Last month we looked briefly
at the events which gave the Puritans great hope that God was beginning his
final work in their midst, a work written clearly on the pages of the book of
Revelation.
Westminster
divine William Reyner preached before the House of Common in 1644. The title of
the Sermon, “Babylons Ruining-Earthquake
and the Restauration of Zion, is transparent enough. Reyner refers to the
three Englishmen, Bastwick, Burton and Prynne , in his sermon. Reyner
identifies the two witnesses of Revelation 11, as all those who were raised up
to bear witness to the truth against the Antichrist. The witnesses proclaim the
gospel for the 1260 years the Antichrist (the Popes and Rome) reigns. The slaughter of the prophets (The
witnesses) is literally fulfilled in many in recent years, but slaughter, he
interprets, may refer to torture, imprisonment and exile. The three English
“prophets” have now returned after three days and a half in prophetic time
(three and a half years). He is careful to point out that the defeat of the
Antichrist should be computed from the last place of slaughter, which Reyner
believes will be England –“which very probably was our church.” In verse 13 of
this same chapter, a “great earthquake” is prophesied. This earthquake which
destroys Babylon (Rome) may be at hand.
Reyner has some
application to convey. “For the publique, every one should assist the Lord in
his place in shaking downe the Kingdome of Antichrist and all his supporters.”
He explains that the Kingdom of the Beast must shaken by the Word and by
prayer. His third use is a political one. “Everyone as farre as his power will
stretch,” is to execute judgement for God. He explains: “this duty is
principally incumbent upon the Magistrate [Politicians] who is to execute
judgement of the Lord…according to the rule of the Word, both for matter and
manner.” He complains that it was the great failure of the first Reformation
that “the Masse priests were suffered still to continue in their places…” In
practical terms Parliament was to eject all Episcopalians from their office in
England. The reign of the Antichrist was almost ended and England’s parliament
was duty bound to help in the shaking of anything that smacked of the taint of
Rome.
Such were the great hopes of
the majority of Reformed ministers in
that day. A great expectation that history was now reaching a climax, which
would usher in a golden period of rule by the saints. Westminster divine
Stephen Marshall preaching before Parliament in 1640, made it plain that he saw
no difference between the Roman Catholic and the Anglo Catholic. Both were part
of the same Babylon and kingdom of Antichrist. Marshall was a Presbyterian, but
Westminster divine Jeremiah Burroughs, demonstrates how church polity was an
issue of eschatological importance. Burroughs was following the lead of Burton
who had first linked the need for thorough going reformation and the defeat of
Babylon with Episcopal Church government. Both believed that the Elect should
separate themselves from the English church and covenant in independent
Congregations. This would bring about the defeat of Babylon, at least in
England. Even Prynne had rejected the idea that a godly prince was needed for
the defeat of Babylon.
Another Westminster divine
and Independent, Thomas Goodwin, had become a separatist after 1634. He was among those, as we have
seen, who fled the Laudian persecution to Holland. Goodwin wrote much on the
subject of prophecy and owed many of his insight to Mede. The prophecy of the
New Heavens and the New Earth in Isaiah 66, was understood to be this present
cosmos transformed, ultimately resulting in a Millennium, a thousand year
golden age of the Church. The New Heavens and the New Earth begin their
transformation from the time of the Messiah’s preaching ministry on earth. A
significant factor in Goodwin’s scheme was the connection between the purity of
church government and the Millennium. The church would continue to make
progress in purity by becoming independent in government, the pristine
condition of the early New Testament Church, which had been lost and distorted
in Episcopacy and Presbyterianism. Goodwin believed that now with the increasing
influence of the Congregational or Independent Churches, the Antichrist’s power
would reach its climax in 1666. The two witnesses of Revelation 11, for
Goodwin, were the congregational Churches which would be ‘resurrected’ or
revived. The Papacy and Islam would be destroyed and the thousand year reign of
the saints and martyrs begun. Goodwin, like Mede was not dogmatic about the
second coming of Christ during or before the Millennium to usher in the day of
judgement, which, as Mede had done before him, he understood to be an extended
period of time during the Millennium. The defeat of the Antichrist and the
inauguration of the Millennium would begin in 1700.
Mede’s true heirs were the Fifth Monarchy men - a
radical sect who took Mede’s end-time teaching (eschatology) to what, at least
to them, was its logical conclusion. Their name, of course, comes from Daniel
chapter 7, whose vision describes four beasts consumed by the fifth. The fifth
and final empire which would consume the rest was the reign of God. The
powerful idea, which engaged the minds of these radicals, that political action
was necessary to bring about the victory of the Fifth Monarchy, was dangerous
and destabilising. Few intellectuals, gentry or those from scholarly circles
were attracted to this sect, which was mainly made up of tradesman and
apprentices. The acceptance of the legitimacy of violence to place Christ upon
an earthly throne was naturally repugnant to many. And yet the millennialism of
Mede and Goodwin was little different from the Fifth Monarchy men. Like
Goodwin, 1666 was a crucial year in the apocalyptic calendar, and the view that
this year had significance because it contained the number of the Beast, was
one shared by other earlier commentators. However, there were also significant
differences between this radical sect and their Independent cousins. They
taught that Christians must act to
initiate the Millennium; they identified much of symbolism in the Book of Revelation
with contemporaries in the English Government and politics; and they developed
a detailed view of how society should be socially, politically and economically
in the Millennium. They could quote texts to confirm their theology and
programme. Psalm 149 6-9 was a favourite. They were the saints of whom it was
prophesied: “Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged
sword in their hand; 7 To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and
punishments upon the people; 8 To bind their kings with chains, and their
nobles with fetters of iron; 9 To execute upon them the judgement written:
this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD.”
By 1655, Cromwell rather
than Charles I who had been executed in 1649, was identified as the “little
horn” of Daniel 7:8. But they believed that they could not take political and
military action until Christ personally commanded them. A number of things had
to happen, if 1666 was to be the year of inauguration of the Millennium,
including the conversion of the Jews and their return to Israel. Idiosyncratic
Independent and Westminster divine, William Bridge, thought that Christ might
make a short appearance and then return to heaven, although the Fifth Monarchy
men differed as to the necessity of his actual presence. What they were sure
about, was that they would be involved in judging the heathen. One London
Preacher, John Simpson looked forward to the day when the, “wicked , ungodly
and unbelieving men shall be raised as slaves, and vassals, and be brought
forth in chaines and fetters.” They proposed a Government structure mirroring
Old Testament Israel. They also proposed that the Mosaic law would be
reintroduced. John Rogers could tell the Barebones Parliament in 1653, “Then if
Moses dare not set up any other laws...how dare you.” We can safely say that
this fascinating sect, which lasted into the 1680s got it wrong. Even though
twelve Fifth Monarchists were part of Cromwell’s 1653 Barebones Parliament
(Named such after a member called Praise-God Barebone), the Parliament of
saints was replaced by the immediate or direct rule of Cromwell. But it was the
Restoration of 1660 which destroyed the hope of many, in an impending
Millennium. The year 1666 went by with about as much fizz as 1999. Though
involved in a number of plots including attempts to overthrow the Government,
the Fifth Monarchists were finally defeated morally and militarily in the
Monmouth Rebellion in1685, an attempt to kill Catholic sympathiser James, Duke
of York.
The growing
disillusionment of the Reformed Orthodox.
The saner millenarians, who made up most of the
Westminster Assembly, also were disillusioned men. The great hope of the
divines of that Assembly was for a union based upon a common confession and
Church Government, of the three kingdoms England, Scotland and Ireland. They
too, as we have seen, were expecting to see much of the remaining prophecy in
the book of Revelation fulfilled in their own lifetime.
Samuel Rutherford was one of those. This Scottish theologian’s literary fruits range from the most spiritually intimate and pastoral letters to Lex Rex (The Law and the Prince), a logical scholastic justification for the subordination of the King to the Law of Christ. Two of Rutherford’s fellow Scots Commissioners to the Assembly held differing views regarding the Millennium of chapter 20 of the book of Revelation. Robert Baillie held to the traditional Augustinian view that the Millennium was the whole Church age, while George Gillespie believed that the Temple of Ezekiel would be rebuilt, the Jews converted along with the vast majority of all races. While none of these Scots believed in a premillennial return of Christ, or His personal rule on earth, Rutherford did look forward to a period of triumph for the Reformed Churches, the defeat of the Antichrist and the conversion of the Jews. Although always a realist Rutherford, had believed, at least from the signing of the National Covenant in 1638 - a covenant that vowed to fight for the overthrow of the Antichristian religion - that things were moving fast in God’s timetable. By 1648 however, he was despairing of any thorough-going reformation. The open toleration and proliferation of heretical sects in England, during the sitting of the august Westminster Assembly, had wrung the bitter diatribes, A survey of the spiritual Antichrist and A free disputation against the pretended liberty of conscience from his pen (Though written on his return to Scotland). Following the defeat of the Scots by Cromwell’s English forces at Dunbar, Rutherford was devastated. “Alas alas,” he wrote, “poor I am utterly lost. My share of heaven has gone...(Letters, 653).” At the crowning of Charles II at Scone in 1651, the old enemy, the Royalists were again in public office. John Coffey in his recent book on Rutherford, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions. The Mind of Samuel Rutherford, concludes that with the defeat or at least the deferral of the Apocalyptic dream of universal reformation, the English and the Scots inevitably fractured toward both rationalism and pietism. The promise of the three Kingdoms living under God, which meant adhering to the Reformed religion, was dealt a fatal blow in the political and social disintegration of the Interregnum and the Restoration. Where had these brilliant and pious men, gone wrong? Certainly the historicist interpretation of the Book of Revelation, which saw the history of the nations unfolding amidst the trumpets and vials of God’s wrath, had much to commend it. There are remarkable concurrences of historical events and the timetable of Revelation to be found. If they were wrong about anything, it was making a correlation of contemporary political events with God’s intentions. Puritan theologians had always taught that there would be more light given to the Church to understand the prophetic visions of the Apostle John as history progressed. This was one factor. Although they did not do it with the same daring as the Fifth Monarchy men, the Reformed theologians of their day, nevertheless endeavoured to write God’s agenda, based upon a hoped for Reformation. Fatally this hope rested too heavily upon the power of a sympathetic, but coercive state, while the majority of the population were untouched by experiential Christianity, and so foreordained to failure. Does that mean that the Saints were wrong to get involved in politics, or to endeavour an ecclesiastical ecumenism based on a thoroughly Presbyteria