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THE POLITICAL USE OF THE BIBLE IN EARLY MODERN BRITAIN: were an irrational movement, beyond the pale of analysis.” 209 Not all Fifth Monarchists were militant, political zealots. There existed then as now theological disagreements over the exact nature and occurrence of Christ’s millennial rule. More muted strains of millennialism were hardly uncommon to the seventeenth century on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as among sixteenthcentury continental reformers. Differences were not only constitutional, that is, the sort of civil establishment consistent with saintly rule, but somewhat methodological too, especially in regards to the nature of the Fifth Kingdom’s commencement; would it occur through divine providence alone, or was a more natural, human revolutionary role to facilitate God’s Kingdom plan? Who were some of the more representative Fifth Monarchist figures? Capp offers an excellent Biographical Appendix in The Fifth Monarchy Men from which this very, very short list is drawn. 210 The works profiled here are from William Aspinwall (1605-1662), a Massachusetts Bay settler, who was forced from the colony because of his antinomian views, and who was a Minister in Ireland; Christopher Feake (1612-1683), a very active personality in the movement, Cambridge educated and Minister at Hertford, then Christ Church, Newgate, and lecturer at St. Anne’s Blackfriars; John Canne (1590-1667), a pastor of an English Separatist Congregation at Amsterdam from 1630-47, and prolific Fifth Monarchist writer from 1653-59; William Medley (1654-1683), part of a Fifth Monarchy uprising known as Venner’s Plot (1657); John Rogers (1627-1670), Cambridge educated, Minister in London, Essex, Dublin, lecturer at St. Thomas Apostle’s, London, and Army Chaplain, who fled to the Netherlands; John Spittlehouse (1643-1659), member of the Army, who published numerous Fifth Monarchy tracts from 1650- 1656, and John Tillinghast (1604-1655), Cambridge educated and Independent Minister. Each of the above figures, as well as numerous others, were influenced by the works of prominent millennial theologians and thinkers, such as the Elizabethan Puritan Thomas Brightman (1562-1607) with his The Revelation of St. John (London, 1616); Joseph Mede (1586-1639) and The key of the Revelation, 2 nd edition (London, 1650) and Clavis Apocalypses (1627); John Archer (1629-1642) and The personall reigne of Christ upon earth (1641), and the Dutchman Johann Heinrich 209 Bernard Capp, The Fifth Monarchy Men: A Study in Seventeenthcentury English Millenarianism (London: Faber, 1972), 15-16. 210 See Capp’s Biographical Appendix of leading Fifth Monarchy men in, The Fifth Monarchy Men, pp. 239-269. Alsted (1588-1638) with The beloved city (London, 1643). 211 Millennial and Eschatological Hermeneutics Capp notes that “the origins of seventeenth-century millenarianism are to be found in the tensions created by the Reformation, and in the new exegesis of the prophetic texts which these tensions produced.” 212 Hermeneutically, Fifth Monarchists emphasised a more millennial and eschatological hermeneutic by processing political events in relation to scriptural prophecy, and particularly, apocalyptic texts and end-time passages with a scrupulous exposition of Daniel 7 and Revelation 20. They sought earnestly after the onethousand year reign of Christ and the inauguration of His Kingdom of Heaven upon earth and examined these Scriptures with expectancy. Civil government, administered by God’s earthly but saintly representatives, would act as the catalyst for ushering in this end-time order with Christ as the Fifth Monarch. Daniel’s Vision of Four Monarchies and John’s Vision of the Apocalypse Fifth Monarchists interpreted the books of Daniel and Revelation as depicting the ongoing battle between the forces of the Kingdom of Heaven and Hell. Daniel 7 provided them with the prophetic certainty of a Fifth Monarchy governed by Christ with His saints as co-regents, and Revelation 20 guaranteed the ultimate demise of the forces of Antichrist and the commencement of the millennium. Daniel 7 relates a vision of Daniel which he received during the third year of Belshazzar’s reign, King of Babylon, depicting four imaginative-appearing beasts. The first three he envisioned were a man-like lioncreature with eagle’s wings, a bear with crushing teeth, and a leopard with wings and four heads. The fourth beast was the most striking and sensational, having four heads, iron teeth, claws of bronze, and ten horns from the midst of which sprang a very boastful little horn with eyes similar to a man’s. Daniel then beheld “thrones . . . and the Ancient of Days” which portrayed the splendour, dominion and judgment of God. The little horn is set apart by his boastful tirades, and with the fourth beast, “slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire.” As the vision continued, “one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven” appeared, “approached the Ancient of Days” and “given authority, glory and sovereign power.” The 211 See Capp, “The Origins and Rise of Millenarianism to 1649,” Chapter 2 in The Fifth Monarchy Men. 212 Capp, The Fifth Monarchy Men, 23. 40
ROYALISTS, REPUBLICANS, FIFTH MONARCHISTS AND LEVELLERS “dominion” of the son of man “is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” Daniel received the interpretation of the vision, that the great beasts he foresaw represented “four kingdoms that will rise from the earth,” or four kings. Nevertheless, “the holy people of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever.” Daniel inquired more particularly into the nature of the fourth beast given its very ferocious and destructive appearance along with the “ten horns on its head and about the other horn that came up, before which three of them fell.” This was “the horn that looked more imposing than the others and that had eyes and a mouth that spoke boastfully.” It was also “waging war against the holy people and defeating them until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favour of the holy people of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom.” This “fourth beast is a fourth kingdom,” unique to all the others, as it “will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it.” “The ten horns” represent “ten kings who will come from this kingdom,” after which “another king will arise, different from the earlier ones,” and who “will subdue three kings.” This is the little horn, or a unique king who “will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws.” With this, “the holy people will be delivered into his hand for a time, times and half a time.” Nevertheless, “the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever.” Once this last king and beast which represent this Fourth Kingdom are destroyed, “the sovereignty, power and greatness of all kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the holy people of the Most High,” whose “kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.” Fifth Monarchists understood this kingdom to represent the Fifth Monarchy. Revelation 20 describes John’s vision of the Devil, that “dragon,” thrown “into the Abyss” for one thousand years. He then foresaw “the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God”; those who “had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands.” They were resurrected and “reigned with Christ a thousand years.” Once the thousand years is complete, “Satan will be released from his prison” culminating in the great battle of Armageddon and the final judgment. Core Political Doctrines of Fifth Monarchists Fifth Monarchists were very systematic in teasing out political ideas from these divine visions to which they compared the fast-paced constitutional events of the Interregnum. Their pamphlet marginalia is laced with Hebrew terms, history, British common law and Commonwealth decrees, Army Manifestos, speeches, the writings of the continental Reformers, and very rarely, classical Greek and Roman pagan writers. Their political ideas were not altogether unique, and like other theorists attempting to speak into the constitutional vacuum, they demanded legal reform, church reform, social reform, and of course civil reform. They’re distinguished first by their doctrine of the civil rule of the saints with the electoral franchise conducted through Church parliaments. Given this, they highlighted a civil-interventionist role of the church, and the saints as Christ’s representatives on earth—not the people’s representatives in Britain. They advanced the superiority of the Mosaic code over British Common Law; since Christ was the chief legislator and lawgiver, Moses’s judicials should replace Britain’s legal system, including her lawyers! They also demanded total reform of the clergy, including the system of tithes. Their foreign policy doctrine alarmed many; Christ’s judgment and hence millennial rule may have begun in Britain, but it was not isolated to just that nation. Britain’s international authority was to be enlarged, go global, and export Fifth Monarchy principles abroad to facilitate God’s judgment and hence millennial establishment, and topple tyrants in service to Antichrist and his Fourth Monarchy. King Charles I: Boastful Horn in Service to the Fourth Beast How did Fifth Monarchists understand the relationship between Daniel’s and John’s visions and the general role and structure of civil authority? There was considerable preoccupation with Daniel’s description and destruction of the Fourth Monarchy with its boastful king. As Louise Fargo Brown notes in The Political Activities of the Baptists & Fifth Monarchy Men in England (1912) that those knowledgeable of the “events in England between 1642 and 1650 cannot fail to be struck by the prevalence, among the leaders of the forces as well as among the rank and file, of the idea that they were fighting the battles of Christ, and preparing for his kingdom. Soldiers and preachers alike considered the Parliamentary victories as victories of Armageddon.” 213 William Aspinwall published a summary pamphlet in support of the Fifth Monarchy in 1653 entitled A brief description of the fifth monarchy. He begins with a survey of the Daniel passages and their relationship to the British civil wars and regicide, and then presents an excellent synopsis of the apocalyptic hermeneutics of the movement with typological links coordinating the 213 Louise Fargo Brown, The Political Activities of the Baptists & Fifth Monarchy Men in England (Washington: American Historical Association, 1912), 14. 41
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