The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

I. Beverley Extends 2300 From Persia to Advent

During the reign of William III (1688-1703) toleration was granted all Protestant dissenters in Great Britain, which resulted in liberty and tranquillity. Between 1687 and 1701 THOMAS BEVERLEY (fl. 1670-1701)—concerning whom we know little except that he was an Independent minister—published more than a score of short treatises, many with curious titles, emphasizing the approaching end of time. ³ Note their scope. In a tract, Command of God to His People to Come Out of Babylon, Revel. 18.4. Demonstrated to Mean the Coming Out of the Present Papal Rome (1688), the ending of the 1260 years is anticipated about 1697—within “Nine or Ten Years.” Another, his Pattern of the Divine Temple, argued further that the temple in heaven, or New Jerusalem, would be seen opened “at the end of the 1260 Days of the Apostasie, 1697. That there may be a Daily Preparation in Conformity to it, until It comes down from Heaven at the end of the 2300 Evens. Morns. Daniel 8:14 and of the 1335 Days, Daniel 12:12 at 1772.” ⁴ PFF2 581.1

A survey of Beverley’s writings discloses that his Kingdom of Jesus Christ Entering Its Succession at 1697 According to a Calendar of Time (1689) was based on “the Four Monarchies, and by the Time, Times, Half Time Allowed to the Papacy, and the Ten Kingdoms; as the Last State of the Roman, or Fourth Monarchy Then Ending; Given in Daniel and Ex pounded by the Revelation, in Consent With All History. ⁵ His Prophetical History of the Reformation; or the Reformation to be Reformd; in ... 1697 (1689) dealt with “the 1260 Years Allowed to the Beastian Kingdom, as to the Roman Apostasie: (Which Because It Is to End in 1697. Must Therefore Have Begun 437.)” ⁶ PFF2 581.2

Beverley’s An Appeal Most Humble, Yet Most Earnestly, by the Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and Our Gathering Together Unto Him, treats on “the Thousand Years State of the Saints; the Dead Raised First, and of the Living; the Remaining Chang’d in It, and of the Wicked-Dead-Raised.” ⁷ His The Universal Christian Doctrine of the Day of Judgment: Applied to the Doctrine of the Thousand Years Kingdom of Christ (1691) attempts to show that Christ’s “Judging the Quick and the Dead; and His Appearing, and His Kingdom, Which, Seeing It Must Have Some Duration, the Scripture 1000 Years, Is on Great Proof Preferr’d.” ⁸ PFF2 582.1

Becoming a prisoner in Fleet in 1691 through some miscarriage of justice, Beverley protested, in his Petition to the High Court, that he was no fanatic, but simply that God had summoned his mind to “contemplate that great prophesied frame and scheme of the grand futurities.” Set free, Beverley dedicated his Catechism of the Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Thousand Years (1690) to all Christians and bishops. In this he asserts that the resurrected saints will “sit on thrones and judge angels and the world with Christ; and reign with Him a thousand years, not upon earth, but over the earth. ⁹” ’ Beverley’s preaching and writing had a telling effect upon inquiring minds. When Konrad Brüssken, court-chaplain at Offenbach, Germany, on a visit to England, had heard Beverley preach, he was impressed, after a personal interview, to translate and publish a portion of his Scripture-Line of Time, ¹⁰ which he did. PFF2 582.2

1. 2300 YEARS FROM PERSIA TO CHRIST’S KINGDOM

The consideration of the none-too-well-understood 2300 year-days, initiated by Cusa in the fifteenth century, and now carried for ward in the seventeenth by Tillinghast, Nigrinus, and Sherwin, is again taken up by Beverley. He believed the period to extend from Cyrus, the typical restorer of Jerusalem, on to Christ, with the New Jerusalem as the great antitype. This concept he developed in A Scripture-Line of Time (1684). Beverley’s basic “Proposition” is significantly this: PFF2 582.3

“That the 2300 Days are a definitive Line of Time, from the beginning of the Persian Monarchy, to the very End of the Monarchies, and till the Supream Monarchy of Christ.” ¹¹ PFF2 583.1

Repeating, like the strain of a song, but with different words in the several stanzas, Beverley declares that the 2300 years extend from Persia to the literal New Jerusalem, from Persia to the breaking of Antichrist without hand, from Persia to the stone cut out of the mountain without hand, from Persia to the kingdom of Christ, from Persia to the fall of Mystical Babylon, from Persia to the night of earth’s monarchies and the morning of Christ’s kingdom, from Persia to the cleansing of the sanctuary. ¹² Two citations must suffice: PFF2 583.2

“The Vision of the 2300 Evenings and Mornings, dates most exactly, and precisely the Time from the very Beginning of the Persian Monarchy or the First of Cyrus to the cleansing of the Sanctuary, at the new Jerusalem, and the breaking of Antichrist without hand, or by the stone cut out of the Mountains without hand, at the Kingdom of Christ, Daniel 8:14. 25.” ¹³ PFF2 583.3

“Those 2300 are not the Gauge of the daily Sacrifice taken away, but of the whole Vision, from the Persian through the Grecian, to the end of the Roman, Antichristian Monarchy, and the Kingdom of Christ.” ¹⁴ PFF2 583.4

This was a sharper, clearer concept than any had had before his day. PFF2 583.5

2. YEAR-DAY Is PROPHETICAL “CYPHER OF TIME.”

Ten times the 2300 years is called “the vision, ¹⁵ though the year-day prophetical “Cypher of Time” is applied to all time periods, on the basis of Ezekiel 4:6. ¹⁶ And “the vision” is declared to embrace in its 2300-year span the whole Antichristian apostasy until the end, and to constitute the longest time period, while the evening- mornings are interpreted as signifying full prophetic days, and thus complete years in fulfillment.” ¹⁷ PFF2 583.6

3. RELATES 70 WEEKS, 1335, AND 2300

Beverley insists that the “Daily” or “continual” is not to be limited to the Jewish sacrifices, as the word is “applicable either to sacrifice, or service and worship in general,” and to “tyrannous taking away the daily Worship of the Saints.” ¹⁸ He applies the expression to the latter. PFF2 584.1

Beverley gives a graph which includes the 70 weeks, but without much explanation. Though he fails to integrate the 70 weeks with the 2300 days, Beverley makes this important statement, which in reality dates them with the 70 weeks. The intent seems obvious: PFF2 584.2

“Every Vision of Daniel’s except the following Vision of the seventy Weeks, which has the high and noble Subject of the Death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ ... runs expressly to the last End and Kingdom of Christ.” ¹⁹ PFF2 584.3

“The 70 Weeks are dated from the going forth of the Word; the 1335, from the taking away of the daily: And in the Apocalyptick Prophecy we shall find some certain Epoch of each numeral Line: but there being no Epoch to these 2300 Ev. Mor. but the general Epoch of the Vision one and the same, as we shall find, with the seventy Weeks, That must be the Epoch.” ²⁰ PFF2 584.4

4. TERMINATES 1260 YEARS IN 1697

In the second part of his Scripture-Line of Time, Beverley holds that the forty-two months, or 1260 days, “measur’d by the exactest Rules of Prophecy, and found ... to begin at the Cessation of the Christian Western Empire,” will end in 1697. ²¹ The papal Man of Sin is sitting in the temple, and the 1260 days are the same as the three and a half times of the woman, and of the Witnesses. Of this period, which had not yet ended, Beverley declares: PFF2 584.5

“The 1260 Days of Mourning, and of the Church in the Wilderness are not yet run out, the Beast is yet in Power; the Tenthliness [tenth part] of the City is not yet fallen, the Kingdom of Christ is not yet proclaimed.” ²² PFF2 584.6

This “tenth part of the City” will be referred to with in creasing frequency by other writers. PFF2 585.1

5. RELATIONSHIP OF FOUR MAJOR PERIODS

Of the relationship of the 1260, 1290, 1335, and 2300 years, Beverley leaves this thought-provoking but not too clear record: PFF2 585.2

“The 1260 Days immediately following in Account, as concurrent with the 42 Months, shew, They are taken out of the 2300 Morn, and confirm this to be the Time of the Daily taken away, because the Daily taken away is the Character of the first Point of Time to the Twelve hundred ninety; of which Twelve hundred, sixty must needs be part, seeing they go on to 1335 at the end of all; and so many cannot be found in the 2300, which is the Date of the whole Vision of the daily taken away, or in so great a Number, but in these 1290, joyn’d with 1335.” ²³ PFF2 585.3

6. SARACEN LOCUSTS AND TURKISH WOE PERIOD

In section 10, on the woe trumpets, Beverley states that the “Mahometan Saracens are the Locusts” of the fifth trumpet, with their five months. ²⁴ And the sixth trumpet includes the Turks and the taking of Constantinople in connection with the hour, day, month, and year period, and involving the year 1453. ²⁵ PFF2 585.4

7. LIVING IN LAST PORTION OF Daniel 2

Beverley holds the standard view of the four monarchies, as the stream of time, on to the end of time, with the kingdom of Christ now near at hand: PFF2 585.5

“It is true, The Four, as Universal Monarchies, are together the great Candle of Time, till the glorious Kingdom of Christ, whatever great States or Kingdoms were coexistent with them or any of them at any Time, or have arisen since, do not mingle with this stream, which runs strait on to this end.... And because of this real substantial calendar of Time in these Monarchies, the first Act of Christ’s Kingdom is recorded by the Apostle Paul to be the putting down all Rule, Authority, and Power, referring especially to these four Monarchies, the great Emblem of such Rule and Power; viz. when the Kingdoms of this World become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ, Revelation 11:15. Then all this Calendar of Rule and Power is at an end.” ²⁶ PFF2 585.6

8. SEVEN CHURCHES COVER CHRISTIAN ERA

The seven churches of Revelation cover the Christian Era, “contemporizing with whole Apocalyptick Time.” PFF2 585.7

“It is certain, There hath been a Christian Church in all Ages from the Resurrection of Christ, to this Day, and shall be to the New Jerusalem, and to the End of the World.” ²⁷ PFF2 586.1

As to the “true church in the wilderness” of the Dark Ages, Beverley observes: PFF2 586.2

“But now the Church was indeed out of view, by the Apostasie, introduc’d by the Gentiles the Beasts people under the other Beast; so that the False Church hid the True, as in a wilderness: The Gentiles crowded the True worshippers into a closed Temple, The Daily was taken away; The witnesses were in Sackcloth, where then could the True Church be seen? All was scatter’d, no Body of a Church appear’d, but the Antichristian; to this state things grew more and more under the Regnancy of the Beast till the Woman was fled from the Serpent himself.” ²⁸ PFF2 586.3

The Turkish horseman is set forth as the king of the north, soon coming to his end, with the Jews as the kings of the east. ²⁹ At that very time the Mohammedan king of the south, symbolized by the Saracens, or locusts, and the king of the north, the Turkish horsemen, according to the military language of Daniel’s time, will go into action. PFF2 586.4