The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2
XIV. Sherwin Focuses Attention on 2300-Year Terminus at Millennium
WILLIAM SHERWIN (1607-1687?), receiving appointment to a “sequestered living” at Wallington, in Hertfordshire in 1645, was also a lecturer on the prophecies at Baldock, but was believed to have been ejected in 1662. Most of Sherwin’s works were published anonymously, and sometimes were reprinted with different titles. From 1671 onward Sherwin’s attention was often focused on the 2300 days as prophecy’s longest and most decisive period. Sherwin stressed the 2300 days as years reaching to the “blessed time,” which period he calculated would end in 1700, synchronizing with the terminus of the 1335 years. 61 In his heavy style he emphasized two personal comings of Christ in convergence with the millennium-one at the beginning and the other after a little space at its close. Sherwin quotes frequently from Mede and other expositors. PFF2 576.1
1. PROPHETIC PERIODS OF TURK AND PAPACY
Sherwin holds the first four trumpets to be the incursion of the barbarians upon Rome, with the fifth and sixth woe trumpets as the Saracens and the Turks, in the seventh and thirteenth centuries respectively—the Saracens rising about A.D. 600, and the “Turks day, hour, moneth and year, viz. 396. years [365 + 30 + 1], Revelation 9:11. being the sixth Trumpet, or second Woe beginning about An. Dom. 1300. 62 The 1260 days of the Witnesses are likewise years, the same as the Beast’s “contemporary” three and a half times of persecution of the church, which period, Sherwin believes, reaches to 1666 years after the ascension of Christ. 63 PFF2 576.2
2. SEVENTH TRUMP BEGINS MILLENNIAL PERIOD
Like Mede, Sherwin begins the thousand years with the seventh trumpet and the New Jerusalem state, “for which time Satan is bound, and Christ reigneth personally with his Saints,” and the New Jerusalem being the “mother citie of Christ’s said King dom.” Then, at the close of the thousand years Satan will be loosed for “his last most provoking and desperate attempt.” Then will come the resurrection of the wicked and the general judgment. 64 PFF2 576.3
3. CHRIST’S KINGDOM TO SUPERSEDE EARTHLY KINGDOMS
Concerning the prophecies of Daniel, Sherwin believes that the fourth, or Roman, monarchy of Daniel 2, and its divisions, will be followed by “Christ’s Kingdome on earth.” 65 He holds, how ever, that the “stone” of Daniel 2 began first to be set up at the first advent, which was some sixteen hundred years past, in the time of the last, or Roman, empire. (This, he believes, will be superseded by the thousand-year reign of Christ with the saints.) In the paralleling prophecy of Daniel 7, with the Little Horn as the pope’s reign for “1260 days of years,” the saints are at last to possess the everlasting kingdom. 66 In Daniel 8 the 2300 days are years, and in chapter 9 the 70 weeks are 490 years, 67 with the latter part of Daniel 11 paralleling the sixth, or Turkish woe, trumpet, 68 which Turkish power shall come to his end without help at the same time as the Papacy. PFF2 577.1
4. ENDS 1290 IN A.D. 1656; 1335 IN 1700
The “1290 dayes of years” of Daniel 12 Sherwin dates from Julian the Apostate, ending them in 1656, while the 1335 years, from the taking away of the daily, extend forty-five years longer to the “standing up of Michael” in 1700—in which period would come a “gathering” of the pope with his armies for the last great conflict. 69 This, he states, is the same as the pope’s rise for one hour with the ten crowned horns. 70 The 2300 years he here dates “from the Captivity of Babylon to Christs appearance, leading to the end of 1700 years since Christs birth.” 71 PFF2 577.2
5. TURKISH PERIOD AS YET NOT EXPIRED
In The Prodomus, Sherwin speaks of the “2300 years of the four Gentil Monarchies,” 72 and states that the first of the trumpets “took away the very seat and mansion of the Dragon, that he that till that time Letted might be taken out of the way, that Antichrist might come in his room, as the Apostle Paul foretold, 2 Thessalonians 2:7. 73” Of the relationship between the papal 1260 years and the Mo hammedan fifth and sixth trumpets, we read: PFF2 578.1
“But from the time Antichrists forty two months begun, to the end of the sixth Trumpet, or the second Woe, we have the fourth Trumpet proceeding in the ruine of the Empire in the West, and the fifth Trumpet is the beginning of the ruine of it in the East, ch. 10. by the Mahumitan Saracens, those Locusts out of the bottumless pit, hurting all but the green fruits sealed to be preserved from that first Woe Trumpet, as was foreshewed, ch. 7. who destroyed one half of the Eastern Empire; and after the other Mahumitan Locusts under the sixth Trumpet, namely the Turks took away the other part of the Eastern Empire, whose 396 years are not yet expired, till the end of the sixth Trumpet, and the second Woe, as is said, Revelation 11:14. which is to be at the rising again, and the ascemion of the Witnesses.” 74 PFF2 578.2
6. NATIONS TO TURN UPON AND DESTROY PAPACY
Revelation 13, Sherwin says, describes the “false Apostolical Church, (from about Anno. 406),” the first beast being its political capacity and the second its “Ecclesiastical capacity,” this dual capacity “making up one body with his Clergy.” 75 His reign is the period of the Two Witnesses in sackcloth when the “Pastours” fed the woman “in her Wilderness-condition 1260 days of years. 76 This apostasy is the same as the “false Antichristian Apostatical Church of spiritual Babylon,” bewildering the nations, with the plagues poured upon her and the kings hating and desolating her—at last to be overthrown by Christ in the Armageddon battle. 77” Then the binding of Satan and the reign of Christ and His saints are “Synchronals,” and all the seals, trumpets, and vials end in the thousand years. PFF2 578.3
7. RESURRECTION AT ADVENT INTRODUCES MILLENNIUM
Sherwin asserts that “the great Personal appearance of the Com ing of Christ, now shortly approaches.” 78 This, he declares, will be visible and glorious, in the clouds of heaven, with the trump of God to raise the righteous dead and to catch up the righteous living, who will pass through a momentous change. The introductory statement reads: PFF2 578.4
“A plain and evident Discovery of the two Personal Comings of CHRIST, one at the beginning of his Thousand years Reign, Revelation 20:4, with his holy and blessed raised Saints in the New Jerusalem, come down from God out of Heaven, Revelation 21. the other after the little space when the Thousand years are ended.” 79 PFF2 579.1