Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

pointed at. For whereas it was said to Adam, 'In that day thou eatest of the tree, in that same day thou also shalt die ;' we know that he did not accomplish a thousand years. We know also that saying, That a day with the Lord is a thousand years.' Moreover a certain man among us, whose "name is John, being one of the twelve apostles of Christ, "in that Revelation n which was shewed to him prophesied, that those that believe in our Christ shall accomplish a thousand years at Jerusalem, and after that the geneIral, and in a word, the everlasting resurrection and last judg"ment of all jointly together. Whereof also our Lord spake, "when he said, that therein they shall neither marry, nor be 'given in marriage, but shall be equal with the angels, being made the sons of the resurrection of God.' For the gifts of "prophecy are extant with us even till this time." (P. 307, 308.)

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

And as he speaks thus home to our thesis positively; so is he equally decided against them that are contrary minded, negatively denying them to be true Christians. Treating of the aforenamed things he says to Trypho: "I confessed to thee before, (and many others are of the same opinion with me,) that that thing shall come to pass. And on the contrary I have signified "unto thee, that many who are not of the pure and pious judg"ment of real christians do not acknowledge this: for I mani"fested to thee afore, that there are some, called christians, (but who indeed are atheists and ungodly heretics,) who altogether teach blasphemous, atheistical, and foolish things." (P. 306.) In page 312 he says: Jesus commanded us to love our enemies; which is by Isaiah published in many words; in which is the mystery of our renovation, the renova"tion of all who expect Christ to appear in Jerusalem, and who "endeavour to please him by their works." And again in page

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

""

340 he writes: This Jesus is he, of whom we know heaven and earth were made, and by whom the Father will make new "the heaven and the earth.

66

66

Jerusalem as an eternal light."

This is he, that shall shine in

n The phrase "among us" would lead directly to the conclusion that the Apostle was living in his time; and the whole is an important testimony to the antiquity of the Revelation of St. John.

• Παλιν της γενεσεως ἡμων, which Mede renders Resurrection.

2. The next of the Greek ancients is Irenæus, who flourished about the year 178 after Christ. He was the chief minister of the church at Lyons; and had his name Irenæus for his godly peace-making in the church. He wrote five books, which are now extant, against the heresies of his time; in which he more than once says, that St. John the Apostle lived to the times of the Emperor Trajan; that Polycarp had been the hearer of the said John the Apostle; and that he, Irenæus, then a young man, had seen ancient Polycarp. P In the second book he testifies, "That to his time the gifts of casting out devils and miraculous healing of diseases continued:" which shews, that he lived near the Apostles' times; and which indeed he himself more clearly intimates in his fifth book, saying, “That John saw his vision of the Revelation almost in his time.” Tertullian calls him the most curious trier or searcher out of all doctrines. Of this Irenæus, thus great in learning and godliness, Erasmus affirms, in his argument or summary of the fifth book of Irenæus against heresies, that Jerome asserts him to be of the same mind with the Chiliasts that are for the thousand years. And whoever shall read that fifth book of Irenæus with a piercing eye shall find, that Jerome hath given a right judgment concerning him: for Irenæus, chiefly disputing therein for the resurrection of the bodies of the saints, urges those prophets for that resurrection, who speak mainly of their first resurrection at the full call of the Jews. And particularly he urges Ezekiel xxxvii, 1-15; which place is evidently for our position, as we shall see hereafter. Also he urges Isaiah lxv, 22: "For as "the days of the tree (he puts in of life) shall be the days of them;" which (he says) is, as if written with sunbeams, plainly a part of the prophecy of the restauration of Israel, and the

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

P In an Epistle to Florinus Irenæus says:-" When I was very young I saw you in the Lower Asia with Polycarp. I can remember circumstances of that "time better than those which have happened more recently; for the things "which we learn in childhood grow up with the soul and unite themselves to it, "insomuch that I can tell the place in which the blessed Polycarp sat and taught, "and his going out and coming in, the manner of his life, the form of his person, and the discourses he made to the people; and how he related his con"versation with JOHN, and others who had seen the Lord; and how he related "their sayings, and the things which he heard of them concerning the Lord; "both concerning his miracles and his doctrine, as he had received them from "the eye witnesses of THE WORD OF LIFE: all which Polycarp related agreeable "to the Scriptures," &c.-ED.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

New Jerusalem, alleged by Peter, 2 Ep. iii chap. and alluded to by John, Rev. xxi, 1, he says "In as many days as this world "was made, in so many thousand years it is perfected. For if the day of the Lord be as it were a thousand years, and in six "days those things that are made were finished, it is manifest, that the perfecting of those things is the six thousandth year. "When Antichrist, reigning three years and six months, shall "have wasted all things in the world, &c.-then shall the Lord "come from heaven in the clouds, with the glory of his Father, "casting Antichrist and them that obey him into the lake of "fire; but bringing to the just the times of the kingdom, (that 'is the rest or sabbath, the seventh day sanctified,) and fulfilling "to Abraham the promise of his inheritance." q Speaking of the saints he says, "that after their first life here they shall in"habit Paradise, where Adam was placed at his first creation :" but elsewhere, speaking of the saints possessing the kingdom of heaven, he allegeth, Matt. v, 5, "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth;" which is taken out of Psalm xxxvii, 10, 11.

[ocr errors]

3. The next famous father whom I shall adduce, as holding the millennary opinion, is Origen, who flourished about the year 230; of whom to the point in hand we have that contra Celsum, lib. iii, beginning ovк apreμeda то Kalaporov &c. ουκ αρνέμεθα το καθαρσιον "We do not

66

[ocr errors]

deny the purging fire of the destruction of wickedness, and "the renovation of all things." And in his thirteenth Homily on Jeremiah (of which we have only Jerome's translation) he says, If any man shall preserve the washing of the Holy Spirit, "&c. he partakes of his part in the first resurrection; but if any man be saved in the second resurrection only, it is the sinner "that needeth the baptism of fire." r

[ocr errors]

4. The next whom we shall number of the millenarian pious fathers is Methodius, Bishop first of the city Olympus or Patara

q Which 'Times of the kingdom' and 'Inheritance of Abraham' must needs signify a state on earth: 'the promise' also is every where of Canaan. Gen. xv, 18; xvii, 8; &c.

r It may be necessary to observe, that Origen is not brought forward by our Author as directly advocating these millennary opinions; for he appears in other places, and indeed in the next paragraph, to be aware of the contrary. They are adduced to shew what admissions were inadvertently made by him, at variance with his own vicious system of interpretation. ED.

[ocr errors]

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

in Lycia, and afterwards of Tyre; mentioned by Socrates, Suida, and others with honor. He suffered martyrdom under Decius and Valerianus, or near the end of the tenth persecution, (as Petavius affirms,) which was about the year 312; and he is therefore fitly put after Origen. This Methodius is cited by Proclus in Epiphanius, to have had these passages in his book concerning the resurrection, which he wrote against Origen: "Wherefore of necessity there must be earth and also heaven, after the conflagration "and concussion of all things. And why indeed this is neces"sary, I must bring a reason larger than what hath been said already. For neither shall the universe be resolved into an idle matter, or into such an estate as it had before the fabric "thereof; neither into an absolute destruction and corruption. But if all things do not perish, perhaps the adversaries will ask-How then doth the Lord say, 'Heaven and earth shall perish;' and the prophet, 'The heavens shall perish as a smoke, and the earth shall wax old as a garment?' We answer, It is the manner of the Scriptures, to call this change "of the world into a better and more glorious restitution, a "perishing, and destruction; because the figure or fashion of all things perisheth, by their change into a more illustrious estate. There is no contrariety or absurdity in the divine ScripFor it is said, 'The fashion of this world passeth away; not that the world itself passeth away. And indeed the Scriptures have this form of speech; that they call that a "destruction, which is but a change into a better and more beautiful form than it had before : as if one should call the change of the figure of childhood into perfect manhood a Iperishing, because youthful age is altered into procerity and "beauty. For when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became "a man, I put away childish things.' For it is to be expected, that, at that conflagration, the creation shall suffer a vehement commotion, as if it were about to die, whereby it shall be reno"vated, and not perish; to the end that we, then also renovated, "" may dwell in the renovated world free from sorrow. Thus it is said in the civth Psalm: Thou wilt send forth thy spirit, and 'they shall be created, and thou wilt renew the face of the "earth, &c.' For, seeing that after this world there shall be

[ocr errors]

""

"tures.

66

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

66 6

[ocr errors]

"

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

"an earth, of necessity there must be inhabitants, who shall die no more, but be as angels, irreversibly in an incorruptible state, doing all most excellent things."s

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

5. The last of the Greek antiquities that we shall allege, is out of Epiphanius, who flourished about the year after Christ 365; whose words, after mention of Athanasius and Paulinus, (who was Bishop of Antioch about 332,) are to this effect. Moreover others have affirmed that the old man t should say, that in the first resurrection we shall accomplish a certain millennary of years, enjoying the same things as now we do, namely, keeping the law, &c." By which it appears, that, if not Athanasius or Paulinus aforementioned, some there were in the time of, or before Epiphanius, who held the substance of our thesis. Yea, it seems to me, that Epiphanius himself speaks favourably of them that held this opinion, by his words presently following, viz.: “And that indeed this millennian period or term of time " is written of in the Apocalypse of John, and that the book is received of very many, even of them that are godly, is manifest;" with more to the same effect. Lib. iii, 2.

"

[ocr errors]

66

Of Latin Antiquities.

66

III. The first in seniority of Latin ancients, who are learned and godly, is Tertullian; who apologized for the christians about the year after Christ, 180. In his third book against Marcion, c. xxiv, his words are to this effect : For we also confess, that a kingdom is promised us on earth, (but before that in "heaven, and in another state, viz. after the resurrection,) for 1000 years, in the city of divine workmanship, Jerusalem brought down from heaven.' This the Apostle also points and pronouncing our Toλтevμa,

"out to be our mother above ;'

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

or conversation, to be in heaven, doth indeed assign the same "to some heavenly city. And this Ezekiel knew, and the Apostle This, we say, was provided of God, for the re

[ocr errors]

John saw.

s See the works of Methodius by Combesis. Paris edit. 1644.

t These are the words of Paulinus, not of Epiphanius; and the old man of whom he speaks is one Vitalius, whom he highly commends for his piety, orthodoxy, and learning. ED.

« PreviousContinue »