^* I thank Dr A. de Groot (Utrecht) for helping me to trace Van Laren’s In Apocalypsin… Prolegomena, Dr W.J. Op’t Hof (Nederhemert) for kindly providing me with a photocopy of it from the Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris), Prof. H.J. dejonge (Leiden) for helping me to identify ‘Lawenus’ (see below) as Van Laren, and Dr N. E. Emerton (Cambridge) for her willingness to correct the English text.

¹ For William Ames (1576–1633), see Visscher, H., Guilielmus Amesius. Zijn leven en werkert (Haarlem, 1894)Google Scholar; Sprunger, K. L, The learned Doctor William Ames (Urbana, 1972Google Scholar); Groot, A. de., ‘Guilielmus Amesius’, Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlandse Protestantisme [hereafter BLGNP], 1, pp. 27–31Google Scholar.

² For Joseph Mede (1586–1638), see Gordon, A., DNB s.v.; for his millenarian opinions: Berg, J. van den, ‘Continuity within a changing context: Henry More’s millenarianism, seen against the background of the millenarian concepts of Joseph Mede’, Pietismus und Neuzeit, 14 (Göttingen, 1988), pp. 185–202Google Scholar (with further lit.).

³ Mede’s Clavis Apocalyptica (see below).

⁴ The Works of the Pious and Profoundly-Learned Joseph Mede (London, 1677), p. 782 (hereafter Works).

⁵ Sprunger, Ames, pp. 18–24.

⁶ A term he used in his preface to Bradshaw, William, Puritaismus Anglicanus (1610): Sprunger, Ames, p. 36Google Scholar.

⁷ Sprunger, Ames. pp. 14f., 17. 110.

⁸ Paul Testard, Sicur de la Fontaine, one of the main representatives of the moderately Calvinistic theology of Saumur: E. and Haag, E., La France Protestante, 5 (1858), pp. 356f.Google Scholar

⁹ Works, pp. vif.

¹⁰ See Schmidt-Biggemann, W., ‘Apokalyptischc Universalwisscnschaft: Johann Heinrich Alsteds “Diatribe de mille annis apocalypticis”’, Pietismus una Neuzeit, 14, pp. 72—84Google Scholar.

¹¹ Works, p. 770: Mede to Dr [Samuel] Meddus, 18 August [1629].

¹² Works, pp. 566–9.

¹³ Walaeus, A., ‘De opinione chiliastarum’, Opera (Lugduni Batavorum, 1647), Pars I, pp. 537–58Google Scholar; see esp. pp. 541, 546f.

¹⁴ Mede to Ussher, 4 May 1630, Works, p. 783.

¹⁵ Ames to Mede, 27 May [1629], Works, pp. 782f. I think Sprunger, Ames, p. 185, goes too far in his interpretation of this passage, when he remarks: ‘Absent from all of Ames’s outlines of the church was any place for the millennium’; I am rather inclined to qualify Ames as a ‘moderate millenarian’ (in the sense in which the term is used in modern literature).

¹⁶ For van Laren, Daniel, see Biographisch woordenboek van protestantsche godgeleerden in Nederland, 5, pp. 581–6Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Vrolikhert, G., Vlissingsche kerkhemel, ofte levensbeschrijving van alle de Hervornde leeraren … (Vlissingen, 1758), pp. 73–81Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Maurice of Nassau to the professors of the faculty of theology at Leiden, 25 March 1624: Eekhof, A., De theologische faculteit te Leiden in de 17^de eeuw (Utrecht, 1921), pp. 62fGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ Of course shortly after the conflicts with the Remonstrants.

²⁰ W.P.C. Knunel, Acta der Particuliere Synoden van Zuid-Holland 1621–1700, I, pp. 119f.

²¹ Meditatiën over den Catechismum der Nederlandtscher Kercken (Arnhem, 1636), ‘Tot den Christelicken Leser’. He emphatically asserted he was not ‘a Libertine, a Papist, an Anabaptist or any other sectarian, but an orthodox Christian’, and with approval he quoted Augustine’s attack on the ‘chiliastai’ or ‘miliarii’ (De Civitate Dei xx. 7). This shows that in his terminology the terms ‘chiliasts’ and ‘millenarians’ denoted the adherents of a ‘chiliasmus crassus’; it docs not imply, however, that his eschatology was ‘Augustinian’. The proviso with regard to the interpretation of the Canons of Dort made Vrolikhert (pp. 79f.) surmise that Van Laren fostered unorthodox ideas. Appealing to the British theologians. Van Laren rejected a strictly particularist interpretation of the sacrifice of Christ, and referring to John Davenant, one of the English delegates at the Synod, he emphasized that good works were necessary to salvation: Meditaliën, pp. 332f., 334.

²² The date of his death is unknown.

²³ Knuttel, Acta, 3, p. 71.

²⁴ See above, n. 21.

²⁵ BLGNP, 5, p. 585, n. 2.

²⁶ See der Haar, J. van, From Abbadie to Young (Veenendaal, 1980), part I no. 1048, p. 608Google Scholar.

²⁷ Minister in London from 1632 until 1638: Lindeboom, J., Austin Friars (‘s-Gravenhage, 1950), p. 199Google Scholar.

²⁸ For him, see BLGNP, 5, pp. 590f.

²⁹ Hessels, J. H., Ecclesiae Londino-Batavae Archivum, 3 (Cantabrigiae, 1897), no. 2459Google Scholar.

³⁰ The work is very rare; I made use of a photocopy of the 1627 edition (see n. *). It is not among the books which Mede donated or bequeathed to Christ’s College: see Christ’s College Donation Book (with thanks to Dr C. P. Courtney, Librarian of Christ’s College, who kindly provided me with a photocopy of the relevant pages). A copy of the reprint of 1642 is in the University Library of Utrecht (Collection Thomaasse), published under the title Lareni in Apocalypsin notationes prooemiales, together with his Discursus theologo politicus.

³¹ In Apocalypsin, fo. (***)3.

³² Ibid., fos A 1r, 2r.

³³ Mede to Thomas Hayne, London, 21 Oct. |1629], Works, p. 754.

³⁴ In Apocalypsin, fo. B [4]r.

³⁵ Ibid., fo. C 3v: ‘Et Iudaei sunt qui signantur; quia signantur ex omni tribu filiorum Israel: et accurate numerantur quot ex una quaque tribu sint signati: quae mysticis ludaeis non competunt.’

³⁶ Ibid., fo. H IV.

³⁷ At that time the word ‘paradox’ was sometimes used in the sense of ‘a correction to vulgar error’ or ‘an opinion maintained contrary to the common allowed opinion’, NED, s.v. Here, Mede has in mind the synchronistic system (see below).

³⁸ 4 May 1630, Works, p. 783.

³⁹ Works, p. 541.

⁴⁰ Ibid., p. 562.

⁴¹ Ibid., pp. 546f.

⁴² Ibid., p. 564.

⁴³ ‘Regnum Romanum est regnum quartum Danielis’, Works, pp. 711–16.

⁴⁴ Discursus, p. 4.

⁴⁵ In Apocalypsin, fo. H I.

⁴⁶ Apparently he had nor read the work of Johannes Piscator, Commentarius in Apocalypsin (1613).

⁴⁷ The difference, however, was not essential. For Mede’s views on this point, see his letter to William Twisse, 11 November 1629, Works, p. 759–61.