nor ought it to seem strange, that the name Day should signifie so long a time as a Thousand years: The Iews, who first imposed it, understood it so. And in the end of S. Peter we shall find yet a longer Day, even 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Dies AEternitatis, a Day of Eternity, 2 Pet. 3. 18. The Prophets have many such long Days, when they say, In Die illo, Vide. The whole time of Christ's first coming is called a Day, Ioh. 16. 26. 2 Cor. 6. 2. The whole time of the Iews fourty years abode in the wilderness is called a Day, Heb. 3. 8, 9. Their first Captivity of seventy years, a Day: Vide Pro∣phetas. Their last and long Captivity, a Day, as Deut. 32. 35. & alibi apud Pro∣phetas. And what if in our daily prayer [Give us this day our daily bread] Day be to be taken for the whole time of our life? For in stead of S. Matthew's [This day] speaking after the Hebrew notion, S. Luke hath in the same Petition, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. that is, every day. So S. Paul, Heb. 3. 13. Exhort one another 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 every day, whilest it is called To Day. Doth not Day here include many days?

Now if the Thousand years of the Reign of Christ be the Day of Iudgment, then it will follow, that though we may know by the fulfilling of things to be fulfilled whether it be nearer or farther off, yet the precise time of the coming thereof cannot be known, because it is to come upon the world unawares as a Thief in the night.

II.

Nevertheless it is true that the Primitive Fathers (especially those who believed the Chiliad) conceived the World should last, and the Church therein labour, 6000 years, and that the Seventh thousand should be the Day of Iudgment, and Sabbath, in which the Saints should reign with Christ their Lord.

So Irenaeus, Lib. 5. c. 28. Quotquot diebus hic factus est mundus, tot & Millenis consummatur—Si enim Dies Domini quasi Mille anni, in Sex autem diebus consum∣mata sunt quae facta sunt; manifestum est, quoniam consummatio ipsorum Sextus mille∣simus annus est.

Idem eodem Libro cap. 30. Cùm vastaverit Antichristus hic omnia in mundo, reg∣nans annis tribus & mensibus sex—tunc veniet Dominus de coelis in nubibus in gloriae Patris, illum quidem & obedientes ei in stagnum ignis mittens, adducens auten•• justis Regni tempora, hoc est requietionem (i. Sabbatum,) septimam diem sanctificatam, & restituens Abrahae promissionem haereditatis, &c.

Iustinus Martyr, Dialogo cum Tryphone Iudaeo loquens de Mellennio Regni Christi, Novimus (inquit) dictum illud,* 1.1 quòd Dies Domini sit sicut mille anni, huc per∣tinere.

Cyprianus, Lib. de Exhortatione Martyrii; Primi in dispositione Divina Septem dies, annorum Septem millia continent,—ut consummatio legitima impleatur.

Lactantius, de Divino praemio Lib. 7. c. 14. Quoniam Sex diebus cuncta Dei opera perfecta sunt; per secula Sex, id est, annorum Sex millia, manere in hoc statu mundum necesse est. Dies enim magnus Dei Mille annorum circulo terminatur.—Et ut Deus Sex illos dies in tantis rebus fabricandis laboravit; ità & religio ejus & veritas in his Sex millibus annorum laborare necesse est, malitiâ praevalente & dominaute. Et rurius, Quoniam perfectis operibus requievit die Septimo, eúmque benedixit, necesse est ut in fine Sexti millesimi anni malitia omnis aboleatur è terra, & regnet annos Mille Iusti∣tia; sitque tranquillitas & requies à laboribus quos mundus jamdiu perpessus est.

III.

The ancient Iews also had a Tradition to the same purpose, as appears by these testimonies recorded in the Gemara or Glosse of their Talmud, Cod. Sanhedrim, cap. Kol Iisrael. For there, concerning that of Esay chap. 2. [Exaltabitur Dominus solus die illo] thus speaks the Talmudical Gloss.

Dixit Rabbi Ket••••a, Sex annorum millibus stat Mundus, & uno (Millenario) vasta∣bitur; de quo dicitur, AT QUE EXALTAEITUR DOMINUS SOLUS DIE ILLO. Note, By Vastabitur they mean the Vastation of the world by Fire in the Day of Iudgment, whereby it shall become New, or a New Heaven and New Earth.

Sequitur.

Traditio adstipulatur R. Ketinae, (nempe ista) Sicut ex septenis annis Septimus quisque Annus Remissionis est; ità septem millibus annorum mundi, Septimus Millena∣rius Millenarius Remissionis erit, ut Dominus solus exaltetur in die illo. Dicitur

enim (Psal. 92.) Psalmus & Canticum de Die Sabbati; id est, de eo Die qui totus Quies est. (Note, they understand this Psalm of the Great day of Iudgment, and the Sabbath mentioned in the Title, of the great Sabbath of a Thousand years.) Dicitur item (Psal. 90) Nam mille anni in oculis tuis velut dies hesternus.

Sequitur.

Traditio Domûs Eliae: Sex mille annos durat mundus; Bis mille annis* 1.2 Inanitas, bis mille annis Lex, deni{que} bis mille annis Dies Christi. At verò propter peccata nostra plurima & enormia, abierunt ex his qui abierunt. These last words Petrus Galatinus proves to be added to this Tradition by the later Iews. And surely this Elias lived under the second Temple and before the birth of Christ. And though there be no mention here of the Seventh thousand years; yet that this R. Elias acknowledged it as well as the rest, appears by a former place of the same Gemara Talmudica, which is this; Traditio Domûs Eliae. Iusti quos resuscitabit Deus, &c.

* 1.3

IV.

The concinnity of this conceit hath made me (I confess) sometimes inquisitive, whether it could be brought to accord with the received computation of the Age of the World, and with our experience of the beginning and continuance of the times of Antichrist now revealed. But the obstacle I found was, that I could never per∣swade my self the times of Antichrist began so late as this conceit and our computa∣tion of the World's years imply they should, namely, not till near about the time of Carolus Magnus. Nor can I admit that the 42. moneths which the Beast is said to * 1.4 continue, should be reckoned from his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or aetas adulta, and not from his begin∣ning, as must be here likewise supposed. For as when we reckon the Age of a Man, we reckon not from the time he came to man's estate, or from the time he sued out his livery, but from the time of his birth; so should we do here for the times of the Man of sin.

Besides, we ought not (as I take it) to fix our eyes so much upon the Popes do∣minion and his improvement thereof, as upon the Apostasie of the Church from the rule of Christian Worship by Spiritual Fornication with Idols; which is the Cha∣racter the Holy Ghost gives us in the Apocalyps to know the Antichristian State and Times by. Of which estate the Pope or False-prophet was indeed to be the Head, and his See Babylon the Metropolis; but the Body was to be, and so is, Bestia Roma∣na novissimi capitis decem diadematis redimita, the Roman Empire shiver'd into a plurality of Kingdoms, but re-united again under this new Head, and fashioned and renewed by him unto a lively Image of the former Roman Ethnicism, which had but newly received a deadly blow, and been cast down to the ground by the Lamb and his Champions. This new Idolatry or Idolatrous state, this Imaging of the wound∣ed Draconizing Beast, is that treading down or prosaning the Court of the Temple of God, Chap. 11. that is, of the visible Worship of Christ in his Church, by a new Gentilism. Unto which the 42. months are attributed as well as to the Beast; and so the beginning of the Times of the one not to be reckoned without or severed from the other. But whosoever shall impartially search into the Stories of the Christian Church, (as all those do not who labour to diminish the antiquity of Antichristianism, rather than to find it) will see her not only tainted, but even all-over polluted, with Spiritual Fornication with Saints, Angels, Reliques, yea and Images too, hundreds of years before the times of Pepin and Charlemaign: nay the chiefest part of those lying wonders and strong delusions, whereby this impiety and wickedness was advanced, was long before that time. How can I then believe that the time of the Gentiles pro∣faning God's House, and of the Witnesses or Prophets mourning for the same in sackcloth, should not begin till about the year 792. whatsoever improvement the Pope's dominion then had?

V.

Finding such an Obstacle as this, and loth yet utterly and absolutely to reject this so ancient a Tradition, I began to make with my self these Quaere's. First, Whether it were needful to reckon these Thousands of years compleat, or only current in the last hundred; which want of completion, though unknown to us, might abate so much of the full length of 6000 years, as would bring the computation nearer the mark for the beginning and end of the times of the Antichristian Beast. But finding no grounds to make such a conceit probable, I rejected it as a vain imagi∣nation.

But then I made a second Quaere of greater moment; namely, Whether the com∣putation of the years of the world before the Promise made to Abraham were or

could be certainly known or not. For as for the time after the Promise, I make no doubt but it may be known, even almost to a year.

The occasion of such a doubt was the great difference which is found between our Hebrew Copies and the Seventy concerning the years of the foresaid generations: For though it be true or likely that the Seventy, translating in Egypt, voluntarily and of set purpose increased the years of those first generations, to make them reach the antiquity of some Stories of the Egyptians, and thereby exceeded the Hebrew compu∣tation above 1300 years; yet it follows not that all the differences between them and our Hebrew Bibles in the years of those generations should proceed from this foun∣tain, but some of them perhaps from the reading of the Copy they used. For that there should be differences of reading in the Hebrew Copies of the Old Testament, is not a thing to be so much startled at as some conceive, seeing we find many such in the Greek Copies of the New. And how can it be proved that the Church of the Iews had in this particular (especially when Prophecy ceased) a greater priviledge than we? For as for that admirable Masorethical method, whereby they are now inviola∣bly preserved from change, it was devised since the coming of Christ, and applied to one Copy only, which they esteemed most true and authentical; namely that (as some of them say) which was written by the great Rabbi Hillel's own hand; and ma∣ny hundred of years after kept as a Relique: Yet nevertheless might some other Co∣pies, though in general far inferior, yet in some few particulars have a better and righter reading than it.

3. That most Learned Prelate and Mirror of Bishops, the Lord Primate of Armagh, could not be at rest, till by his indefatigable industry and no small charges (as such a business required) he had some four years since gotten from the remnant of the Sama∣ritans in Palaestine into a Christian hand that admirable Monument, the Samaritan Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses; which may be presumed to be that which they received from the captived ten Tribes, when they first learned from them to worship the God of Israel, 2 Kings 17. 27. This wondrous and no••-paril of Manuscripts he brought hither to Cambridge amongst us; and during his stay here some time, was most ready to shew it to all Scholars that came unto him; and so free in communica∣ting the use thereof, that some of us had opportunity, by comparing it with our He∣brew Bibles, first to pick out the Alphabet, and then to read therein. It is in the same Hebrew tongue and words (saving the diverse readings) with our Bibles, but written in a strange character, namely the Samaritan, which is supposed to have anci∣ently been the Hebrew, till it was changed by Ezra at the return from Captivity.

In this Book is found a strange difference in the years of the generations before the birth of Abraham both from the Septuagint and our Hebrew Bibles. Before the Floud, by diminishing the generations of Iared, Methusalah and Lamech, it comes short of us. After the Floud (for the most part agreeing with the Septuagint) it much out-reckons us. To be short, it exceeds in the upshot our Computation 301 years: so that the birth of Christ falls according to it to be Anno Mundi 4254. Agreeable whereto the 6000. year from the Creation would be compleat Anno Christi 1746. and consequent∣ly Antichrist's 42 months or 1260 years would begin Anno Christi 486. which is pre∣sently after the deposition of Augustulus, in whom the Empire of Western Rome expi∣red. And this comes much nearer the point than 792.

Howbeit, far be it from me to affirm any thing thereof, or of the verity of the Sa∣maritan Computation, or to prefer it in the general before our Hebrew; though some things be found therein which dissolve a knot or two which make our Chronologers at thei•• wits end. As one for example; How Abraham could come into Canaan after the days of his Father, (as S. Stephen says) and yet be but 75 years old, Gen. 12. 4. whenas his Father Terah lived 205 years, and himself was born in the 70 year of his age, Gen. 11. 26. But the Samaritan saith (chap. 11. 32.) That the days of Terah were (but) 145 years, which is just; for then Abraham was 75 years old at his Father's death, and Moses and S. Stephen are reconciled; which yet no man can imagine that the Samaritan Scribe ever thought of.

But the thing ••aim at in representing these differences, and would propound to the consideration of the pious, sober and judicious, and with due reverence to the Divine Writ, is, Whether there may not be some secret disposition of Divine Providence in this variety of Computation, to* 1.5 prevent our Curiosity in counting the exact time of the Day of Iudgment and second appearing of Christ. And that as the ambitious Tower of Babel was hindred by the Confusion of Languages, so our Curiosity in this particular be not by a like Providence prevented by such a diversity of Computations••

For these things concern not matter of Salvation. We know the first Ages of the Church followed the Computation of the Seventy altogether, though it were most wide of truth; and the chiefest Doctors the Church then had, through ignorance of the Hebrew, for a long time knew not, or believed not, there was any other Compu∣tation. But for contents of Faith, and the way of Salvation, over such the Provi∣dence of God watcheth with a careful eye, though man be heedless, wicked and care∣less of preserving the integrity of that precious treasure committed to their custody.

Besides, I nothing doubt, if our Books be in any such particular as we speak of de∣ficient or corrupted, but that the true reading is yet extant in some of the two na∣med, or some other Copy some-where preserved by Divine Providence, though we cannot yet know and discern which those righter readings be. The Iews having a saying, Cùm Elias venerit, dissolvet nodos: And without doubt, when they shall be called, and meet together from all places of the world, (which must be before that great Day cometh) strange things will be discovered, which we little dream of.

Now if any man ask, if such a corruption of Computation be suppo••ed, where it is most like to be: I answer, Not in those generations before the Floud, (where the Hebrew Computation, being the middle between the excess of the Septuagint and de∣fect of the Samaritan, seems to be crucified, as our Saviour, between two Thieves) but in the generations immediately after the Floud. 1. Because in those the Seventy and the Samaritan for the most part agree; which argues their difference from our Bibles not to have been voluntary. 2. Because S. Luke in the Genealogy of our Sa∣viour inserts, as the Seventy do, the generation of Cainan immediately after Arphaxad, which our Bibles have not: who knows what it means, or whether it argue not a de∣fect thereabout in the Hebrew Copies? Time may discover the meaning thereof. 3. Because Peleg, at whose birth the Scripture seems to say the Earth was divided, was born, according to our Copies, but 101 years after the Floud; which troubles our Chronologers, as seeming too small a time for eight persons to multiply unto such a number as may be presumed to have been at the building of the Tower of Babel, and at their dispersion thence; which will be much holpen, if either Cainan be to be in∣serted, (to whose generation the Septuagint allow 130 years) or if any of the other generations of Arphaxad, Salah and Eber be to be read as both the Septuagint and Sa∣maritan have them.

To conclude, if the years of but three of those generations between the Floud and Abraham, as of Arphaxad, Salah and Nahor, should prove to be as the Sep∣tuagint and Samaritan agreeingly read them, and the generation of Cainan, (mention∣ed by S. Luke, and four times by the Septuagint) also to be added unto them, the du∣ration of the World hitherto will have been 350 or 360 years more than we count of.

If therefore such Suppositions as these may be admitted, (which I determine not, but leave to such as are able and fit to judge; Apagite indocti & prophani) then that Tradition of the Seventh Thousand year to be the Day of Iudgment and of the glorious Reign of Christ, will (in respect of those Septenary Types of the Old Testament) have good probability of Truth: Otherwise, I cannot see how possibly it can be admitted.

1 Thess. 5. 21.

Omnia probate, quod bonum est tenete.

I. M.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Intellig••t á••∣ctum Petri cap. 3. &c.
• * 1.2

  Seu vastitas, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉
• * 1.3

  [See the rest of this quotati∣on printed in Book IV. E∣pist. 22. page 776.]
• * 1.4

  Apocal. 13. 3.
• * 1.5

  Luther in c. 11. Genes. Tom. 2. fol. 2. Conjici•• Deum certo suo consi∣••io in Abraha∣mo 60. annos intercidere vo∣luisse, nè ex an∣norum mundi certa ratione quisquam de fine mundi••certi aliquid pr••d••cere pr••∣sun••eret.