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peace. "I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, Peace to him "that is afar off (by captivity, or otherwise) and to him that is

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near, saith the Lord, and I will heal him.'s 'Peace, peace,' doubled, signifies very great, absolute, perfect peace: for that period shall be a time of an universal perfection. Thirdly, from Isaiah, already quoted, it appears that joy shall be created : "Be you glad, and rejoice for ever, in that which I create: for "behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people; and the voice of weeping or crying shall be no more heard in her." Consonant with this is John's description of it: viz. "That there is the voice " of triumph from heaven, saying, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, &c. and there shall be no more sorrow, &c. because he that sat upon the throne said, " Behold I make all things new."t (4.) Fourthly, there shall be at that time created a defence upon, or over the saints; so that their enjoyment in that glorious estate shall not be subject, as formerly, to any invasions, subversions, interruptions, or diminutions from any power on earth, or in hell. "When the "Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of "Zion, then the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of "mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud of smoke by

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day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night, (alluding to "the pillar of fire that led Israel in the Wilderness) for upon all "the glory shall be a defence."u

And as, in the first creation, things were brought into existence in an instant ;-God only saying " Let it be so," and presently it was so ;-so the parallel holds good as to the new creation. For the call of the Jews shall be on a sudden; "Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? " shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day, or shall a " nation be born at once ? for as soon as Zion travailed, she " brought forth her children." Secondly, the appearance of Christ shall be on a sudden : "As the lightning cometh out of "the east, and shineth even to the west; so also shall the coming of the Son of man be." Thirdly, the rising of the dead

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s Isa. lvii, 19.

t Rev. xxi, 1-5. u Isa, iv, 4, 5. v Isa. lxvi, 8. w Matt. xxiv, 27.

and change of believers, surviving at Christ's coming, shall be in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.x

There is a parallel also in regard to the parts created; for the new creation shall be perfected in all those things that are enumerated to be the workmanship of the six days. First in regard to light-the light of the Church at this time shall be a supernatural light, above any created light, according to Isaiah lx, 19. "The sun and moon shall be no more light by day, &c. but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light:" corresponding with Rev. xxi, 23; "The city had no need of the sun, or of the moon, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."* From these it seems, that the sun and the moon shall in that new creation still be extant; but they shall not be there to give light to the Church. Yea, "The light of "the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the

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sun sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the "Lord bindeth up the breach of his people;"y yet not used for a light to the Church at that glorious time; for then, to the Church, there shall be no nights and days. Isaiah, in the above mentioned passage, intimates this of the day-"The sun shall "be no more thy light by day, &c. but the Lord shall be unto " thee an everlasting light;" and St. John, having said "There shall be no need of the sun, neither of the moon," adds in verse 25, " for there shall be no night there." Secondly, as on the second day was created the firmament, (as our translators render it, following the Greek: alias the expanse, according to the Hebrew,) that is, at least, the whole element of the air; so in this new creation, it shall be created anew, or perfected; so that there shall be no noisome fumes, or vapors, or any other noxious exhalations, fiery, or watery, &c. to cause sickness; death itself being now swallowed up in victory. And the air shall not be a habitation for devils, on account of which Satan is called "the prince of the air;"z but the devil shall be chained up,a and every unclean spirit shall be removed far away from the Church.b Thirdly, as then were created the dry land, the plants, the fishes, and fowls, and animals, &c.; so, in the new creation, there shall be a perfection of all those then in being; (for of a resurrection of irrationals I know nothing) and they shall be freed and set at liberty from all danger and hardship.c Fourthly, as man was created last of all, most perfect in soul and body, as the subordinate end (next under God) for which God made the world ;d so in this new creation, Christ restores all things to their perfection, and every believer to his; to the end, that all believers may jointly and co-ordinately rule over the whole world, and all things therein, next under Christ their head. I say, all, and not a part only, as some unwarily publish. And I say jointly; and not one part of the saints to usurp authority over the rest, as many dream. And co-ordinately, all upon equal terms; not some saints to rule by deputies, made of the rest of the saints, as men seem to interpret.

* Compare also Psa. lxxxiv, 11; Mal. iv, 2; Matt. xxiv, 27, 30; 2 Thess. ii, 8.

* 1 Cor. xv, 51, 52,

y Isa, xxx, 26.

z Eph. ii, 2. b Zech. xiii, 2.

a Rev. xx, 2.

III. Having done with the Creation, we come next to the Dimensions, or extent of this glorious Kingdom. As the other four monarchies did overspread all the inhabited world;e so this fifth monarchy, of the saints' reigning on earth under Christ, must be as large as those monarchies, -as large as the whole world for ample dominion. For even if there be remaining a secret seed of hypocrisy in some, which shall at last, (God so foretelling,)f break out in the war of Gog at the end of our thousand years; yet meanwhile all men, throughout that thousand years, shall be demurely subject to the dominion of the saints. Touching the latitude and largeness of this holy kingdom, read Daniel ii, 34, 35.-" The stone cut out without hands

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smote the image on his feet that were of iron, and of clay, and " brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, " the silver, and the gold broken in pieces together, and became " like the chaff of the summer threshing floor; and the wind " carried them away, so that no place was found for them; and "the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and

" filled the whole earth." So also Daniel vii, 26, 27; "And the

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judgement shall sit, and they shall take away his (the pre

ceding monarchies') dominion, &c.

And the kingdom and " dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom, under the whole "heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints, &c." And in Rev. x, 7, St. John having said, "In the days of the voice "of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mys

c Isa. xi, 6-9; Rom. viii, 19-22. and Luke ii, 1,

d Gen. i, 26.

e See Dan. ii, 37,

f Rev. xx, 8.

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tery of God shall be finished," goes on in chapter xi, 15, to say, "The seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices

" in heaven saying, the kingdoms of this world are become the

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kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign

" for ever;"-that is, no monarchy shall ever be on earth after his. The Jews also allege to this end Isaiah ii, 11, 17, -" The "lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of

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men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be ex"alted." And one, both learned and godly, doth likewise to the same purpose apply Haggai, ii, 21, 22; "By shaking heaven " and earth once more, (saith he) the Prophet seems partly to

mean, that there shall he a change, not only of the customs "of the people, which are the earth; but also of kingly powers, "which are the heavens." Which place of Haggai, the Apostle applies to the kingdom of Christ, (Heb. xii, 26-29,) of which application, though part may comport with the kingdom of Christ as spiritual, (which hath ever been) yet the rest seems to look as far as Christ's kingdom to come on earth. For since Haggai's, or Paul's time, God never so shook the material heavens of orbs and stars, or the metaphorical of royalties and majesties, that the kingdom succeeding (as the text plainly intends) could not be moved. The place seems to allude to, and to prophesy from, God's shaking of mount Sinai; that as at that time God shook his people out of Egypt, and separated them by divine laws from all the nations of the earth to be a royal Church by themselves; so he will shake all the world of high and low ones, when he sets up his last kingdom, (viz. Christ's visible kingdom on earth,) and therewith makes all new. "For

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(saith my Author) that same once more' signifies the removing of all former old things in earth, and heaven, (viz. of cus"toms and institutions of people, and crowns of kinglyhoods,) "and making all new with sanctity and spirituality in the

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quality; though men and creatures shall be in substance ex"tant upon the earth, according to their species or kind, and "His sovereignty in paramount glory ruling all." Just as Zechariah hath it, "And the Lord shall be king over ALL the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his Name one."g That is, (as some learned expound,) there shall be no more lords, but the Lord Christ; and his dominion shall be greater than ever any was. Which the prophet Malachi doth notably survey in these words; "From the rising of the sun, even to "the going down of the same, my name shall be great among "the Gentiles, &c."h

IV. We proceed next to the qualifications, or qualities of this Kingdom of Christ.

1. It is sinless: for it is not imaginable, that the deceased saints should be raised and the living changed to enjoy this glorious state with the least tincture of sin, either of their own or others. This were to bring them again to sorrow; which, as we shall presently shew, cannot consist with this glorious state. The places of Scripture asserting the sinlessness of this time are very many and very clear; so that I need but refer to them, to convince the ingenuous reader: viz. Isaiah xi, 6-xxxv, 8-lix, 21-lx, 21-Jeremiah xxxii, 40, 41-Ezekiel xxxvi, 23 to 30xliv, 9-Daniel xii, 3-Zephaniah iii, 13-Zechariah xiv, 20, 21-Malachi iv, 1-2 Peter iii, 13-Rev. xxi, 27.

But then the question will be asked, Where then shall abide throughout those thousand years all those hypocrites, called Gog and Magog, that shall at last break out, and go about to oppose the Church? though in vain, their opposition and subversion concluding in the same moment. We answer, according to the light we have attained, that most probably they shall not be in, but without the Church: for without shall be dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. The heathen (as appears by Homer's Iliad, viii,) used to call the place of outcast men Tartarus, alluding likely to some dismal and remote place of the earth (as Tartary is) from us and from Jerusalem. The Apostle takes up that word in 2 Peter ii, 4, and makes a verb out of it (ταρταρόω) to signify the putting of men into a hellish solitary place. So that most likely the unregenerate shall be as remote from the Church, as Tartary is from Jerusalem and the

g Zech. xiv, 9.

h Mal. i, 11.

i Rev. xx, 8.

j Rev. xxii, 15.

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