Catalogue Entry: THEM00005

Two incomplete treatises on prophecy

Author: Isaac Newton

Metadata: c. mid-1680s and c. 1705-10, in English with Latin citations , c. 84,898 words, 157 pp.

Source: Keynes Ms. 5, King's College, Cambridge, UK

[Normalized Text] [Diplomatic Text]

Custodial History

Bought at the Sotheby sale by Maggs Brothers for £170 and sold to Keynes for the sale price plus 20%.

Sotheby Lot

SL242

Contents

a) 'The First Book Concerning the Language of the Prophets' (two drafts of Chapter One). On the front cover, in Thomas Pellet's hand: 'No. 8'. The initial series of 6 folios is written on both sides with the following headings:

f. I: 'Chap 1 A synopsis of the Prophetick ffigures'

f. VI: 'Chap 2 Of the world, Heaven & Earth & Hell, ascending to heaven & descending to earth, rising out of the earth or waters & falling into them descending into Hell, moving from place to place, earthquakes, shaking & passing away of heaven & earth, & the beginning & end of the world.'

Chapter Two breaks off after one page. Then follows a second draft of Chapter One, pp. 1-6.

b) Chapters II-IX of another treatise on interpreting history in terms of the prophecies in Revelation:

p. 7 'Chap. II The dayly worship described.'

p. 11 'Chap. III The Prophesy of opening the sealed Book and of sounding the Trumpets described.'

p. 19 'Chap. IV The Prophesy of the eaten Book described.'

p. 29 'Chap V Of the Kingdoms and Churches, w^ch are the subject of sacred Prophesy.'

p. 29 'Sect. I Of the Dragon & ten horned Beast.'

p. 34 'Sect. II Of the Woman & two-horned Beast.'

p. 37 'Sect. III Of the division of Empire & Church into two Empires & two Churches.'

p. 44 'Sect .IV A further account of the division of the Roman Empire.'

p. 50 'Sect. V Of the seven heads & ten horns of the Dragon and Beast'

p. 56A 'Chap. VI The Prophesy of the Epistles to the seven Churches explained.'

p. 57 'Sect. I The first Temple w^th its Candlesticks representing The Seven Churches of Asia.'

p. 64 'Chap. VII The Prophesy of opening the first six Seales explained.'

p. 64 'Sect. I The first seal opened.'

p. 64 'Sect. II The second seal opened.'

p. 65 'Sect. III The third Seal opened'

p. 67 'Sect. IV The fourth seal opened'

p. 68 'The Plague of the Beasts of the earth.'

p. 69 'The plague of the Sword.'

p. 70 'The plagues of ffamine & Pestilence.'

p. 71 'Sect. V The fift Seale opened.'

p. 72 'Sect. VI The sixt Seale opened.'

p. 75 'Sect. VII The holding of the four winds explained.'

p. 78 'Chap. VIII The Prophesy of opening the seventh Seal explained.'

p. 78 'The first trumpet'

p. 92 'The second Trumpet'

p. 98 'The third Trumpet.'

p. 111 'The fourth Trumpet.'

p. 122 'Chap. IX The Prophecy of the three Woes at the voices of the three last Trumpets explained'

p. 122 'Sect. I. The first Wo.'

p. 130 'Sect. II. The second Wo.'

p. 135 'The third Wo'

p. 137 'Sect III. The latter times & time of the end.'

p. 137v 'Sect III The time of the end & Third Woe.'

Notes

For dating see Westfall, Never at Rest, 349, n. 49, and (for the first section) Shapiro, 'Dating Game', 196. Early pages (ff. I-VI) have the same watermark (horn + HG/LL) as a manuscript page from the Opticks of the late 1680s or very early 1690s, and pp. 1-6 share a watermark with a manuscript portion of the Principia of 1687.

Related Material

Despite the somewhat confusing pagination and apparently logical chapter sequence (both of which are presumably the result of misguided post-Newtonian re-ordering), it seems that ff. I-VI and pp. 1-6 constitute two drafts of one work written c. mid-1680s, while the rest of the document is a separate production of c. 1705-10 (see Westfall, Never at Rest, 349, n. 49). Text of 'Synopsis of the Prophetic Figures', together with all the subsequent chapter headings, printed in McLachlan, Theological Manuscripts, 119-26 (the whole manuscript being regarded as a single document).