A34679:268
An exposition upon the thirteenth chapter of the Revelation by that reverend and eminent…
An exposition upon the thirteenth chapter of the Revelation by that reverend and eminent servant of the Lord, Mr. John Cotton ... ; taken from his mouth in short-writing, and some part of it corrected by himself soon after the preaching thereof ; and all of it since viewed over by a friend to him ... wherein some mistakes were amended, but nothing of the sense altered.
London: printed for Tim. Smart, 1656
Title page typeset from the transcription.
AN EXPOSITION Upon the thirteenth Chapter of the REVELATION. › Part
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
3. When doth this time take his beginning, and where doth it expire and take his ending. These things spoken to, ⟨p. 84⟩will reach as far as God hath revealed to me.
3. When doth this time take his beginning, and where doth it expire and take his ending. These things spoken to, ⟨p. 84⟩will reach as farre as God hath revealed to me.
For the first of these Questions.1
- 1Quest: 1.
1. There be that think this time is not a definite or determinate time,1 but indefinite; forty two months shows a good space of time, known, and determined by God, but uncertain to the Church. Now I must confess, that meaning doth not well sink into my heart, to receive it with any faith in Gods word; for if God would have put a definite time for an indefinite; a certain time for an uncertain, I think he would rather have chosen (as he is wont to do) some such phrase as is wont to express illimited time, if it had been seven months, or ten months: Thou hast changed my wages ten times saith Jacob to Laban; that is, many times: How often shall I forgive my brother, till seven times? I, till seventy times seven times: He doth not mean, to limit us, but as oft as he doth offend, forgive, if he repent; or if he profess such repentance as you have no just exception against, forgive him: But when he saith 42. months, why not 600. months, for that is a definite time for an indefinite: why should he say 1260. days, it is not a speech used in Greek and Latin to express an indefinite number: no more is the time, and times, and half a time, usual in Daniel. Therefore I cannot rest in that Interpretation, though sundry have gone that way.