Works, Book 4 · Letter 4
EPISTLE IV.
Mr. Mede's Second Letter to Archbishop Usher touching the Millennium, and the Chronology of the Samaritan Pentateuch, &c.
My Reverend Lord,
HAving understood by Mr. Lowe's Letter to Mr. Chappel, that my*He means his Clavis Apocalyptica, seven Copies whereof he sent into Ireland. Books were lost between Dublin and Droghedah, as they were coming to your Lordship; I presumed a second time to obtrude upon your Grace three or four more of them: howsoever the worth were not such that the first loss was much material. I sent with them a Letter, and a‖Viz. Dissert. Le Numeri… Dan. cap. 12. v. 11, 12. & Spe…men interpret. Millen, Apocalypt. Speculation or two with it, which yet, through some defect in sending, I fear will come after them. I beseech your Lordship pardon me, if I have offended (as I am afraid I have) either against discr…tion or good manners: For I confess I have been since somewhat jealous, that the Books I first sent were not so lost, but that they were found again: which if they were, how can I but blush to think, that I have with such either shew of self-love or unmannerly importunity again troubled your Lordship with them, who should no… have presumed at the first to have offered any more than one? But my confidence is in your Grace's experienced humanity to accept any thing in good part from a Scholar's hand, though perhaps accompanied with some melancholick vanity.
My Lord, I sent in the Letter I mention the last Paragraph or piece of some Specimina Interpretationum Apocalypticarum, namely, that which concerned the Millennium. Whereto I added, for further probability of my Conceit, somewhat more out of my Adversaria, and in special that one of Carpentarius's Com. in Alcinoum Platonis p. 322.*That the Sevent… M…nary is by the whole School of the Cab…alists call'd The Great Day of Iudgment. Septimum Millenarium ab universa Cabbalistarum Schola vocari MAGNVM DIEM IVDICII. Wherein I had no intent or thought, not yet have, to avow that old conceit of the Chiliasts, That the World should as it were labour 6000 years, and in the Seventh thousand should be that glorious Sabbath of the Reign of Christ, (I inclined to think it much nearer:) But only to shew how fitly in the Hebrew notion, not only a long time of some Years and Ages, but even this very time of a Thousand years, might be styled a Day. Howbeit I desire your Lordship to give me leave (if but for your recreation) to relate the event of a piece of my Curiosity since that time; the rather, because the means thereof is beholding to your Grace.
I chanced to light upon Mr. Selden's Marmora Arundelliana, and found therein, together with an honorable and deserved mention of your Grace's name, the Chronology of your Samaritan Pentateuch, published to the view of the whole world. I had thereby opportunity to take more curious notice thereof than I had done when your Lordship was in England; and observed, that it much more exceeded the Iewish in the Genealogy of the Patriarchs after the floud, then it came short in those before it. It came therefore into my mind to try how near the 6000 years of the world would be by that computation: I found it would be Anno AErae Christianae 1736, which is just the very year when the 1260 years of the Beast's reign will expire, if it be reckoned from the Deposition of Augustulus the last Roman Emperor.
Depositio Angustuli Anno AErae Christ.
476
Anni Regni Bestiae
1260
Sum.
1736
A Condito Mundo ad AEram Christ. juxta Scaligerum
3949
Adde quadriennium quo idem anticipat initium Nebuchadnezzaris, nam in caeteris nihil muto
4
Excessus Chronologiae Samaritanae supra Iudaicam
311
Ità à condito Mundo ad AEram Christ. erunt Ann.
4264
Adde annos AErae Christ. quando exibunt Tempora Bestiae seu foreign, si ducantur à depositione Angustuli
1736
Sum.
6000
I began here to consider, whether this difference of the Account of the years of the world were not ordered by a special disposition of Providence, to frustrate our Curiosity in searching the time of the Day of Iudgment.
My Lord, I would trouble your Lordship with a Conceit or two more, if I had time. As that I conceive Nebuchadnezzar's dream, Dan 2. to have been some years before he sought for the interpretation, which was the reason he had forgotten it: the words in ver. 29. foreign may be taken for the dream, and may be well so construed; viz. That his dream came upon him, or came into his mind. Also that the 40 years, Ezek. 4. 6. should be the time of Manasses Idolatry, for which God threatens so often that he would destroy that Kingdom. But Mr. Provost will not stay for me. I beseech the Almighty long to bless your Grace, and grant you life: and thus I end with my humble Service, and am
Christ's Coll. 22 May, 1628. Your Lordship's most ready to be commanded, Ioseph Mede.