e of things
preparatory to the millennium, Dury then proceeds to place library
keeping and libraries in this scheme as well. Unfortunately, according
to Dury, library keepers had traditionally regarded their positions as
opportunities for profit and gain, not for "the service, which is to bee
don by them unto the Common-wealth of Israel, for the advancement of
Pietie and Learning" (p. 15). Library keepers "ought to becom Agents for
the advancement of universal Learning" and not just mercenary people (p.
17). Their role ought not to be just to guard the books but to make them
available to those seeking universal knowledge and understanding of the
Kingdom of God.

The library and the library keeper can play important roles in making
knowledge available. As Dury points out, Oxford and Heidelberg have
failed to do so. Dury's work enumerates very practical problems that
need to be solved and integrates them into an overall picture of the
library keeper, the library, the school, and the church--all fundamental
components of a better world, if properly reformed. Reforming involves
practical changes directed by the spiritual goal of preparing for the
millennium. And it should be noticed that while Dury had time to worry
about how much librarians should be paid and how books should be
classified, and while he was occupied in getting the king's books in
their proper place on the shelf, he was also convinced that the
penultimate events before the onset of the millennium were about to take
place. A month after his official appointment as deputy library keeper,
Dury wrote the preface, dated 28 November 1650, to Abraham von
Franckenberg's _Clavis Apocalyptica_. This work in Dury's translation of
1651 states on the title page that it offers a key to the prophecies in
the books of Daniel and Revelation and "that the Prophetical Numbers com
to an end with the year of our Lord 1655." The work, which Dury strongly
endorses, lists as events "which are shortly to com to pass, collected
out of the XI and XVI Chapters of the REVELATION," the destruction of
the city of Rome, the end of the Turkish Empire, the conversion of the
Jews, and the ruin of the whole papacy. Thereupon, the Devil will be
cast out and shut up in the bottomless pit, and the Son of God will take
"possession of the Kingdom" and reign for the millennium (pp. [164-65]).

As is all too evident, Dury's reform projects did not lead to the
millennium. He was active in England un