C A P. 17. elpelation ofthe Apocalyptic. tnall ene,or one ofa mixtdnde,difagreeing from all others that were before, whence it is cleare, that the Chriftian Emperors are not the seventhKing; for they differed nothing from the former in the kinde of their Government, only they took Christian Religion unto it. And fo there were new Religions added often in ancient times, though the form of the Government was nothing changed in the mean time. Betides, thefeventh King muff govern in the fame place where the feven Hils are, as we have demonstrated in the former verfe. But the Chrisian Emperors never had the ftanding place of their chiefabode at Rome, but the whole ufe and profit of the City be- longed to the `Popes, by whole means alone the glory thereofgrew from the time that thisfeventh ICin, began his raign. That particle (notyet) fheweth that therewas a very (port time remaining, to the comingof thefeventh ring; For fo we are wont to fpeakof matters, that are to come not long after. Wherefore Ribera the Ic uit is afond Commenter,who holds that the ii th kinde of Government continued fromChriits coming, un- till three yeers and a halfmore or letfe before the laft day, and fuch foolish creatures be all thePopifh Writers, who will not have An- tichrift to beexpe fed, before that fame time, as ifthe Angel Paying, be is notcome yet, should fpeak of aman, whom the world should not fee yet after a thousand five hundredyeers. And When he cometh. That is, after that the feventh Kinedome, namely, of the `Popes, (hail be begun, when the `Dragon lhall be raft out of heaven, and Constantine the C reatihall come to the Empire ; He msftftay but a little While, that is, about an hundred yeers after Constantine, becaufe the Popes kingdome at Rome was to be over- turned for a time, by the inundationof the Gather and Vandals,who didhandle Rome fo cruelly,that was the ThroneandTower of the neW Princehood, that it fecmed to have utterly perished : Genfericus be- reaved it wholly ofevery Inhabitant; Blond. Decad.i. Book. And Totilas did lay it wattle again, fo as there was neither man nor wo- man left in it; as the fame Blondas reporteth, Decad. a. 7?ook.6. See Chap. r 3. 3. Vero: r a . eAndthe Beat that Was, and is not. That is ; And that fesîenth King, the Pope, Who came, andWas in refpeF1 ofthe uprising andoriginals of his polder for an hundred yreres from Confantines death, andWhich is not, as being extinguished after that time in the o i- nian ofmen, by the break ng inof theBarbarians; this Beafix (I favi F fff the 589
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=