The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

IX. Positions of Fifth Monarchy Expositors

The Reformation had to resist a differing but false chiliasm such as came in to afflict the early church—“a secular kingdom of the saints, set up by fire or sword, and before the resurrection. ²⁶ Such were the wild notions of Thomas Münzer and some of the Anabaptists, the Prophets of Zwickau, the French Prophets of Dauphiny, and later, the Fifth Monarchy men who arose in the time of Cromwell and the Puritan revolt in Eng land—all unjustifiably claiming support from the Apocalypse. PFF2 566.4

These Fifth Monarchy men were strongly represented in Cromwell’s army, and looked for the establishment of his power as the commencement of a new reign of Christ on earth, in succession to the four great monarchies of prophecy. Their wild destructiveness quickly brought them into conflict with Cromwell’s government, which in 1657 flung their leaders into prison, and later, in 1661, put a definite end to their insurrections. However, despite their fallacious notions as to the part they were to play in the events to occur, it might be worth while to study the prophetic interpretation of these Fifth Monarchy men. Their expositions of the prophetic symbols and the chronology of their time periods were strikingly similar to the great students of prophecy who had no connection with them—save in the Fifth Monarchy aspect and the time-setting emphasis. PFF2 566.5

They stood with Mede on the firm Scripture platform of a future millennium, soon to be introduced in connection with Christ’s Fifth Monarchy, and in repudiation of the past millennium of Augustine, which had warped the thinking of man kind for thirteen centuries. Morever, the discussion of relation ships between the 2300 years as inclusive of the 70 weeks, as well as of other time periods, advanced by Tillinghast and others was a distinct advance step in a progressive development, the significance of which will be increasingly apparent as we come to the beginning of the nineteenth century. PFF2 567.1

1. To ESTABLISH KINGDOM BY FORCIBLE OVERTHROW

The extremists among the Fifth Monarchy men believed that civil and military power were to be in the hands of the saints, and with these powers the saints were to overturn the thrones of kings and cause their kingdoms to hate the Papacy, the woman of Revelation 17, and make her desolate, and in this way would be brought about the fulfillment of Revelation 17:16. PFF2 567.2

2. ARCHER AFFORDS A SAMPLE OF EXPOSITION

HENRY ARCHER, preacher of All-Hallows, in London, taught that Christ and the saints would visibly possess a monarchical state and king dom in this world. He traced the four world powers of Daniel 2, insisting that the divisions of the fourth beast could not be reunited, and made the stone kingdom the Fifth Monarchy, to be set up by Christ at His second advent in glory. Tracing the same from Daniel 7, Archer applied the Little Horn to the “Papacie,” whose 1260 year-days were drawing to a close. ²⁷ Adding the 1260 years to A.D. 406, he arrived at 1666; then, he declared, would come the ruin of Antichrist, with the reign of Christ following, about 1700. ²⁸ A tractate, The Glory of Christ, and the Ruine of Antichrist Urvalled (1647), by “T. C.” (Thomas Collier, a traveling Baptist preacher from the west of England), set forth a similar position. PFF2 567.3