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judgment, since that day is not till after the destruction of Gog and Magog, which is (vv. 8-12) clearly distinguished from the destruction of Antichrist by two notable circumstances. The first is, that Gog and Magog war against the saints, whilst they are in their enjoyment of their glorious peace, after the said saints had reigned a thousand years; (vv. 7, 8;) whereas the war of Antichrist, in the nineteenth chapter, is when the saints are in great trouble, owing to their blood having been poured out unavenged till then. The second circumstance is, that after the thousand years, Satan is again let loose, and having seduced Gog and Magog, is himself cast into the lake of fire, where were the beast and the false prophet, which had been cast in there formerly ;1 evidently pointing at the destruction of Antichrist, as finished long before.

2. The next passage is, “And I saw thrones, and they that "sat upon them, and judgment was given to them, and I saw "the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, "and for the Word of God, which had not worshiped the "beast, nor his image, neither had received his mark upon "their foreheads, or in their hands." The meaning of all this you have in the next chapter: for at the first verse it is said, “ And I saw new heavens, and a new earth;" (little reason by the way to mention earth, if it had been to describe a state in heaven above;) the place being taken out of Isaiah lxv, 17, where God promises unto the Jews, (as Peter writes, m) to build new heavens, and a new earth, but withal mentions, that they shall enjoy houses and vineyards.

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In the second verse of chap. xxi, it is said, that John saw New Jerusalem. That on earth is old; but nothing is old in the highest heavens: so that nothing there can be said to be new; and therefore this cannot be meant of that heaven. It comes down from heaven," therefore it cannot express a state in that supernal heaven ; even as it follows, “prepared as a bride;” which plainly evinces, that it is not meant of ultimate glory, where the church is not prepared, (for that is done in this world,) but perfected. So at the third verse it is said, "I heard a great voice out "of heaven, [to import, that it was of things not in the supreme

1 Compare chapters xix, 20, and xx, 10. m 2 Pet. iii, 1

heaven,] saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, "and he will dwell with them;" which, if meant of the supernal heaven, would have been expressed in a contrary phrase, viz.

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The tabernacle of men is with God;" for there is no need of a promise to assure us, that in the highest heavens God will dwell with us. Agreeable to this the fourth verse promises, that all tears shall be wiped away; of which promise again, as in relation to the supreme heaven, there was not the least need. Once more as to the word new,-all things (in v. 5,) are to be made new; but every thing in that heaven is so good that it need not be made new, or better. Nor is there need of that, which is promised in the sixth verse," to give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life:" is enough for God to promise that heaven; and we know that, if we be once there, we shall not thirst. All these demonstrate, that this chapter relates to a state on earth, and not of one in supreme glory.

In like manner the residue of the twenty-first chapter shews, that the meaning is not of supernal, eternal glory, according to former common opinion; for at verses 9, 10, an angel shews John the bride, the lamb's wife, viz. the great city, holy Jerusalem, descending-out of heaven-from God: which cannot possibly be meant of a state in the highest heaven; for that would be a cross phrase, to express the state of the church ascended, by its descending out of heaven from God. The souls of the elect must descend, to be united to their bodies on earth, there to inherit all things. And in regard to that description of New Jerusalem by measures, &c. (v. 11—22,) can it mean the spanning of heaven, or the measures of the place of ultimate glory? The parts and particulars are all too short, and to no purpose. Doubtless this geometrical and architectural description is taken out of Ezekiel, (chap. xxxix, to the end of the book,) in all which the prophet imports, that Gog, the enemy of Israel, shall be destroyed, and they themselves gathered from their captivity; and he measures out to them their New Testament estate. And therefore when John hath this given to him, as an exposition of Ezekiel, it would be but a dark dream to apply it to supernal glory.

For if it be meant of that glory, why are only the names of the twelve Apostles to be inserted in the twelve foundations, and

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not the names also of the twelve Patriarchs ? What need was there to tell us that the place spoken of here hath in it the glory of God, and a light like a jasper, clear as crystal? or to remind us that the cubits were according to the measure of a man? to warn us that John saw there no temple ? I ask any ingenuous man, whether he can (keeping his reason with him) apply these things to ultimate happiness in the highest heaven? Do kings and princes go and come, and bring their honor and glory to heaven? Or do they bring the glory and honor of nations unto it? Quarrel not piece-meal with this or that fragment, but take the whole entirely, and then tell me, whether this twenty-first chapter can mean any thing, but a glorious state on earth before the ultimate judgment, at which time there is rather a destruction, than an extruction, or building? and therefore this chapter clearly contains the admirable state of the church of Jews and Gentiles for the space of that thousand years in the twentieth chapter; the exposition whereof is the work now in hand, and to which we return.

3. The third passage in this twentieth chapter of Revelation is, that the saints lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years, or the thousand years. First it is said they lived. Can it be meant only, that they lived as immortal souls, in happiness in the other world? That cannot be; for St. John needed not to teach the saints and seven churches to whom he wrote, that which heathens even knew, and taught in their philosophy, viz. that the souls of men were immortal, when their bodies were dead; and that the souls of good men suffering, for well doing, were happy in the other world. Homer's and the philosophers' doctrine of Hades and the Elysian Fields reach fully as high as this. Further, it is well known, that above thirteen hundred years have passed since the last of the ten persecutions wherein the martyrs were so slaughtered; and shall we pitch the compass of our account so, as to pick up a select number of saints, whose souls have been just one thousand years of the time in heaven, and no more?

Truly (to speak my very conscience) from clear light to me, by this their living can be intended no other thing but their living again: even as in chap. i, 18, alive' is, most evidently, put for alive again.' The words are Christ's of himself, after his

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resurrection; "I am he that am alive (so the Greek) or living, and was dead, and behold I am alive." If he had been dead, and now was alive, he was properly alive again. In the same sense the dead saints are here said to live, to signify that they lived again; just as the antithesis in the next verse gives it with full evidence ;-" But the rest of the dead [that is the wicked] lived not again, until the thousand years were finished." Who can infer less from this than that those saints in the fourth verse lived again those thousand years, in which the dead wicked lived not again; and the saints had been killed, (as also in chap. xi,) not only metaphorically, but for the most part physically, down to the total ruin of Antichrist; and now the risen saints reign with Christ both here and in chap. xi. And that the saints actually lived again during the thousand years is further manifest, in that it is plain from verse 12, that the wicked did live again at the end of the thousand years; and as the word until in verse 5 imports,—which is explained of Satan, by verses 3 and 7, to mean, that, as he was to be loosed after the thousand years, so they must be raised.

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All that is objected to the contrary (as far as I can see or hear) is this pretended scruple; that the antithesis "But the rest of the dead lived not again," carries not so much in it as we have estimated; because living again is applied to a contrary thing, and to contrary persons. Thus the sense should be, The rest of the wicked ones, dead in sin, lived not again, all 'that thousand years; that is, they attained not to the state of ' regeneration or conversion by the Word and Spirit, which is called in the fifth verse, the first resurrection;" but continued in an unregenerate state. To the dead saints it is 'differently applied; for they lived in soul in glory in the highest heavens with Christ a thousand years: that is—from their death ' for evermore.' Now, in regard to an antithesis being applied to contrary things and persons, it speaks as much for our view as for theirs and if they still insist, that contraries must mean things different in kind; (as spiritual death in sin, and eternal life in glory;) we reply, that this is indeed said by them, but not proved. That is the question now in dispute, and it is not to be won from us but by argument. Nor am I satisfied that the first resurrection is any where in Scripture put to signify merely

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the sole act or condition of our first regeneration. I well remember those texts, Col. iii, 1, and Ephes. ii, 5, and many similar places; but these mention only quickening, and rising, and raising: there is mention of surrection, but not of RE-surrection, much less of a FIRST resurrection. Nor do I forget Rom. xi, 15, "that the receiving of the Jews shall be life from the dead;" but this is spoken peculiarly of the Jews, and of their restitution to the church-glory on earth, in their converted state, as divers pious and learned persons conceive: nor does the Apostle here use the word resurrection,' much less first resurrection.' I am also at a great loss how regeneration can handsomely be clothed with the relation of a resurrection or living again, according to scripture phrase, For there indeed an unregenerate man is called a dead man, and sin death', and a state of unconversion a lying dead in trespasses and sins'; and thus with a due and just opposition, the Apostle calls conversion and regeneration, a quickening, a rising, a raising, a life : not a quickening again, a rising or raising again. For an unregenerate man was not alive before, in relation to any spirituals; (which are the things the Apostle speaks of ;) and the word again, according to Scripture and reason, usually imports a returning to the same kind of thing as was before. The Scripture saith of man in general, when wrought upon by the Word and Spirit, that he is re-generated, (let the learned heed the Greek,) because it alludes to his first estate of glorious generation in innocent Adam, in the book of Genesis, as the Greeks call it; but it doth not say of any particular unregenerate man, that his conversion is his raising or rising again, or his resurrection; because a man unregenerated, whilst so, was never alive spiritually till regenerated, he was never raised before from his fall, till raised by conversion. Innocent Adam had no infused grace, but only created perfection of nature. And consider further, that as this is spoken to the saints, (as well as the rest of the book, Rev. i, 14,) so it is spoken of the saints, in their several characters, as clearly set forth in the Introduction' to our first chapter. Therefore those, to whom this first resurrection is applied, were regenerated already. For this is the clear connexion of the words, "And they lived, and reigned with Christ a thousand years;" then comes in, as a parenthesis, But the rest of the

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