The Wonderful Predictions, &c.
exchange my estate, no not for all the kingdoms of the world; no, not for all the glory that’s on the earth: I find my Redeemer’s love stronger in my bonds than ever I did in the days of my liberty, therefore I hold living here in this world as death itself. I am as full of love and joy of the holy Spirit, as ever a bottle was filled with new wine I am ready to cry out, ‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me;' but I will not take it upon me to prophesy nevertheless, the Spirit of the Lord causeth me to utter; this usurped authority, now in the hands of Cromwell, shall shortly be at an end, England shall be blessed with meek kings, and mild governments, powerful preachers, and dull hearers; good sermons to them will be as music to a sleepy man, they shall hear but not understand, nor lay the word to heart, to practise it in their lives, to walk by it. O England, thou shall wax old in wickedness, thy sins abound like Sodom, thy voluptuousness shall cry aloud for vengeance; the Lord shall threaten and chastise thee, yet in mercy and love will he look upon those that fear him, and call upon his name; he will spare and save them alive in the days of his anger, when the wicked shall be sifted from amongst you, as the chaff is sifted from amongst the wheat: For out of thee, O England, shall a bright star arise, whose sight and voice shall make the heathen to quake and knock under, with submission to the gospel of Jesus; he shall be as a son of thunder in the ears of the wicked; as a lantern to the Jews, to lead them to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, and true Messiah, whom they so long mistrusted; for the short work spoken of by the apostle, which the Lord is to make upon the earth, in the latter age of the world, cannot be far off. Observe, my dear friends, while you live, my calculation of the dates in the book of the Revelation, and Daniel, which the Spirit of the Lord led me into, for the Lord will reveal it to some of his own, ere that time come; for the nearer the time is, the seals shall be taken away, and more and more shall be revealed to God’s people; for the Lord doth nothing without he reveal it, by his Spirit to his servants the prophets: he destroyed not the old world, without the knowledge of Noah, he did not overthrow Sodom and Gommorah without the knowledge of Abraham, I do not mean now, that any new prophet shall arise, but the Lord by his Spirit, shall cause knowledge to abound amongst his people, whereby the old prophecies shall he clearly and perfectly understood. And I die in that thought, and really believe that my calculation on the Revelation by St. John, and the prophecy which St. Jerome copied off, and translated out of the Hebrew language, as it is written on Seth’s pillar in Damascus, which pillar is said to have stood since
A2
