Brightman, Thomas

BRIGHTMAN, THOMAS: Puritan and Presbyterian; b. at Nottingham 1562; d. at Hawnes (5 m. s. by e. of Bedford) Aug. 24, 1607. He studied at Queen's College, Cambridge (B.A., 1581; M.A., 1584; B.D., 1591), became a fellow there in 1584, and rector of Hawnes in 1592. He was one of the fathers of Presbyterianism in England; as Thomas Cartwright says, "The bright star in the Church of God." He subscribed the Presbyterian Books of Discipline. He was a famous expositor of Revelation (Apocalypsis Apocalypseos, Frankfort, 1609, Heidelberg, 1612, Eng. transl., A revelation of the Revelation, Amsterdam, 1615, Leyden, 1616) and of Daniel from xi. 36 to end of xii. (Basel, 1614, which edition has notes on Canticles; Eng. transl., London, 1644). He opened up a new path in the exposition of the Apocalypse by making two distinct millenniums: the first, from Constantine until 1300, in this corresponding with the common orthodox view; the second, from 1300 to 2300, which was a new departure, by which he was enabled to find a place for the future conversion of the Jews, and a more glorious condition of the Church on earth, which he gains by a symbolical interpretation of Rev xxi. and xxii. His views greatly modified the Puritan interpretation of the Apocalypse, and were expounded by different writers and reproduced in different forms long after his death. His collected works appeared London, 1644.